Grand Theft Auto hijacked my brain

Violent video games are destroying our society. The blame for all these recent school shootings is to be placed entirely on the video game industry. Next thing you know, some 10-year-old kid's gonna hijack his dad's car and drive it to school, then start running over his classmates as they frolic on the playground.

Yeah, right.

I love GTA. I used to play for hours, running down pedestrians, shooting cops, and careening through the streets like a madman (well, woman). In fact, when we had to erase the hard drive on our computer because of a virus, I actually cried because it meant I would lose my (pirated) copy of GTA.

The point of Grand Theft Auto is to complete missions like making deliveries of hot vehicles, meeting connections, shooting gang members, and other street-related crimes. By doing these you score points. You also score points for running over pedestrians (which makes an interesting "Splat!" and a satisfying smear of guts), obtaining weapons, and blowing up cars (more on that later). To get around the city, you steal cars and drive them around, and there's all manner of vehicles to choose from: Beetles, Vipers, Dodge Darts, Mustangs, School buses, ambulances, and, if you're really nimble, cop cars. When you earn so many points you advance to the next level, which takes place in another city.

But I sucked at the missions. I was always late meeting my hook-ups, I got shot by the cops when I was stuck in gridlocked traffic, and I drove off a half-built bridge. Then I struck upon a new way to accumulate enough points to move on to other levels.

You see, as you drive a car around, smashing into things like buildings, people, and other cars, your car gets more and more damaged. If you go for a long time without getting a new one, it starts ticking whenever it moves, and eventually it will blow up. My plan involved smashing up one car until it was almost ready to explode, then parking it at the curb. I would then steal other cars and park them right up against the damaged one, until I literally had a line of cars parked all the way up the street. Then I'd crouch a safe distance away and open fire on the original car. Usually it would blow up with one or two shots, then a chain reaction would occur, and each car would blow up in succession. The more cars I'd line up, the more points I'd get.

Okay, so I cheated. But it was fun.

If you have several computers networked, you can play multi-player. My cousin has several computers in his house, all networked, all with GTA installed. When you play head-to-head, the objective is a little simpler; you're just trying to kill the other guy before he can kill you.

I don't know why this game is so appealing; maybe it caters to my inner serial killer, but if that's the case, maybe I'd rather not know. There's all kinds of sociological issues to be addressed with this game: does it cause kids to be violent? Does it cause teenaged drivers to run over pedestrians? Get real. It's fun for the same reason all violent video games are fun; you get to smash someone to a bloody pulp. Only this time, you're not fighting monsters, you're fighting gang members and cops.