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Aliens is one of my favorite films. So when I heard they were reinventing the Aliens vs Predator series (the first one came out in 1999 with another sequel in 2001) I was excited because I feel the universe of both movies are fantastic and some great games could be created based around them. The original was made by the same game company doing the new one making the outlook of the game even better. Once the first screenshots were shown I knew the game would be worth playing. The game incorporates marines, aliens, and predators. All classes have the same single player story but from a different perspective based on each class.

Recently the demo was released and I got a chance to play. I’m a PC gamer so my experience is based on my system and from what I see the game is going to be really fun to play. The demo includes deathmatch with one map and the option to be each class so at first it seems like the demo would get boring quick. But after playing what seems to be a simplistic deathmatch map the game is actually fun to play from three entirely different types of hunters. You can play three rounds in a row and each one will be different based on the class you pick. Each one is a different experience and that keeps the replay up a lot in the game.

For the most part the game is well done. The demo only includes support for DX9 graphics when the full game can run DX11 but the game still is visually breathtaking. The atmosphere is some of the best I have enjoyed since the first three Silent Hill games. When I play as Marines I feel like I’m one of the Marines in Aliens. Playing as the Marine gives an intense and at times scary multiplayer experience. With only a flashlight and the motion tracker from Aliens the Marine is on edge a lot. The map in the demo is mostly dark and aliens and predators can easily hide and wait for the best opportunity to attack. Aliens are also fun to play as you can see better and climb on walls and ceilings. Predators have three vision modes – normal, alien, and human, along with various predator weapons. Throwing all classes into one place makes multiplayer fun because it is a different type of fun depending on the class. Art direction and sound design are incredible as well.

Though the game is not without its downside. The balance seems a little off at times. The marines are a little overpowered by the aliens and predators. A grab feature is something that might need tweaking. Either predators or aliens can use this if close enough to another player. It is not the easiest to get but if you do it’s a one hit kill. Combat is something that needs some time to get adjusted to. But eventually you get the skill down playing becomes a lot more enjoyable. The animation is somewhat sluggish but I will wait until the full game to see how it is then.

Overall, the demo gives me a good impression of what the full game will play like. Only one game mode and map was in the demo but just that was fun. More game modes and options show multiplayer will be something worth playing more than a few times. The single player campaign and story will also be an element worth looking forward to. Playing from different point of views will be a great time and a good way to experience the whole story. From the demo and all the media released about the game I can rest assured that the makers have all aspects well-planned and contribute to an incredible reinvention of two of the most influential and important film universes (the new Alien vs Predator movies are excluded) in our culture.

After the readings I though I would have a clearer definition of what I think public art is. Yes and no. With that being said, I don’t think you can put one idea or definition on it. I think it is what the intention or even lack of intention may be. For instance, a sculpture of a famous leader or event is meant to commemorate but that same sculpture could be re-purposed with a whole new meaning. There are also things not intended as public art but can be suddenly become art, such as the idea behind the Big Dig in Boston becoming a art form as its construction progressed. There is the also the problem of whether or not the what the artists meaning or idea is understood. In regards to that I would have to agree with the reading in the book that we are all individuals who will see things in different ways. And if you can invoke thought about or from the work, even if it may miss the artists intention, it has still succeeded. In the end, if I would absolutely have to give a meaning to public art, I would say that it should challenge thought but should still be accessible to the public.

Tim K

I feel that Public Art is anything that is deemed art and is out in the public for the general public to be able to engage in, even if by accident.  It can often have implications of site specificity, community involvement, and collaboration for any location that it finds itself in.  It can be a permanent sculpture, an object with a temporary life span, or a performative act that exists for a specific duration. In most traditional terms, it exists to escalate visual interest for a public building or commnity site, but on the other end of the spectrum, can be a use of the natural environment that can degrade over time. It can also be an experiment or a question of boundaries for a performance to take place. No matter what it is, public art pushes the boundries of where and how art can exist.

Today I began inFAMOUS, as the box displays it.  Immediately there is no menu the first time you boot the game.  You are simply greeted with a city square and the instruction to press start.  There’s no menu to choose difficulty, instead you are assigned one after the first bit of gameplay (I got hard).  When you press the start button, the square explodes, starting the story.  This explosion kills thousands, but Cole (you) somehow survives.  He also very quickly learns that he has electrical powers.

As the player, I was briefly introduced to the controls and then dropped onto the open world street before the meat of the plot even begins.  The world and people are interesting, and vary from being filler to commentary on reality to just odd.  On moment that I recall is after I killed a “Reaper,” the generic baddie at this point, someone pulled out their phone and took a picture of me.  Nice touch.

The city itself is called Empire City, as suggestive a name as the beginning of the story could hope for.  It’s quickly clear that the city is in anarchy, you’re told immediately that there is a disease that’s been spreading since the explosion and the whole city has been quarantined.  Oh, and the cops are either dead or in hiding.  Cole, in conjunction with his buddy Zeke, decide they’re going to try to break out of the lockdown only to learn that a significant armed force is waiting across the bridge to the rest of the world…with a wall of machine guns.  You get drafted by an FBI agent who claims she can help you get out in exchange for working for her for a while.  Empire indeed.

There are a number of quick references to ground the game in our world despite the fictional setting and obviously fantastical premise.  For example, Zeke had to swim half the river after your escape attempt, and says that he’s “no Michael Phelps.”

The other thing I was introduced to quickly was the morality system.  It’s made very clear that you should stick to whichever path you choose, as powers open up based upon how good/evil you are, but there’s no advantage to neutrality.  I chose good for this run.  Also, to be clear, it’s not like paragon/renegade in Mass Effect, where you’re ultimately still the good guy.  The first choice is to let civilians have food dropped by the government or to kill them and take it for yourself.  And no, there’s no mechanic measuring your supplies for your own survival, so there’s no gameplay advantage to either.

There hasn’t been a ton of symbolism quite yet, but I’ve only barely grasped what happened on that initial press of the start button.  I expect I’ll see more when the story picks up.

-Glenn

Oh, also, for some reason it didn’t strike me until too late, but, for a guy who’s a human battery, water’s bad.

I first did the assigned reading (p.25 and on) and then went back to read the intro and the first 25 pages, because EBIGFY actually makes a lot of sense. I have a small criticism about one of Johnson’s ideas though.

There are clear degrees of difficulty and frustration depending on the game and the player; the author doesn’t elaborate on this in his argument that games as a whole are more stressful than fun. These degrees range from the truly frustrating and time consuming games mentioned in the pages I read, to what I consider to be near-immediately gratifying games. A couple examples of these would be online shooters such as Team Fortress 2 and Modern Warfare 2. In these games, the only learning you have to put up with is getting a hang of the maps; even before you achieve that, given you have played another shooter and/or just have good eye/hand coordination, you can already have plenty of fun blowing away other players without much knowledge of your surroundings. After a few hours of figuring out the basics of the game, it’s instant gratification. Jump into a match at any time and you can have the feeling of being better than someone else at said game (think how little thought/planning/time goes into gunning someone down in a game like this). Now, due to the nature of these games, every time you succeed, someone has to fail; therefore, a significant portion of the playerbase is, in fact, frustrated but nonetheless playing (in part supporting Johnson’s argument). What I’m getting to, is that with the types of games I mentioned, frustration is not necessarily the norm; many players are instantly entertained and only some are frustrated. Johnson’s argument makes more sense with games like World of Warcraft, where there are fewer exceptions to his rule (hypothesis?).

Before I started reading the assigned pages, I plopped down on my couch, put on some music, and played Modern Warfare 2 online.  I do this a lot, I think within the first week I had the game I had racked up a little over a days worth of play time, but in all the time spent playing I think I may have had an hour or two of actual fun.  As Stephen Johnson says, games are maddeningly hard.  For the first time in my college career, I actually could relate to the material I was reading.  “The dirty little secret of gaming is how much time you spend not having fun”.  Truer words are rarely spoken.  In my total playtime for MW2, which is so high it would make a priest question his faith, I don’t think I’m having fun an overwhelming majority of the time.  After completing the reading for the week and then going to play MW2, the realization that I’m not having fun is now more dominant in my psyche.  My tolerance level for the unbalanced mess that is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has withered away, and for the first time in a while, I haven’t played it in days, thanks to a book of all things.  Lately I’ve been watching more movies and Sopranos seasons, something that usually isn’t maddeningly difficult or frustrating and I find that as a result of this change in activity, I am a calmer, more relaxed person.  When I played CoD for hours, I would walk away from the game pissed off and frustrated, and unless you’re some kind of masochist or something, you’re not going to find this fun.

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Today I finally started playing Uncharted 2, mind you it was not my first time playing it. However, since it had been a while since I played it I decided to use it for my game journal and once again seeing why they call it one of the best games on the PS3. To start I played the first to level of game instantly bringing back the feelings I had back in October. The first stage reminded that I truly basically playing an interactive movie as the action builds up and the moment between cutscenes and real-time play becomes a blur. The Mo-Cap from the actors in this game is also very well done which adds to the cinematic feel, and also show that time and money was put into it. The detail of Nathan Drake going through the snow in pain and even watching the snow on the clothes period is worth a good note.

The second stage which had me helping to steal an old oil lamp from a museum giving me some good insight into the characters as Drake and Flynn make comments to each other. It also shows that Drake, while flawed, is still a good person as he tries to avoid killing the guards, making this stage a stealth one ending in a game over if seen. This made fun but also frustrating as I go thorough the courtyard knocking out the guards only to get caught by one later. Still that was just the levels to the game with many more to go.

Been playing Mass Effect 2 a lot lately, coming from playing the first one a lot ive found a lot of changes. the very first i noticed was the new clip system which replaced the heating system from the first.  About halfway through the very first fight i was sold on it and new i would have trouble going back to play the first one again. I had so many times in the first game where i died because of an overheating gun. Even in the interface or hud of the game showed me vast improvements by the look of it. I liked the new health bar but didnt like the squad bars, it is very limited and doesnt really show you how  much health they have more of if they are getting hit. So you don’t really know until their knockout until its already happened. Well i better get back to playing, ill post more next week

Hello everyone and welcome to the official blog site for Game Studio 2010’s senior capstone project, Grunt Work.

Throughout the next 14 weeks this blog will serve as a source of information for all things G-Dubs.

On a weekly basis, different members of the team will be sharing personal experiences with Grunt Work from the very distinct perspectives of each discipline, and roles within them.  We will share our latest accomplishments, frustrations, epiphanies, mentally challenged moments, breakthroughs, and setbacks.

This blog is intended as a way to reach out and develop a closer relationship with our community- a forum to showcase our humble but very passionate work in progress, and get instant feedback from colleagues and future Grunt workers, in hopes of putting out the best possible game a 15 week production cycle will permit. But it will also serve as soundboard, captain’s log, art gallery, think tank.   To future graduating game design classes, this blog may very well serve as  a crystal ball,  a modern era Jacob Marley, Grey’s freaking Sports Almanac, if you will.

So, without further due…

It feels like both yesterday and  an eternity ago, since we  adopted this  incorrigible  little game design document as the subject matter for our final project.  Anything this  document was missing in substance about a year ago when it started circulating some buzz,  it more than made up in heart.

From the game Art department’s perspective, it also allowed for the most fun and flexibility  in character and environment design.

As I mentioned before, Grunt Work has been rebellious since birth.  It’s a game that dares to ask what happened right before “Once upon a time”  and is suspicious of stories abruptly ending  in happily ever after.

A period fantasy, cooperative brawler, Grunt Work takes you back to a time (4 0′ clock Atlantic to be exact)  before princesses…ses  needed rescuing and heroes rose to the noble quest.  The game places the player in the roles of the last and in this case, certainly least of the overlord’s henchmen (an ogre and a witch) on a hopeless mission to storm the palace and capture the well guarded princess- a mission all before them had failed to accomplish or return to tell of it.  A dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it…or face the overlord’s eternal scorn and fist shaking.

I guess at this point I should introduce myself, and what I do.

My name is Gil Medina and I have been given the honor of  working as character lead and art director for this project.  This year, I’ve had the luck to work with the most brilliant and dedicated artists I’ve seen in an academic setting.  I’ve also had the pleasure to co-lead this project with the legendary John Lomax, who has been an incredible ally to this project and continues to awe as environment lead and technical director.  The entire team, keeps putting out blood, sweat and tears, to ensure this project is one to be hard to top for years to come.  That is my personal challenge to you, Classes of 2011,12,13,…  In the words of Teen Witch, “Top Dat’.”

One of the challenges as an art director for this project, was taking this idea, a reversal of such a recognized universal concept, and be able to bring in a fresh vision to it, while staying true to the essence of concept and characters.  We needed to make sure the player intrinsically recognized archetypes without much or any introduction, and yet feel like they are playing something new.

An immediate challenge was trying to get away from the Tolkien influence that seems to go hand in hand with any game out there dealing with the same lore.  For this, I knew we needed to make some bold changes.

The first influence I had was music.  I saw this story developing as a ridiculous rock operetta.  I was influenced by the theatrics of Ozzy, DIO, Idol, and yes, Danzig.  But it was Freddie Mercury and Queen who gave me the absurd awesomeness that I was looking for.  We  decided that in some way there would be elements of glam rock used throughout the design.

The next thing I did, which almost got me fired, and still makes me the subject of many dirty looks, is move this fantasy away from the Medieval era.  I knew that loved or hated, this was the only way this game visually, would not be ignored as white noise, in a world of war hammers, Oblivions, Overlord 1,2,3,4,5…  I started looking at the French Renaissance as real world reference for overall castle feel, but the baroque era, ended up being my largest inspiration for character design and castle interior.

So the next question is…How the hell do you fit an ogre and a witch in Napoleonic times?!?!?!?  Merlin and Gandalf are already saying their time is ending, and that was back in the forest in Medieval inspired times.  I have to make this guys, basically storm Versailles!!!!

The answer of course, was elemental, once I knew where to look for it.

To Be Continued…