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!