Will the remastered Grand Theft Autos’ American satire hold up?
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/oct/18/remastered-grand-theft-auto-gta
The world’s bestselling video game series combined reverence of US cinema with satire of nihilistic capitalism. But in a post-Trump world, what does GTA have left to say?
In 2013, then-poet, now Booker prize finalist Patricia Lockwood tweeted at the Paris Review: “So is Paris any good or not” The tweet, which went viral, was funny on a number of levels, but particularly its suggestion that anyone might venture to assess the qualities of an entire city. The magazine responded in a blogpost titled The Paris Review reviews Paris (the verdict? “It’s pretty good!”), but the absurdity of the premise was acknowledged in the brisk, tongue-in-cheek appraisal. To review a shimmering city, across all its multitudinous material and social vectors – its traffic systems and sewerage networks, its job prospects and police attitudes, its air pollution and book clubs, its art galleries and vermin infestations – is obviously preposterous.