TECH CORNER

There’s a certain charm to playing an old games console. It takes you back to the heady days of blocky graphics, and shifting scenery. I had honestly forgotten about vehicles disappearing randomly in games like GTA San Andreas.

And yet those of us who remember taking it out of the case with shaky fingers, and placing it gently in the PS2 or XBox so as not to scratch it; we thought it was remarkable. And while it has noticeably aged, the game play is still as enjoyable as it always was - perhaps more so. Of course the storyline and game-play won’t be to everyone’s taste. The game has been accused of everything from stereotyping women and ethnic minorities, to promoting violence and even spawning real-life copycat incidents.

But, then great literature, too could be accused of exactly the same crime. And while I’m not for a minute suggesting that the bloody end scene in Hamlet has exact parallels to GTA, in terms of historical importance; it could be argued that it is the Hamlet of computer games.

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