Grand Theft Auto IV

OK, confession: I might have to purchase GTA IV... Normally, other than Tiger Woods golf, I don't play video games. They are (1) a huge waste of time I don't have and (A) too hard for my feeble brain and hand-eye functions to master. I'd have a better chance of hitting The Player Formerly Known as Chad on a skinny post in real life than on Madden.

But GTA...

I get my kid to look up the codes that give you all the weaponry. Then I plug in the codes. I think it was GTA II where I'd get the rocket launcher, drive to the top of a parking garage and lay waste to all the police vehicles looking for me down below. What fun.

If I was feeling especially unruly, I'd simply slide on the brass knuckles and go jogging down the street punching out old women.

I never learned to play the game. What for? The beauty of GTA is in your ability to release all that latent hostility on a fantasy world. I don't know, but I'd bet the world would be a much safer place if all those with criminal intent were given copies of GTA IV.

I have malice in my heart. But only virtually.

Sometimes, I'd hijack a motorcycle and just ride. Was GTA III San Andreas? Man, I loved that one. All this great West Coast scenery. I'd get on the bike and hill-hop. You havent known virtual pleasure until you've hopped the hill bearing the HOLLYWOOD sign.

Of course, there was the lighthouse on Miami Beach in GTA II. I'd climb that puppy with a machine gun...