WOMEN COMMAND GRAND THEFT AUTO VICE CITY WALKTHROUGH

Top gaming walthrough site is run by women!

This year's most popular game, Grand Theft Auto Vice
City, has taken the computer gaming world by storm, allowing millions to
live out their fantasy of a 1980s Miami Vice world with Sopranos-like
intrigue. Critics have belittled this game as a simple promotion of
mindless violence that could only appeal to prepubescent teenage boys.
But it's not just teenage boys interested in this exciting game. Type
in "Vice City Walkthrough" in any top search engine such as Google.com
or Yahoo.com, and you'll find that the top Vice City site is run by ...
women!

Lisa Shea, BellaOnline.com's gaming host, has been writing about
computer games on the internet for over 10 years. Her first love was
strategy and action games, and as newer consoles and systems came out
she expanded her gaming coverage. Lisa wrote all 150-plus pages of the
BellaOnline Vice City walkthrough herself, including many hours of
photographing cars and documenting alternate paths to success. Lisa,
herself an avid fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, explains why Vice
City is not just for young boys.

"We're a generation that grew up with The Godfather and Goodfellas,"
explains Lisa, a 34 year old mother with a teenage son. "Sure, we know
that these are stereotypes - that not all Italians are mobsters. But we
also know that very few people in the medieval age were princes and
princesses. That doesn't stop us from enjoying a bit of escapist fantasy
every once in a while."

Lisa points out that, contrary to popular stereotypes of game players,
not all visitors to her site are young males out to watch bullets fly.
"Quite a large number of the emails I get about the Grand Theft Auto
series are from seniors, from housewives, from college-aged girls, from
every walk of life. The game's concept is brilliant and appeals to all
levels of players. You have a fully realized town in which to walk
around, stroll the beach, drive your fancy sports car or ride your
motorcycle through. You can have fun delivering pizzas or rescuing
people in ambulances if you want. Many people I know play the game
without harming bystanders at all - they have a 'code of honor'. Even
many real life mobsters had this same sort of code, to protect the
innocent people. In many ways, what you get out of this game is exactly
what you bring into it as a human being."

Contrary to the nay-sayers who proclaim the game is solely about
violence, Vice City does in fact teach about real life consequences.
Cause trouble by blowing up cars, and the cops start chasing you,
bringing in reinforcements. Harm a member of a local neighborhood, and
that neighborhood is likely to turn against you, harassing you any time
you get near it.

Lisa adds, "Yes, there is violence, but in that world, violence was a
means to an end, and not an end in and of itself. Just like a swordfight
was the necessary ending to any Three Musketeers story, a gun battle to
'kill the enemy' was a part of the Mob way of life."

And it's BellaOnline's Lisa Shea, one of the many women Vice City
enthusiasts, who is helping to bring this modern-day story to gamers
around the world.

Visit the BellaOnline Grand Theft Auto Walkthrough at:
http://www.bellaonline.com/gaming/strategy_lib_gtavcwalk.html