Where do I begin…
Its very kind of you to do something like this.
The game I want is Grand Theft Auto V - http://store.steampowered.com/app/271590/
I cannot afford this game at the moment, I’m currently in college and between the costs for that and costs of living expenses I’m generally breaking even. The GTA franchise has become my favorite over the years and holds plenty of nostalgic value to me.
I remember getting the GTA 1 + GTA: London back in 2000 or so. I had played it at my cousin’s house for a weekend straight and was completely galvanized by the fact that such a game was capable of existing. I remember going home and begging my mom to take me up to EB Games to pick the game up, only to have her refuse to buy it for me due to its high ESRB rating. To say the least I was crushed. My cousin lived too far for me to visit and play and most of my friends didn’t have the game or their mothers refused to buy it as well. It was a conundrum as old as time. Weeks went by and my lust for rabble-rousing that is GTA was growing intolerable with each passing day. I remember even playing Crazy Taxi as a substitute for GTA, needless to say it wasn’t the same (both in a good and bad way). So finally one weekend my dad dragged me along while he went to Home Depot to replace our pool liner, to my luck the next shopping center over had EB Games and at the time I had also been looking to pick up Pokemon Gold. So we stopped in and while looking around I saw they had GTA 1 + GTA: London. I was ecstatic but also let down as I expected my dad to take the same course of action as my mother had. I handed the game to my dad and he placed it on the counter, I couldn’t believe he was going to buy me it, at that point I remember wanting break down in joy and fighting with all my power to hide it. But oh, that wasn’t the end of it, the cashier looks at the game, looks at me and then tell my dad “this is a game for mature people, you know that right?”. THAT MOTHER FUCKER IS GAME-COCK-BLOCKING ME, doesn’t this asshole remember what it was like to be a kid?? At this point I feel screwed, I thought I had pulled a fast one on the old man and slipped it by him, only to have this pretentious assgrab screw me over. Surprisingly enough my father, without missing a beat, says “like I care about ratings”. The clerk was completely shot down by him and best of all, after long last, I was getting GTA. I remember walking out of the store feeling like a complete boss, like I just conquered some great feat of strength that could make even Hercules blush. To add to the situation when my dad and me got into the car her turns to me and says “wait didn’t we come here to get that ‘Pokadotmen’ game?” My high just came crashing down, would he return this game and make me get pokemon? Would he further investigate the game he almost unknowingly bought me? My mind was racing, I felt like victory was about to be snatched from me. I begrudgingly told him “… yes” and then he hits me with it “well lets buy that one too”. My patience had finally paid off and I had been rewarded with both GTA and Pokemon, two franchise that would become the foundation for me until this very day.
This ofcourse wouldn’t be the end of the journey that would be GTA, for you see not long after getting GTA my brother had driven back home to visit us for a week and had taken notice of my taste in games. So the following Christmas he sent me something special in the mail, it arrived a few weeks before and the package was left waiting for me on my bed. It was surprising that I would get a package from him, he wasn’t one to use the mail, hell I was shocked he even knew how to write an address at the time. I ripped the package open and found a copy of GTA 2 and a Christmas card. The card said “I know the first game was great but this one is THESHIT :)” (an obvious reference to the cheat code in GTA1). I can’t even remember what I got for Christmas that year or anything else from the rest of that month, I spent forever playing GTA2 and then replaying it and then just roaming/screwing around.
Time progresses and so too does life. A year or so after getting GTA2 my family relocated across the country and while things were more interesting in this seemingly new world, the lack of friends and familiarity made me entrench myself into my video games even more. My parents had decided to treat me to a PS2 right after we moved. I was so hyped for it, I felt like a rich kid who had rich kid things. The only bad part was the lack of games, I ended up getting Swing Away Golf and that was it. Lack of money and living tight after such a long move prevented us from really getting any new games. I remember spending the first few months of owning my PS2 playing PS1 games. Not long after my dad had to take a trip back to where we moved from to pick up my brother and his things and had me go with him. While we were up there we stopped by a flea market and while poking around I came across a video game vendor who had tons of game and to my surprise the guy had GTA3 sitting on the shelf and I had enough money to buy it (my grandmother had given me $70 to treat myself to something while I was visiting). I expected the same treatment from this guy that the EB Games worker gave my dad, that he would demand an adult, but I figured it was worth a try. I picked the game off the shelf and sat it right in front of him. Expecting the worst the guy looks at me and tell me “this one is so much better than the previous ones, you’ll love it!” WTF, it worked?? I paid for it and got the hell out. If only I had come here to buy GTA 1. When I finally got home I started the game up, couldn’t believe how different GTA3 was from the previous games. Up until that point I didn’t know anything about GTA3, I had expected it to be just like how GTA 1 and 2 were, boy was I wrong.
Later I ended up getting GTA: Vice City from my sister’s boyfriend who had beaten the game and was done with it. I couldn’t believe someone could beat the GTA storyline on any game and simply be done with it. Regardless it was an amazing gift that provided me countless hours of fun. Not to mention I didn’t have to jump through hoops to obtain it. At this point I was in the process of being homeschooled, my family had relocated again and it was just simpler to homeschool than attend a school for part of the year only to enroll at another school later. So most of my days practically encompassed GTA.
A year or two later me and my mom were at blockbuster, we normally went every Wednesday to return movies and rent new ones. At this point I had known San Andreas was out, I even played it at my cousin’s house. The same cousin who helped ignite my lust for all things GTA. While in blockbuster she told me to pick a few movies out to rent, I selected Galaxy Quest and Kill Bill 2. While paying for those movies my mom noticed they were selling GTA: SA at the counter and tells me “don’t you have a bunch of games like those?” she had noticed the cover art was similar to GTA 3 and Vice City. I told her I had all the previous games, she then said “if you want that game you can get it, but it might count towards your birthday” my birthday was a few weeks away and I hadn’t yet told her anything to get. I couldn’t believe how I ended up getting that game. The same parent who a few years prior refused to buy me GTA 1 is now suggesting I buy GTA: SA. I went home and to my amazement this game was massive, the world was big the storyline was long, this game alone got me through the remainder of the PS2 generation. Just going on top of that mountain in the game and riding cars and bikes off of it was well worth it.
I also got Liberty City Stores in a PSP+GTA combo. I had to work a side job spackling and standing walls, and no that isn’t a innuendo for selling my body for sex but the amount of time I spent in the bathroom playing GTA probably gave people the impression I was up-to-no-good.
Finally, the next gen had arrived. I had been in quite the bind, I had just put all my money I saved towards getting my first car but I still wanted to get into the next gen consoles, particularly for GTA4. I tried to sell everything I could spare, old games, an old computer, I was still ending up short of the needed funds. I had been talking to my brother about the upcoming games and he completely comes in like superman and saves the day. He tells me he had bought a PS4 and Xbox 360 but didn’t need both of them, he said he would sell me the Xbox for just $100 + shipping. I couldn’t believe it, not only was it a hell of a deal it also came with Halo 3 and Gears of War. It also left me enough to buy GTA 4 at launch. I remember first playing that game and thinking how amazing these graphics were, I stayed up all night playing the game and completely ignored everything. It was like manifest destiny but with video games, I had to conquer it. Then the real fun, multiplayer, holy shit.
TL;DR - Grand Theft Auto is amazing and I've played the crap out of each title I've had.
As for anything funny I'm not sure what I can say.. OH I remember once playing GTA Vice City over a neighbors house, they were friends of my parents, and I brought the game with me to play in their living room while they were all in the backyard drinking. A few of the adults were in the living room watching me play, most were in their upper 30's or so, and one asked what I was playing. I remember being a smartass to him and saying it was a "driving simulator" then I preceded to get a prostitute, whoohoo her and kill her for my cash back. The reaction from everyone in the room was priceless, one guy wanted to try playing and another went on this Jeffersonian rant about how games like this are ruining society. I also pigged out on hotwings, it was a great time.
Sorry for the long post and horrific grammar, just finish working and I'm fairly beat.
Thank you for the opportunity