It's always amusing to see GTA make international headlines related to topics which otherwise have no relation to video games.
While this usually involves people driving irresponsibly and news agencies referring to the event as "GTA in real life", or some new controversy spawning a campaign to have the games banned, today we're bringing a completely new and absurd piece of news.
If any of you have been following world news recently, you might have heard of a short-lived but bloody and disruptive coup attempt in Turkey. A rogue element of the Turkish military apparently attempted to wrestle power from the current prime minister, however the coup was quickly put down.
Unfortunately, the aftermath has drawn quite a bit of ire due to its alleged brutality. There are many controversies surrounding Turkey and many news sources report different things. We will not talk about that today though. Today, we will talk about something a bit more lighthearted (but obviously related).
On live television, a Turkish pro-government journalist found a small notebook in the trash with a set of GTA IV cheat codes listed. You know, the usual codes for weapons, ammo, health, armor and more. For some reason, the reporter then assumed it was a set of codes used by the conspirators to communicate during the coup!
This is how they communicate in secrets. Even though it says "cheats," health and gun, health and armor, weather, this were the things they used in the coup.
Naturally, the internet has latched onto this as the source of many jokes. The coup failing due to the conspirators having to go bowling with cousin Roman is the most popular one, but saying that if the aggressor tanks had went to a Paint'N'Spray they would have gotten away with it is also common.
Then again, we imagine if the rebels truly had access to virtually unlimited armor, weapons, "health" and attack-helicopters, the coup would have gone differently. We're just glad people can't summon RPGs out of the freaking ether just by calling a phone-number!
In all seriousness, the coup was a tragic event that lead to dozens of deaths and left political upheaval in its wake. However this little tidbit of lighthearted fun probably can't hurt. How a reporter at a large news agency doesn't actually know what GTA is does baffle us a bit. After all, it's not like we assume she plays, but how hasn't she even heard of it before?
Which real-life GTA news story is your favorite?
