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Whether it rubs a raw nerve or epitomizes videogame cool, there's no denying that GTA connects with America's youth, from the streets to suburbia. Take a ride with two young men as they cruise San Andreas.

One from the suburbs, the other from the ghetto, both street thugs. Brendan Golden, wide-eyed and shaggy-haired, is a junior at Langley High School in McLean, Va. It's a school of about 2,000 students, 70 percent white and 16 percent Asian, almost all headed straight to four-year colleges. The cars parked at Langley High's football field-sized lot--BMWs, Infinitis, and Benzes among them--are the makes you'd be stealing if you were playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Robert "Tito" Ortiz, who became a dad in July, is a senior at Jefferson High School in South Central Los Angeles. It's a school of about 3,800 students, 92 percent Latino and 8 percent black, where only a third of the incoming freshman class make it to graduation. Last spring, three brawls erupted there ("Brown on black! Brown on black!" one student yelled out), two of which ended in campus lockdowns.

They're playing the same game, but what they get out of it--the game experience--varies with who's sweating on the controller. And where fantasy and reality meet, two players who have never met, and never will, cross paths.

It's game time.

About Getting Even

"His mom got killed in a drive-by shooting," says Tito, hair buzzed, shoulder stooped, his low voice trailing off, skimming the words. "He's gotta get even."

Tito is of course referring to C.J., the black street thug at the heart of San Andreas.

It's nearly 9:30 p.m. in South Central Los Angeles. A school night. Sitting on the edge of his twin-sized bed, Tito, 17, just got off work. Long day at Jefferson High. Long night at Foot Locker. He's a sales clerk, clocking in at least 20 hours a week, working on weekends and a few nights during the week. His older brother, Francisco "Cisco" Ortiz, 23, is plopped down on the other twin-sized bed, palms sweaty, playing San Andreas.

Cisco and Tito, sons of Mexican immigrants, grew up on West 47th Street. "We don't say we're from L.A. We say we're from South Central," says Cisco, proudly. Though the Ortiz family--Mamá cleans houses, Papá recycles scrap metal--live in public assisted housing, their small two-bedroom apartment has two big screen TVs. There's one in the living room, with Mamá falling asleep on the couch, babysitting the neighbor's daughters. There's another in Cisco and Tito's room, with posters of TuPac Shakur and "Scarface" adorning the walls. There's no personal computer, no laptop, no Internet connection. Just a PlayStation 2, a few games, and stacks after stacks of CDs, from Biggie to Mos Def.

"It's a game, just a game, right?" says Tito, jumping off the bed, now sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor. "But at the same time, it's more than that. There's reality to it."

Isn't it any wonder, he asks, that most of the characters in San Andreas--the gangmembers, the corrupt cops--are blacks and Latinos? No surprise that you don't see a white person in the 'hood, he says, either in the South Central of the game or the South Central he lives in.

"Even down to the choppy Spanglish, the 'Horale, homes,' that some of the gangsters say," Tito goes on, " it's all realistic...."

Cisco, a pharmacy technician who recently lost his job, cuts Tito off.

"The game's violent, yeah. It's a dangerous, yeah. It's a stereotype, yeah," says Cisco, staring straight at the TV screen. Finally, Cisco hands Tito the controller.

"Respect. San Andreas is about respect," says Tito, still sitting on the carpeted floor, way too close to the TV screen. "When you start out, they dawg you, they rag on your tattooes, they hate on your clothes. That's the way it is in real life. But you can change all of that in the game."

Connecting with the 'Hood

Forget that it's a humid, sticky, sunny afternoon in peaceful, quiet, dull suburban McLean, Virginia. That's outside. Inside is a different story. It's 10:29 a.m. in loud, foul-mouthed, exciting San Andreas, and Brendan is driving around aimlessly in Las Colinas. Right now, he's stealing a car. First a car named "Willard," low score in sex appeal, high score in squeaking. Then a car named "Cheetah." Followed by a car named "Flash," dark-colored, close to the ground and, yes, flashy.

"There's so much you can do in San Andreas. So much...It kinda never ends," says Brendan, sitting on the edge of his twin-sized bed, hands on a controller, eyes fixed on the TV screen. His friend Cyrus Movaghari (everyone calls him "Cy") lounges on the computer chair, snacking on Chips Ahoy!, looking a little bored. They're chilling out in Brendan's bedroom, a pad with no less than seven posters of the rock band Motley Crue, in a palatial three-story, three-bedroom home--Mom works in investment, Dad's a lawyer--that goes up a hill in McLean.

Brendan, who is white, and Cy, who is Persian American, are 16-year-old juniors at Langley High School, the kind of well-to-do, over-achieving sanctuary of high AP and SAT scores that also offers every possible sport, from gymnastics to field hockey, to student athletes. Cy, who's the vice president for the Class of 2007, is quick to describe Langley High as not being "too far off from that high school in 'The O.C.'--but not with that many hot chicks."

"You hear all the preps at school saying that Langley is like 'The O.C.,'" says Brendan, who, like Tito, works at least 20 hours a week--as a courtesy clerk at the nearby Safeway. He's sitting on an ottoman, watching Cy play the game.

"But whether I want to be a gangster in San Andreas or a druggie on 'The O.C.,' it's all about what's hot out there," he goes on. "People want something to hold onto. People want something to connect to."

Street Life?

Rockstar Games, the publisher of the juggernaut GTA series, has repeatedly said that San Andreas "speaks for itself." Then what is it saying?

To Brendan, San Andreas is nothing more than a fantastical sandbox, a way out of the suburbs, virtual escapism at its best. But to Tito, San Andreas is akin to a distorted carnival mirror, an exaggerated yet still realistic version of his everyday life.

Tito is sure that San Andreas was designed by "gringos." "Don't we gotta be some sort of gang-bangin', PCP-sellin' Mexicans who like to shoot? Isn't that what people think?" he asks. Brendan thinks that a "diverse group of guys, blacks and whites and Latinos" ("and some girls," he adds) created San Andreas.

With the help of tattoo artist Mister Cartoon, screenwriter DJ Pooh, and rap photographer Estevan Oriol, all of them based in Los Angeles, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was developed by Rockstar North, based in Scotland.

A version of this story originally ran in the Washington Post.

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