1. Grand Theft Auto splits theNation By Melissa Hall Rockstar games are known for their controvercial content in games which seem to have caused a debate in the past and still does to this very day between critics and those who love their games. The game GTA4 (one of Rockstars most reacent games) has been said to be unapropriate due to the games violence, sex content and the ability to act unnapropriate throughout its missions. The game causes a debate due to its popularity of many and scrutiny of others because of its R-rated content. However selling over 17 million copies world wide to date Grand Theft Auto has been both a massive commercial and critical success. I guess the real question is should the game be banned for its content because of the effects it may cause players to behave or is it just a form of enjoyment of this generation of people and will cause no problems with the player whatsoever? Grand Theft Auto is known to be one of the best games to date due to its amazing graphics and life like qualities. Also including a brand new multiplayer access with 15 modes of play available and supporting up to 16 players. The game has extra episodes such as "The ballad of gay Tony" and "The lost and damned" where extra missions are available once the games original missions are completed. Key features which make the game so popular are having a large open world environment for the players to explore freely, the ability for Niko (the main charecter) to use his mobile phone and an in game version of the internet with humourous content. Unlike other series of GTA the player is able to swim, hail taxi cabs and even shoot through car windows. The music is of a great variety on the radio in each car and there is a larger variety of pedestrians who have more life like reactions then in previous games. All of these extra little qualities to the game add to create an amzingly real life game set enjoyed by millions around the world. The game was the first available in the seventh generation of games making it a highly anticipated game with features that enhanced players enjoyment massively with all the new available features as stated above so that they can play with their friends and have a more interesting gameset both in and out of the missions. The game is a way in which players can release from the real world and be able to do whatever they want without the consiquences. One of the things that has caused such a debate on this game is younger people in their teens playing the game having the content influence them. Though the game is rated an 18 and Rockstar insist that their target audience for GTA 4 is for people in their 20's to 30's younger people have been known to play the game. Teenagers have been known to play the GTA games and parents dissaprove of the content thinking it may influence and is not

2. suitable for their children. This not only is considered to effect children but fans of the game who constantly play games like this and are exposed to violence on a day to day basis. Some storys have indicated that because the game is so aggresive at times it may cause players to become more aggresive in real life and find it hard to differentciate between the two. An example of video games influencing players is the terrible shooting massacre at Virginia Tech in the US in which 32 people died involved a mentally ill student who, by his own admission, was obsessed with violent computer games like Counter- Strike. In some ways I agree that violence being watched can influence a person but my own personal opinion is that a person needs to have the right frame of mind to commit a crime and any normal person would not commit a crime as serious as this due to playing violent video games alone. "Harvard research has shown that there is no real evidence to support the statement that videogames cause violence" so people who have been related to the game and violence must of had the influence from something else. To conclude though GTA4 does contain content which could be affensive and taken the wrong way most normal, sain people will be fine and will just use the game as a form of release and enjoyment. Violence will always be exposed to the public wheather in videogames or not, we just need to learn that violence in the real world is wrong and imoral.