Sure, it's popular, but there's dozens of games out there now that allow you to drive around a huge world and kill people.

sure it was bound to happen, but who was there to step in and MAKE it happen?
well when video games first started, there was bound to be a game where you play as a character attacking other characters. It just happened to be a plumber man and a mushroom he was attacking. just because they use odd characters, doesn't mean it wasn't bound to happen. the basic idea of the game is not that big of an idea when video games first came out. now if GTA was an electrician and he was smoking frogs and using leaves to heal his life and stealing clouds, it would still be the same idea. if it wern't for the characters, mario isn't that big of a jump in the gaming world back in the day. Yes, mario was the first of it's kind, but so is GTA. plus GTA gives you ALOT more stuff to do then just steal cars and kill people. taxi missions, fire trucks, pizza dilivery, firefighters, races, car collecting, and more. Mario offers....killing mushroom and turtles and avoiding fire balls and hoping over pits and riding a dinosaur...is there somthing I'm missing?

Yeah, you're pretty much missing everything. There were plenty of games before Mario involving characters attacking things, such as the arcade Mario Bros, which never became really popular. So there goes your 'good characters' theory. Super Mario Bros. is a game with unbelievable never-fading reply value, music, and awesomely simplistic graphics and gameplay that keep everyone coming back. The GTA series is great, and I'm aware of the fact that there's more to do than drive and kill, as I've beaten GTA:SA. But as for GTA being the first of its kind, well, it's not. :\ Every game in the Mario series is a gem, and I can play each title over and over until I grow old. GTA games last me for about 2 months and then I never want to touch them again.

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree, but I think I'm just gonna go ahead and end this now. I don't think either of us are going to budge from our point of view so let's agree to disagree

agreed

If I were to represent the situation visually, I would do it like this:

With me representing Jared, obviously.

There should be two Jareds, one for each of you

Also, two horses, one for mario and the other for CJ.

speaking of beating a dead horse......

I like that game. Not as good as Double Dash but its the best I can do