techTalk: Grand Theft Auto IV here to stay

You may call me biased. You may say I’m morally devoid of the concepts required to make a rational, kind-hearted human being.

Whatever you may say, I’ll still believe Grand Theft Auto IV is a superb piece of interactive entertainment.

The fourth true game in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA for short) series, created by Rockstar Games, met American audiences at midnight April 29. Fans and newcomers of the GTA series waited outside local video game retail stores to secure a copy of one of the most anticipated video games this year and to experience a piece of controversial art that would undoubtedly leave a mark on American history.

By midday Tuesday, retailers reported GTA IV charging to record-breaking goals in the quantity of units sold. Analysts projected stunning figures to support the most successful launch of a video game ever.

There is no secret GTA IV is successfully selling and becoming a staple of entertainment history, like the series’ predecessors.

There is also no denying the game is causing an uproar in organizations and communities across the nation.

GTA IV is rated M for Mature, meaning the Electronic Software Ratings Board, or ESRB, identified the game to be suitable for those 17 years of age and older. The game features plentiful violence, sexual themes, morally difficult choices and dialogue that would make an inmate blush.

The GTA series has always focused gameplay and story lines on the lowlifes of society. In fact, GTA IV enjoys an overly satirical approach to the criminals, crime lords, drug dealers and hit men populating Liberty City, the game’s version of New York City of years past.

GTA IV puts the player into the role of Niko Bellic, a slovic soldier wishing to leave a life of war crimes and regret and immigrate to a new peaceful existence in America, leaving countless scars behind. However, as soon as Niko arrives in Liberty City, he is forced to use his talents to save his cousin Roman from dangerous debt to low-life criminals. The game then throws Niko into a reluctant life of crime to save himself and his cousin in the strange land of America.

Unlike most who would report on a game of this nature, I have played a good deal of GTA IV. The game is a feat of masterful storytelling and open-ended gameplay. Liberty City is huge and breathing with convincing city life, from pedestrians who are sometimes deep in conversation on a cell phone to a constant flow of traffic obeying the many laws-of-the-road.

Characters who drive the story of GTA IV are rather generous with obscenities. Some of the most colorful four-letter words litter the dialogue. However, each character is exaggerated into such a strong stereotype that each encounter is amusing. No real person could be as lewd and deserve to be a functioning member of society.

Once you meet the game’s many locals, you come to realize the game’s emphasis on exaggeration and satire. The consequences for criminal acts in such an open world are meager, often only draining your wallet by half a grand of your hard-earned, but plentiful cash. This realization helps bring the core gameplay into focus.

On the streets of Liberty City, you are able to singularly set the city into an uproar where ultimately S.W.A.T. teams and even the army will try to bring you to justice. Or you may simply sit and enjoy programming on the hilarious in-game radio stations or equally amusing television stations. Your involvement with the citizens of the city streets is your choice.

The main game is divided into missions offered by the many crime lords, drug dealers and small-time crooks that populate Liberty City. Some missions as simple as driving a character from one point in the city to another. Other missions can get quite nasty when you are asked to “take out” the corrupt boss and his goons. Sometimes just scaring a bad guy into fleeing will result in a successful mission as well.

The main appeal to the GTA gameplay has always been expansive open-ended options. To reach a goal the player can steal a parked or occupied car with risk of being spotted by police, travel on foot, or even hail a taxi and let the cabbie do all the driving himself. The player also can work on complicated relationships with local women in various professions that may benefit the player. Interaction with reputable, yet thuggish small-time crooks can open new avenues of gameplay for the player.

Your in-game acquaintances often will expect you to call them up for a night of recreation or, if they are bored, will ask that you drive them to a local hangout. Destinations for fraternizing include bowling alleys, bars, restaurants and even strip clubs. The latter are very provocative and don’t leave much to the imagination.

The game does allow the player to make more dastardly decisions. While nearly pointless, killing pedestrians and even police anywhere in Liberty City can always invoke a moral twinge on the player. But the game is easier to play without the police on your heels, so leaving society to its own devices is often the best route to take.

To summarize, GTA IV is a hugely open-ended game often dubbed as a staple of the “sandbox” genre of video games  — an open world with endless possibilities.

I’ve been overly descriptive about both the appeals of the game and the mature aspects to offer a point of reference to any potential buyers.

This game is not for children. The legal rating system actually forbids the game be purchased by anyone under the age of 17.

Many parents still have not realized the efforts of the ESRB to place power of discretion in caregivers’ hands.

As I played the game and progressed pretty decently into the plot, I can personally vouch that no underage minor should be allowed access to this game. Therefore, parents, the responsibility is yours. You hold the keys to any child’s involvement with this game, which was never intended for any child in the first place.

Though organizations like M.A.D.D. — Mothers Against Drunk Driving — may try to convince retailers to stop selling the game, free speech ensures the game has as much right to sit on a store shelf as other countless forms of violent media in the forms of music and movies.

GTA isn’t meant for all households. Any player should realize the game is not an exercise in moral delinquency, but an attempt to bring a new take on mass media to those with enough wits to know that the game is a gross exaggeration of a satirical world.

The powers of media reporting may pursue ideas that such a “morally lacking” game will corrupt the American youth, remember the ideals of American society leave the guidance and teaching of a child in the hands of parents and guardians. Extreme measures have been in place for many years to keep inappropriate material out of the hands of minors, but the real power to control any substance, whether it be entertainment or drugs, lies with you.

GTA IV is here to stay and entertain those for whom it was meant. Take this advice and keep it from the eyes, ears and hands too innocent to understand.