I’ve spent the Queen’s Birthday long weekend running from crooked cops, starting and finishing gang wars, stealing guns from the army, collecting flowers for my bitch and cycling to the gym. A quiet weekend compared to my usual. I also got 6 tattoos, some blonde corn rows, a fire paint job for my lowrider and listened to way too much NWA. What up gangsta!

You frontin me bitch? You don’t think I’m down with that shit? You think I’m some white female who listens to Justin Timberlake and only ever shoots off her mouth? Well with my Xbox GTA San Andreas game I am becoming a gangsta rapper dude to rival 50 cent. I’ve been waiting over a year for this to come out on the xbox (it’s old news to PS2 owners) and am thoroughly immersed in the game.

When the game started I was a little disappointed with the blockiness of the graphics but I think that is due more to the fact that I have seen the attention to detail on xbox 360. I do enjoy the sunsets though as I ride around on my bike – oh I mean as CJ rides around on his bike. The game begins in Los Santos (Los Angeles) as Carl Johnson (CJ) returns home from the eastside (i.e. New York) to bury his mother who was an innocent caught in a drive by shooting. Gangs and drugs have taken over his city and CJ has to earn the respect of his brother and old gang by completing missions. He also has to look good doing it so that his sex appeal is high to the ladies. No good being a gangsta if you don’t have your ho beside you in your pimp mobile.

Since this is set in the early 90s when gang warfare was at it’s peak I expected a wicked cool soundtrack. The GTA Vice City game reintroduced me to some of my 80s favourites like Tears for Fears and Huey Lewis and I was hoping for the same from this game. Vice City was always a bit tongue in cheek so I expected to see Ice Ice Baby in this track list. Sadly the closest I get is Bobby Brown’s “Don’t be cruel” (oh the irony). The radio stations are a bit too segregated for my taste so I find it hard to settle on one when I’m out stealing cars. A few of the mini games actually consist of pressing the buttons in time to the music a la Dance Dance Revolution. My favourite version of these mini games so far is when you have to bounce your lowrider in time to the music. It even has this big build up at the beginning before you start frantically moving the joystick.

Since I started playing the game I’m finding myself a lot grumpier. I don’t know if it’s the angry rap music or the desolate poorness of the suburb CJ lives in but I’m hanging out for the day when he becomes a gangsta in Las Venturas (Las Vegas). Maybe then more good times will roll. Or maybe I’m just mad because he has had 3 dates with Denise and she still hasn’t invited him in for “coffee”. I mean how could she deny a guy who is a hundred percent muscle and who has kick ass stamina? (CJ did a lot of pedalling at the gym).

Anyways, I’m off to defend my hood and kill some mexicans on top of a train.

P.S. I think Big Smoke is an informant for the cops.

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