Tell me 'cause I'd like to know..

I don't give a shit about Grand Theft Auto 4.

I feel like this series is kind of undeservedly popular. Which is to say that its popularity is not in reasonable correlation with its quality.
The Penny Arcade I posted yesterday was speaking to a part of my problem with the series, which is better sentencized by Tycho :
"We're always impressed by each world's livingness, but historically the story structure - the obvious thread that we can grip and pull ourselves along - is hung about the neck with frustrating, repetitive gameplay. We end up burning out on free roaming in a couple days, taking random missions or sitting in a parking lot listening to the radio."

Another part is that some of my friends and I had what essentially amounts to the exact same idea for a video game (we have a legal pad with pages and pages and pages of notes and sketches and such for this game we imagined) a number of years before the first GTA even came out. The shift in gameplay that came in GTA3 was more what our idea for a game resembled.
Look, all I'm trying to say is GTA3 was the game that really made this series what is today, and we had that idea waaaay before they'd even made the first game, which really bares no resemblance to the series today.
That's not really important though. I don't really hold any grudge on that, and to be honest, I don't really care I just wanted to get it off my chest.

Really, my biggest problem with the games is that I just don't like being a bad guy. I don't mind killing people in video games if they are the bad guys and I'm trying to save the world or something, but when it's just "Here drive around and shoot cops and steal people's cars" I'm just not interested, you know?
I don't mind it when they're monsters or aliens or terrible bad people trying to kill me (or Goombas), but just killing regular folk for no reason has never sounded like fun to me.
I've had people try to tell me that it's all in how you play it, but having sex with hookers to get my life-meter recharged and then killing the hooker and taking my money back sounds like something a psychopath would do.
One of the other things that bugs me is how angry people who like the series get when you tell them that you aren't interested in it. Especially if it's for the kind of reason I just talked about. I mean, red-in-the-face angry.
I think they think I'm saying they are psychopaths... and honestly, the way some of them react I might not be too far from the mark if I were to think that.

I'm not saying that though.

Curt asked me if I wanted to go to the midnight release at the GameStop near where we live last night, and I don't think he's a psychopath.

All I'm saying is it's not for me.
I'm sure there are aspects of the game I could enjoy. A friend let me ride around on a motorcycle in one of them for a few minutes once and that was fun up to when I crashed into a car and flew off the motorcycle. Then it was funny.

Really, all I want from video games is a game where I can be Superman that doesn't suck.
One where I feel like I am Superman.
If they could just make that, I'd be done with video games.
I'd buy that one, and then I wouldn't have to buy anymore.
I'd just play it.
Forever.