GTA IV is all over the news because you can:

• Drive Drunk
• Shoot Cops
• Score with Women
• Go to strip clubs
• Cause complete chaos and have the cops forget about you a few minutes later
• Of course, steal cars
• And, hit monstrous jumps

There are a bunch of groups that are going after the game, like MADD, who has turned from an anti drunk-driving group into a prohibitionist group trying to get alcohol banned again. Good luck with that.

There's also other people addressing the violence.

Any of those things I mentioned above, you would not be able to survive in real life. It's what makes it a game. In other games I've also ran through burning buildings and lived to tell about it, or have taken thousands of bullets and all I have to do is find cover and I'm fine. One time in GTA IV I drove my car off of a 80 foot drop straight down. The car flipped numerous times and wound up hitting a pole straight on. I didn't even lose any health.

People need to lighten up, but damn that game's fun. And I wasn't driving like a maniac after I played for a few hours. I just drive the way I normally do. In fact, I have a difficult time "escaping" reality in that I don't just go running over pedestrians or shooting people. I try to find one car and stick with it as long as I can. I don't even like to get into accidents where all I do is side swipe someone. Sometimes you can't help it though and it will turn out to be some hilarious death of some poor sucker who just happened to be between your car and some pole or wall at the most inopportune of times.

It is soulless fun and it takes some really screwed up minds to come away affected by it, more than just dreaming about it. I've played Railroads! for hours, which is the least violent game ever, and I've dreamed about it. If you have no imagination, then you obviously can't think this kind of stuff up to keep your idle mind entertained. If you have video games, you don't need an imagination to have fun (unless they're the really old games that expected you to still use your imagination). However, if you look at games as *practice*, then you're screwed up.