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01/02/2006: "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"
Hi All,
Hope everybody’s Christmas and New Years went well. I hope it was “crack-a-lackin’,” as the computerized denizens of the video that’s been consuming my life for the past couple of days---Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas---might say.
The Playstation 2 was a gift from my brother. I haven’t owned a video game system since I bought a Super Nintendo during my stint in Japan; I didn’t play that very much, either, seeing as the Zelda game I bought with it was---unsurprisingly---all in Japanese. So I had no idea what people were saying, I had no idea where the kind village folk were telling me to go or what adventures I was supposed to go on, so I spent a few hours running around the rich video game environment, getting angry, then boxed it up and gave it to a student of mine.
The reason I generally avoid video games is…I’m a video game addict. I mean, not in the classical sense of it…I guess I’m more accurately a video game binger. This usually happens around Christmas. I’ll head over to my brother’s house, or a friend’s, and they’re squirreled away down in their basements, all ferret-eyed playing video games. For me, this is like standing at the edge of a very deep, very dark cliff: if I fall, I will fall for some time.
The first time I “fell” was with Devil May Cry. My brother got it five years ago, and I played it once, was hooked, and didn’t eat, bathe, work out, or move too far from the game until I beat it. This was probably 24 hours---thankfully, it wasn’t a really hard game. I emerged from the experience in the way I imagine miners might from a caved-in mineshaft: wide-eyed, shivering, happy to be alive but forever changed. I swore NEVER AGAIN!
Then a few years later Graham got Grand Theft Auto. This was a revelation! It was a nasty game where you’re a criminal and go around doing a lot of criminal things---this is, in fact, the point of the game. You steal cars, shoot people, and cause general destruction. I quite liked it. I fell off the cliff again. It was a more difficult game; the fall was steeper and longer. I emerged some days later---I can’t tell you exactly how long---and again, I was a changed man. I had a shaggy beard…okay, I had itchy stubble. When I got up off the chair I was playing in, my back and ass made a sound like a band-aid being ripped off: the leather didn’t want to surrender me. But I was King of Liberty City (the fictional city where GTA takes place)…but I felt gross. I felt…USED. I looked at the Playstation 2 and it seemed to be leering at me. The sight of it, of that molded controller, made me sick. NEVER AGAIN, I swore.
Then last summer I was staying with my buddy Jay and his wife Lisa. They were gone most of the day at work; me, the writing bum, was at home. After I got my writing done I wandered down to the basement. There was my old nemesis---new setting, same temptation. I put this game called MANHUNTER into the console…BLAST! Hooked again. Jay come home and found me camped out like some hungry-eyed squatter, hunched over the joystick like a hobo protecting his sandwich against wolves. He realised my addiction---he was a binger, like me---and the two of us binged our way though that game (it was made my RockStar, the same guys who made GTA. Bastards!). NEVER AGAIN, I swore.
Then my brother---or, I should say, my PUSHER---BUYS the damn thing for me.
Et tu, Graham? Et tu?
Well, I can’t say I’m proud of it, but on boxing day out I went to the games store. I got into a fistfight with a twelve-year-old boy for the last copy of GTA: San Andreas. He punched me pretty good, beat me down heavy…luckily there was another store on the other side of the mall that had more copies. So I bought that, PLUS the other GTA:2, which had been put out a few years ago.
It’s been pretty gross. I’m deep in the throes of addiction. I can’t quite believe I pried myself away long enough to write this. I’m wild-eyed and musky-smelling. My grip on the reality of things is slipping. I’m having video game fever dreams. Every time I emerge from my spider hole (a spare room upstairs) my brother cackles evilly and rubs his dry palms together. “Excellent,” he whispers to himself. “Maaaaaarvelous.”
For anyone who’s played video games…well, maybe they understand. I’ve played lots, but this GTA series really has my number. It’s just the fact that you can do ANYTHING in it…and the fact you’re rewarded for bad behavior. You’re supposed to go on missions, but I frequently abandon them do just run around punching people, or shooting wildly, or inciting mayhem. My favorite bit is that you can shoot and stab and maim a whole bunch of people (really, I know it sounds awful, but it’s really part of the game), and you get the cops and the FBI and the National Guard on your ass, then all you do is step inside your house, save the game, and when you step out again the cops are gone and you go out and do it all again.
If there’s something called Video Gamers Anonymous…someone needs to give me a pamphlet. Maybe I’ll start one. People with red squinty eyes and clawed fingers (from controller fatigue) will say, “Are you a friend of Craig D?” and the reply will be, “Craig D’s a good soul. He changed my life. He got me off video games. Now I’ve got a much less consuming addiction---heroin.” (For those who don’t get the reference: Bill W. was the founder of AA; reformed alcoholics will often ask, “Are you a friend of Bill?” to see if another other person is in AA).
Aaaaaaaaaaanyway…I gotta go…do…something something. Not play video games. Nosirree bob. Not me. Noooooo! But yeah, I have to go. I think I hear the phone ringing…or the kettle shrieking…or something something.
All best, Craig.
