GTA V review

Last week I made the terrible decision to buy Grand Theft Auto V. I say it was a terrible decision because the game is so ridiculously huge and awesome that I ended up binging on it for hours a day until I had finished the main story line. GTA V is a testiment to how far video games have come, featuring interchangeable characters, a immersive and organic world, and attention to detail previously unseen. The option smoke a bong in your house or do yoga in the backyard, are just 2 of the many bizarre and seemingly mundane activites you can do in game. The characters a loveable and dynamic, my favourite being the speed freak trevor who could snap like a twig at any moment, sending him on a murderous rampage, but still being hilarious and likeable, not an easy feat. The cinematic cut scenes are completely acted out and the level of dramatic depth the audience experiences as a consequence is deeply satisfying.
I very much look forward to GTA online, which is due to be released in about a weeks time. Free to play for any owner of GTA V, GTA online offers the ultimate GTA experience. In any given session you can play with up to 16 of your friends, hijacking planes and getting into shoot outs with the police. This game could very well be the death of me, but I burning with anticipation. 10 out of 10. AMAZING

In The City

This weeks readings made me ponder as to the ways in which technology has been incorporated in society and culture. While reading Potts and Murphies introduction for there book “Culture and Technology”, I was continuously reminded of the image of “the city” and the way in which it is a perfect collage of incorporated technologies which define its culture. Consider the motherboard of your computer, I wouldn’t be the first to make the observation that it reminiscent of the layout of a city. The is the central processor, being the CBD of the city, with small wires branching off in various directions to smaller nodes which carry out the complicated processes of the computer. Obviously this is a relatively primitive understanding of the finer workings of a motherboard, however the comparison serves as an interesting metaphor as to the way cities structure people, society and consequently, culture. Melbourne, like many other cities around the world, is structured on a grid, it has been designed in such a way that we might move freely in and around it as well as positioning its various districts for maximum convenience. Bright lights, video billboards, trains, trams, automated announcements all direct us and provide color and diversity in the artificial environment we as humans have designed and expanded ourselves. City culture is entirely dependent on technologies, and would not exist without technology in the broadest sense of the word. In saying this however, I would not argue that technology defines culture, but rather shapes and influences it in such a way that it has become wholly integrated in it.