Well, this is awkward.
While we admit we’ve idled away countless hours playing Grant Theft Auto V: San Andreas, just about the last thing we’d ever expect from the Rockstar Games franchise is an earnest Pride parade to come sweeping past all the malevolent action, let alone one that stands as a tribute to victims of the Pulse massacre.
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And yet, Digital Spy reports that a dedicated clan of GTA 5 enthusiasts — working in collaboration with Stockholm Pride and the Swedish advertising agency Garberg — have designed a mod that sends a garrulous Pride parade through the (extremely) mean streets of San Andreas:
How about we take this to the next level?
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The mod was partially conceived as a tribute to the many victims at Pulse, the Orlando-based gay club where dozens of innocent Americans were gunned down last month.
While we’re sure their hearts are in the right place, it’s easy to argue that Grand Theft Auto is perhaps one of the most improbable — perhaps even inadvisable — franchises to incorporate a Pride parade into its gameplay; certainly one that claiming to be a tribute to Orlando. The reason why will be stunningly obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the game’s content.
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While playing last week, we drove a truck down Verona Beach Boardwalk, mowing down dozens of beach bums, tourists, and street entertainers with three squad cars hot on our trail. That was just before we chased a Mack Truck down the freeway, crashing into innumerable commuters and mowing down loads of innocent pedestrians. Later, we decompressed by blowing up a bunch of meth-head bikers, as one does.
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Perpetrating unspeakable acts of violence is not only inevitable when going through the game, it’s the very essence of the game. It’s also one of the most entertaining aspects of the game.
Unfortunately, it won’t be long before some infernal antigay gamer proudly posts YouTube clips featuring one “protagonist” — say, hardened career criminal Michael De Santa — firing into the parade with automatic machine guns, or simply mowing down people with a stolen truck, just because they can.
Nevertheless, here’s what Christian Valtersson, president of Stockholm Pride, had to say about the mod:
The message of love and equality is always needed and we are happy that players get to host their own Los Santos Pride Parade. It has been wonderful to get to cooperate with such creative and talented people as the ones who made this idea into reality.”
So, yeah. Awkward to say the least.
Here’s a preview of the mod, currently only available for PCs and downloadable here:
Mykaels
In all fairness though, it probably is more discriminatory that we were excluded from being murdered in that game while everyone else could be murdered.
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
Well that’s nothing Black Live Matter haven’t done and all the gay blogs are sucking their asses to thank them for harming us.
LucasH
GTA 5 =/= GTA San Andreas
Captain Obvious
Honestly sounds better than what the base game does which is mock us by merging us with transgender people and hookers for a laugh. The most offensive thing of all is you can sleep with female hookers and go to a straight strip club but there are no options to see men the same way in a place modeled after Los Angeles. Makes no sense.
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou: Can you repeat that in English?
silveroracle
It’s a shame they couldn’t make the characters in the parade smile.
raywrightstone
Uh, the creators of the mod actually made it so that it’s impossible within the game for any of the characters to attack the pride parade. It was made just to throw some LGBT representation in that wasn’t there much in the original game. So I understand why people are upset but the creators confirmed that the parade is indestructible. Fire away all you want, nobody can get hurt lol.