The Measure of Things

I write this with GTA4 on pause behind me. I've blitzed the last 20 or so missions this last couple of days, to get it out of my active pile and get some momentum. I think the big games need clearing, I may start something unplayed now or I may try and polish off act 5 of Mass Effect next.

I'm driving my car on the last mission. I made it this far last night but I was 3:30 red-eyed and my jaw was not unlike that of a zombie, or an inflatable sex lady. Or a zombie inflatable sex lady. On comes the 360 this evening and away I go, last mission. Now, I leave the apartment to meet my two companions, no car in the spaces, my Infernus (is it called that?) disappeared after the last mission. Don't take your Infernus on the penultimate mission. So I'm jacking something. It's the Citroen Xara clone. Just need to get to my friends. I canter along, and get to one of the bridges, switch to cinematic mode and realise I'll not be seeing anything like this again until I get the Lost and Damned (I'm waiting for it to be deal of the week on principal, and so should you - anything over 800 Microsoft Euros).

The next thing that happens is a song I like finishes and the news comes on - it's about


*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
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*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
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Kate being killed, and mentions me.
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****
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*****SPOILERZ!!!!111!!!!*****

and I'm sad. I'd read about what might otherwise have happened but in the end I tried to put such things out of my mind and play according to what I knew from the game, and what would most closely have resembled how I might respond, were this real life. It's how I play Mass Effect, Fallout 3, KOTOR and all other cod-moral slapstick digital pacifiers, because the reality is that they are games, the choices are no more moral than 'Yoshi or Bowser for Rainbow Road?'. There's more morality in my USB porn drive. Doesn't change that I'm unhappy what happened happened, though.

Then the news moves on, something about the ketamine and irony generation (mine!) living to regret their excesses when their physically or mentally malformed children are born. I'm overcome with the urge to go and discuss the feelings I'm experiencing with strangers in a cafe in Montmatre. I'm regarding the in-game life I've built for myself, and I'm wondering what that tells me about humanity as a whole.

My criticisms of GTA4 are on record, alongside a million others. It's not Vice City and it's not San Andreas, but it is the game I bought a 360 and an HDTV for. I'm only just polishing off the story and that will leave my progress in the high sixties with many achievements still locked. I'll be off to look into other things, like Bully Scholarship Edition and Saint's Row 2, but I'll be back, and not just for the Lost and Damned. I'll be pining at some point for an afternoon's money-making with Nico Belic. Whatever happens after the next mission, I'd like to see the chap again, we've been through a lot together. Which led me to conclude... have I done the right thing by this game? Should I have done a few side missions and chased 100% and a few achievements, only 100%ing the thing with the completion of this last mission? I've done the pigeons, months ago - the worst is over, not forgetting multiplayer.

The answer doesn't matter, because any game where I get 80 hours into it and I'm still playing and nearly done and want to know what happens next - if that game can then make me take a breath and ask myself if I've treated it right - well, you can't really not say it's a brilliant game, can you?