Degenatron

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A billboard advertising of the Degenatron seen in Vice City, circa 1986.^[1]

The Degenatron is a fictional games console. It was first mentioned in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and again in its sequel Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

1 Features
2 Parody
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Features

The Degenatron is mentioned often on Vice City's radio stations. Several facts can be gathered from the numerous advertisements heard on the radio.

The graphics seem to be limited to green dots and red squares. However, the Degenatron arcade cabinets found in Vice City also display blue squares.
It is praised for bringing arcade realism to the living room, notably by taking quarters and having "a strange, sweaty man come by to empty the machine on Fridays."
It plays three "amazing" games:
- Defender of the Faith, where "you save the green dots with your fantastic flying red square!" It is suggested to be a parody of Defender.
- Monkey's Paradise, where "you swing from green dot to green dot with your red square monkey!" The game has a Pitfall!-like gameplay.
- Penetrator, where "you smash the green dots deep inside the mysterious red square!" A game in the style of Tempest.

In Vice City, a Degenatron arcade cabinet can be found inside the Kaufman Cabs taxicab company building, and another one in the Little Haiti Well-Stacked Pizza restaurant. The Degenatron game console, however, is never seen. It is worth noting that an unnamed game console can be found in (and stolen from) most houses of San Andreas.


Screenshot of Defender of the Faith.^[2]	Screenshot of Monkey's Paradise.^[2]	Screenshot of Penetrator.^[2]

The Degenatron's successor is the Exsorbeo system seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a phallic-shaped parody of the original Game Boy that emphasizes its single-player gaming capabilities. Each of its games are sexual euphemisms, some of them parodies of games popular on the Game Boy during that time period such as Missile Command and Mortal Kombat.^[3]

[edit] Parody

A Degenatron arcade cabinet beside a Pogo the Monkey (better known in Grand Theft Auto III) arcade cabinet.^[1]

Vice City is set in the 1980s, loosely around the time of the Golden Age of Arcade Games. The Degenatron is a parody of early 1980s games consoles such as the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision, and the games it plays are inspired by real games of that era.

The Degenatron is also used to mock people who accuse video games of "corrupting children". The advertisements target disaffected children who resent their parents' suggestions to take up wholesome activities like reading or playing outside, and at the end of the commercial kids shout proudly "I'll never go to school again!" The name "Degenatron" itself parodies those who believe that video games are damaging to children's physical fitness, social skills, and morality. Jan Brown, a guest on Vice City's VCPR, lashes out at the console for being a bad influence on her children – she was oblivious to her own lack of parenting skills, which included rewarding one of her kids for killing a mailman and getting them to beat up their father when he cheats on her. In San Andreas, Marvin Trill, a conspiracy theorist on WCTR, accuses the console of implanting subliminal messages in the minds of people as part of a communist plot.

It's no coincidence that the Grand Theft Auto series has been a particular target for this kind of accusations. Critics accuse it of glorifying violence^[4], of encouraging the murder of police officers^[5], and even of teaching kids to use a sniper rifle^[6].