Duck!

I use ZSNES for Windows. It seems to work pretty well.


Duck!

August Spies

fucking does not imply sexism. It implies sex, as someone noted.

Does having sex with prostitutes imply sexism? jury is out on that one id say. I learn towards yes, but its certainly not a given.

August Spies

okay what is your complaint? that you can kill prostitutes? or that prostitutes exist in the game? or that you can kill at all?

If it is the first, then I don't think you have anythign to stand on. You can kill anyone.

so is it one of the other two?

Sakpo

For people who haven't played the game I'll clarify about the whole "killing hookers" bit.

1. The game is set in a sprawling city filled with multitudes of different characters who the play can choose to avoid or interact with.

2. Every character may be murdered to get money (except police officers who have weapons instead).

3. The characters include prostitutes. All prostitutes are female.

4. Prostitutes can be picked up, sex is implied when the car rocks, every second in the car with the prostitute character takes away a small amount of money.

5. You gain "life" (points that you die if you run out of them) by using the prostitutes. You can gain up to a max of 125 points with a prostitute, you max out at 100 points without using them. So use of hookers is obviously encouraged by this.

6. After the prostitute character has been used (and their characters are essentially "used," as are all characters in the game) they exit the vehicle. The player is free to let them walk off into the distance. No sensory input comes from the game urging the prostitute be murdered. You are not told to kill them in the manual.

7. It is worthwhile, if you're short on money (which is needed in the game) to kill a hooker to regain your money (and the design of the game encouraged you to use her in the first place).

8. All sorts of characters are murdered in the game for money and other reasons.

So as I see it, there is incentive to use hooker characters and then kill them. On the other hand, it is unneeded, it is an unofficial strategy, and hookers are far from the only characters killed. I'm not defending it or attacking it, I'm just trying to clarify for those who haven't played.

CosmicGame

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sakpo
[B]For people who haven't played the game I'll clarify about the whole "killing hookers" bit.

*really cool and much-needed dispassionate description of game play snipped*

I'm not the sort of person who generally goes around slobbin' on the nobs of moderators, but this post was very well done and couldn't have come at a better time in the thread. THANK YOU!!

FWIW, Jagged, I agree with you about the way the prostitutes are treated in the game. HOWEVER, I don't think the game makers should be blamed for the psychopathic tendencies of the players. Each person must ultimately take responsibility for their own actions. That means if a player is so jaded that it occurs to them to use the prostitute and then kill her to get the money back, it's the GAMER'S fault. I've seen a bit of Vice City, and I shudder. The real harm these games do is that unchecked, they desensitize players to the real consequences of shooting people, running them over with cars, beating them with lead pipes and the like. I think it is a HEALTHY thing to be repulsed and horrified at the sight of someone being murdered for any reason.

And since a few folks have brought up Columbine....why is it that when black kids are shooting each other over gang turf and tennis shoes in America's ghettoes, the Christian Right (tm) wastes no time blaming the breakdown of the black family, but when suburban white kids shoot up their schools, suddenly it's the fault of rock music, video games and violent movies? Where are the WHITE parents who should have been paying attention to the fact that their kids are bullying each other and selling their Ritalin prescriptions in school and making hatefilled websites (among other charming behaviors)?

Okay, end of rant. This is an interesting thread so far....keep it up, folks! :notworthy

Jagged

Thine own words condemn thee. This is exactly what the game promotes. Are you rewarded with "life" for having sex with men? No? Are there male prostitutes in the game? No? hmm... What about sex with stupid whores? Yes? Well then let's just clarify my earlier statement by saying "fucking stupid whores implies sexism" and then let's revisit your statement: "Now 'fucking a stupid whore' -that would imply sexism." These statements seem very much in agreement. In fact, they are nearly identical. And if I'm not mistaken, I've just given a proof that stupid whores are the only ones in this game which you are rewarded for fucking. So I take it you've changed your mind about this now?so incredibly irrelevant. That IS what I said, no? Very good. Now tell me again the difference between picking out the blacks over other races and picking out the stupid whores over other people.

August Spies

Note: I can easily see why people would be offended at this game as a whole, my responses are just to Jagged

Jagged:

as in most games you have a character. This character happens to be male. Men normally have sex with women. Most prostitutes in the world are women. The vast majority. This game is set in a big city. There are lots of female prostitutes in a city.

I think the only thing you are going to get out of this is claiming the game is "homophobic" or something. There have been lots of games where sex is involved, and ive yet to see one where men have sex with men. This may be bad, but I think its quite a stretch to call all these games sexist.

I don't think your semantics gamse proved anything except how many times you could use the phrase "stupid whores"

Here is the deal: you are a criminal. This game is set on the streets of a big city. Who do you have sex with in cars in the middle of a city? Prostitutes. This is life. It is probably bad that life is that way, but this game is hardly inventing all this crazy stuff in an attempt to be sexist.

Do you REALLY think its a problem that this game does not let you have the ability to pursue meaninful relationships with memebers or either sex that can be consumated after a long period of time? give me a break.

well here is the difference, and it should be obvious enough to hit you in the head:

Black people are born that way. Racism is targeting someone for something beyond their control.

Prostitutes CHOOSE that job. And that job is having sex with people. Now I know that prostitutions is a problem, I agree that many women are in a sense forced to be prostitutes. But clearly even Jaggard can see the difference in being born black and having this or that job.
----------------

the only thing you have to go on to prove this game is sexist is that there are no male prostitutes. This is, again, very shaky ground when you consider in the real world there are very few male street prostitutes. I have seen many prostitutes in the various big cities ive been to/lived in. I have never seen a male one.

[again: This IS of course a problem in THE REAL WORLD, but it is not a problem for this game.]

LordMoneyG

Actually, no. At the time, I was not referring to the game at all. I was simply referring to etymology. And, by the way, who said the prostitutes in the game were "stupid whores?" I most certainly didn't.

Again, etymology. Not irrelevant.

Number one, drop the condescending tone. I hate getting into "debates" with people on Infidels, because people REFUSE to maintain civil, even-handed tones. They immediately have to assume tones of condescention, and I swear to god, it gets old, fast.

Second of all, I NEVER meant for this to turn into an arguement. There was no reason for it to.

Now, third. I only used "stupid whores" as an example to prove my etymological point. No application to our discussion of the game. The game does not "pick out" the prostitutes. They are as openly "killable" as everyone else is. If you are able to have sex with them more than you are other characters...Well, read August's point. There is NO DIFFERENCE between picking out "blacks over other races" and "stupid whores over other people" (in the killing aspect - I never said ANYTHING about the sexist aspect, which is, as August stated, relatively shaky ground). I never said there was. I never said there was, quite simply, because the game does no "picking out" (again, in the "killing" aspect, which was the only aspect I was addressing). Again, very equal opportunity in that respect.

And thanks, August.

LordMoneyG

Completely agree, Cosmic. It's easier to blame the media then admitting that possibly, just possibly, there is something severely wrong with a good number of parents in this nation.

Hell, if a child has a good upbringing, no amount of Vice Cities will be able to turn him or her away from that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a mob boss to serve, thank you. *searching for bad-ass emoticon*

Acinom

Interesting thread here...

Jagged, I completely see your point about glorified and gratuitous violence to women in the media.

But I think I'm willing to overlook it in the case of GTA, not to say that you have to subscribe to my views or anything. I'm willing to overlook it because for the most part, GTA is such an eye-opening, exciting, big game. I like how it's just a city, and you're welcome to roam around in it, interact (talk, steal from, kill, whatever) with whoever you want to interact with. Drive cars on sidewalks, run through red lights, run into cars, drive over cars, all the kinds of things that we know are possible everyday when we drive to go to work, but that we never act upon out of good conscience. The game's interface (help me with the terminologies, gamers) allows you to go at whatever angle you feel like without it being a huge drain on the memory. My favorite game of all time is probably either Myst or Riven, two games that also let you roam about. But they don't even begin to approach GTA in terms of allowing your curiosity to wander. When teh animation does approach GTA level, it's only a movie, and the player has absolutely no control over it.

There were problems that I noticed in the Myst games as well. In Riven, for example, there was a group of reclusive villagers who looked very native american. Dark skin, long hair, everything. And their cult-status leader was as white as they come. He bore a strong resemblance to Eisenhower. Can you call that racism? Can you call that unfair support for misconceptions of racial hierarchy? Does it really matter in terms of what the player gets out of the game as a whole?

Of course, Myst and Riven were less violent games than the GTA series. But I think on the whole, even GTA violence only approaches the level of Eminem songs. They're cartoonish and almost a parody of themselves, and the game's overall benefits outweigh its deficiencies.

sorry for a long post, everyone. Just want to rhapsodize about my sweet, beautiful games I guess.