Defining Moment: Getting into a car I doubt the existance of a person who, upon getting a new Grand Theft Auto game, doesnt immediately jack a car and go on a city-wide killing spree. Nowadays the series has gone in a more cinematic direction, with writers and actors that would make a hollywood movie blush, but in the first game there was very little to do except drive around and blow stuff up. Somehow the majority of us avoided growing into the serial killers that journalists of the time warned us the game would create. Even so, there is something slightly unsettling about realising that what every teenage boy really, really wants to do is drive a prostitute to a shady neighbourhood, watch the car make a rocking motion for a few seconds, let her get out and then reverse over her several times as she starts to walk away. Except that, if you think like that, youre missing the point. It wasnt that we actually wanted to go on a chainsaw massacre in real life, and Grand Theft Auto was training us to do it. It was that for the first time, we were given the keys to a real world simulator and allowed to mess around in it knowing there were absolutely no consequences whatsoever. No crying mothers, no jail time, no bloodstained clothes. And damn, it was fun.
Laurence Gardner was born in Canterbury, England. After moving around various cities during his childhood, and spending some time travelling in Europe and America, he studied English Literature at Oxford University. Since then, he’s been living abroad, teaching English, learning a range of languages, and writing in his free time. He can currently be found in Heidelberg, working as an English Tutor and Translator and studying at the University. If you liked this article, follow him on Twitter to get automatic updates on his work.
Defining Moment: Getting into a car I doubt the existance of a person who, upon getting a new Grand Theft Auto game, doesnt immediately jack a car and go on a city-wide killing spree. Nowadays the series has gone in a more cinematic direction, with writers and actors that would make a hollywood movie blush, but in the first game there was very little to do except drive around and blow stuff up. Somehow the majority of us avoided growing into the serial killers that journalists of the time warned us the game would create. Even so, there is something slightly unsettling about realising that what every teenage boy really, really wants to do is drive a prostitute to a shady neighbourhood, watch the car make a rocking motion for a few seconds, let her get out and then reverse over her several times as she starts to walk away. 