d+pad

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a steady trend of “gangstah” games being released for the PS2? I don’t want to read too much into this, but at what point are people going to start worrying? There’s no doubt about it, GTA3 is a blast and a half, and State of Emergency looks like it’ll be insane, socially-irresponsible fun, but what’s next? We’ve already got car-jacking, vehicular assault, and street rioting, can ho pimpin’ and crack pushin’ be that far behind? “Oooh, get the oversized-pants powerup so you can carry a bigger gat! Oh no! Stay outta dat guy’s Kool-Aid!”. I seriously don’t know if Rockstar Games will be satisfied until they’ve busted a cap into every gamer’s ass. Perhaps they’re overcompensating, trying to make us forget about Oni. I don’t know. What I do know is it’s probably going to bring down even more heat on this industry. The ignorant majority is already blaming video games for countless crimes, as if shooting monsters in Doom created a generation of insane, trigger happy high school kids. I suppose now every car-jacking will be blamed on games too. It makes you wonder though, if games have this much influence on people, why aren’t there more pale, doughy basketball players or super spies? And why can’t most gamers get a date? It’s because games are just entertainment, like movies and U.S. Federal elections. Yet people still point to games as the source of all of our society’s problems, when really that’s only true in a few isolated incidents. Actually, it’s never true, people just need to lighten up and stop looking for the easy scapegoat. In the mean time, I’m looking forward to the day I’ll finally be able to make some serious bling pimpin’ the honeys, and when that day comes you’d best stay off of my corner. Werd.

-JBE