Grand Theft Auto IV: for mature audiences only

I read a book in high school called “The Assistant,” which would have long since faded from memory if Mr. Sowder hadn’t answered my critique that it was interminably boring by blurting out “it’s supposed to be!” So I respect what Rockstar was trying to do in Grand Theft Auto IV by replacing sports cars with fishtailing clunkers and forcing me to drop everything at a moment’s notice not for a gang war, but a bowling match.

What's that? You care about me and want to spend supportive, quality time together? Gee, I can't wait.

Yes, it does piss me off that refusing to waste time and money at the strip club with one obnoxious prick or another prevents me from reaping the intangible benefits of “friendship,” and that if I should actually try to get into the spirit of chumminess by jumping on stage to dance or pointing my gun at someone we’ll get kicked out of the establishment, but the only emails I get these days are from Barack Obama, and no one's ever paid a dime to see my song and dance.

how about we quit this game and go shoot someone?

Yes, I hate how chicks comment on me wearing the same outfit for two dates in a row and then don’t say a word about me picking them up in an ice cream truck, but women are weird like that. I’m furious every time I have to stop and pay a toll, until I remember that I’ve been meaning to get an EZ-PASS for the last 428 commutes to Easton. And it really irks me how hard it is to find a gun in Hove Beach, but I’ve been trying to get my hands on one in Jersey City for years.

Yes. I'm your cousin. I care about you and your problems...

Better bloggers have already reviewed Rockstar’s choice for realism, as GTA IV compares with its predecessors and the Saints Row series. It was a choice, and in an industry on autopilot I’ll respect any. My beef is where the realism starts to unravel:

Like any currency-based video game, anyone remotely competent ends up with more money than they ought to. And knowing that the more one keeps people safe the more they need safekeeping, one soon moves on up to a deluxe East Side safehouse, closer to the job. Eventually one finds themselves too far removed and without time for family and friends; Eventually without interest. People express concern, but eventually read the writing on the wall and no longer call. The payoff keeps getting bigger; the apartments too, and you slowly stop taking pleasure in the simple things like street preachers and hot dogs, a good drunk, and driving. Your phone’s address book fills up with acquaintances. Each mission bleeds into the next and it’s hard to remember where this started and how it ended up here. You find yourself alone with nothing but the work, and a lot of meaningless achievement points.

…So much for realism, right?

Saints Row 2: Rabbi Gatstein, reformed

Incarceration unsettles even the best of men. Rabbi Gatstein was no exception. Gatstein's time in a locked-down coma following the burning boat-blast betrayal by his gang-banging brethren left him with nothing to do but ponder all the horrible things he'd done. And like a shark forced to stop swimming, with no choice but to face the bloody facts of his existence...well let's just say the guy who came out wasn't the same that went in.

I can't find the original link for this video's inspiration, so here's an embed:

Saints Row: Rabbi Gatstein Reminisces

Doomeru took an obsessive liking to my Saints Row character, Rabbi Gatstein, so I prepared a retrospective slideshow from the 'hood for his personal amusement.

Me and the Rebbe went through a lot together before his dubious demise in a fiery boat explosion, and things just haven't been the same without him. I hope watching this explains why:

Thanks to "Two Live Jews" for the song.

Saints Row: Bless me father, for I have sinned

Back when Doomeru brought home his first 360 I swore the second it became my hand-me-down I'd play Saints Row end-to-end with our personalized BD Wong character...Right after I finished playing Condemned...

Oh hello there! Perhaps you'd like to join our multicultural drug-running judeo-christian street gang?

But what started as a joke has led to my confession: Chewing through this GTA-knockoff was actually as satisfying as movie-buttered popcorn, and I left it behind like an explosive evacuation of last night's comfort food washed down with liquid therapy; feeling lighter, with a spring in my step.

Sure, the radio stations suck and the city is only marginally more interesting than a deserted South American island, but the controls are so smooth! And in the unlikely event that you die mid-mission, or in the more likely event that the victory conditions of your mission don't, you know, load, then you can continue from the beginning without having to drive back to it. You don't even have to kill yourself to cue the restart!

Move over, Meyer Lansky. Rabbi Gatstein's in town.

If I've gone easy on this game it's surely a testament to lowered expectations. Not encountering the bugs documented so elegantly by others, I could only shrug at the conceit used to stretch out Saints Row's hours:

You can only take plot-related missions after earning enough respect, which is gained by repeatedly performing menial tasks such as babysitting drug dealers, chauffeuring hookers, and aimless killing sprees. Earned respect is then expended on accepting a real job, and upon it's successful completion, said respect is lost. What is this, Office Space?

Yo bitch, where my stapler at?