Doesn't the game clearly show how drunk driving is a bad idea? I would think they would be happy about it.

I'm not happy my copy of GTA4 has fallen victim to the Freezing problem many of them have. Both PS3 and 360 versions are screwing up in mass!

They are cool with carjacking though.

If I worked at Rockstar games, I would make a list of prominent "anti-" groups, and be sure to incorporate whatever those groups are against in the next GTA, and watch the millions roll in. I initially though the same thing as "B," that GTA drunk driving illustrates the dangers of doing it in real life. But who am I kidding--it's laugh-out-loud fun.

Actually you don't HAVE to drive drunk in GTA IV. I tried driving drunk in the game and realized it was just too crazy so now I just call Nico's cousin's taxi service and free ride home. Or you just hail a regular cab and pay. I really wish people would actually look into things before they complained.

These pressure-groups just don't get it, do they?

I'll bet Bobby Goldsboro would go multi-multi platinum with his next album, if he put a "Parental Advisory:- Explicit Lyrics" label on it....

"I'm not going to just F*ing kill you, I'm going to cut your face off and hang it on my wall so I can see it and remind myself what a Lieing, traitorous bastard looks like"

Not a word for word quote, but close enough. Pretty sure driving drunk is the least of this games problems.

Much like real life though, one can choose to drive drunk or you can get in a Taxi and take the safe, responsible route home.

BREAKING NEWS!
Glock GmbH is suing Rockstar for falsley claiming their gun has an "unlimited ammo" feature.
More as this story develops...

@B: I agree, the game seems to highlight quite specifically the difficulty one faces when seriously drunk and what terrible things can happen when you get behind the wheel of a car.

How many people do random shootings kill? Muggings? Car vs. pedestrian accidents?

Sorry MADD, while I do applaud your message, the dozens of other offenses this game lets you commit puts drunk driving way down the list of deaths.

Oh they're always finding something to be MADD about.

Step up the rating on the game? How about they just mail letters to the parents of every kid under 18 to warn them to avoid the hassle to everyone else.

Been playing GTA4 nonstop since Tuesday, and I've been drunk a few times now. It does give you a very realistic feeling of being hammered. Like not just-had-a-few but drank-everything-in-the-bar wasted. Just walking in a straight line is impossible. I think the game does a GREAT job at illustrating what happens when you drive drunk, no matter how straight you try to drive you'll end up swerving around, and eventually you'll crash. Plus if the cops see you get into a car while drunk they will chase you. You quickly realize that it is definitely worth it to call a cab.

I think that part of the game is actually GOOD for kids to play, and MADD should push to let kids try it out to teach them some important lessons.

Sorry, but placing the blame on video games doesn't reverse shitty parenting. Teach your children the difference from right and wrong and they won't confuse a video game with real life.

@diskreet: Bingo.

Now I'm going to play this game, right now.

Then, after that, I'll carjack my own mother.

OMG! Mario made me eat aminita muscaria mushrooms, And I thought I was Huge, and I jumped on somebodys head, then down a huge green pipe, which turns out to be a dumpster. I coulda been killed!! We gotta ban Mario! Espscially Mario cart! I dont think eating altering fungus and driving is a good idea.

Thats why i formed the D.A.D.O.S. (Dudes against driving on shrooms) We have weekly meetings, stay clear of the tea if you drove there.

Guns don't kill people, drunk driving in video games kill people!

Each year nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes, and this is why MADD is extremely disappointed bybzr's statement above. Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. MADD is calling for bzr to be reclassified as a "son of a bitch", a step up from the "repugnant asshole" status he currently is.

But seriously, nobody's going to think drunk driving in a video game is cool enough to be trivialized or replicated in real life. Hell, that video's making me dizzy already. And remember that mission in Vice City with the moonshine that's much the same thing?

Someone should sue brick makers.. I mean.. you can throw them at people.

How is this any different?

Why are they opposed to a game where everytime you drink and drive, you lose all ability to control the car, smash it up, run over a hundred pedestrians, and then either get arrested or die?

DAMM (Drunks Against Mad Mothers) calls BS on that 13,500/yr number

[www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com]

anyway, most drink driving accidents occur becuase the driver has never LEARNED how to drive drunk. GT4 is therefore providing the valuable service of a simulator.

For some reason that made me want to watch Rendezvous, so I did. I feel better now.

Living in Hollywood, I like to pull the douchebags out of their BMW M3 looking rides on GTA4.......then run them over with their own car.

It isn't that far fetched to say that MADD would possibly conceive a game in which you would drive drunk... as to teach a lesson. But when someone else does it, it's promoting driving drunk?

@Nurburgringer: It really does simulate things pretty well.

Depending on how drunk you get, the screen bounces around wildly (to the point that driving drunk in the game almost makes me naseous while sitting on my couch completely sober), the controller vibrates, all of your inputs seem to be delayed by half a second or so and it seems to intermittantly add or reduce whatever inputs you give the controller. Plus if one of Liberty City's finest sees you drunkenly stumble into your car, you instantly get a 1 star wanted level and they come after you.

I ran over many many pedestrians and rolled a pseudo Hummer H2 several times in a drunk driving rampage in that game just last night.

I get drunk at home and play Gran Turismo, just so I can say I'm drunk driving. Is MADD going to admonish me too?

I have GTA4.
Am I playing it wrong?
Because all I ever do is see if I can get the automated car wash to rip the loose bumper off my '84 Camaro.

I don't do video games (no talent/skill/coordination), but given the complete anti-Politically Correct nature of GTA4, I hope that there is at least one opportunity to rob/maim/kill some GUPPY pedestrians or drivers with rainbow-flag decals on their car...

If GLAAD can't issue a press-release of condemnation, they'll feel snubbed...

I love how GTA is always the whipping boy.

No one complained once that there was a drunk driving cheat unlocked through regular gameplay in Need for Speed High Stakes.

MADD can suck my nuts.

@charles_barrett:
Oh, and for those who do not know me, I'm as queer as a three-dollar bill...

The middle-aged drunk driver who permanently disabled my brother really did not seem like the type who would own a game console. If your kid is emulating video games, you are a moronic parent.

WAAAAAA I hate drunk driving.
WAAAAAA my kid was killed by a drunk.
WAAAAAA my husband beats me when he's drunk
WAAAAAA I want to ruin life for every video game loving man, woman and child out there.
WAAAAAA WAAAAAAA

Charles? Queer? Whoa, that's really messing with my reality. Here I thought he was just a really snappy dresser with a lisp.

I am drunk now. Thank you, cheap red wine. And soon, I hope to go play a driving simulation video game (probably Driver or Midtown Madness) I find it very entertaining, and less dangerous than the real thing.

I don't own GTA, can't really, since I don't own any consoles (just a very old and quite tired PC) but I imagine getting shitfaced and playing the "get drunk and drive and thus tick off MADD" component of said game would be extremely...frustrating.

BTW, whatever happened to SADD? Did they disband when they discovered that being a drunk driving student is pretty much de riguer these days?

"you have to take out the hookers, relentless killing and thievery"
Travis this reminds me of the old Jerry Lee Lewis press conference when he didn't have the $ to pay the IRS. Queried as to where his fortune went, The Killer replied "after the booze, the hard drugs, and the women... I pretty much squandered the rest of it.

Also, I never thought video games were the province of drunks. Maybe the group up in arms should be MASA- Mothers Against Speed Addicts.

@Yurikaze... car wash, 84 Camaro- HILARIOUS.

@Nurburgringer: That was actually a pretty good article on MADD.

I'd suggest that to anyone who doubts the integrity of these so called activist groups.

@Yurikaze: Your Camaro/carwash comment is the first thing that's really made me want to try GTA.

@Yurikaze: I'll get to GTA when I'm finished with Mass Effect's VIRTUAL ORGASMIC RAPE!

Don't the police departments go to schools and let those kids try on the drunk glasses and do stuff. I would think MADD should go after the police departments because when I had the police come around when I was in junior high or something everyone thought those glasses were cool. These so called Police Officers are showing kids that are in their early teens the cool effects of being drunk and doing regular tasks. I think we should ban all police officers from the streets until this practice has been corrected.

If the claim is drunk driving claims 13,500 lives and causes half a million injuries, then the rest are caused by lack of skill and being outright stupid, right?

MADD pisses me off. I was almost killed by a drunk-assed 20 year old idiot when I was 18, but groups like this just bug the living shit out of me.

Life is dangerous, get the fuck over it.

Sorry...I just want to repeatedly bitch-slap these idiots.

There are no drunks in Riven.

DRUNK DRIVERS AGAINST MAD MOTHERS!

@Number_Six: It just makes me want to try it more.

Alas - no PS3 or 360.

Didn't GTA3 or Vice City have this before? Because I'd swear I've played a game with a drunk driving scene before.

it'd be worse, surely if you went to a bar and afterwards drove NORMALLY. I guarantee MADD wouldn't have noticed it though.

"which would make the game socially responsible and therefore unappealing to the vast majority of Americans"

Does this mean that most Americans are not socially responsible???

Astos Green lasers rulz

They should not let anyone under 40 buy this game! I played an earlier GTA and it just made me nauseous. I must admit that I enjoyed pulling people out of their cars, but I never could figure out how to get in their cars.

This marketing strategy would make MADD happy, because it narrows Rockstar's target market to old people who get sick while playing and uh...nobody else.

On the other hand, if Rockstar could come up with a game that lets old people like me behave irresponsibly, perhaps to include a bit of sober hoonery followed by some toe to toe with the local 5 - 0, then I'm down with it.

But I digress. Kids, drunk driving is bad. Stay in school. Manual labor makes you sweat.

Back to my oatmeal. Have a good day.

@pedalfist: Then what would be the point of going to the bar and getting drunk?

@pedalfist: GTA San Andreas had several clubs and bars you could go to. You drove just fine when you left. Funny I didn't notice it at the time.

@Astos: No, video games are about escapism. You get to do things with impunity that you would never consider doing for real. If it's killing space aliens or Al-Qaeda operatives, nobody but the most extremely uptight even bat an eye. If you put it in a (barely) fictional American city, and direct the violence to your fellow Americans everybody gets their undies in a bunch. But I digress. Most Americans are at least somewhat socially responsible. Creative (destructive?) outlets like this game can help us remain that way by giving us a fairly harmless outlet for built-up tension and stress. In other words, Playing video games can be a effective means of preventing ourselves from picking up a pencil and doing a G. Gordon Liddy on the guy in the next cubicle who sings along to Barry Manilow with his headphones on, while failing to keep the beat with his foot on the divider wall.

FWIW, ditch the spam and people might talk to you...

I coulda sworn the whole burnout series was pretty close to alcohol poisoning.

What about taking a cab? It is an option on every drunk outing.

"Hey yellow car diving man!"

I always love when people complain about video games causing kids to act immorally. Where's the proof at? I've never seen one solid piece of evidence that proves their point. I've played pretty much every game in the GTA series and I have never had the compulsion to go down the street in real life murdering people, to steal cars, or drive drunk. Thank god I had decent parents which is what makes a real difference.

@TechnoDestructo: Yes, there was one mission in Vice City (one of Phil's) that involved driving him to the hospital while you were trashed.

@kingfloopy:I grew up watching Bugs Bunny and I never dropped an anvil on anybody's head. Oh, wait. I did try the rocket skates.

@TechnoDestructo: GTA Vice City had a drunk driving scene; your character was drunk on moon shine when the explosives guy accidentally blew himself up. You had to drive him to the hospital, fighting the effects of the moonshine.

@offyatindy: It's the same exact button to get in the car as to pull the people out.. that's pretty funny. ;-)

Saturday I got drunk and did the drunk driving in GTA. didn't find it too difficult, maybe they canceled each other out? What's funny is I've been the victim of drunk driving twice. Once as a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver I was messed up pretty bad. More recently in the back of a cab hit head on by a drunk driver, not hurt too bad, but had a huge knot on my forehead that turned into two massive black eyes in a few days. And yet GTA doesn't offend me...

Kill the Haitians!

MADD has a tendency to target certain industries and then try to shake them down for contributions. They are well known in the beer and wine wholesale business for making a big fuss if they don't get protection money (from what I've heard).

They've gone from social message to strongarm tactics. I'm not sure what that's supposed to accomplish. I don't thin