There’s little need for me to introduce the subject I want to talk about this week because it is the same subject that has been talked about by everyone for the last month. GTA IV, a game whose popularity threatens to overtake that of the Halo series, is due out on April 29^th. As a result, the month of April has seen little video game news pertaining to anything but car-jacking, gun-running, illegal activity, and driving on sidewalks killing so many pedestrians that even Hitler would stand in reverence of the carnage. In fact, the video game news of April seems to have become more like real news, although in the videogame world this kind of behaviour is presented as fun, and in the real world its presented as… the opposite of fun. But don’t worry, I’m not going to lecture you on the dangers of video game violence, nor am I going to advocate the desire to carry out mass murders in a virtual world. I am a 20 year old Canadian male, which means I can legally purchase and indulge in every excess and privilege that I can afford, so arguments over what is inappropriate or morally paralyzing about playing GTA IV do not concern me. If I really wanted to, I could make playing GTA IV an ethically reprehensible act involving booze, adult magazines, a voter’s ballot, and a fine Cuban cigar, and it would still be legal! So I shan’t bother my readers with non-issues of how GTA IV carelessly crosses the unwritten “no-no” line of video games in order to bring about a culture of moral decadence. No. Instead I’d like to talk about a facet of GTA IV that troubles me greatly, and is emblematic of the age of gaming we currently enjoy. GTA IV, like many other games as of late, is providing gamers with a plethora of multiplayer modes, even sporting 15 game modes and the ability to play with 15 other people online. But as has been witnessed happening more and more in other games, there is no offline multiplayer mode at all. And this, my friends, is a crime far greater than any of those you can virtually commit in the game itself.

    It is no surprise that Rockstar was going to create some kind of multiplayer for this game, as it was the next logical step for a series that created (GTA), solidified (GTA 3), perfected (GTA: VC), and then redefined once more (GTA: SA) open ended “sandbox” games by creating a world so vast players actually wanted less. And while Rockstar flirted with a multiplayer component in SA, it was clearly just one of many options thrown in the game with a “why not?” attitude. Admirably, this time around Rockstar has set its sights high, providing the player with (as mentioned before) 15 different game modes, including co-operative, competitive, and free play game types. Unprecedented hoorahs from the gaming community at large could be heard around the world, as being in Liberty City with friends and foes alike creates an entirely new set of possibilities. But these possibilities were quickly dashed for many gamers with the highly rumored speculation that online was a key ingredient for realizing these possibilities. Call me old fashioned, traditional, or even completely insane, but I consider this act criminal. As a person whose greatest enjoyment of video games comes directly from playing those games with other people, it is purely unconstitutional that Rockstar will not even give me the option to play with my friends on the same console, in the same room. It actually makes me sad when I think of the fun I could have had with this game if only Rockstar would have acquiesced to this demand. And while I still plan on purchasing, playing, and loving the single-player mode of this game, I cannot help but wonder what might have been.