I Told You We Would Celebrate, Didn’t I?

Dear GTA

Before we part our ways, I want to end it with a bang including “gunsgunsguns” and “giveusatank”, and surely we got one!

What you see in the picture, is me taking down a whole sidewalk. People will often try and stunt-jump away, but most of them got splattet out, and when I use that description, it’s because it matched the noise it made. I thought that was a bit gross.

This was a selfimposed challenge really: I wanted to try and play subversively, which means to not play in alignment with the intention of the game. I wanted both of us to go crazy and you to throw everything you had at me, but getting there proved to not be that easy.

As you know GTA, I killed so many people, pedestrians, any random vehicle in my way and lots of policecars …lots. If there was one thing you really loved doing, it was deploying innumerable swarms of policecars. But seriously GTA, they all exploded when they came in contact with my tank, it wasn’t even a challenge! Are you suicidal or something?

It only got a bit harder when you stacked up some barricades:

The SWAT team eh?

I also had a hellicopter chasing me at this point, which was also useless.

As the picture shows, I had four stars, but I wanted the full range, I wanted to see the complete artillery… you know, I wanted to be the Most Wanted person EVER!

But the problem was, I couldn’t get more than four stars, I went pedestrian hunting again, more policecars, more of everything I could think of – and nothing worked.

I successfully escaped every one of your nifty tricks to get me snatched, and little did I know that my demise would come in the form of the Village People builder.

Hey!? It was a moment of hesitation, my tank was almost standing still and this guy runs over and tosses me on the ground – must have been the money I robbed him a week earlier… hmmm..

Police quickly took me down after he pulled me out, and I never reached six stars. Do you not believe I can handle it?

I then decided to go hunt on my own since I now had all the weapons available.

The sniper was my favorite, one shot and they were dead. I also think the percieved safety of the distance made this form of killing work well with me. The picture above shows me headshotting prostitutes (I guess you would call them “my girls”), for absolutely no other reason than them being there.

Surviving on the streets while killing anything that moved, had me dead myself very quickly. You turned out to be quite efficient then, I must say. Or maybe I still need some training.

I didn’t particularly enjoy this form of play and although I didn’t really experience guilt about it either, it got boring really fast and felt quite empty, but I bet you had a blast!!

I told you we would celebrate your ten year anniversary, didn’t I?

Your mass-murderer-friend

- Ironyca Lee

The Thing is, I Have a Game Trauma

Dear GTA

I want to end it with a bang, to basically give going beserk a try. This will include a lot of killing, but before we get to it, there’s something I want you to understand.

I don’t know if I am excited or uncomfortable about the thought, probably just ambivalent. The “problem” is that when I play – so does my conscience, and this is not something I have a direct control of. Suddenly I just feel bad, it’s pre-thought and I’m left fiddling with words to describe how and why.

The thing is, I have a game trauma.

Let me explain: The Sims came out as a newborn a year before you did (in 2000). I still remember watching the ads on MTV with the catchphrase “Get a Life”, and I did – but I also took one.

In The Sims, you didn’t get a child generated from the gene pool of the parents as in The Sims 2 and 3. In the original game the only option of having children was adoption, and it was a completely randomized child. The personality traits were split into 5 sections: Neatness, outgoingness, activeness, playfulness and niceness.

When you made a sim yourself, you had a total of 25 points to spend on these traits, but children, whom were generated by the game, could have both less and more. Most often I seemed to get excellent children with very high scores.

… But this one time, I got one with really low traits, she was not nice, not playful. She also had a grumpy looking face and I was thoroughly displeased and felt my promising family had been ruined by this recently inserted evil child.

So I decided the solution was to kill her, forget about her and adopt a new child.

I knew of several methods to kill sims in the game, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put her in a room and have her starve to death, I needed something quicker and cleaner… this sounds soo wrong. *Cough*. The truth is, I had never killed a sim before, let alone a child-sim.

So I made a pool in front of the house, named it “The Trap” and made her jump in. I removed the stairs and hoped she would drown fast. Instead I watched in terror this child swim around the pool for what was probably a few sim-days, all meanwhile the parents went to work and did a lot of other mundane things completely contrasting the horror going on. I was constantly in doubt, but kept to the plan.

What I had forgotten was the hauntings dead sims will do, and thus the evil child scared me one dim evening, appearing as a ghost accompagnied by a shivering sound, walking aimlessly through the walls just to dissapear shortly after.

I knew about this feature but had forgotten, and now I was paying my dues. I had thought her death was insignificant to me.

The guilt.

I know this sim-child was not real etc etc etc, however this didn’t stop me from feeling bad about it. So I hope you are aware, that when we soon plunge into a moment of insanity together, it’s for the sake of this experiment. Maybe I’m testing my limits, maybe I’m testing you.

See you soon.

- Ironyca Lee

Whatever GTA… Whatever!

Dear GTA

We ended on bad terms last time. I got upset and stood you up. Well, I pulled myself together, came back, took the next mission and failed again. Thanks a lot GTA… thanks a lot!

It was a horrible mission, which for the first time had the cops involved. Man those little buggers drive really fast and come out of nowhere. I ended up surrounded, tried to run for it and they started SHOOTING at me! I only had two stars and they were shooting!? I thought they would just catch me and put me in their car, but nuh-uh no mercy for me. Needless to say, I was in shock. So yeah, I failed, but pulled it off the second try while sitting completely errect staring wide eyed into the monitor with a cold sweat… like participating in a Milgram obedience experiement.

Then you said to me “Hey, there’s a car race down the road. Get yourself a really fast car”. I have no idea which cars are better than others, I mean.. I can feel the difference in max speed, maneuverability and sound, but nah I can’t tell from just looking at them. It’s the same with guns, are they better the bigger they get?

Loggy told me where I could find the fastest car in the game, of course my face lit for a while, which is a lot for someone who’s not an engine enthusiast. And the fastest car was indeed fast and had a deep wroom to it, so the equipment didn’t fail – but the driver did, and GTA you even told me right up how much I sucked:

“LOSER” – Thanks a lot GTA… thanks a lot..

As usual I managed to bump the nice car instantly after getting it, I just can’t keep the cars undamaged, and it really annoys me. With all this pressure and fail, I nerdquit, drove the car off a hill, into the water and watched myself get “WASTED”. Whatever GTA.. whatever!

And that’s where my fair play ends, you see.. I’ve got a trick up my sleeve. You think you can just laugh and call me a loser whenever I fail, well listen up GTA, I know your secrets! Yeah, that’s right, I’ll cheat so I can try out the best guns and even your tank, and you can’t stop me!

Ha!

Your Grumpy Friend

- Ironyca Lee