Tag: Grand Theft Auto

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Gaming

Grand Theft Borrow Auto

This may sound hideously inappropriate, but Bernard loves to watch me play GTA:San Andreas. People who haven’t actually played the game will probably be considering calling social services on me right now, but anyone who has actually played it will appreciate that it’s possible to show your child the delights of the exquisitely-crafted San Andreas archipelago without exposing them to any malign influences. I’ve long since finished the storyline missions, so we just commandeer vehicles and drive them around the place.

Bernard’s favourite bit is the bridges. He likes it when I jump in a boat ((we usually pick up the Jetmax from just south of Rockshore West in Las Venturas, or west of City Hall in San Fierro)) and drive it under bridges. “More bridges! More bridges!” he cries. He also likes it when I get in a plane and fly it underneath bridges. “More bridges! More bridges!” I turn around and fly under them again.

It got me thinking – what would need to go into a GTA:San Andreas mod to turn it into an exploration-centric game, suitable for all ages?

1. Remove all weapons and combat from the game. Obviously. Gangs and police can stay, but they’d need to be much more amiable.
2. Make the strip clubs unenterable.
3. Don’t allow the player to steal an occupied car. They should only be able to enter a parked car. There would need to be a few more parked cars dotted around the map, to compensate. I’d also propose the standard blue arrow above any enterable vehicles, to distinguish them.
4. When you crash into someone else’s car, they should express their displeasure in a slightly more sophisticated fashion. All NPC dialogue would need to be checked.
5. Get rid of almost all of the storyline missions. Most of the side-missions can stay (notable exception being “Pimping”, of course). There should be a new storyline, containing missions that involve things like “get the cuddly rabbit to the little boy before his train departs”.
6. Prostitutes and drug dealers should no longer proposition you.
7. Pedestrians jump out of the way before you drive into them (a la *Driver*).

Anything that you think I might have missed?

Categories
Gaming

When did I stop enjoying computer games?

Okay, perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic, but I feel like there’s been a shift of some sort.

I used to play games all the time. I liked racing games (eg Gran Turismo, Midnight Club), action games (eg GTA, Hitman, The Getaway), survival horrors (Silent Hill, Resident Evil), adventure games (Tomb Raider), FPSs (Half Life, Max Payne) and text-based online RPGs (Urban Dead, Nexus War). Quite a wide variety, really.

But these days I find playing games to be quite an unfulfilling experience. I’m playing a little Tomb Raider lately, it’s true, and I have picked up the controller to play Gran Turismo 3 (to unlock more of the arcade mode tracks) but for the most part, I find that the most enjoyable part of the gameplaying experience is the relief that I feel when I finally turn the bloody thing off.

The advantage of this is that I can make a single game last me for many, many months (I’ve had my PlayStation 2 for more than 5 years, and I still only own 9 games for it, 4 of which I have completed in their single player mode. I’ve also rented a few games over the years, but that still only bumps the total up to 12, and I’m not sure if that counts because each one only occupied one weekend. So gaming is not an expensive habit, for me.

I’m not really sad to find myself in this situation. Gaming was never exactly a passion of mine, just something that I enjoyed doing.

Y’know, maybe I’m just overthinking it. Maybe I enjoy gaming as much as I ever did, but excessive introspection is just highlighting the cracks. That aside, the facts don’t lie: whereas I could once play a game for six hours at a time, I now get bored after half an hour. No bad thing, you might say. I’d be inclined to agree.

Categories
Gaming

Thoughts on computer games

On more than one occasion, I’ve found myself struggling to proceed past a certain point in a computer game. The situation arises where a particularly intricate puzzle or sequence of jumps exists, with no save point to break things up.

Take my present example: I’m playing Tomb Raider Anniversary at the moment, and I am currently at the Damocles room. From the save point, I have to drop off a ledge, run through a doorway, through a room (avoiding falling swords), jump onto a small broken pillar, across to a crevice in the wall, up to the next crevice, around a corner, up onto a ledge, then climb up and around a pole, jump off towards a tall pillar (where I hang by my fingertips briefly before climbing up), across to another pillar, then over to an alcove in the wall. I drop from this alcove, hanging from a ledge. I scooch to the end of this ledge, and jump across to a crevice in an adjacent wall. I jump up to a slightly higher crevice, scooch along to the end of this, and then jump towards a metal ring set in the wall. I fire off a grappling hook while in mid-air, which catches onto the ring. While hanging from the rope, I run along the face of the wall until I reach a particular spot where I can jump outwards from the wall, towards a pillar that is behind me. I catch onto this pillar, pull up, and then jump to the top of another pillar. And then another. And then another.

I don’t know what happens next, because that’s as far as I’ve got. Failing to position any of these jumps correctly means a long fall. If the fall kills me, then I have to reload from the save point. Even if it doesn’t, I’m all the way back to running through the room avoiding fallen swords.

Here’s another example – I bought GTA: Vice City Stories a while ago. I got as far as a rather long, multi-part mission. But at every attempt, I was getting killed at the third part of the mission. Having to reload and replay the first part of the mission was taking at least five minutes each time. But it’s not so much the time that is annoying, it’s the boredom factor – it’s having to repeatedly perform the same actions that you have already proven yourself capable of, to the point at which you start making mistakes because the game is pissing you off.

Some people play games for the challenge. Me, I play for entertainment. When starting a game, I want to be able to select a “plentiful checkpoints” mode. Or a “anti-boredom mode”, where the game senses when you’ve hit a metaphorical brick wall, and pops up a little message saying *Hey, would you like to just skip this bit? Would it help if I put a little bridge just here, so you don’t have to make all those dull jumps yet again? What about if I gave you the ability to fly for ten seconds?*

I know that different people expect different things from computer games, which is why these settings should be optional. But for me, they would greatly enhance my enjoyment, which is basically, as far as I’m concerned, the whole point.

Categories
About Me Blogging Music

Resolution Conclusions 2007

*Hey, I did this last year too! Maybe it’s turning into a “thing”?!*

1: Blitz “to do” and “to buy” lists

Karen and I have a big “todo” list. It used to be a handwritten sheet of paper, pinned to the notice board, divided up into “things to do” and “things to buy”. Nowadays, it’s on a wiki, and it is basically divided up into “tasks for Karen” and “tasks for Pete”. The principle is the same.

Anyway, over the course of the year we’ve really kept on top of this list. Sure, lots of things have been added to it, but we’ve managed to keep it at roughly the same size, and there are very few items on there that have been on since the start of the year. I’m quite pleased with this.

2: Less computer time, more films

The most crucial point here was to spend less time surfing the Internet, pretending that absorbing all this data is good for me. Instead, I wanted to spend more time watching films, basking in the unashamed brainlessness of it all. I think I’ve succeeded, more or less. I’m sure that next year’s resolution will be something along the lines of “Less films, more blah”. Maybe computer games. If Rockstar released a “GTA San Andreas Stories” for the PS2 I’d be in heaven.

3: Quality, not quantity. Less reading and writing blogs

I’ve certainly managed to write less, and I feel like the quality is higher. However, I’m still reading more blogs than I need to. But it’s hard to stop myself, when there’s so many well-written sites out there.

4: Make more music

My actual resolution set a much more specific target, which I am not going to print here, for reasons of my own. Suffice to say, I have failed to meet this target in the most magnificent manner possible, despite having revised it downwards twice during the year. Some things just aren’t meant to be.

5: Stop being afraid of strangers

Who are you? Get away from me! Argh!

6: Keep writing with my pen held properly

Back story here. Towards the end of last year, I started making an effort to improve my grip. Basically, this resolution has been an unquestionable success. I now hold a pen like a normal human being. This is so fucking awesome.

7: Less nostalgia

Another success. I used to dwell on the past, thinking about all those good times that passed me by in the blink of an eye. But now I realise that one day, I’ll look back on today (or hereabouts) and wish that I hadn’t wasted so much time being nostalgic. There was the threat of a vicious cycle there, but I’ve managed to break it, and now I am able to appreciate every moment as it happens.

8: Be a leader, not a follower

Hahahahahah.

9: Stop worrying about other peoples’ blogs. Their spam comments, botched templates and missing alt-tags are their own problems

Tick.

10: When someone sends you a link saying “Click this, it’s really funny/cute” then don’t, because it’s just that sneezing panda yet again.

As mentioned here. Haven’t seen the sneezing panda since.

11: Get some exercise

Sorted.

12: Get a project

Had one, but it went away again. I’m not sure whether that counts as a success or not. I should have been more explicit in my statement of the resolution (ie, “Get, and keep, a project”).

13: Improve posture

*Straightens back.*

Uhm… yes.

14: Don’t be so crap at making new friends. Actually, just see #5

Marginally better. But I’m still very bad at this whole “small talk” thing. Maybe I should see this as a strength, rather than a weakness.

15: Learn a bit of Polish

When we were contemplating a short weekend away in Warsaw, this seemed like a very worthwhile resolution. But then we changed our plan and decided to go to Center Parcs instead, so the resolution seemed less important. Still, I’d like to learn some Polish one day (I’m a quarter Polish, by the way) so it’s still something that I’d like to do.

16: Don’t keep getting up from the table in the middle of meals

On Karen’s request (though I added it to the resolutions list voluntarily). I am getting better at this, but I’m not yet perfect.

17: Take time in conversation

By which I mean, don’t just blurt out any old nonsense. Stop, think, come up with an intelligent response. This doesn’t really sit well with #14, as small talk needs to be relatively rapid-fire, so I don’t think that I’ll be able to do both. If you take too much time coming up with a carefully-executed reply, you tend to find that your audience has walked away. Meh, their loss.

18: When on the phone at work, replace “Cheers” with “Goodbye” and “No problem” with “You’re Welcome”

A bit more formality is probably appropriate in this environment. This one was quite a recent addition to the list, so will probably be carried over to next year.

Categories
About Me Gaming

Community Spirit

> Doing the play has really opened my eyes to just how much free time we have in the course of our everyday lives. With our/my free time roughly halved, all of a sudden I haven’t wanted to play Grand Theft Auto all that much, and a strange new wave of Wanting To Do Something Constructive has befallen.

I know this feeling very well. While Karen was away I did a pretty good job of suppressing it, and just getting on with beating up those whores, but this was an isolated fortnight in a sea of otherwise.

I live in a bit of a bubble at the moment: get up, get in the car, go to work, drive home, potter about the house. The real world is being squeezed down a telephone line for my consumption. And though it is a fat pipe, it’s not representative. It doesn’t tell me much about what’s going on in my town, and what I can do to be a part of it.

So I guess that’s my challenge.

Heh, a fat woman on a bicycle just rode past the window. She was huge, and clearly struggling.

*Originally posted here*