From left to right: Simon, Cyborg, Logan, and me. Cyborg took the picture.
Category:Grand Theft Auto
Hotline Vice City
I started in on Hotline Miami yesterday. And now that I have, I feel I can state this without any presumption.
On the game’s webpage, there’s more than one testimonial blurb about how this is the game Rockstar always “thinks” they are making in Grand Theft Auto. I am sure they only mean that in the most joking of ways, but I think it bears talking about. If you are familiar with both GTA (specifically Vice City) and Hotline Miami, it is impossible not to think of one at the sight of the other.
But Hotline Miami and Vice City are very different games. They do different things.
Read on…
Women of GTA: Asuka Kasen
So GTA gets a lot of shit for being, among practically every other social ill, sexist. And let’s not kid ourselves, it totally is. This is, if you’ll recall, the game where you can fuck sex workers and then kill them to get your money back.
But under that, it also has a lot of really good female characters. (I’m only gonna talk about ones from the III continuity, but IV has some gems as well.) I think sometimes it’s hard to see this because III’s overall tone tends to be outrageous and exaggerated so all of the characters, even moderately serious ones, come off as jokes. But if you look at a Donald Love without the knowledge that he’s a cannibal, you get a different picture and he seems like a ght guy.
Read on…
Vice City Public Radio
One of the best things about any GTA, but especially Vice City, is the radio programming. And one of the best of the stations, I think, is the Vice City rendition of VCPR. Unlike the Stories one, which is modeled more after NPR with varied programming consisting of other discussions shows and recycled radio plays from yesteryear, the original one only had three episodes of one show. Pressing Issues is a roundtable discussion show, sort of like Crossfire, in which radically opposed guests discuss a single subject.
In each episode, three characters are introduced, each based on amalgamations of complimentary 80's events and tropes. In the two politically-themed episodes there's two conservative characters and one liberal. I would guess Rockstar perhaps has liberal leanings anyway, at least in reference to social issues, which is why these episodes usually portray the conservative characters as extremists with hangups that influence their bad ideas (although the liberals are also made fun of, though in a different tone). But it also reflects the overall conservatism of the 80's.
Ken Rosenburg’s Office
Ken Rosenburg, Tommy Vercetti's lawyer, works out of an office in the Hotel Harrison. This building is pretty dull and nondescript compared to a lot of Vice City's other locales. It doesn't have any neon lighting and it's painted, relatively, subdued colors (although they are still unique colors so that the place is easy for the player to remember and find). But then, Ken isn't exactly partial to 80's decor.
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