Final Game Update

Well Shitty Shuttle Shervish has had a rough run, but I am happy to say that we will have a game to present on the final day. I feel kind of strange trying to write an update now, especially since we haven't met yet to determine how we will present, and everyone will know everything soon anyway. Well it has been especially tough recently because we have of course been busy with other projects and tests besides this game. But by splitting up the work we were able to find times to work on it that fit into our own unique and crazy schedules. I just hope that everyone enjoys the game, I know my boss is waiting to run over some freshmen walking in the street.

Mario Kart Wii

So I wasn't sure if we were supposed to do a blog for this week or not. I thought we were done but it is on the schedule as being homework for last week. I guess it can't hurt to do one more game review right?

But then again, it was the week before/of finals. Luckily I happened to play Mario Kart with my roommate one night.

Mario Kart is of course a classic Nintendo racing game featuring mostly Mario related characters and is known for having pretty fun and interesting tracks and items that can be used.

Let's look at what the Wii version does right. The Wiimote in a steering wheel holder makes for a fun and engaging game experience. It may bot be just like driving, but it is a lot closer than using a joystick. This version also doesn't overkill trying to be more innovative than the other entries. This may not sound like a good thing, but too many crazy items or just strange tracks could ruin the game. The original did a lot right, and what this franchise does well is to make gameplay improvements, but doesn't try to drastically reinvent a game that isn't broken.

The not so good would include a few new obnoxious courses. There are simply just some tracks that are not as fun as the others. There are also a lot of tracks that are the exact same, or at least very similar, to their older counterparts. I would prefer a few more unique tracks and maybe have some older ones in a special extra place. The more tracks the merrier.

My theory is that if a game is fun both sober and drunk it is a solid game, so this gets a well deserved 4.5 out of 5 mushrooms, mostly because I finally beat my roommate!

Batman: Arkham Asylum

So I failed my one goal for my blog, to finish this game by the end of the semester. But you know, life happened and I kept having to play other games for the blog. However, I did get some enjoyable playing time in.

In Arkham Asylum the Joker has been arrested and is transported to the prison. Harley Quinn takes control of the security system, which allows the Joker to escape. Well not escape the prison, he has far more fun plans, guiding Batman where he pleases in the prison. I do recommend playing this game so I don't want to give away too much about the plot, but I will say that there is a good reason the Joker wants to stick around in Arkham.

The game is third person over the shoulder, not my favorite, but the game is so cinematic that I can live with it.

In this game there are a variety of puzzles to figure out, but also a lot of awesome fighting. I really like the blend, because I love both puzzle and action games. Some games that try to mix the two do not blend them well, and the puzzles seem like they are there just for the sake of having a puzzle. But in this game the puzzles are incorporated into the story and sometimes you have to figure out a puzzle while fighting, or the fight becomes a puzzle in itself. Yeah most of the time I was fighting I was just button mashing, but the visuals made it feel like much more. Did I mention this game is gorgeous?

Arkham Asylum also gives Batman some cool tools to use. I must admit that this is the only Batman game that I recall every playing, but I just assume at least most of them don't have a detective mode where smaller clues become visible. Yeah that is kind of BS, but when you are in the game it makes you feel like an ace sleuth. That and some of the clues aren't that easy to find anyway. There are also a number of cool gadgets. The best way to utilize gadgets is to hand down from a statue, grab a goon, and leave him hanging in the air upside down. Well it's between that and gliding down and tackling one.

There is also a way to silently take down goons. This game does a great job of allowing the player to decide how they want to go about completing their objectives, and even how to win a fight. The game uses the security system to guide the player by blocking off certain areas at different times, but the player has great freedom in deciding how they will play the game. Do you just power through everything, running around haphazardly? Do you sneak around trying to obtain information to one up the opponents?

I think the only thing I didn't like about the game was the intro that couldn't be skipped. The first time I started playing, back before my XBOX officially died, I had to restart after a while because my console froze. It wasn't redoing the gameplay that bothered me, it was having to watch the Joker be taken through Arkam again that bugged me.


Other than that, this game is awesome gameplay wise and visually. I just hope I have time to finish it up next semester.

I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Game update 5

Just a reminder, I'm part of Team JJKJKJKK whose game is, of course, Shitty Shuttle Shervish.

So after a time of appropriately being very worried about the game, we are now on track to having a complete game to turn in during finals week. We have simplified just about every aspect of the game to make it more manageable. We will have a good representation of what our game will be like for the formal play testing.

That being said, we will still have a lot of other things to add for the finalized version on top of adjusting the game for the comments that we receive. For the final version we will continue to improve the opening, add sounds, add visual effects, and find a good way to make the obstacles generate randomly.

Quite a bit of work but very manageable.

NFL Blitz 2000

So this week being a break week I was sans a current console system almost the whole time. But thankfully I was able to dig out an N64 and a copy of Blitz 2000. Yeah I know, very fitting for Thanksgiving week.

This game is nothing like the Madden games, and thank God. Those games get really detailed and I don't really like sports games all that much. There are some basic plays to choose from, but there is a lot of room to freestyle in this game. Also, there isn't this whole lame 10 yards for a first down, try 30. This is because the plays are more dramatic and often result in lots of yardage. This game is all about excitement. And to heighten it there are only 7 players on each team. This not only makes the game more simple to control, but also allows for runners to get by defensive players a lot more ease.

But who really cares about all that? What really makes this game awesome is that you can pound your opponents, even after the play has stopped. It is really easy to vent frustration when you can jump on your opponent even after they have scored and not be penalized for it. This game is a more violent and fast paced version of football. Pretty much it takes everything boring about football and gets rid of it. They don't even do extra point field goals, you can take the automatic 1 point or go for 2 points.

The game also makes it more difficult for the team in the lead to make the games more exciting. Yes it can be frustrating when you want to destroy a friend's self-esteem, but games are more thrilling when the result is uncertain until the end.

Maybe it is just my nostalgia talking, but this game earns a solid 5 out of 5 stars for its entertainment value alone.

Game update 4? Or 3? Whatever.

So unfortunately we could not get a reschedule for our appointment with the powerhouse people last Monday and no one in our group could  make the meeting. That will be rather costly as the time we have left to get this done grows ever shorter. Hopefully we can have something substantial for the digital prototype play testing.

We did get some good feedback about our character designs. Not necessarily about the designs themselves, but people asked questions that made us think about other parts of our game.

So there isn't much to update at this point, but there should be a lot more to talk about next week.

Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

So for silly reasons I own a gamecube. I don't like it very much because the controllers were very silly and I found most of the games inferior to those of XBOX when it was actually a relevant console. But this is one of the few games that I have and got some amusement out of it. I brought this game out only because I recently watched Funny Games (the original one, maybe I'll watch the remake after we finish Shitty Shuttle Shervish so I can actually participate in making it without hating myself) so I don't feel that it is appropriate to review a game with lots of violence. Violence is not entertaining.

But back to the review. This is the sequel to the N64 game. I never played it, but thought it should be mentioned. I usually don't like sports games, unless they involve soccer, hockey, or snow sports, but the Mario sports games are usually pretty fun. This is an example of a fine Mario game. It's still golf, and golf is golf even with a giant ape. As frustrating as it can be I think I would prefer to play the Wii Sports golf game over this. The motion controller makes the gameplay more involving. Did I mention golf is pretty boring? I'm not really willing to spend much time playing a golf game where I just hit a few buttons every few minutes. At least with the Wii game there is a bit of action in between the boring bits.

There is one huge negative part to this game. It is really hard to make short puts because the way the power meter works. It involves a very quick "tap tap" but even then it can easily power over the hole. What is worse than a boring sport? A frustrating boring sport.

As much as I like playing games with friends, this is one of those games I'd rather play with just one other person or go solo. I don't have the patience to wait a long time until it is my turn. Again, golf games are fine to play, but watching them is really boring.

This game is fine all around, the courses are fun, the controls are fine except for that putting, but it isn't anything great. So for a very middle of the road game I give an average score of 2.5 stars out of 5.

Game update #3

So last week was a pretty big week for our game. After inspiring words about killing bears we decided our game would be more fun if the object was to hit things. So say goodbye to trying to avoid freshmen and hello rampage. This will truly be one Shitty Shuttle Shervish.

A few days after we decided to make this change my boss, a conservative woman in her 60s, was driving me to one of my classes and mentioned how she wished there was a 3 hour period every once in a while where you could hit all the dumb people that walk out into the road without looking. So I told her about the game and she was ever so excited to be able to play it. So we've got at least one fan!

We also met with someone at whatever that thing is called in the Powerhouse. We feel pretty good about making the game after talking with them. It will still take quite a bit of work, but just by talking with someone that really knows coding and flash we were able to simplify things a bit. This initial meeting was extremely helpful because without it we would have done a bunch of design work that would likely not be used.

Right now we are doing well on getting all the design stuff done. However, we are very worried about the digital prototype being due the Monday after break. We will hopefully meet with said Powerhouse people twice before that class, but it may not quite be enough to get a very good prototype. But we will work hard to get as much of the first draft of the game done by then as possible. We will certainly not have any sort of menu, opening animation, or sounds by then though.

A lot of work in a short amount of time, but we got this.

Battle Bears: Zombies

I could only find Battle Bears: Zombies! in the Android market. I don't know if my phone just doesn't like it, but it didn't work to well. The first time when I finally got a weapon to work it just continually shot and all I could do was aim it. The second time I couldn't even get a weapon to work at all. My phone just updated last night, so maybe it has something to do with that, but it's a Droid Incredible so it should be fine with handling anything.

Had everything worked like I assume it is supposed to I could see it providing maybe 10-15 minutes of entertainment. It is not the kind of app I would spend money on. Well to be fair I have never paid for an app and do not plan to. Also to be fair I really only like puzzle games on my phone. I only play games on it when I have to kill a few minutes and I generally like something that I can easily look away from. Obviously many people like this game, it's just not the right kind of app for me.

Benjamin Vu Questions

1) How much of a time/money investment is it to create an app like Battle Bears?
2) Why did you get into making phone apps?
3) Any new and exciting things coming from SkyVu Pictures?
4) With so many apps, how do you create an app that will be noticed?
5) With so many free apps, what makes people willing to pay for certain ones?

JJKJKJKK Game Update Take 2

Recap of idea: shuttle bus driver has to race against clock. Obstacles get in the way down McKinley. For more information see previous post.

We have narrowed down our obstacles to a more manageable number. Other than that there is not much to update on. We did complete our physical prototype and we had fun doing that. It is a pretty simple concept that at least in some way reflects what the actual gameplay will be. There is a strip of paper with 3 columns that have predetermined obstacles on them. The player must choose which column they wish to be in before pulling the paper down to reveal the next row, to see if they get time added, subtracted, or neither. The actual game will have a timer, but that is much too difficult to replicate with a physical prototype without an insane setup.

Oh we also came up with our game name: "Shitty Shuttle Shervice". Shervice may also be changed to Shervish in the future. It is also known as "JJKJKJKK's Shitty Shuttle Shervish." Say that any times fast!

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is another open world game. I have not been able to get extremely far in the story, but it is still a very fun game. Set in Africa, the expansive map offers beautiful jungles, savannas, deserts and towns with many things that are destructible. The game even offers full day and night cycles, although I don't like the long nights.

The government of the Central African country has collapsed and two factions fight for control. As the player, you can team up with the factions as you find fit. You will need many friends if you will find a way to kill the Jackal, an arms deal of near god-like power.

Let's look at what the game gets right. The map is absolutely huge and the player can navigate it as they wish. There is just something fun about tearing through an African jungle and then engaging in a gun fight. There are a wide array of weapons and vehicles, and best yet are that they degrade, making the game more realistic. Yes you can pick up a weapon from a dead enemy, but then you run the risk of the heavily used weapon jamming or overheating. There are so many ways to play this game and that really increases the groups of people that would enjoy playing this game. People can just explore, go on mad killing rampages, gain allies to help with the fighting, or try to complete every side mission and collect all of the diamonds scattered about the terrain.

Now I enjoy killing things in games, but in this game it gets to be a little much at times. Factions control checkpoints along the roads. You can kill all of the soldiers off and be on your way, but the next time you go back through the faction will have regained control of the checkpoint. When you have to pass 10 checkpoints to get to the next town, and you have to make that trip several times, it gets to be a bit much. You can, however, just drive right through, but they will still shoot at you and chase you.

This game is very fun, but some of the combat could be a little better and sometimes it just takes too long to get places. Four out of five stars.

Call of Duty World at War

In this installment of the Call of Duty franchise the player fights as a Russian soldier on the front lines in Russia and ultimately in Germany (spoiler, the Germans lose), and as an American soldier in the Pacific theater. This game added more realism to the franchise, and as I will later discuss is not always a good thing.

Call of Duty has now also done three more games (or maybe one is just about to be released?) beyond World War II, so this is the latest in the series for that war. I've barely played the modern version ones, and the campaigns seem like quite a bit of fun, but a bit is lost in the multiplayer gameplay. Or maybe it is just that I almost punched a 13-year-old over the ethics of using a heartbeat sensor. I mean really, a heartbeat sensor? Why don't we just stand ten feet from each other and just pull the trigger of whatever is in our hand?

But I digress, this game is pretty fun, although I didn't really like the Pacific campaign so much. If you have read any of my blog you know how much I enjoy shooting Nazis because they barely count as human beings. The horrible things the Japanese did to the Chinese during this time period is not nearly as big a part of our culture as the Nazis are, so I have to keep reminding myself what they did to make it all okay. But then I remember what we did to Japanese Americans during the war and then it because less fun. I know, silly mean bringing ethics into a war game, right? But speaking of which, no one warned me about the dogs in the game. The first time I played this game was during my Freshman year and I was just innocently trying to kill some people when a dog jumped on me. The screen said push the joystick in, so I did. I snapped the dog's neck. I then justifiably freaked out for a while yelling expletives because it was really graphic and I had not been prepared for that.

But minus the whole ethics and overly realistic violence, this is a fun game. I do, however, miss the African fighting from Call of Duty 2, the only other game in the series that I have ever owned. Honestly update Call of Duty 2 and I will buy that game. Fighting in France and Africa is my ideal WWII game. Perhaps this game was the real wake up call for the game designers. The series was getting stale and they needed to do something. But I do hope that they return to their roots in the future once there is something to completely overhaul the way the game is played to make another WWII game worth playing.

There are some great moments in this game, but there is enough working against it to earn 3 out of 5 stars.

Game design update.

The concept for Team JJKJKJKK is a race against the clock. Recent Ball State budget cuts have caused there to be only one shuttle driver for the entire campus. The player must zoom through their route before time runs out. It’s not all about time, though, because hitting certain obstacles reduces points.

This was our first idea and after several decent ideas we were convinced this was the game for us. We wanted to do something involving the Ball State experience. One of the main selling points for this game for me was the idea of having packs of freshmen moving haphazardly around and being the most likely to jump out in front of the bus.

The next big step for us will be the physical prototype. We can do research about what will make good obstacles and what won’t, but I think seeing people actually interact with these obstacles will be far more beneficial than just asking them. Before this we can hopefully have some of the buildings designed, because they won’t be what changes.

We really just want to make a game that is fun for Ball State students. We could try to do something more appealing to the masses, but the specificity makes it something special.

I most excited about working on the designs. I enjoy this sort of work, and this game will present some unit challenges. I am not, however, excited for the coding and actual creation of the electronic game. I’m a video person, not a coding person (we tend to not get along very well). But I’m confident I will be happy once the finished product is made, especially since it is so different from anything that I have done before.

FIFA 06: Road to FIFA World Cup

Wow, long title.

I haven’t really gotten into a sports game since NFL Blitz 2000, but I picked up FIFA 06 Road to FIFA World Cup at Dave’s Video a while back for really cheap.  Besides the players being outdated this is a fun game.

If you couldn’t tell from the background of my blog, I like soccer. I am in heaven during the World Cup, especially since it helps get through the Premier League offseason.  So I was naturally drawn to this game when I saw it for a super cheap price. Controlling the players to do just what you want is fairly difficult. But this actually makes the game play more fun by adding tension to the game. If you ever get down by a point it is never a certainty that you will be able to make up the points, the shooting is a bit too chaotic. Or maybe I am just not very good at this game, which is usually the case. This also changes the game dynamic. A strong defense is needed because the offense may not always be able to make up the difference. It is also more important to be able to often get off good shots.

Let’s talk about the not so good. The computer-controlled players on your team are pretty terrible and will do truly stupid things. Having an actual person to play co-op with helps this greatly. It is also all too easy to hit the wrong button and do something that you obviously didn’t mean to, like pass to out-of-bounds instead of a chip into the goal. This can become increasingly frustrating and lead to profanities being yelled at the TV. Remember, it is rated E for what happens IN the game, not outside of it.

There are many options for game play. You can just play a quick game or play through the whole World Cup experience. Additionally you can play with or against up to 3 other players. The player can also customize the length of the game from just a few minutes to the actual 90 minutes.

Overall it is a pretty fun game, but nothing special above any other soccer game so I give it four out of five stars or thumbs or whatever. 

Left 4 Dead

I’m sure many people have already played this game, but I am usually several years behind in video games.  Left 4 Dead is a first-person shooter/zombie video game. I usually prefer to shoot zombies, evil aliens, or Nazis so this is a game that suits me well, especially since many of the zombies have mutated to not look very human.

I don’t feel like much needs to be said about the plot. A group of 4 people who are immune to this new disease make their way through the Pennsylvania town of Fairfield. They make several escape attempts but all lead to disaster and they ultimately flee to the south, headed for the Florida Keys.  It is a pretty simple story filled with hordes of infected.

Now I am absolutely terrible at this game, mostly because I can never get the hang of the shooting mechanics, but it still is quite a bit of fun. I really enjoy the multiplayer aspect of this game. Up to four people can play offline and work together to kill things. I don’t often play video games by myself so I appreciate when games have solid multiplayer game play. I also like how the players play cooperatively. I prefer working with my friends rather than against them.

This game can get a bit intense. This is especially true when a witch is around. A witch is a female infected character that stays still and cries. But if a player disturbs it with light or loud noise it because extremely aggressive. As if hearing crying randomly is not creepy enough, the danger it represents is terrifying.

This game is not terribly long. Normally I do not like this about games, but the ability to get a group of friends together and beat it in one day, not that I personally have the patience for that, is a positive. This game also has a high enough replay value that beating it doesn’t significantly cut down on the enjoyment of popping the disc back in a few days later.

This game is a lot of fun, but the shooting mechanics could be a little better in my opinion. Therefore I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Gender bias in gaming

There is a gender bias in the video game industry. Many games are clearly marketed for males, and some for females. This does create a separation between male oriented games, which are the more “hardcore” games usually, and female oriented ones, which tend to be more casual and less competitive.

The effect of this is a separation of male and female gamers. The appearance of few female gamers causes many male gamers to feel isolated from females. The lack of overall recognition and acceptance of female gamers causes them to feel isolated from everyone.

What can be done about this? It is easy to point fingers at the game companies, but is that fair. After all, they are doing what works, what has caused ever-increasing sales.  It would help if they would start making changes and see if that causes drops in sales. But ultimately it is up to individuals making the choice of which games they wish to purchase. Perhaps as more females become part of the gaming culture game developers will see the benefit of creating games purposely geared towards both sexes.

The gaming industry is certainly not the only industry with gender bias issues. However, society is making advances in certain areas. I believe gender biases will continue to diminish, but it will be a long process.  I do also believe that games with female sex symbols will always have a market though, just not as dominant of one in the future.

Heroes of Gaia (MMORPG)

I wanted to play an MMORPG for this week because that is what we focused on last class and I have little to no experience with them. I found a free one called Heroes of Gaia. In this game you choose from one of four races: elf, human, orc, and undead. You must defend you castle from other players while trying to build up fame and a strong army. An important aspect of this game is gathering various materials like wood and gold. You can build up your castle, which can do everything from building up its defenses, allowing you to recruit new heroes (you attach units to specific heroes), and training new forces. There are also various cards which give certain bonuses.

Maybe I just have very little experience with MMORPGs, but this game is really confusing and pretty boring. It took me quite some time just to figure out how to attack soldiers to my hero so I could kill some things.  The fighting is also turn-basedish, and just really not satisfying.  You can either attack monsters to get more resources, or you can wait to get a certain amount each hour. Once I started running low on soldiers I couldn’t really do much until my resources built themselves back up. This made the game incredibly boring and kept pulling up other screens while the game was running in the background.

Lame fight

I guess I shouldn’t be expecting too much from a free game, but I was incredibly disappointed with the game play. I am quite surprised that people actually play this game. It seems like the kind of game achievers would really like, because there is a fame leader board. However, explorers would not like it because the graphics aren't spectacular and there isn’t really much to explore.

Not much to explore, just basically this over and over again

One more complaint. The chat system works where everyone can see what you type unless you set it to private or clan. That means I kept having to see annoying teens cuss at each other for tattling to the administrators.

Clearly I would not recommend this game to anyone unless you are great at multitasking and do actually entertaining things while playing. But even then, what would be the point?

I rate it 1 out of 5 stars that I only give to certain games for some reason.

VatSim: Virtual Flying World

Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network, or VatSim for short, is a simulation network that links thousands of flight simulator users in a real-time aviation system.  It is a free community-based system that allows for ace pilots and hobbyists to fly in the same virtual global system. What is remarkable is that people not only play as pilots, but they even take shifts in the air traffic control position.

Many real pilots are using it to brush up on their skills at flying in different scenarios that they do not get to experience in real life. Many fly in terrible weather to test their finesse. I know that if I am in a plane that runs into bad weather, I’d like to have a pilot that has at least virtual experience in flying in said situation.

What is sought after is realistic flying conditions for training pilots and allowing hobbyists to cost effectively live out their dreams. Some companies make money selling hardware add-ons and software packages for more realistic controls and planes, but the system itself is not for profit.

http://news.cnet.com/Into-the-wild-blue-virtual-yonder/2100-1043_3-6144347.html?tag=mncol

Gamer type

Halo: Combat Evolved

So unfortunately my XBOX is still broken, but I managed to find an old copy of the original Halo for PC. I don't think I need to do much explaining of this game, it is pretty engrained into our pop culture now. But let's break down the story elements. I'll talk about the dramatic arc and not the hero's journey because the hero's journey may be my least favorite topic to discuss because its elements are often stretched to fit certain stories so I find the whole thing useless.

Exposition: The story begins onboard The Pillar of Autumn, a human Naval space battleship. It is under attack by the Covenant, a conglomerate of aliens that like to kill stuff. Okay I'll admit it, I never really understood why the Covenant does anything, I just always figure basic good vs. evil story and move on. The hero of the story is a super-soldier known as Master Chief who escapes the ship with an AI unit named Cortana. His escape pod/ship lands on an artificial world with a strange ring above it.

Rising Action: The master chief fights on the world and ends up taking a gravity lift up to the ring. The master chief learns more about the strange ring and while on it fights a horde of parasites called the Flood, which infest living creatures. And my understanding is that the Covenant accidentally released the Flood on the ring. I guess I can just call it the Halo because obviously the big ring in the sky is the Halo of the title. Oh the ring would also cause the death of all sentient life in the Universe if it is fired.

Climax: The master chief fights his way through the Flood and the Covenant to restore the Halo's defense system.

Falling Action: Cortana figures out that activating the defense system would kill them as well. So they rig the crashed Pillar of Autumn to explode.

Denouement: The master chief escapes the ship before it explodes and heads to what we learn in the next game to be Earth.

Sometimes it becomes difficult to follow all of the story because it is too easy to get wrapped up in killing things that focusing on every detail of the cutscenes becomes difficult. Also some of the story is told while in combat, and like I can concentrate on story while being shot at.

I usually don't like games with laser guns and magic forcefields, but Halo is a fairly enjoyable game. That is, except for the Flood. It is just not a fun enemy to fight. It is rather intense and unnerving and not satisfying. This is really the only major drawback of the game for me.

As Real as Your Life

Maybe this is just an ignorant perspective from the outside, but I don't see games as all immersive as the video suggests. It could be that I am just not very good at games and have to consciously think of what buttons to push because I never play any game enough for causing an action by a button push to be natural.  I think that games could become fully immersive, but only when there is no longer a tangible controller.

When I was watching the video I had the impression that he has severe neurological disorders and unhealthy obsessive and addictive habits. If this is something that is quite commonplace with gamers someone please leave a comment saying so. I've never really spent a significant amount of time with "hardcore" gamers so I don't really know what that culture is like. If this is something that can easily happen to anyone than I can see a danger is games becoming more lifelike. Games increase in realism at a fantastic pace and soon graphics will appear quite real and I imagine eventually there will be no need for controllers. This will make becoming immersed in games much easier. However, I don't see this blurred line of reality becoming a common issue. I believe that there will always be some sort of balance keeping people grounded in reality. Perhaps I can go on a grand quest in a video game that feels very real. But as games become cheaper and faster so will travel. If I can cheaply and quickly go to a location across the world I would much rather do that than visit a simulated version in a game. This is obviously just an example of something that would help balance out and not the only thing.

Being immersed in technology doesn't necessarily mean being taken away from reality. If technology becomes good enough classes or meetings could be held without having to have a physical space to hold them. You are still receiving real, relevant information, you just aren't physically in a certain place.

Maybe it is just a strong hope, but I don't believe that a large portion of the population will be unable to differentiate between reality and video games.

Lego Harry Potter

The Lego series of movie games are a lot of fun. I haven’t gotten very far in any of them but my roommate wanted to play Lego Harry Potter. I thought it was good motivation to actually play a game since I am finding it quite difficult to find time to play games. Unfortunately I only fully completed the year one part of the game, which goes through the first four years of Harry’s education. But the structure for the first part is independent enough in the game so it counts. All of the elements are present, but the story would be extremely confusing to anyone that has not read the books or seen the movies. A lot of the story comes through in cut scenes, but they don’t have dialogue so you need to be somewhat familiar with the story already.

Dramatic arc:

Exposition: Harry lives a rough life being raised by and Aunt and Uncle. He finds out that he is a wizard and Hagrid takes him to Hogwarts.

Rising action: Harry learns all about wizardy and makes friends and enemies within the school.

Climax: Harry finds out about the Sorcerer’s Stone and mistakenly thinks Snape is behind the attempted theft of it.

Falling Action: Harry navigates the complex puzzles guarding the stone and discovers that it is actually Quirrell, the defense against the dark arts professor, who is behind the attempted thefts. He is possessed by Voldemort and attacks Harry.  In the game the player actually has to defeat him using Harry, which is different from the book/movie.

Dénouement:  Quirrell melts and ghost Voldemort tries to steal the stone from Harry who is passed out, because they both damage each other when they touch. Oh spoiler for how to beat Quirell.  Also Harry’s parents watch from a mirror and they are happy.

Formal elements:

Players: 1-2 players playing co-operatively against computer enemies and puzzles.

Objectives: The players need to navigate the levels to protect the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Procedures: Use the control to guide the characters’ paths and actions.

Rules: The game will not let you do anything that it doesn’t want you to. The constitutive is all of the formulas that allow the game to run. Implicit: don’t look up how to do everything online. Or at least try many times before giving up and cheating.

Resources: Health, money, time in some parts, spells

Conflict: Red herrings (Snape), all sorts of creatures (like a troll) and Quirell, various puzzles.

Outcome: The player figures out all of the puzzles and successfully beats the opponents or just gives up.

Boundaries: Sudden cut scenes break the personal involvement with the action.

            This game is a lot of fun and fairly simple for the most part. However, there are a few annoying bits, especially when you are a non-magical character, so I give this a 4.5 out of 5.

State of the Onion

            I don’t really have a favorite novel, but my favorite that I have read in the past year is State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy. It is a fun mystery about a White House chef taking on a world-class assassin. It falls into the category of cozy mysteries, meaning that there is not a lot of sex, language, or violence, but it is one of the most engaging examples of that subgenre. It is extremely well written and is narratively thrilling.

            The exposition introduces us to White House Assistant Chef Olivia “Ollie” Paras. She is a talented young chef who dreams of taking over the soon to be free position as Head Chef. On her way into the White House one morning a man is running around the grounds outrunning every secret service agent. Ollie does not want to get involved but knocks out the intruder with a gift for the retiring head chef, which just happened to be a frying pan.

           

            The rising action is her having to deal with the Secret Service that want her to stay out of the way, a new asshole authority figure in the White House, her Secret Service boyfriend worrying about both of their careers and her life, and another chef vying for the Head Chef position. Oh yeah, and being the only person who can identify the assassin, who still tries to kill her, and her struggle with the mystery continually dragging her back into it.

            The book leads up to a monumental ceremony of peace talks between leaders of two nations. Ollie has barely escaped major trouble with her employment and with her life on several occasions. At the ceremony she notices several suspicious people and must decide who to watch and what actions to take.

            She tries to stop the assassin, and in the mass chaos she ends up his hostage, but only because she figures out whom the assassin is pretending to be, against the lead Secret Service agent. But she is brave and makes it possible for the assassin to be no longer a threat. I don’t want to say too much because I do really recommend reading this book.

            The denouement is her trying to get back to work and sort everything out. And of course she ends up getting the position as Head Chef.

           

           

            As for the macbook box:

Exposition: looking at the outside of the box and seeing what we know is inside.

Rising Action: I guess figuring out the best way to open the box (there are oh so many ways to open a box, but in this case, just the one right way).

Climax: Opening the box, seeing what is inside.

Falling Action: Taking off any wrappers or coverings.

Denouement: Getting to use an awesome new macbook, well if there had been a new one that we actually got to play with.

           

            

Damn Birds

I have unfortunately again not had time to thoroughly play a console video game (hopefully will for next week). But I did have time to replay an Internet game called Damn Birds. In this game the player is a statue that protects itself from being pooped on by shooting birds. I just love that concept for a game, especially because the game is not gross when dealing with the excrement.

            Players: This is a single player game that interacts with the computer that presents itself as a multitude of birds of various types that randomly drop excrements as they fly across the screen. 

            Procedures:  The player uses a mouse to aim the gun and clicks to fire. Additionally they can use the tab key as well as the numeric buttons to switch between weapons if they have more than one. ‘R’ reloads and ‘P’ pauses the game.

            Rules: The operational rules are that you shoot birds to remain as clean as possible using what weaponry and ammunition you can afford. Become too dirty and you lose and must start back from the beginning. The constitutive rules are all of the formulas that determine how many points and dollars you get from killing the birds, and also how much you must pay to clean yourself off at the end of a round. The only implicit rule I am aware of is that the player only shoots birds within the game and does not try to do this in real life. But they birds would fly away from the sound of gunshots so I say good luck.

            Resources: Players are given what I will call a health bar, but it really is a bar that fills up the more substance falls onto the statue.  The player also receives money for killing birds, which they can use to clean themselves, buy new weapons, ammunition, and something called defense points, which I can’t figure out exactly how much they help, but supposedly they make a difference.

            Conflict: the conflict is between the player and the birds trying to make the statue dirty. There could also be conflict within the player if they find the game overall immature, or do not want to spend time shooting virtual birds.

            Objectives: The objective is to kill as many birds as possible to avoid becoming too dirty. As far as I know there is no way to actually beat the game and it just goes from level to level until the player is defeated or gives up.

            Boundaries: The biggest boundary from me is that when the game starts it prevents Pandora from playing, which aggravates me and I have to find an alternate source of music or just do without. It would normally seem that outside music would be a boundary, but I’m just used to it so not having it while I was just listening to it is detractive.

            Outcome: The ultimate outcome is the player loses or gives up. But it is hard to tell when that will happen. Sometimes I make it much farther than other times. The health bar is also hard to read to determine when you are about to lose.

            This game is surprisingly tough to get really far in. Either that or I am just pretty bad at it. It really isn’t a very good game, but it is fairly entertaining for a bit. The concept is better than any other part of the game.

Overall I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Games of our Lives

(ipod shuffle I won at my high school's graduation party)

            One instance where a game invades my life is Zune. The software keeps track of how many and specifically what songs I have been listening to. Sounds great, this way it can recommend artists for me based on my listening habits. But it also displays this information for everyone to see. This entices me to listen more, because I want my total play count to be higher, not that I expect anyone I know to look at the count. What I have been listening to being available to everyone as well as me sharing my laptop with other people that I DJ with makes me conscious of what I am actually listening to. Maybe I’ll listen to Justin Bieber’s latest hit through a different program so it doesn’t come up on my Zune account (hint: that was a joke).  This augmentation of my life is detractive, because it prevents me from freely listening to whatever I am in the mood for, or from sampling while looking for new music to play without worrying who the song is by because it might look funny that I was listening to that.

            Those stupid little preferred customer cards that clutter key chains also invades my real life. Whenever I shop at Marsh I scan my card and do I look to see what my total savings have been this year every time I get a receipt. Damn straight I do! It doesn’t really make me shop there more often to rack up my total, I am a bit too thrifty for that, but it redefines my shopping experience. I leave there feeling good because I have “saved” all of this money. This influences me to go back there more often than I would otherwise because my reflective experience of going to Marsh is always that much better because of this number. It enhances my life because it makes me less depressed to spend a bunch of money on groceries.

            Dating can feel like a game sometimes. You gain experience points by putting in time and effort into the relationship. Fall behind on experience points and you lose. There is also a set of rules that must be followed, and breaking them sets you back or ends the game. It is quite like playing an old Mario game, most people lose and lose and lose and eventually win or some give up. However, there are always those people that can beat the whole game in ten minutes. There may be times when it feels like this “game” detracts from life, but ultimately it enhances it.

            We definitely live in a bubble of fake bullshit. Just about every product we purchase or consume is artificial to at least some degree. We also ingest a huge amount of fake bullshit from the media on a daily basis. This usually adds confusion to individuals’ lives. Reality TV is almost never realistic but people buy into the bullshit and often have unrealistic expectations for their lives.  

This bullshit is fed by technology. Artificial products come from technology, as does media. But that has been a trend that has always existed. Read something written by Thomas Jefferson and there is a good chance it is about how newspapers are rubbish and just filled with said bullshit. Of course there are always exceptions, but I am strictly speaking overall.

Because it is fed by technology, the bubble is completely different for different groups of people depending on what technology is available to them and the presuppositions they have about said technology. But the bubble isn’t necessarily positive or negative. It is positive in that it is quite pleasant living in a bubble of blissful bullshit. But it is also negative because it still isn’t real. You can be the most powerful player on World of Warcraft (I have no clue about the mechanics of that game so I am assuming saying that made sense), but that doesn’t really mean anything, it isn’t real. It could be argued that it is real for the person experiencing it, but my view is that it very much is bullshit. I’m not against playing such games or anything like that; I am just stating that it is not reality. What is great about the bubble is that we have the ability to exit it at any moment. Many people and cultures live outside of the bubble and we could live as they do. It could also be argued that us living in this bubble are just progressing with time and those purposely not entering the bubble are the ones that are actually living in a bubble of bullshit. However, those people often have real consequences to deal with. Think of the people starving or living in conflict areas around the world. Every day brings real consequences. If the creators of Farmville decided to flood a player’s farm that is not a real consequence. It may ruin someone’s day, but ultimately that has little impact on their reality, whether they can recognize that or not.

Playing with Fire 2

What's better than a Bomberman ripoff? The sequal to a Bomberman ripoff. Playing with Fire 2 is an updated and expanded version of a simple blow up the opposition in an arena game. The only differences between this game series and Bomberman is that: this is free online, the graphics are completely different, and there are no bombs, just sticks of dynamite. This version and its precursor are single player, while the third installment is multiplayer only.

This game is painfully easy at times.  Occasionally the computer will blow itself up while you still can't reach that player. But it is also nice to play a non-stressful game every once in a while. I especially like to play this game in the time before I go to bed and at work, times where I just want to be relaxed.

There are a few annoying parts of this game. The music is redundant and incredibly annoying. Thankfully there is a button to mute music and sound effects. I never play with either of them on because it takes away the relaxing feel of the game. Besides, I prefer to add my own soundtrack. This version of the game has a lives system, meaning touching the 'blast' once won't kill the player, but it is unclear as to exactly how many times a player can do this without actually dying. It seems to most often be the third one kills, but it seems at other times to be 2,4, or even as many as 5. I much prefer a clear objective so I know exactly what I have to do. There are also four arenas to choose from, but only the traditional one (see picture) is really worth playing to me. One has an annoying line of what I will call keg powder that ignites whenever a blast touches it. Another has teleporting squares with the other having no boxes and every player starts out with the same power-ups that usually only come from items.

I would play the multiplayer version except that I like the ability to walk away or switch windows in between rounds. Actually I would love a pause button, especially since I do occasionally play this at work. The single player aspect changes game strategy because of how unintelligent the computer players are. When playing against people that fully understand the benefit of getting items I try to stay away from them and blow up as many boxes as possible for the best chance of getting items. However, since the computers frequently only get items when they happen to run into them, it is more beneficial to work your way to their  
area so you can also collect whatever the boxes they blow up reveal.

This type of game suits me well because console video games usually require at least an hour's commitment to really feel satisfied or accomplish anything. Usually I just want to play a game to relax with the option of only playing for a short amount of time. Also, with this game I can also listen to whatever music I want. With more intense games I find it more beneficial to stick with what is given to increase the dramatic feel of the game to stay more engaged.

Marble Hornets

Let me start out by saying this is a very creepy project these guys did. Its use of two accounts on youtube, twitter, and the somethingawful website made it an interactive experience. This is not just a series of videos to watch, there is more story beyond the videos that the viewer has to seek out. This makes it feel more real, increases the emotion of the story. It also adds to the character of Jay, again making it feel more personal and real.

But now lets look at the formal elements of games because interactivity does not constitute a game.
There is no way to win, a participant may have a more accurate theory about what is going on, but there are no winners and no losers.
I should be saying players because they are trying to figure out puzzles and are following the story across multiple platforms.
There is no clear objective to this "game". What are players supposed to accomplish? I guess they could gain theoretical points by the number of people they convince that this is real. But that would be a game that they made up out of this.
The only real rule is that this is all fantasy and nothing is real. Also don't contact the guy through AIM.
The resource given is people. Other players are there to discuss what is going on.
Conflict is absent from the project. Yes there is conflict within the story, but players do not compete against each other or the game.
The players' boundary is that they know only what they are given, however they must actively seek it.
The outcome is the player watches it all and keeps diving into the mystery, or they give up.
It engages the player by releasing the story bit by bit and has information available in multiple places.

This story does not meet many of the formal elements of a game. It seems more like a puzzle in that the goal is not to beat an opponent, but to find a solution. But that is also assuming that the purpose of this is to find a solution. If it is not, then it may not be beyond just a story. It is without a doubt an interactive experience, but it does not have the conflict and objectives that make a game what it is.

Just Cause 2

In Just Cause 2 agent Rico Rodriguez, or Scorpio as he is usually called, hunts down rogue agent Tom Sheldon who has stolen intelligence and millions from the Agency. Scorpio has the entire island nation of Panau to search through as well as playing with and against three rival gangs and dictator Baby Panay’s military.

Story wise this game is seriously lacking, but the concept is pretty cool and the dynamic of using and abusing the gangs helps create an overall fun game experience. Part of the goal for the game is to create chaos, and doing missions for a gang can help that become easier. With every mission the gang’s influence expands and the area in which they operate expands. Clash gang members with military and fun gun fights will ensue with possibilities for mass chaos.

If the player gets bored with doing missions there is an entire island nation to play with. The map is impressive in itself. A player can go from a city to a ski resort to jungle to a desert, all without a loading screen. However, navigating the map can become quite daunting. Thankfully there is a vast array of vehicles to use, including jets. That being said, it can still take close to five minutes to go from one corner of the map to the other even in the fastest jet. Thankfully the game includes a way of quickly navigating jungle too thick for vehicles. Scorpio can navigate using a series of grappling hooks and parachutes. It seems a little ridiculous, but try playing this game for hours every day for a week and then try to play another free world game without it. The frustration with not being able to use grappling hooks to get around is astonishing.

Part of what makes this game so much fun is the wide variety of things to do. Even after beating the game there was still so much left unaccomplished. There are many side challenges, although most of them are tough race type challenges that I did not even attempt to complete. It has nothing to do with the story or any mission but my favorite part of the game is a Lost island. Yes that capitalization is correct and yes this is about the awesome show. Flying over part of the island flying in the right direction causes your plane to crash and if you search enough you will find a hatch and I have heard that there is a smoke monster, but I could not find it.

Now for the not so good. With such a large map dying can be an issue. Some respawn  points are far away from anything including helicopters or airplanes. So much time is spent traveling in this game that sometimes I would get in a plane, get my bearings, and then go to the kitchen to grab a drink.  Ammunition can also become difficult to come across is certain areas, and if you run out you have to run away or become creative with the grappling hook. There also is not a wide variety of weapons to begin with, but I cannot imagine there being more given the scarcity of ammunition that already exists. The largest problem with the game I had was that is was 3^rd person, which I can rarely stand in a game with guns. I feel that 3^rd person shooters have more unrealistic aiming in most cases and that takes away some of the excitement of fights.

Overall this is a fun and engaging game. It is imaginative with its grappling hook and parachute usage, which it really needs with the size of the map and distance between points of interest.  It is not a good example of story telling and may become frustrating at points, but there are enough interesting things to do that breaks from missions can help ease any frustrated feelings.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Continuum of Interactivity

1: The cute kitten. The cat responds to the touch of the person and even communicates that it does not want to be touched by pushing the finger away. It is conscious of what it does and does not want.
2: Pleo the dinosaur. This toy has a number of preset emotional states, uses both vocal communication and body language as well as simulates the stages of life. The toy can even respond to touch and sound, as well as use sound to communicate what it wants. However, this is still simulated life and technology is nowhere close to fully replicating real emotion.
3: Arcade Fire's Interactive Video. Although the video only asks for input by entering an address and creating a postcard, the site takes it a step further. They create physical postcards and send them out or the band takes them on tour with them for people to view.
4: Pepsi Refresh Project site. This website categorizes the projects, each with their own page and video. People had the opportunity to submit videos and now interact with the site by voting for which project they want to receive funding.
5: Pulitzer Prize nominated Multimedia story. This story has many links to click through as well as related videos and photographs for the page the viewer is on. What really makes this interactive is that it creates an experience by releasing more of the story each day and viewer's cannot get all of the information at once.
6: Jim Carey's website. This site may look nice and have the appearance of interactivity, but it is seriously lacking in this aspect. It really is just a series of fancy looking links, which is a basic level of interactivity with websites.
7: Play rug. Kids physically interact with this this mat, but there is no response from it. It will always be the same unless someone physically alters it's appearance.