Game Studies Proposal

I had planned on doing a creative piece for my final project. I was going to use the idea that a classmate suggested to me and make a comic. I was thinking of making a short comic book that would tell a story about something that happened to me while I was playing a video game. Instead of sitting there and drawing out the characters from the game I thought it would be cooler, as well as easier and less time consuming, to draw my friends in the place of the video game characters. As a way to add a little humor to the comic I was going to draw my friends in what is called a “chibi” style of drawing. This will make them look goofy and disproportioned. In addition to making them look funny I thought I should give invert all but one of their sexes. That is just something that I enjoy doing when I depict my friends in drawings. I am still deciding on what game and what video game moment to draw. I am debating between Kingdom Hearts, Halo 2 and Gears of Wars. I went with old games because I have had more time to completely play through and unlock everything and they were out when I was younger and that was when my friends did dumb stuff around me.

Samurai Warriors Review

I made the decision to do my game review on Samurai Warriors. When I first started playing this game it was very hard to not notice how much Samurai Warriors had in common with Dynasty Warriors. The graphics that was used in Samurai Warriors was pretty good for the time that that the game came out. Though there were a few rendering issues that bugged me. The game play for this game is awesome, there was not too much that I could complain about when it came to game play. The biggest issue of this video game is the game’s logic, the logic used in this game is completely off and make no sense at all.
First off I want to go over the good graphics of this game. Samurai Warriors is a five year old game. So keeping that in mind the character design and game rendering was really good. The physics of the game worked out well also. For example hair and clothing moved in ways that would be expected. One of the best parts about the game rendering was that there were not any characters that had hair that would go through their hand when they tried to scratch their head. There happened to be two small, but noticeable, problems with the graphics and maybe one issue that was just the game artist being creative. The first issue is with the way the horses in the game run. They take off running just fine but when you jump off or make them stop, their hind legs slide out and forward in such a way that is completely unrealistic and would cause a real horse’s legs to break. Another issue that bothered me was some of the character’s eyes. A few of the character’s eyes did not move at all. Their eyes would stay fixed on one thing and not move at all even if the character turn their head or blink. I found that to be just a little creepy. The last thing that I noticed may not really be an issue, maybe the artist did it on purpose, but there are red horses in the game. I mean like really red, not that sandy brown color that looks slightly red. These horses are like Crayola crayon red, but there are also normal colored horses and these same red horses are in Dynasty Warriors as well. At first I thought I it was my television so I tried other TVs and played the game at a more than one friend’s home, so maybe the game artist got creative I am not sure but it bugged me.
When taking in account the game play there is no real difference between Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors. One really annoying part of the game play is how the characters will repeat the same lines over and over again. It gets really frustrating after a while but besides that the game play is pretty solid. The object of the game is complete the story of a samurai that is fighting for a certain army. The player can pick one of the game characters or make their own samurai. If the player creates their own character then they must go through training to become a samurai; samurai training takes a year, in the game’s time, to complete. In training the player will practice skills that the game feel is important for you to know even though you do not use them unless you are trying to join an army. You are graded on how well you do during the exercises but the game does not do a good job of telling you what it want done and how they want it done, so you may have to try a few parts over. After completing the training the player gets to pick what army they want to try and join. In order to join an army you must pass two tests, if you do not gain at least 100 points then you fail and if you fail you cannot retry that army’s test. There is also a Survival Mode where the player can either try to make to a specific spot on a hidden map in a certain amount of time. If they make it to the spot then they get to fight a random character from the game. Along the way the player must avoid traps and fight enemy forces. The other option in the Survival Mode is to explore the basement of a castle and fight a random character. There is a Challenge Mode where the player can work on their skills like killing people while riding a horse or deflecting arrows with their weapon. In the Versus Mode two players can either fight against each other or fight together and destroy the enemy. In the Free Mode the player can pick a character they want to use and pick which battle they want to fight in. All of the game modes follow the same basic game mechanics. The fighting in this game is really easy and is not much more than dodging and mashing the attack buttons, but it is time consuming and fun.
The only serious problem that I could find with this game was the logic. As I mentioned in a previous paragraph if the player creates a character they must go through training. Well you can completely fail every part of training and still qualify to become a samurai and all you have to do is pass the two tests that the army you chose to join gives you. However you must pass with at least 100 points to join someone’s army. So you can flunk most things as long as you pass the things that matter (kind of like college). A bigger issue can be found in the Free Mode of the game. Since you can pick a character and a battle instead of following the story line of the game, this means you can play as a character from one army but fight on the side of a different army. If you do this and happen to pick a battle where the character you selected is fighting against the army you are fighting for there will be two of your character. That is bad enough but it gets worst. You can actually kill the other you, which would be good because they are the enemy so your team will win but at the same time they are you. Since you killed yourself while you were fighting for someone else the first thing that happens is you win, you defeated the enemy. They give you your rewards and let you save, then you lose and the “Game Over” screen pops up. So you win and you lose, because you killed the enemy but you died because the enemy was the character that you were using at the time that you killed you.
Samurai Warriors is an overall good game, it does seem like they just took Dynasty Warriors, changed the name and added a new line up of characters. The game play is solid and will keep you entertained for at least for a little while. Graphics are great, at times creepy, given how old the game happens to be. However the logic of the game is horrible and would make my Philosophy professor slap the game’s programmer repeatedly. Besides that the game is good and should totally be at least rented for a few days I give it a strong 3.58 out of 5.

IGS 150-170

I am not completely sure if Dr. Betajames wanted us to post a blog for this reading or not, so I am going to assume that he did and post one anyway. After reading the last chapter of the “An Introduction to Game Studies” text that was assigned for my class I find myself a little lost. The chapter went over picking a topic for a Games Studies project and performing research on that topic. I found it to be pretty helpful but at the same time it caused me to wonder what I was going to do my project over. The chapter pointed out some basic guidelines for picking a topic. I have done research projects before and find myself overwhelmed. I think it is because I pick to broad of a topic, like when I was in high school and thought I could successfully do a five page research paper over the entire Final Fantasy franchise. That paper started to get to long and confusing so I cropped it down to just Final Fantasy VII, ah good times.
I think I am going to draw from my love of art or maybe my eerie and obsessive interest with the human mind and thought process. Pulling from one of the aforementioned fascinations I was maybe going to look at why people relate so deeply with a game character or possibly public view of art in video games. This is all assuming I understand what it is that is expected of me for this assignment, I am not sure if I am on the right track. One really stupefying thing I learned about from reading the chapter is the Hermeneutic circle! I love the entire concept of this thing it shows how the research should move from theory to more observation and so on, plus it is a circle kind of like the unit circle from trigonometry (I like shapes). I am going to give this some more thought because I think I need to seriously compress the range of my two possible topics. Another thing the book mentioned was how hard it would be to research topics in Games Studies since it is still in the development stages. This chapter did help me out a lot though when it came to considering how to do my research and how to pick a topic. I know I want to go over either a topic dealing with social sciences or design and maybe pay close attention to meta-design. I find myself to be slightly more focused than what I was before.

Video games & sex, violence, etc

Video games & sex, violence, etc

For about 40 years now video games have made sure that people everywhere are entertained. Video games have always been treated as a hobby or a way of waste time. Not too many people actually think about all the hard work and creativity that goes into making video games. The home video gaming industry first got its start in 1972, when Magnavox released the Odyssey. Designed by Ralph H. Baer in 1966, The Odyssey was the first home gaming console (“Technology Review”). Thanks to this one event in history the world was significantly changed forever.
When The Odyssey was released the graphics were extremely bad. There was not a character on the screen that players controlled. There was just a little rectangle that the user would slide across and up and down the screen using the joystick. There was not any real differentiation between the games. Even though The Odyssey did not do too well and the future of home gaming looked like a failed venture. In 1977 Atari launched the 2600; companies like Atari were what help keep video games from falling out of existence. Not too long after the Atari 2600 other game consoles started to be produced by companies like Sega and Nintendo. With all of these home consoles being made the market needed game designers to make the games for these machines.
As time went on video games and the art that was used in the creation of video games became better defined. The images became clearer and people were able to easily match the image of a specific character to the title of a certain game. Sadly most people did not think of this turn of events as a good thing. Video games have been going through the same struggles as any other art form. It seems they are slowly becoming acknowledged as a form of media entertainment, and not being looked at as just a toy. However being recognized by the public is in a sense a double edged sword. The recognition of their art and hard work is something that all game developers want. Unfortunately the more the masses are aware of your presence the harder they try to keep you down.
Video games have been blamed for many things; people say they affect how children learn causing them to not do as well in school. Psychologists also say that Games make kids violent and causes depression that will later lead to suicide. One of the latest things video games have been accused of is selling sex. This all seems to be just another ploy to keep the gaming community down. The individuals who claim that video games are overly sexual and forcing sexual images upon the youths of America do not even play video games and have no point of reference when they make these statements. Further proof of this is where Fox News reported that Mass Effect featured “full digital nudity and sex”. This statement that they made could not have been further from the truth. Actually the game did not show any sex and the player only would have seen a side view of the female character, this is assuming the player made it to this point in the game. This scene was not a part of the main game play, it could only be accessed if the individual playing the game made the right decisions and tried to form a romantic relationship with the female character in the game.
It is extremely rare to see any sexual images in a video game, most games the player just makes their character run around killing things and solving puzzles. There are more graphic sexual images displayed in movies than in video games but no one is trying to ban movies and keep children away from them.
Besides the selling sex issue the other thing that everyday society is accusing video games of is racism. During mid 2007 Capcom released a trailer for their upcoming horror game Resident Evil 5. The launch of this trailer caused an up roar from people across the nation. People, mainly those outside of the gaming community, called the game racist because the trailer depicted a White protagonist killing Black characters. The same people who were calling the game racist, once again, did not know anything about the series and did not research the plot of the game. If they had they would have known that the game took place in Africa and that the entire Resident Evil series centers on killing infected humans in an attempt to keep the rest of the world from becoming infected and taken over by terrorist. Society likes to pick and choose what they consider needs to be banned and kept from children. There was never uproar about the release of Resident Evil 4. In which there was another White protagonist killing Spaniards, and just like the Africans of Resident Evil 5 the Spaniards of Resident Evil 4 lived in a poor rural area.
The portions of society that do not fall into the classification of “gamers” are trying their hardest to keep video games off the market. They say that games are selling sex when they show a brief video of the side view of a naked woman, but they do not say anything about movies that show full nudity, like what was shown in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate. As long as a White video game character is not killing Black game characters then there is nothing wrong. The whole sector of “normal” adults do not know what video games are, the concept confuses them so they want to get rid of games. This is the same cycle of confused public, unjust hatred, and eventual acceptance that every media art form went through with time hopefully things will change for video games.

MMORPGs

I do not think people can be addicted to an MMORPG. I do not feel that there is anything about any form of video game that can cause addiction. I know a few people who play MMORPGs more often than should. At the very most I think someone can be obsessed with a game, but never addicted. I found the articles that we were suppose to read to be very interesting. Mainly because I have an odd interest in how humans think and why. I do not play any MMORPG because I was never able to get into them. I find them to be very boring, I do not enjoy being limited by what I can do until I get a certain amount of experience and level a certain amount of times. I just want to go forth and kill stuff, so I occupy myself with hack-and-slash, shooters, and fighting games! However I have seen some of the effects that these MMORPGs can have. I have a friend who plays World of Warcraft and another friend who plays Final Fantasy XI online.
Neither one of my two friends do anything other than play online and occasionally eat and go to the bathroom, I doubt they bathe anymore. So, I understand what Sol Invictus was saying about how time consuming these MMOs can be. I personally do not agree with the idea of paying a monthly fee to play a video game when they are usually free. That has always bugged me, when I spoke to my friends about why they pay to play, they simply said that they are paying to use the server and interact with people. I still think it is strange, since I can turn on Left 4 Dead or Call of Duty and interact with friends for free or even invite them over and we play Rock Band until four O’clock in the morning.
I am not sure but I think people play those games and take them so seriously because it is away to escape from the bleak tragedy that is everyday life. This would explain why that user got so upset when Davis Myers kept killing him and threaten his life. Most people do not like it when someone interferes with their fantasy or something that they enjoy doing. If an RPG is how they spend their free time having someone who comes and constantly destroys that could be infuriating. I just think it is a little weird to be that into a MMORPG or any video game, but I understand why someone would want to play a game they have to pay subscription for. I guess my lack interest and lack of understanding is what shaped my view of the game genre. It does not really matter to me once you go far enough to threaten someones life over a game I think you have went too far.

Game Review

I decided to do my video game review over Way of The Samurai 3. I did my review over the Xbox 360 version of the game. I was absolutely thrilled when I heard they were making a third installment of this series, I have been playing it since the first one on the Play Station 2.
For the most part the game is absolutely awesome. It follows the same concept as the previous games. The player of the game plays as a samurai and based on the choices that the player makes the outcome of the story will change. The game has not changed too much from the previous two titles of the series. The player gets to customize their character looks and name him. The customization is very limited when you first start the game, but as you accomplish certain things in the game you can unlock new clothes and things like that and the more you get unlocked the more you can pimp out your samurai.
Another cool thing the game does is give the player titles. If you end a stage after doing a certain thing the game will reward you with a title, which is a little like an accomplishment except without points or anything. For example when I first started all I did was steal vegetables from people’s gardens and when I died I had a bunch of them still on me so I unlocked the Vegetarian title, which was cool to me since I am one. Besides collecting title and unlocking new clothes the player can also pick and customize swords that they have either bought or stolen from a dead body. Just about anything in the game can be used as a weapon. My favorite weapon in the entire game is an onion. The onion has some really awesome combo attacks and can block just about any attack that your enemy may attempt to use against you. Cool weapons and titles are just part of what made me love this game so much.
The other thing that helped make this game awesome was the game play. The fighting mechanics of this game is really cool. It is not like most button masher/hack and slash games, where you run around hitting the same button over and over again. There is some type form of strategy involved, not much but enough to make me like the game. The player should not attempt to spam the “A” button through every fight, attacking an opponent while they are blocking damages your blade or onion and after so long it will break. So, the player need to find a way through their opponent’s guard, this aspect makes fighting a little less tedious. Another part of the game play is being able to be good or evil. Just like in the previous games the player could determine their fate in the game, but in this one you can pick on the weak and steal their stuff. Based on what decisions the player makes the ending of the will be different and there are over twenty different endings for this game. Between unlocking all the endings, unlocking all playable characters, finding all of the weapons and unlocking all of the clothing the game easily offers over 40 hours of game play as well as a reason to keep playing the game over and over again.
This game is really awesome and has great concept, but sadly everything about the game is not good. One of the biggest issues with this game happens to be the game design. The graphics look dated, it seems like the designers used an obsolete game engine when it came time to render the game art. Not only are the graphics a little crappy but they does this annoying lagging thing. When the characters walk in a muddy area, their foot hit the ground and then a second or two later the mud splashes up from the ground. At first I thought it was just my Xbox 360, but after playing it on other Xbox 360s (I think that is how you make that word plural) it turned out to be a rendering error. However the worst thing about the entire game was the text. The text in the game is really small and impossible to read and since you have to read everything that happens in the game this is a big problem. I can deal with bad graphics but not knowing what is going on in a story because the text is so my small is just not right. The only other annoying thing about the game is that you cannot kill people who do not have a weapon and you cannot kill children. It is hard to destroy a village and work towards reaching ultimate evil when they limit who you can kill so you have to be like really rude to them and that takes from the game play, I hate being limited. That is pretty much it for the bad stuff in the game.
It is a fun game and the player can play it over as many times as they want and still find new things. There are a bunch of interesting things that can be found or unlocked within the game. The graphics are pretty bad and hurt the game’s visual aspects. For some reason the text in the game is really hard to read, that happens to be the biggest problem in the whole game. The game limits what characters the player can kill so the player must try to invent news to be evil, or just be a good guy that is still an option, it is the player’s choice. Overall it is an awesome game if you are into the Fable type video games, if not it is a good game I would give it a 3 out 5.

Video Games & Racism, Sex, Violence, Etc.

While doing my reading for this week’s topic the article “Sex in Video Games” cites the results form a poll that was on the What They Play website. Poll was asking parents what it was that they worried that their children might being doing away from home. I found the results to be a little disturbing since “playing Grand Theft Auto” took second place, beating “drinking beer” and “watching pornography”. I do not know what it is that Grand Theft Auto has done that was so bad, that people can consider it worst than pornography and alcohol. Video games seem to draw negative publicity for everything they do. If the game is not racist, then it is selling sex, or it is too violent. There are much worst things in movies than what they depict in Grand Theft Auto or any other video game. In the few video games that do have sexual mini games within them the player never see anything. All the player is doing is pressing the buttons as they flash across the screen. People insist on blowing things out of proportion whenever video games are concerned.

Another topic that was covered in the assigned readings was racism in video games. The article “How My Opinion About Race in ‘Resident Evil 5’ Has Changed” looks at the debate that went on over Resident Evil 5, where people called the game racist because the story depicts a White character is killing Black characters. I thought it was interesting how people got so bent out of shape about this game. In the game’s description it says that it takes place in Africa and anyone who has followed the Resident Evil series know that it is the player’s job to kill the infected humans in order to save their own life. Another reason that confused me about people screaming that Resident Evil 5 was racist, I notice the author mentioned this as well, is that no one said anything about Resident Evil 4. In Resident Evil 4 the player controls another White character and is killing Spaniards who are, when one looks at the scenery in the game, living in a poor rural area just like the Africans. Then when the game came out and it turned out that the player was not killing only Africans people were ok with it. It seems that the masses are ok with killing Spaniards and Whites but not if you are only killing Africans. It appears to me that the non-gamer portion of society want to pick and choose what is racist and what is drowned in strong sexual themes. Sex is ok if it is in a movie, but a side view image of a half naked woman in a video game is going too far and it is ok to murder the poor as long as they are not Black. I feel those are some pretty twisted messages to have our children believing.

Genre and Video Games

I usually do not keep up with current events whether they have something to do with video games or not. In fact my first time hearing the term “casual game” was while I was in my English 298 class. I originally thought that it was just a term used to sort out two types of games, like “violent” and “non-violent” games, now I see that this “casual game” term is actually referring to a genre of video games. I still have no idea what a “casual game” really is and could never give an example of one. In James Portnow article “Redefining Casual for Hardcore” he refers to a few arcade games as being what is considered casual. He also states that his definition of a casual game is:
1. A game that can be played in short sessions
2. Lacking in Finality
3. Replay able

From my understanding this definition would include titles like Rock Band and Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodge Ball. This makes me wonder how closely we should follow this definition. Games like Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Tekken and Soul Calibur could fall into the category of casual games. They lack the ability to ever be finished, people can sit there and play them over and over again and it can provide quick and short gameplay sessions. However, the aforementioned games have been placed into the category of “hardcore games” by the media along with Dead or Alive.

Discrepancies like that can cause confusion for people. Some would wonder why they are being listed in one genre if they do not meet the requirements for that genre. I do not agree with the terms “casual game” and “hardcore game” they make things a little too technical and a lot more difficult than they have to be. Everything seemed to work fine when a game was classified as a fighting game or an adventure game. How many gamers actually use the terms “casual gamer”.

The invention of these terms appears to be another way to separate what people refer to as “gamers” from the rest of society. The video game genres that the video game industry has been using works just fine, what is the point of adding two more categories. I find this constant change that is being made in to video games and the entire gaming community to be very confusing and frustrating. Life is difficult enough for gamers as it is.

Game Journalism

After completing the reading assignments I found myself a little torn. I am not sure how I should word this blog, so I’ll break it into parts. First off out of all the assigned readings I enjoyed, as well as formed an opinionated response for “The New Games Journalism” by Kiero Gillen and “The Problem with Games Journalism” by Jonny Robson. Starting with Gillen’s piece, I agree that new games journalism is crappy. However, I understand why it is that way. I feel that journalist should spend the time dissecting every aspect of a game and telling us why it is the way it is. That is just me though I like to know stuff like that, can’t help it I’m just a sick individual like that.
I do as well understand that most people really do not care to know all of that. They just want to know if the game is fun, pretty and allows them to go online and beat the living shit out of people. That being said it is obvious why the journalist do not go into deep detail. Another point that Gillen made is that the worth of a game lies within the gaming experience, which I think is true. He also stated that they points that are looked at in game journalism all take place in the player’s head. Since game play is one of the things that game journalist look at, and it occurs in the mind, I see the issues he have with journalist not stating that mechanics of the game and game play.
This method of new game journalism can be looked at as the cause to why most gaming mags say Halo is a great first-person shooter, which this is a damn lie in my opinion. So, in a nutshell I agree that game journalism are bad, they are based on a popular opinion, like most game reviews. However, I understand and accept the reason why they are terrible. The majority of people want them to be simple, once gain people are the cause of widespread mediocrity.
In Robson’s article he states that, he says “writers” not “game journalists” but I’ll just call them journalist, game journalist take themselves to seriously. This I also agree with. Game journalism is not taken seriously, and the know this. So they go to the extreme to make people believe they are doing something important. This actually makes me think of the fanboy/girls. It is like they must justify their own beliefs. I recall a comment that one of our classmates left as a reply to that blog post. In that blog post I said that it does not make sense to me for them to get so upset over a game or whatever. I apply the same feelings to the journalists who bitch about not being taken seriously. Now returning to the comment that was left on my blog, our classmate stated something to the effect that what game and console a fanboy/girl play defines a part of that person’s personality. He later relates the fans adoration of their game to a Christian’s adoration of their religion. I do consent to both statements. I can see why a fanboy or game journalist will get upset about not being taken seriously. It is just my opinion that it is an extreme waste of time. When it comes to fans, journalists or religious individuals I believe arguing and bickering is just unnecessary. That is just my opinion, I think you can love something deeply and still manage to not be an annoying ass when someone else insults it. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe my peaceful nature makes me oblivious to why obsessive arguing is ok when defending what they care about. No matter how much you yell, their opinion will not change, so why bother?

Gaming Bliss

The article that stuck out the most for me was "Bastard of the Old Republic", I for one completely understand the frustration that John Walker was going through. You want to do one thing but your conscience gets in the way even though you are only playing a video game. It seems like even though it is just a video game you connect with your character. It is like you are actually in the game making these difficult decisions that will affect everyone.
I found that the bond that gamers have between them and their character can be extremely strong as if the character is an actual person. It can be so bad that some of these gamers get seriously upset when something bad happen to the video game character. One really good example is one of my friends absolutely refuse to accept the fact that Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7 died. He gets really depressed and upset when anyone mentions it, and Sephiroth was not even a playable character.
This same friend try to boycott Devil May Cry 4, because you no longer played as Dante. It makes me wonder what is it about a video game character that makes people feel such a deep bond with them? I know gamers who like a character so much they surround themselves with anything dealing with that character. My though was that since we spend all that time controlling them we sort of pick up this parent/child type bond with them. But maybe I am way off with that theory, I really can't explain why I named my dog after Soul Calibur's Nightmare. It just felt like the right thing to do at the time. I am still trying to figure out why I did that, my own actions confuse me quite often.
I would love to find out what make us feel like we are one with a character or actually in the game itself we play. Maybe the subconscious need to be a hero, or villain, cause for a unique connection between the games that we play. Psychologist already feel that the type of games that someone plays will tell a great deal about their personality.
It seems to me that when some gamers start playing a video game they really get into it. This feeling of oneness between a video game character and oneself can make us feel as it is really ourselves doing these acts of awesomeness (according to dictionary.com "awesomeness" is a word!!). This may be what fuels people passion for video games, they love the release from the real world that we so desperately need. Assuming that this why people bond with a game character then this path of subconscious thought can cause some to feel that they need to prove something. But this all is just my speculations, maybe isn't any meaning to it. Maybe melding with video game characters is just another one of those weird things that people do for no real reason, who knows humans are an enigma to me.

Rock Band: Unplugged

I really enjoy playing the Rock Band video game series, more so than the Guitar Hero games. So I was really excited about the release of Rock Band: Unplugged for the Sony Play Station Portable. Personally the thought of being able to rock hard day and night even while on the road made me like super excited. I totally went out and bought this game as soon as it came out. First I just looked at it for a really long time in awe and anticipation about the awesome power of this game. After a good hour I finally tried playing the game, and I was a little disappointed.
When playing the game I like how they changed the controls of the video game so that it would work on the PSP. Instead of the usual five notes they brought it down to four. Though I did feel a subtle craving to try to play all five notes on the PSP version of the game, I like challenges a lot. Another cool feature of the video game is how the player can switch between the instruments that they are playing. However it was a letdown that the video game is only a one player game. The success of the Rock Band series was built on how much fun it is to play with your friends. I think they could have found a way to make the video game Wi-Fi compatible. That way a group of friends could play the video game together and people have the option of picking what position in the band they want to play.
Sadly the songs in Rock Band: Unplugged are most of the songs off of the Rock Band 2 video game. But if you have a Play Station Network account you go online with your PSP and down load more songs. When playing the World Tour mode of the game the player would go about in almost the exact same way that they would in any regular rock band game. By using hand eye coordination to play the colored notes when they are on top of the bar at the bottom of the screen. One of the differences in this video game is that the part of the singer is being played the same way as all the other positions in the game. Another thing makes the game play a little different in this game is that since the player has to play the part of all the band members that means you have to cycle through the each band member’s position while playing the song. You have to play what is called a phrase for each of the band mates. A phrase is just a grouping notes that, when played correctly, will make that band mate play by himself for a set period of time. If you mess up on a phrase you they will give you another one to play until you get it right. However there is nothing making you play the phrase at that time you can skip it and come back to that band member later, this will cause that band member to go silent until you play the phrase though. The various solos that are found within some of the songs are really cool. If you mess up on them it keeps going but it does not take anything from your main score, but you will lose whatever multiplier you had accumulated. This aspect of the game is pretty fun, but if you don’t really the time, or you just suck that bad, you can go to the menu and make all the songs available on the game.
The different game modes are really cool to if you are too busy to play the World Tour mode or you just want to practice at the game. They have the option of Quick Play mode, which just let you play a song or you can create a set list. My favorite mode in the video games is the Band Survival mode. You can play as many songs as you want like but you don’t have to play phrases like you would in the World Tour portion of the game. You have to play all the positions in the game but you can play them a little bit more freely. But one must be careful when playing in this mode of the game. It is a lot easier to fail in this mode because all the notes for all of the positions are going non-stop expecting someone to play them. This is the best mode to me though I love making a really long set list and setting the game to Expert to see how long it will take me to fail.
Over all the game was really fun to play. I wish they had made it at least two players. And new songs would have been awesome as well, besides all of that the game is a lot of fun but it is not really anything new. Since I am being forced to grade a video game I would say that this one is entertaining but run of the mill, so 5 out of 10.

Resident Evil 5

I spent about 30 minutes playing Resident Evil 5 in class with a classmate. It was a little weird to get past the idea of playing video games while in class, and my professor knowing about it. But it was a lot of fun. We were playing on Mearcinaries mode, which is always fun! I got to run around as Wesker and try to find my teammate. Sadly I had no health items. But it was fun to do while in class! I can't wait until Thursday!

Art is the meaning of my life!!

Can a video game be considered art? I personally have always considered video games to be an art form. However that was the old me. A few months ago I would have express how artistic video games and video game designers are. But after reading these articles, reading the comments left on my game history essay, and a lot of soul searching all I can say is "I do not know, maybe it could be".
I have a been a fan of video games for the majority of my life, but I have been an art fan all of my life and can honestly say that art is much more important to me than video games. What I always looked at as being the artistic aspect of video games is what made me start to play them. I do still believe that there is something artistic about video games, I no longer consider it to be an art form though. After this class I am starting to view video games a little bit more as a means of entertainment and less of an art form. Actually this change in my opinion of video games scare me.
I have lost a great bit of my passion for video games. John Lanchester made a very good comparison between video games and other things that are considered to be art. Lanchester points out how things like movies and music, which are considered art, are a known medium. He also touch on how that outside of the few people who play video games, games do not exist until some kid who happens to play games go out and kill somebody. Daniel Radosh made a good reference in his article that made me believe that maybe my life is not over in his article "The Play's the Thing" when he touch on the fact Film was not art during the first 35 years of its debut. Hopefully Radosh prediction that maybe one day video games will actually be perceived as art is true. It may seem a little weird but by me being an art major this is a big deal for me. Video games loosing their standing as an art form, in my opinion, means that they have fallen to the category of things that I do not waste my time doing unless I have to.
After some hard thinking, I realized that the thing about video games I love the most is not the game play. It is the characters and the other visual aspects of the video game, as well as the story line. The reason I love Square Enix is not because their games are fun but because their games, most of them not all, are pretty. Like I said in the beginning I feel there is at least something about video games that can make them art, the story and visual design, so my love for games is not gone just severely dimmed. I no longer consider video games as something I want to do as a career I am currently at the point where video games are my means for having fun. This angers me, all of that computer science for nothing I shall go and cry now.

WhatthehelldidIread?

Well I am not too sure what it is that I read. To me it sounded like a bunch of babies either bashing a game for being pretty damn good. And if that was not what it was doing then it was uplifting, this same game that others would like to bash and acting as if it is the god of all video games.
I would like to say that I agree with what Adam Sessler said about people trying to be a little more mature. First of all Kill Zone seems to be ok, I do not know nor do I care. But I do however hate fanboys and fangirls. They are absolutely annoying in just about everything that they do. They do not know how to just like something; these people seem to have to take it to the next level and beyond. I am a serious Sony fan. But I do not hassle people for owning an XBox 360 or a Wii. I just simply say, I do not care for that system. I do not understand why people feel the need to get so bent out of shape.
It does not make any sense for people to get so upset about this that they say that people are lying or have been bribed just because a video game on the Play Station 3 system got a good game rating. I think that it is pretty stupid for people to get this worked up over something. Just because you are a fan of something and thing that you are not a fan of does something good is not a good reason for going into a blind mad rage. People really need to calm down over things. People seem to like getting unusually angry over something that is not even that big of deal in the first place.
This game is not the only thing that has came out on the Play Station 3 to get a really good review. Furthermore, there are many video games that have come out on the XBox 360 that has also gotten a very good review. Though no one looks at that, they all want to just look at the bad things about a video game and act like somebody had to pay them to say that a game is good. Like Ben Kuchera said about the gamers who act like people pay for a good review, it sounds crazy because it is.

Review Stuff

Personally I feel that a video game review is a very good way to tell people whether a game is going to be good or not. I feel that it is good only if the person who is doing the video game review is someone who actually played the game and have at least some type of knowledge about what it is they are doing and what it is that they are currently reviewing for the public. I think it is really unprofessional when a newspaper or a magazine get some random person to do the video game reviews. It should at least be somebody who actually plays video games. And have some what of an idea of what it is that they are doing.
I also feel that whoever the person doing the game review should also have actually played the game. It is a waste of time to write a review and base it completely on something that you read or heard about and not focus on the game play of the actual game it self. But that is just one of the things that bugs me. I know how much work goes in to reviewing a video game and all the time that is lost by doing so. The only other big issue that I have when it comes to video game reviews is the scoring system. The scoring system that is used to rate video games can be a very complicated and extremely annoying thing to try and deal with.
I have seen more than one point system that people use when they are reviewing vidoe games. The first one and they most common is the ten point system that most people use for their video games reviews. The other system that I have seen used is a five point system, famously used on X-Play. Now I really dislike both of the systems becase I do not want to grade a video game. I think that if you tell how good the game is athen everything will be ok. People will be able to decided whether they want to buy it or not. I know that the grading system is not aimed at someone like me who will decide whether to buy it or not based on what I think. But for people who need someone to tell them to buy it or who are buy a game for someone else. I just find it stressing.

Culture in games

Sup everybody! My favorite article and the one that found to be most interesting was “The Place of Games In Culture”. I like how this article really showed the importance of culture in video games. How different cultures are displayed in video games has always been something that I paid close attention to, I’m an artist and like details. So I look at the scenery and character design and take note of the customs that the NPCs practice in the video game. By NPC I am referring to Non-playable characters. One of the things that Daniel Johnson mentioned in his article was how the video game industry is practically dominated by America and Japan. Which is absolutely true and I am completely disappointed by this fact. People now days act like if a game was not made by an American or Japanese game development company then the game is not going to be good. With the world stuck in this type of mentality companies like Quantic Dream have no hope of ever becoming widely known outside of France. It is really sad since Japan is not doing that great with their video games anymore and America has never done a good job when it comes down to creativity and story, and now they are slacking more than ever. It seems that we have fallen into this cycle of western games that takes place in the east and eastern games that take place in the west. And to make it worst it appears that they have been made by people who have not actually been to the country they are trying to portray and the only thing that they know about the culture that they are using for the game is what they read in books or saw in movies. I guess I look for a little too much realism from the games I play as well as something new and unique. Instead of copying a culture you know nothing about or boring your consumers with the same regurgitated game concepts, why not try coming up with something a little more unique the way Nintendo did for the Legend of Zelda.

Blog assignment 0.1

Well I do not really have to muchh to say on the first chapter that we had to read for this class. I thought it was a little dry and very boring. I actually could not completely focus on it at all. I had to stop so I could play Left 4 Dead, a friend from class was suppose to play with me but she let me down, before I could finish reading the chapter. Besides I honestly do not remember much of what I read. So, I think I will focus this post on the article “Videogames or Video games -- What Are We Talking About?” First off I would like to say that I think “Video games” is a good name for it. “Digital games” sounds ok, but not as good as “Video games”. Another thing I always thought that the proper way to spell the word was with a space in between “video” and “game” , I do not see why it makes a difference in whetther there is a space or not in between the two words but I guess I am a little more lax than other people when it comes to stuff like that. When we really think about it all a video game really is, is just a game that people play that is being displayed through a form of video output. They have been called video games for decades leave it alone. Young people all feel the need to change things that are fine just the way they are. I think that people are being to technical with this concept of calling them “Digital games” there isn’t really a need for that. They can’t just change the name from video game to digital games. If that’s the case then all other games should be called analog games from now on. I do not see anyone bringing up that debate. If it is not broke why try to fix it?

First Blogger post for Eng 298

Not to sure what it is that I should say in this first post. I know it is suppose to be an introductory post for my English 298 class. Not to sure what it is that Dr. Schirmer want us to say though. So I guess I will just ramble on for a little bit. I started a twitter page today I also started this page today. Yay for me!! For the class we kinda got to make a 400 word post, not sure if that applies to this post but I will go for it anyway. So uh I like video games I think this class is going to be pretty cool. Most of my friends are giving me a hard time for having a Twitter page now. I am still trying to figure out the real purpose of a Twitter page. I can understand having one if you are somebody who works in the news industry and need a fast way to give whoever it is you work for new updates. But I can not see why anyone who does not have that type of job would even want a Twitter page. I have nothing wrong with reading an update in today's. However I am not at all interested in reading "I'm bored." or "I'm doing homework and microwaving popcorn". Facebook is so much better in my personal opinion. On Facebook you can make those same type of posts, but you can also play games, chat with your friends, watch videos as well as browse photos. That right there instantly makes Facebook like, I do not know six million times better than Twitter. But like I said that is just my opinion I'm sure there are a lot of people who feel Twitter has a purpose. I do not want to waste this entire time ranting about how much I hate Twitter. I am tired of typing though and sadly I have not hit 400 words yet. I really want to get a feel for about how long 400 words will be, from what I can see now I am going to dread having to try and think of 400 words so that I can make a point. Unfortunately I am one of those people who say what it is that they need to say in a very brief sentence, and successfully get point across. So I usually have issues when it comes to thinking of enough words to meet the quota for my english classes. Well since I have my needed 400 words I am outta here, Peace!