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.