I see, thanks…
At no point in any GTA game do you HAVE to do this. The game is set up to be as realistic and interactive as possible, so you CAN do this, if you so desire, just like you CAN go around running over random people in real life. But you don’t ever really NEED to commit spree violence in GTA - it’s a mission-based game. The fact that everyone loves running around killing people needlessly in GTA games says more about human nature than the game itself.
Except for the fact that there are some missions where the objective is to commit spree violence. All of the missions are optional, so I guess you could still say you don’t NEED to, but if you don’t, you won’t 100% complete the game.
The other thing I’ll add is to make sure you know who’s going to be paying for the games. Your son might buy them himself with his allowance or whatever other funds he has of his own, or you might be fine with buying him games (perhaps for Christmas and his birthday), or he might just nag you three times a day about how he needs the latest game, and won’t you please buy it for him. Buying the console is not the end of the money-spending, in any event.
Does your kid like fantasy, swords-and-sorcery stuff? If so, I would recommend Morrowind (a game for Xbox and PC), a very fun game – it’s been available for some time and I believe is now going for $20. As a kid, I really liked games that had replay value and that you could play for a long time (since you’re a kid, you can’t afford that many games), and Morrowind definitely qualifies.
One of the things to keep in mind about console gaming is that (in virtually all but a few cases) games drop in price very quickly compared to most any other product on the market. Expect a game to come out at about $50 and drop to $30 or $20 after awhile. Just because a game is $20 doesn’t mean it’s not good – in fact, many $20 games are around for years because they’re so popular. Of course, given how kids are, I doubt this will help – I myself had a fit at Christmastime trying to urge my mom to find a copy of the then-in-short-supply Super Mario Bros. 2.
Thanks for buying your kid the Xbox. Getting a present like that is one of the best parts of being a kid!