​By Aaron Matteson

There are few video games franchises that have seemingly delighted in outraging the parents and politicians of this world as much as the Grand Theft Auto series. Beginning with its very name (always a good move to just go ahead and name your product after a felony) and escalating after the smash-hit release of Grand Theft Auto III, the cop-murdering and hooker-stalking grew more graphic with every new title. But despite numerous attempts to sue the makers of the games for unleashing this corrupting content on the minds of the young, our judicial system, in a move that surely would've appalled all of the Founding Fathers except for Ben Franklin (whose life we imagine was something like a 1770's Rockstar game), have defended all this immorality under the Freedom of Speech.

Learning from this game is the nightmare that so many parents awake from in the middle of the night, their sheets drenched in sweat and their heads filled with images of their children firing submachine guns from motorcycles. But even from this gory and sadistic source, we, the gaming community, can find something valuable. Like the following lessons:

In the GTA franchise, the player often manages to maneuver their avatar into tough situations. From simple hit-and-run, which might warrant a somewhat interested police tail, to mass murder and an ensuing full-scale army deployment complete with choppers and tanks, you get into some pretty intense spots.

But as with many troubles, personal and legal: once the chase has ended, whether you've landed yourself in cuffs at the precinct or you've driven your stolen ride into Liberty City's equivalent of the East River, things blow over eventually. You end up back on the streets, perhaps with a court-ordered fine to appease the victims of your crimes. All your precious weapons will be taken away. But in the end, no matter how serious the demise, with the right attitude like a gun-toting phoenix you will rise again.

GTA has been widely praised for popularizing the sandbox style of play that many games have since attempted to emulate. There are many upsides to this: the thrill of not being forced to complete objectives on the game's timetable, the joy of exploring a vast map on your own terms, the general feeling of autonomy.

But for all the fun that carjacking and civilian-bludgeoning the first twenty hours, the free-roam play becomes - dare we say it? - kind of boring.

If you had travelled back in time to when we were twelve and told us all the details of GTA, all the stupid and glorious miscreant possibilities there are scattered throughout these games, we'd have gladly sworn that we would never play any other game. But just like anything else, too much of a good thing gets monotonous. For the same reason that millionaires aren't always happy and even wildly attractive people fall out of love with each other, there comes a day when you tire of virtual prostitute murder.

There's a reason there is no Dean's List video game equivalent of GTA (perhaps it would be called GPA) where you journey through the different echelons of higher learning, racking up your professors' commendations and slaving away dutifully at an internship, your hard work and integrity eventually paying off with a salaried position.

Everybody, secretly, wants to be that asshole on the evening news.

But there's another side to this last lesson that is equally as important, especially for the would-be moral crusaders who have GTA-style video games in their sights. Yes, the character you control is often allowed, even encouraged, to do terrible things in the Grand Theft Auto series. And yes, we'll even admit that there have been isolated instances of people influenced by Grand Theft Auto acting out destructive or violent urges.

But anything can inspire some disturbed people to commit violence (Domino Pizza's 1989 "Noid" hostage situation comes to mind). That said, there has been no wave of crime, no spike in Molotov cocktailings in urban areas, no sign that playing this particular game has corrupted a giant swath of American youth. We made it, Mrs. Gore and Mr. Lieberman! We played Grand Theft Auto and we're not sociopaths! We successfully distinguished between reality and pretend. What's our prize?

We hope it's a rocket launcher.

Thanks, Vice City. Sometimes we forget about the paradox of that magical, idiotic decade.