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We’ve come a long way since Donkey Kong and Super Mario in the world of video games, in fact Rockstar Games spent $100 million to get to where they are at in creating the most amazing, visually stunning, violent, offensive and graphic video game to date. The game is expected to make it’s production costs four times over this week alone. Grand Theft Auto IV has probably been the most anticipated game of the series since it’s the first to come out for the Playstation 3 and utilize it’s graphic software. And since the game’s release it has broken sales records all over the place. In England the game some 609,000 copies in a 24 hour period, shattering the previous record held by GTA San Andreas. Sadly, I haven’t been able to play the game yet, a PS3 is still a touch of out my affordability range right now but you can donate to my PS3/GTA IV fund if you so desire?

The game has attracted a huge amount of press, probably the most since the introduction of Grand Theft Auto III for PS2 which set the standard for video game violence and story line. GTA IV has taken all of that to a new level. In IV you play as Bosnian veteran Nikos Bellic. You’re brother has been telling you that you need to join him in living the American dream. But as soon as you get there you find out that your brother is not rich, is not popular and in fact owes a lot of money to some very bad people. Once arriving in America, there is only one way to work your way up to the American dream, through murder drug dealing, and engaging in other nefarious activities with a never ending supply of guns and cars.

The game was slapped with the ESRB rating of M (mature) for its language, intense violence, drug use, nudity and everything like that.From what I’ve read, it seems like the latest Grand Theft Auto replaces the somewhat cartoonish volence with hardcore in your face blood and gore, though the game retains it’s hilarious parodies and political satire. However the game is still rated as the one of the best games ever. Most game reviews put it in the 9.5 (+)/10 rating.

I’m not very surprised that a game so awesome would attract a lot of bad press and subsequently a lot of politicians and groups have condemned the game. Almost immediately New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg condemned the game, since the story of the game is sent in New York-esque Liberty City. Lets not forget about the renowned Baptist’s Press criticism of the game.
Also, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has come out with this statement about the game, since you can actually consume alcohol and drive drunk (though the game developers recommend grabbing a taxi):

“Drunk driving is not a game, and it is not a joke … Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable.”

Nevertheless, MADD has called upon the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, effectively banning the game from sale in the U.S. since neither Sony nor Microsoft allow the sale of AO games on their respective consoles in America.

Regarding the game’s violence, the NYPD association president Pat Lynch told the New York Daily News on Wednesday that, “being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.”
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the mother of a killed NYPD officer echoed similar sentiments in the same report, saying GTA IV “doesn’t exactly teach the kind of things that you’d want to teach your kids,” or more descriptively put, “teaches children to kill.”

Glen Beck recently ranted on Grand Theft Auto 4. Now normally I’m a big Glen Beck fan, and bought his “Inconvenient Book” for my dad. But here he and the people he interviewed look like buttheads. His opening part is probably the dumbest anti-video game rant you’ll see.

Honestly if you leave your kids unsupervised for 12-16 hours a day, only bad things can happen and it’s not the video game maker’s fault. Can we blame bad parenting instead of the games themselves? And actually Glen, I just got a hooker and killed her while watching your rant.

Barak Obama even metioned GTA IV in one of his speeches in Indiana.

I was just catching the news this morning about Grand Theft Auto, this video game, which is gonna break all records and make goo-gobs of money for whoever designed it. Now, this isn’t intended for kids, although I promise you there are kids who are playing it, but these video games are raising our kids…
Across the board, middle-class, upper-class, working-class kids, they’re spending a huge amount of their time not on their studies, but on entertainment.
And so part of our job is going to have to be to inspire the entire country to say, ‘How are we giving our kids a thirst for knowledge?’ And turning off the TV set, and getting them to be engaged and interested, like their future really does matter on how well they do in school.”

Obama’s remarks are pretty true, here I am blogging about playing GTA IV, while Luke and I play GTA: San Andreas the weekend before finals. Personally, I feel that the audience that plays a game like this should be mature enough to know the difference between real life and a video game so there shouldn’t be any problems from playing the game. And if you don’t know the difference between a video game and real life, you need your head examined. I think it’s really the judgment of the parents to allow the purchase of the game to someone that is right the 15-17 range. Even my mom thought it was best that I still knew the difference reality and the game after playing GTA III for a few hours. It’s easy to understand that just some responsible parenting will reduce the controversy that playing this game would create.

Here is one of the videos promoting the game so I’ll let you be the judge.

No matter what you think about the game’s content, you can’t debate how visually stunning it is (insert Homer Simpson drool sound here).

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