Go To Bed, Grand Theft Auto. You're Not Drunk Enough.

I've decided to get back into blogging, because not enough people are angry at me. I was going to wait and come up with a careful, well-reasoned article, but I'd rather jump back in with a cheap shot instead.

I've been playing Saint's Row IV and enjoying the heck out of it, because it reminds me of when Grand Theft Auto games were wild and wacky and fun and hadn't yet deluded themselves into thinking they had deep, profound things to say about American society. I was guardedly optimistic about Grand Theft Auto V, until I read this quote from Dan Houser, Rockstar's head writer and VP:

"If GTA IV was a classic New York story, [GTA V] is the endpoint of the American dream."

Yeah. Great. If we're cool, I'm going to go back to flying through the Matrix and shooting alien ships with my Dubstep gun now.

(I was also going to comment about how GTA V kind of lost me when, after 100000 games, they announced a game with three main characters and they STILL won't allow you to play as a woman. But the dialogue in geek culture has degraded to the point where even saying, "Um, women exist." is super-controversial, so I'll just leave that one there.)