Asssignment 4 - We are the future

The future of games is in our hands now and with more powerful technology comes a more difficult challenge for the programmer.

Personally, I am a little nervous about what the future holds when the next new generation of consoles are revealed. I'm just starting to learn the basics of C programming and Assembly language and it has me trembling.

I think there is pressure to make innovative and outstanding games that seperate themselves from the mass of mundane mediocre titles. That is a job for the developer. Publishers don't feel the same way as "the publisher mentality tends to dismiss quirky new game ideas in favor of sequels and licensed properties from movies, comics and TV shows" which was stated on this website.

I feel that like all mediums, which are all essentially businesses, eventually dull to this idea of repetitive strategy and even the consumer becomes less favourable of buying the same title over and over with a new name. I still strongly believe innovation can give you those classic titles that will forever remain in peoples minds and hearts.

This generation saw giants Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo battle it out with the Xbox, PS2 and GameCube respectively. Many gamers split off into different categories and share very different views on "which is the best" but this has been the case for a very long time with the earliest I can remember being the NES/MasterSystem war and continuing with Nintendo and Sega for years.

All three consoles began to show new ideas for the future; pressure sensitive buttons on control pads; the USB headset and keyboard compatibility for the PS2; Xbox Live bringing online gaming into the console. Sony and Nintendo also attempted online gaming with Nintendo's being a very niche market in Japan and Sony's showing little success with figures paling in comparison to those of the Xbox and PC gamers.

The Xbox360 is bringing more of an "entertainment" vibe to it rather than just a video game console and Sony are following with the PS3 using Blu-Ray technology and Microsofts upcoming HD-Drive for the Xbox360. Nintendo are left in the tracks of Sony and Microsoft with their "next-gen" console which takes a step back from simply improving processing power and technology and brings back the simple innovations which introduced them to the gaming world.

The Wiimote allows gamers to wave the controller around in one hand and the "nun-chuk" with an analogue stick in the other hand. The remote works like a light gun but is also motion sensitive in that twisting and turning the controller also has it's benefits. This allows developers to focus on new ways to make games more enjoyable and with the technology not differing much from the GameCube allows developers to make games quicker than those that will feature on the PS3 and Xbox360s complicated new structures.

Development costs are rising and games are becoming ever more expensive to make and this is a worrying factor when entering into the gaming industry - Publishers will go for surefire titles rather than something that is risky and may not sell great enough - and with competition becoming more fierce the gaming industry will become even more interesting as companies try to differentiate themselves from the pack.

I believe that with the introduction of HD and more powerful CPU games are becoming more realistic visually and with sound mimicking the quality of the cinema-experience only time can tell what innovations will occur between now and the next-gen. Whether it be still visual or maybe something completely different - is the possibility of Virtual Reality making a comeback likely?

A race against Terence

So.

Today was a slow day. Got up around 1pm and started to do some laundry. Finished around 11pm - a lot of washing.
I order pizza - Pepperoni Passion but of course - and then venture to the shop across the road to discover Magners are £1.89 - so I buy 8 of them - and spend the rest of the night...well guess.

I text my coursemate Terence to ask what he's doing to find out there are naked men outside his flat stealing bins. I told him I would blog it first and GODDAMN I SHALL! So here it is, in its entirety, the race against Terence to blog such an occassion. No pictures unfortunately but if a picture is worth a thousand words I'll be goddamned if I spend another 1, 000 words on a blog to describe it.

Right now I am listening to Norihiko Hibino's album - A Japanese composer who helped compose Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 along side Harry Gregson Williams (Shrek, The Rock, Armageddon) - and I have to say it's a beautiful piece of work. Rock, Jungle, J-pop and mellow tracks over 10 tracks of gorgeous production.

That's it for now. Crap...I've still got the future of games to blog. There's plenty of time *wink*.

I hope you enjoyed todays episode of Horror Scope.

Bemani - whoever said games aren't cool?

So it's 4am. It's officially the end of Corona Night.

For those not in the know Bishops Blaise - the bar on the corner of Benjamin Russel Court - does £1 Corona on thursdays.

Tonight I obtained a Corona bandana, so catch me rocking a yellow shade of headwear next week, and a Jack Daniels jumper and it's a little too soon to be comprehending how exactly I obtained it but that's not the point right now.

Monday was a night out at Original Four where a guy who resembled Mr. Bean did Mr. Bean-esque dances to commercial Hip Hop music. Never-the-less they could have made a BBC special out of it but that would be expoiltative and the BBC as we all know tends to stray from the more controversial affairs of the human psyche.

The title of this blog was originally going to be "The Blog of the blog" which would entail details of how my browser would not load neither Blogger.com or Wikipedia.com (for reference, I had already read the article but my brain was like a sponge at the time) at 11pm when I was trying to write up my now 855 word piece on the 80s-90s of video games. It was stressful indeed and overall became a successful piece in such a moment of anxiety and distress.

I celebrated as I always do with a few alcohol beverages and played a little bit of MGO (Metal Gear Online for those not in the know).

I am getting fairly annoyed at headshot-whores who spend nothing more than every second of their time spraying with an XM16E or AK47 in First Person View at your head. At first it's impressive until you've been sprayed down for the fithteenth time. So I spent a lil time learning the tricks of their trade and found it to be nothing more than recoil adjustment by kneeling down or lying flat on the floor...THE SWINES!!! The same people detest the use of shotguns. It's fairly humourous as you need to be 1ft away for a shotgun to take full effect. Those headshot-seekers are threatened by a weapon that can't even harm them at a safe distance - thus revealing their ultimate weakness.

Straying from less than 100th in the rankings to around 1, 000th without even playing has put me off playing for the time being. So I dig out an old PSX game - Bust A Groove.

A Bemani game that requires nothing more than 4 directional buttons, X, O and a little bit of rhythm (understand now why I strayed from alcoholism, to Mr. Bean dancing, to MGO to Bust a Groove? If you still don't understand please divert all your questions to jlikew00t@hotmail.com where I will answer all queries with a short description and a possible voice message).

It's a fun game. Very Japanese in terms of colour and song-choices but overall a pretty enjoyable game for even the most controller-inept casual gamer.
With a selection of crazy characters and around 10 stages of prancing dancing beats ranging from funk to hiphop to j-pop you cannot deny it's appeal. The only thing that would put it a step above the rest would be a dance-mat compatible option but unfortunately you must settle with a control pad.

I enjoyed this game so much I learned it's routine off by heart so I could taunt those I played against by inputting functions behind my back, and even closing my eyes.

This blog was nothing more than pure self appreciation and to try and persuade those who have never heard of Bust A Groove to give it a try. It's a fun game to play sober, drunk, with or without friends or infact to wild-up your housemates who are trying to sleep.

Next blog; how to complete Super Mario 64 in 16 stars and the future of video gaming.

Until next time party people.

Assignment 3 - The Past, Present and the Future Is Now

The 80's saw the rise of personal computers and primarily, in my opinion, the most uninspiring genre of video games imaginable - Text based adventure games.
As popular as they might be their main function is to serve as an interactive novel and I personally feel they hold no place in the games world. However later text-based adventures started to adapt visual representations of the world they depicted and thus paved the way for future "point-and-click" games and Myst's several sequels.

During this same time video game software saw primitive 3D graphics emerge such as Pole Position (1982) which used "Pseudo-3D graphics" for the rear-view-racing-format which to this day has been repeated even with true 3D graphics. The Sierra King's Quest series also adapted an illusion of 3D with a player controlled character moving behind and in front of objects on a 2D background drawn in perspective.
Hardware such as ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 were increasingly popular through Commodore 64s aggressive pricing strategy - which to this day companies follow (£425 for a PS3? pfft!!!) - and eventually becoming more affortable. IBM's PCs were advancing in both graphical terms and aurally which led to further competition between console and computer.

Nintendo launched their Game & Watch line of simple LCD handheld consoles which were later copied by other companies (I was once told copying is a form of flattery, Nintendo must be blushing rosey red cheeks with compliments).

The early nineties to me was the most important and influential point of video games as it saw Nintendo's NES system define video gaming forever with it's new control pad system taking over from the arcade style joystick. With an 8-way directional pad and 2 buttons the NES became the standard of console gaming with the Sega Mastersystem adopting this 8-way 2-button method.

Other interesting moments of the nineties are the games that were released for said console such as Metal Gear, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros and Final Fantasy which all to this day have become very successful series with later games demonstrating the technological advances in hardware such as Playstation's Metal Gear Solid which brought the MG world into 3D.

Super Mario and Legend of Zelda have also received the 3D makeover with Super Mario 64 and LoZ Ocarina of Time respectively. Both of which are considered 'classic' among gamers and critics alike. Even Final Fantasy (with it's beautifully ironic name) has lasted for XI (that's eleven in roman numerals) main titles with 2 more on the way (that's not including handheld console versions, mobile games and spin offs) with intriguing and fantastic plots which destroy the early 80's text based adventures and incorporate fun and timeless gameplay.

The most significant developments of the middle-ages of video games were the emerging genres that remain today such as First Person Shooters (FPS) which were commercially realised by previous Shareware companies such as 3D Realms, Id Software and Epic which produced such games as Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and Unreal.

The RTS (Real time strategy) was also born in this era of gaming and is still a popular genre among PC gamers with early titles such as Dune II uptop more recent titles such as Age of Empires.

While Nintendo adapted cartridges as their standard format CD-ROMs were establishing their significance with Shareware demos becoming available with magazine publications and later on becoming the standard for computer gaming and Sony's Playstation

Internet gaming also flourished during this period and thus spawned the wonderfully dubbed MMORPG (Mass Multiplay...ahh you know what it is ;)...OK if you don't its Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game).

History repeated itself after the battle between NES and Mastersystem the SNES and Megadrive duked it out for top console - with Sega's controversial advertisement approach leaving Nintendo with the impression 'more bark than bite' - and later on Sony entered the ring with the PlayStation while Sega attack with their Saturn console. Both toting 32 bit graphics Nintendo never goes out without a fight and thus returns with their Nintendo 64.

The 80s-90s of video game development was fundamentally a matter of graphics and this has remained up until this day with few companies standing out with new and interesting gameplay rather than relying on the tactic of repeated formula.

Changing trends don't occur often but if there is one Nintendo are at the steering wheel such as their introduction to analog sticks and shoulder trigger buttons even down to pressure sensitive buttons.

Games changed dramatically on a physical level during this time but fundamentally the elements which made up a great game were still there.

Now competition is tough as many publishers try to sell their product and the only way to be successful is to individualise yourself from the rest of the flock with interesting and new gameplay, beautiful and awe-inspiring graphics, replay value and value for money.

Games have reached a stopping point from their transition from 2D to 3D and now it is more about graphical detail rather than stretching ones imagination to create the unimaginable.

Assignment 2 - coincidence? I think not!

Now while my housemate is insulting me through 1337 over MSN across the room I read over the several articles concerning the history of computer games.
My thoughts so far?

1) THANK GOD I am not old enough to have witnessed such atrocity in video gaming (although I do remember owning a Commordore 64).
While it may have been a breakthrough in technology and paved the way for the future I would have hated to see a million different copies of Pong peddled by every Joe Bloggs tyring to get his slice of the game pie. While peddling of the same 'ol still happens nowadays with those gruelingly appauling plug-and-play arcade-game systems there is a very large spectrum of consoles and software. I guess I am spoiled and have an insatiable appetite for a new game every few weeks (seriously I have bought 3 in the past week! Ouch).

2) I had no idea how old Electronic Arts were and yet they are still successful to this day (my hat's off to you EA)

Let's no longer beat around the bush. Created in 1961 by a group of students at MIT Spacewar! is widely considered the first computer game created, after Tennis-for-two which dabbled with gravity physics and A.S. Douglas' Tic-Tac-Toe which experimented with human-to-computer interaction. I say Spacewar! was the first computer game as it truly demonstrated the fundamentals of a computer game; interaction, competition (between two human players), goals and objectives.

What's significant about the creation of Spacewar!? It was created by University students and I myself am a student at a university (while it might not be MIT it still has a three letter abbreviation *clever, huh?*) and I feel it is the perfect time for the creation and development of computer games as it allows likeminded individuals to bring their ideas and abilities to the table. University is a time where learning is no longer solely the responsibility of the institution but rather the individual...but let's not dwindle on the purpose of University. I am looking forward to meeting some audio students and game art students as I am doing Game Tech so we can form that unstoppable triangular team of game creators.

Enough of the history of gaming itself. Time to shed some light on my personal history and experiences with games.
I remember getting a Nintendo Entertainment System at the tender age of three. I vividly remember Super Mario Bros, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Legend of Zelda (with that sexy gold cartridge).
I cannot remember if I was actually any good at playing them or if I used that wonderful device Game Genie but I did manage to complete them and have experienced nostalgia and anger when playing the same games recently finding them exceedingly difficult which leads me to believe video games are becoming increasingly easy and more graphics-driven rather than gameplay-driven.

I also had a Commodore 64 but that was my dad's play-thing and I had too short an attention span to bother waiting for the cassette deck to load the game.

I have not always followed games avidly - when I was younger it was more or less my parents buying me what they thought I would like - and until the internet truly kicked off commercially I did not particularly search for "good" games but I have always been a fan of and played video games from a young age.
One could say I'm a nintendo fanboy at heart as I own all the Nintendo systems but I was also raised on Sega's Mastersystem and Mega Drive. I tend to forget about the dreadful Sega Saturn and I wish the Dreamcast was wiped from the face of the Earth with it's ridiculously positioned shoulder buttons.

Nowadays I play Sony's PSX and PS2 as well as Nintendo's underrated Gamecube (I say underrated because most people believe it to be a childish console whereas it is home to some excellent games; Killer 7, Metroid Prime & Prime 2 Echoes, LoZ Wind Waker *cel shaded does not mean childish, the plot is dark and the gameplay follows on from the widely hailed classic Ocarina of Time*, and Resident Evil).

Most recently I have been playing Metal Gear Online and I am establishing my name in the online world of gaming. I usually don't play competitive titles as I feel there is too much bitterness and hate that evolves from such games but I have been a fan of Metal Gear since the PSX title and have watched it evolve and have researched into it's past incarnations in which the stealth-driven gameplay first appeared on the MSX/NES.

I enjoy most genres of games including action, adventure, RPG, survival horror, FPS (at the risk of sounding ignorant I feel they are all fundamentally the same and you only need to play one FPS in your life, but the same can be said for RPGs I guess, it depends on if the plot is any good).
I mostly follow series of games such as LoZ, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill etc. and rarely dip my feet into unknown waters but I follow the development of new and exciting games on IGN.com and Gamespot.com in hopes for something truly astonishing and original such as Okami (Capcom's new title involving a wolf-god in which you use calligraphy to advance through the game) or my recent purchase Shadow of the Colossus where gameplay and graphics walk hand in hand in a brilliantly crafted world where colossal monsters roam and a beautiful maiden lays asleep waiting for you to restore her consciousness (simple premise but the game itself has to be played to fully appreciate).

I am looking forward to the next three years and I am really enjoying it so far. I just hope I am successful and can craft such pieces of work for myself.(is it right to call computer games work? *shrugs* it is alot of hard...fun?...no the word is most definately work)

Until next time sports fans. *clicks*

Assignment 1 - something to inspire even the most uninspired

Well here it goes. My first blog entry EVER and yet I still have no idea what to write. I guess this is a start though, huh? I've mostly been preoccupied with Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) the past few days and have tried to draw inspiration from that to write here until I discovered that my first blog entry already had a preset context and still I wander off into uncharted literal territory.

However it appears that most bloggers face the exact same problem and I feel at liberty to criticize them for their stream-of-conscious like ramblings. So, let's get to the topic at hand.

It's pretty interesting to read others' views on video games as I feel video games have played an important role in my lifetime or rather i've played a lifetime of video games more importantly. I enjoy a good laugh when it's not at my expense and I can actually sit back and say 'haha, that's so true'. However I feel a little sore that the top 12 video game toilets did not include Resident Evil (GCN)...no reason at all, I just feel that it deserved to be there somewhere.

I have to say it feels a little strange to be writing for an invisible audience but until I re-read what my assignment was I was just writing my thoughts to myself with no real intended audience. I won't go as far as to say it's an extremely powerful tool like mp3.com for example (which was useful a few years back for independent artists looking for some way to get their music heard) Although I will say it is a good way to get yourself heard when there's no room for opinions in a lecture and it's probably not appropriate to be chatting about the best way to complete Super Mario Bros in the fastest time EVER in a seminar (unless your seminar just happens to require you to complete SMB for an assignment - I've got my fingers crossed).

Onto more important things I took a gander at Scaryduck's blog (after attempting to write about Jack Bauers which only contained three blogs since May 2006 - thanks, that REALLY helped with this assignment *sarcasm*) to see a fair few blogs a week which makes me feel a little more comfortable with the fact I plan to spill alot of brain matter all over this thing in the near future.

While I enjoyed Scaryduck's post about experiences being ill (of which I have plenty, most of which were last week where I made the most of freshers week despite being a second year - yes it's confusing, i'm starting from the beginning again, let's just say media studies sucked...I mean, wasn't right for me) I'm not a great fan of incorporating speech or "sound effects" into posts. I plan to let these lovely long paragraphs do all the talking.

It was humourous to read and Scaryduck takes a very relaxed approach to his/her mishaps but I don't think I'm going to be telling you what shade my excrement was after 12 bottles of stella last monday. I'm looking forward to being able to speak about anything - providing that these compulsory blogs also get completed - and Scaryduck makes the most of this privilege and so shall I, muwahaha.

I think blogging is more personal than objective - well what's the point in a dozen blogs all containing the same facts like the evening news (seriously, how many times do I have to hear about this little girl being mauled by a rottweiler? as sad as it may be it's not particularly important; i'd much prefer a news presenter to remind me of assignments that need handing in or particular books or sheets I may need for tomorrow's lecture, NOT what will be appearing on Animals Do The Funniest Things). I feel i've spoken my mind enough for now. Don't worry, the best is yet to come.