How 32 hours of Grand Theft Auto IV became a personality test.

Liberty City, a city filled to the rim with artificially constructed masses built to mimic and mock our living breathing society. On a clear night a freighter from another country docks in the harbor, carrying more satirical fodder and one exception… Niko Bellic - myself. Normally, I wouldn’t place myself in a video game character’s shoes; I just have a common sense of separation for the real and virtual, but I chose to actually play out the role of Niko anyway for the sake of finding out what I myself would do had I really been in his shoes under the same rules.

In Mass Effect, I played out the role of Commander Sheppard evenly, on one playthrough; I was a paragon of goody-two-shoe-ness. On the second, more experienced playthrough, I was a cold, bitter, Snake Plisskin-like bastard. In Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I just followed the path that led me to the best quality and best looking (that was hard to find) loot in the game which meant I was forced to become the paragon of righteousness, so that I could wear the Crusader armor set.

This time however, I have the opportunity to take on the role of someone walking away from the salty air of the bordering ocean and into the concrete jungle that holds the “American Dream”. This is what got me thinking, what if I had abandoned a life pursuing video game journalism and instead pursued a life of organized crime? This was my chance to see how decisions based on my own morals… to execute this person or that person for whatever amounts of cash are thrown my way… will I even execute anyone at all?

I indeed executed people, but I felt a slight remorse for the fallen character as I stood in front of their crumpled, blood-stained body. I had just ended this characters life, sure they were a low-life, ignorant and foolish A.I. based fodder, but for the brief moment of forcing myself to be caught up in the moment, I felt like I had just ended a person of Liberty City’s life.

Of course, the depths of this act can nowhere mimic that of real life and I can’t nor want to even fathom that feeling… this is for the sake of the rest of the article; a simulation of a different life (got it Fox News?). As the police closed in and in mere seconds I would have to book it down the road and over the fence, I took a moment to reflect on what I did. Then I heard the police shooting at me through the screams of whoever saw me commit the act, and ran with all my might – that brief feeling of remorse quickly turned to selfish worry, just because I felt bad for what I did, doesn’t mean that I want to end up like them.

With gun still in hand and a handful of more cash added to my increasingly expanding wallet, I carjacked the nearest unlucky fool. They got out without hesitation and became stranded in the middle of the road as I drove off in their vehicle trying to escape jail time. This brings me to my next moral conundrum, the cops are on my tail, there is some idiot blocking the road… do I ram them and hope that I am not the one ejected and splattered onto the pavement or do I make a high-speed U-turn and drive toward the pursuing police?