PixelVixen707

We gamers crave the respect of our moms and dads. How else to explain the obsession with the “maturity” of Grand Theft Auto? We’re no longer begging for Mario under the Christmas tree, ‘rents. We’re full-grown, we’re worldly, and we can pay a digital ho for a handjob, if that’s how we choose to game. And Grand Theft Auto IV is our badge of post-puberty. It holds a mirror up to life, and has the guts to spill what it sees.

Except it doesn’t. The only mature thing about it is its rating. And in reading the coverage of Grand Theft Auto IV, I’m troubled by my colleagues’ insistence on playing it like adults, and not kids.

For one: it falls short of what the cineastes call “realism.” I live in New York City, the blatant basis for the game’s Liberty City. Gunplay aside, more life goes by on just my block on a Sunday than in the entire length of this game. Liberty City gets by on a few restaurants, a handful of bars, and next to no clothing stores. The bums are just there to start missions. And there are exactly 200 pigeons – and once you shoot them all, the city … runs out?