You gotta be kidding me.

Noted as the “Grand Theft Auto” for girls by its publishers, “Coolest Girl in School” lets you experience the dark side activities in high school like stealing, drugs, spreading gossips, lies, cutting classes, flirt with guys, etc. in a girl’s point of view.

A lot of violent reactions are coming out from media watchdogs. Holly Owen, the creative director for Coolest Girl in School, beieves that her game is being “unfairly demonized.”

“We have had a lot of press and, unfortunately the game has been misrepresented in some articles.” said Owen. “It is … a very tongue-in-cheek look at the perils of the quest for cool in high school.”

Female gaming expert at Concordia University Christine Daviault wasn’t really happy with her reply though:

“I just don’t think most people will see it as tongue-in-cheek. (Youth players) are at a crossroads in the formation of their personalities and a game like this basically fosters a warped idea of what constitutes success and how to get it.”

“The tween and teen girls who don’t already engage in this type of behaviour may think it’s an interesting fantasy for a short period of time, but I don’t think it’ll keep their attention for very long,” she says. “For a fantasy to be successful, it needs to make you feel good. And I think this game is too corrosive to have that effect.”

Same with Anastasia Goodstein, a noted youth media consultant:

“Coolest Girl In School sounds a lot like high school. Do girls need to play a game to remind them of high school’s depressing social hierarchy?”

W-h J: This time, I gotta agree with those experts. The difference between Grand Theft Auto and The Coolest Girl in School is that Grand Theft Auto somehow still have censorship in it by being rated by the ESRB and can still be filtered by being sold to people below 17. On the other hand, almost everyone in this planet, including a 7 year old, has a mobile phone.  In other words, this game can be played by almost anyone. Yes, even by high school girls who’re having their lunch breaks at school.

Another thing is that Grand Theft Auto may be a game of violence but at least it doesn’t say that stealing cars is ok or killing cops are cool (though you can because of the freedom given by the game). But in this mobile game, you ARE cool when you do these dark activities in school. 

There are big differences between the two games. Don’t get confused just because both are controvercially connected.  If only this game was carried in a platform and not in a mobile phone, my opinion will be slightly different. 

(Sources: Canada.com, GamePolitics)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 7:17 am and is filed under Gaming News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.