Mario, Get Yer Guns

What are the odds I will go off subject in this post? Still, I will try.  After reading yet another article calling yet another videogame a "burglary sim", I had to put pen to blog.  Why? Because its lazy journalism, sloppy and winds me up. Hell, the same could be thrown at television but for some peculiar reason we don't do that.
I don't watch television but from the clips I've seen on the interwebz and things I hear on forums, nothings changed from when I did used to watch it. Scheming, plots, adultery, revenge, murder, and bloodshed. Its all there, played out by glamorous women and guys with chiselled physiques. Gotta look your best when you're knee deep in sin right?
And so it goes that videogames have followed that same path. Those age restrictions on the box aren't there to make the case look pretty, videogames have matured and its illegal for soft parents to give in ("for ten minutes peace") and buy wee Jimmy a shooter with a bloody big red 18 stamped on the box. Is that ten minutes peace really worth a hefty fine? Dont think it doesn't happen because it does (more often than you'd care to think).
So we have a burglary sim now do we? What about Grand Theft Auto? Armed robbery sim? Dishonored? A murder sim?
These are games fer Crissakes, but the way some journalists describe them make them sound like guides on how to raise hell for real. One of my current favourite videogames is Thief, a game where, yep you guessed it, you skulk around an 18th century London inspired city, pilfering gold watches and clubbing hapless city guards over the noggin. But I don't play the game to train as a cat burglar, anymore than a fan of 24 watches the show in hope of becoming a CIA agent (or whatever the heck Kiefer Sutherland is meant to be).
And what frustrates me more is that I read this on a gaming website not the Daily Mail  (where one expects such petty sniping). Honestly, videogames have become a massive business in these last few years and deal with mature subjects. Can't we be at least as responsible when writing about them?

Grand Theft Holiday

Roll on 6pm

Unless you live on Mars (and even then you will probably have heard about it), you will be aware that Grand Theft Auto V has been released today. One of the most expensive videogames ever made at £170m, more than many Hollywood blockbusters, we can be assured that games have grown up (youngsters really have no business playing this and shame on parents who buy it for wee Jimmy.) As a huge videogame fan, and not ashamed to admit it, my copy of the game is still sealed but I can almost feel it burning a hole through that packaging. Excited much? Oh yes, its like being eight years old on Christmas eve.
Now I understand that there will be readers who the last game they played was Pac-Man in the 1980s, and explaining the appeal of a game like Grand Theft Auto is difficult but I shall endeavour to try. By and large, the majority of us lead boring old lives. We do, admit it. Living on the edge for most of us means a cheeky sleeve of ginger (beer) at lunchtime, or chancing it by not buying a car park ticket. And this is fine, we enjoy the peace (and liberty) that living a law abiding life brings. But occasionally its nice to let off some steam and cause mayhem, to kick back at the world when on the skids, and because prison doesn't sound like a good plan and nobody (sane) wants to create real grief, the best way to go is to load up a copy of GTA. They are like little stress balls, only more fun.
Fancy robbing a liquor store? Go right ahead. Carjacking (even plane hijack)? Certainly sir, what vehicle takes your fancy? Cop giving you the funny eye? Why you oughta go right over and teach him a (painful) lesson. Its not even restricted to crime, there are a ton of things to get up to in Los Santos (Rockstar's reimagined Los Angeles) from golf, tennis, mountain climbing to unwinding in casinos and better still, strip clubs! Even walking along Santa Monica beach and taking in the sights is a good way to pass time, especially if you happen to be in cloudy old Britain as the nights begin to draw in. See the attraction yet? Its a holiday without the need of passports or awkwardly asking strangers for directions.
Videogames have come a long way since the time when gorillas hurled flaming barrels at fat Italian plumbers, or two white lines and a moving square represented tennis. Now we have 'sandbox' games, open worlds where the player can immerse themselves completely and and 'live another life', and nobody does it better than Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. Ive been a fan since the humble top down beginnings of the original game in 1997, they have gotten better with every 'episode'. (I think of them more as a violent soap opera with hefty doses of satire and comedy.) Its an escape. Some get it through books and movies (im an avid reader myself) but for those of us who need that little extra, to make us feel more involved, games are perfect. Why watch someone blow up a car in film when you can do it yourself?
Like I said, most of us lead very boring lives. But not today, not if you have Grand Theft Auto V.