I believe that the time has come for yet another rant. As you can see, I've now titled my rants and if you don't like it, well you know what you can do ;) Today's rant topic is whether or not the gaming industry really needs a GTA sequel....so GTA fanboys get your flame-throwers ready because you are probably going to hate me......

I say the best thing for the game industry right now is for Take-Two to cut it's ties with Rockstar and sell them to another publisher. My reasoning behind this comes from a couple of viewpoints. First and foremost Take-Two is losing money about as fast as a cheetah with it's tail on fire and one good way of rectifying that is to sell off one of your biggest assets which in turn has become your biggest headache as of late. If Take-Two were to take a chance on another GTA, sure it might sell a boatload of copies and help turn a profit for the company but what if there is another controversy that occurs and they have to pull yet another game off the shelves, fix it, and republish it once again. They, in my opinion, could not withstand another debacle like that without going under. Secondly, Take-Two has some strong franchises that they have recently acquired, thanks to their deals with Bethesda and Firaxis (Elder Scrolls and Civilization respectively) along with their strong 2k Sports lineup. I would rather take my chances with less controversial franchises that appeal to a wide variety of people and do not trigger lawsuits from unhappy politicians, parents, etc... I'm not saying who is wrong or right in said suits, but from a company standpoint why take the chance of something completely blowing up in your face when you have other strong games that could eventually pull you out of the hole without relying on one franchise which could either make you king of the gaming industry or lead you to exile. With the GTA series, I feel that you will either get rich or die trying. I don't see any middle-ground whatsoever. Which brings me to my next point...does the game industry really need a GTA sequel???

I say no, it doesn't. I think that in order to get this label of gamers being immature and immoral that we need to take steps to show that we aren't what the stereotypes say we are. When we rush to defend games like GTA but let games like Psychonauts fall into gamer oblivion, we as gamers, should be ashamed of ourselves. How many games like GTA have we had in the past few years and they sell like hotcakes almost every single time. Then you have games that try to be original like Psychonauts and Beyond Good & Evil but we turn our noses up at those because we deem those to look like kid's game just because of the graphical style that is being used. We believe that just because a game uses foul language, blood, and let's you do anything you want, it's a revolutinary title which is just utter bullshit. I'm tired of the cookie-cutter action games....you're one guy or thug in this huge city and you can do anything you want thing is getting old. I'm waiting for the day when GTA will be received just as well as Doom 3 was, with a collective MEH! The graphics of Doom 3 were great but nothing was added to the FPS genre and the story quite frankly sucked. The one good thing about the GTA games is that the story has always been solid but I don't know how many times you can rehash the missions in that type of game before it loses it's luster. Another thing that bothers me with GTA is the fact that no matter what crime you commit, it's very easy for you to get away and most of the time, the cops just stop looking for you. Everyone likes to claim how GTA is so realistic in how you can do anything you want but the realism just isn't there folks. If you want realistic than how about everytime you go to jack a car then there's a good chance the door is locked or said driver might have a gun in the glove compartment. How about the cops aren't going to just forget about you just because you drove around the city avoiding them for five minutes. The list goes on and on...and yes I know it's a game and it should be fun but I just think there are more ways of creating a fun game then having the ability to steal and kill people at random.

I loved the GTA games and they were groundbreaking but I think it's time to move on, get creative, and do something else. I believe that we as gamers have a responsibility to speak with our wallets and show these companies that they can't just shovel us the same games with a different story, more foul language, and more blood. We need them to know that we want something original, tasteful, but still made for adults. I wouldn't be as outraged by this if it was just GTA and then several other original game ideas on the store shelves but all I see for the most part, is GTA along with several GTA wanna-be's, each more over the top than the last. This shit must stop! You are going to blame the game companies for this but I won't, I blame you the gamer and your fellow casual brethren. As long as we keep putting dollars in their pockets for this crap then they are going to continually give it to us. You've already killed two genres that I loved, adventure and flight sims because they just weren't bloody enough or they were too "kid-friendly" or maybe it's because those games actually required you to f'n think. I'm tired of these games that basically hold your hand and tell you exactly where to go and what to do. Back when I first started gaming, we were given maps and a nice thick manual with our games so that we could use those to help us through the game instead of the game itself telling us exactly where to go or what to do. How many criminals do you know that have a GPS tracker???

Maybe there should be a sequel to GTA someday but I think they should seriously think about putting it on a hiatus for a little while and try to come up with something new. Rockstar is one of the most groundbreaking developers and it would a shame to see them gone down in flames because they rode one franchise a little too long.

Go ahead flame me, I don't care......

-Brad