No Muggings in New Dorp, and Game Fans Are Miffed
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By JEFF VANDAM
Published: May 13, 2007
Imagine, if you will, that you are Niko Bellic, the main character of Grand Theft Auto IV, a video game due out in October. With free rein in Liberty City, a meticulously rendered stand-in for New York, you can carjack a hot rod in Dumbo and zoom down the Manhattan Bridge at 140 miles per hour. If youre short on cash, you can mug a tourist in Times Square or stick up a group of workers on the Red Hook piers.
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Rockstar Games
In Grand Theft Auto IV, a four-borough city.
One thing you cant do, however, is cruise along Victory Boulevard. Nor are you allowed to wreak havoc in the shops of Hylan Plaza or drop a body in the wilds of Fresh Kills. For all of the games fine-tuned detail about New York, Staten Island is not among the locales where players can steal cars, crash into buildings and terrorize local residents.
That has some local gamers upset.
It makes no sense, wrote a user named KingGoonie on the discussion board Digg.com a few days ago. In the opinion of KingGoonie, the islands reputation as a haven for organized crime and under-age drinking makes it an ideal setting for game play. It is a more relevant borough then Queens and Bronx.
Players of the game, in which Niko arrives in Liberty City to steal cars, commit crimes and generally move up in the world, may recognize the familiar contours of Algonquin, which looks a lot like Manhattan, and the borough of Broker, dotted with brownstones strikingly similar to those found in Park Slope.
But even though the game includes a place remarkably like New Jersey (Alderney), there is no Staten Island-like level. The boroughs exclusion was reported in The Staten Island Advance.
According to Rockstar Games, the games maker, including Richmond County would have made for slow play.
One aspect of living in New York today is how densely populated much of the city is, said Rodney Walker, a company spokesman. While Staten Island has a lot of great architecture and more square miles than any of the other boroughs, the open spaces are kind of what weve explored in other games already. In fact, the citys largest borough, in terms of square miles, is Queens. Staten Island comes in third, after Brooklyn.
Not everyone, however, is bemoaning the exclusion of the citys most bucolic borough. The Grand Theft Auto series has been widely pilloried by parents and elected officials. The State Senate recently formed a task force on video game violence and appointed Senator Andrew Lanza, Republican of Staten Island, to lead it.
Im glad Staten Island is left out, frankly, Mr. Lanza said. Describing the game as poisonous, he reflected on the real reason his borough did not make the cut.
Perhaps its because they know Staten Island is the safest place in the entire city, he said.
