Today, not three hours ago, I was sitting in the living room at my dad’s house trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about in this week’s Odyssey post. Usually, I go to my list of ideas, pick something I think I can roll with, and let loose. Today, I was hitting a wall. All of my ideas seemed to go nowhere.
Then my 17-year-old brother (Hey Brayden!) sat down and hooked up his Xbox. He started to play Grand Theft Auto V. For those of you who aren’t much different than me, Grand Theft Auto is a game in which you steal cars, kill people, and try not to die. At least, that’s what I took away from the experience.
When my brother got up to get ready for work, he threw me the controller – an alien looking piece of technology- and told me to have fun. Who was I to pass up a chance to go outside my comfort zone and play this seemingly pointless game? I grabbed the controller expecting to go into full on gamer mode. Bring on the excitement! The thrill! The excellent hand-eye coordination!
That is not what happened.
I had no clue how to work the darn thing. Once I thought I had something figured out, I hit something else on the controller and had to find my place all over again. Once I finally got a hand on how to move around, I found my guy in the game swaying around and stumbling because every tiny little movement of the joystick on the controller was picked up. Those things are touchy.
After I mastered walking and running around (or gave up trying to get better at it, at least), I tried taking a car. I soon discovered I had no idea how to drive the car once I was in it, leading my character to be pulled out and beaten to death by a couple of what I can only assume were gang members.
I finally, after many lives, figured out how to dangerously drive the cars in the game as well as punch people who tried to fight me. Let me tell you this: there is no safe driving in GTA. At one point, I found myself in a semi-truck barreling down the wrong way on an interstate. Many lives were lost on that road that day.
Later, I discovered I had the ability to be armed and shoot people. This also leads to many unnecessary, bloody deaths. At this point, the cops were hunting me down and there was no way out. Yet again, my character died.
So as a girl who has never touched an Xbox before in her life other than to put movies in on the occasional movie night, I can tell you that Grand Theft Auto, while quite the interesting enigma of a game, is a gigantic waste of both money and time. I sat there for nearly two hours trying to figure out a game that obviously isn’t beatable. I could have been writing a more educational and intriguing Odyssey article. I could have taken a nap. Even that would have been more productive than playing this insanely violent game.
I don’t recommend picking up an Xbox controller to anyone that is not a gamer. You will just end up frustrated, confused, and behind schedule on whatever it is you need to get done. Just say no to video games.
