IAM Blog Engine

lol picture ::

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/20/banned-psn-player-sues-nintendo-and-microsoft/

Okay. I have looked up my cheats, played enough of the game to get the cell phone and am ready for carnage. What gun shall i try first? I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment as I walk down a crowded street gunning down civilians with an SMG. Tossing grenades onto the freeway and watching cars flip off was fantastic. Hiding in bushes with a sniper rifle and picking off civilians and having no repercussions was amazing. I must have shot well over 200 people, cops, paramedics and the occasional person on a motorcycle just to see them catapult through the air as i laughed my ass off. This is why those parent groups complain about this game. It blows without violence and mayhem. Of course there is a vague and shit-tastic story for all those Tony Montana copy cats but driving around for Roman is the most retarded quest in history (I know I played Oblivion). If i wanted to be a taxi driver I would leave school, paint a bad car yellow and leave lit cigarettes in the back to give it that authentic smell that we all enjoy. This game gets a minus on story but a huge plus on the fun factor once you get enough weapons to liberate a third world country.

Reid Kimball, a blogger at Gamasutra, recently wrote an editorial on the current state of action games. His opinion is that action games focus too much on the killy-shooty aspect of the genre, and, essentially, rewards players for firing rockets madly rather than thinking their way through problems.

On a whole, I agree with his argument. I believe that action games could stand to use a little more variety. I am excited about games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, which seem to reward players for methodical and thoughtful gameplay as much or more than out and out brawling.

My only contention with the article is that Kimball repeated compares games to film, using movie examples to discuss what is possible with games. Action games could use more variety in gameplay not to echo film, but to add depth to games. Continued comparison of movies to games, in my opinion, does a disservice to both; they are completely different mediums. Developers should drive for more depth in their games not because it would make them better movies, but because it would make them better games.

In this week’s reading, “Complete Freedom 0f Movement: Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces,” the author Henry Jenkins discusses the idea of games spaces and the difference between boys’ and girls’ culture.  One thing I found interesting about his article is that he typified “boy games” as being plot heavy, linear adventures, while “girl games” were more character based, slower paced, and a meandering plot, if plot was involved at all.  In terms of film, television, and literature, it is the character based stories that become critical darlings.  Granted, character based stories allow for a greater exploration of the human psyche, and therefor are more intrinsically “artistic,” it was just a funny thing to think about, for me anyways.

At the end of the article, Jenkins wonders what a type of “genderless” game space may be, where both boys and girls are free to explore in any way that they want to, be it interpersonal relationships or shooting things.  I think the MMO world could be the genderless game space Jenkins dreams of.  Most have a focus on adventuring and combat, but there are also overarching plots that unfold, and players are free to explore, for the most part, any part of the game they want.  There may be points that involve level requirements, or skill requirements, or payment of some kind, but the player is not penelized (by the game itself, anyways) for their individual game styles.  In fact, the MMO “EvE Online” is essentially one giant sandbox, players are free to explore a massively universe, and can focus on things like exploration and clan management over things like combat; it’s possible to play the game without ever fighting, if the player chose it.

Also, there are plenty of “genderless” games in the independent community.  Like most artistic communities, the real gruntwork is done on the peripherals.  I thought Jenkins ended his article with a “gee-whiz, I sure don’t know how designers are gonna pull this off” kind of thinking in terms of genderless game spaces, but I believe this challenge has already been met since the time this article was written.

Microsoft just released XNA 3.0 and is ready to usher in a new era of community games. Be ready with

36-1800 01 Interactive Arts and Media
Topics*
XNA Game Programming

A game programming course with a strong focus on developing good programming skills, design patterns and practical problem solving. This course will introduce programming with the XNA framework. Through a series of projects we will build 2D and 3D games.

Topics include

• XNA Structure
• Input Handling
• Game Components
• 2D Sprites and Collision
• Animation
• Sound with XACT
• GameState and Screen Management
• 3D Matrix Transforms
• 3D Camera
• 3D Meshes and Models

All projects will stress good programming practices and design patterns. We will use interfaces, game components (strategy pattern implementation) and game services (singleton/factory pattern) and may get to visual fx and HLSL (decorator patten), and input handling (observer pattern) and state management.

Department permission required. (Any 2nd level Programming Course will get you in OOP, c++, Game Proramming etc)

Email Tdown@colum.edu or MShannon@colum.edu for permission

Johnson brings up an argument used against videogames and television that I feel very strongly about: parents saying that it’s not something they want or think their kids should be exposed to. The counterargument for this seems so simple and so logical that you would hope that the parents have already thought of this and just complaining because they think everyone should comply with their moral standards: monitor what your kids watch/play. There’s a reason videogames, TV shows, movies, etc have ratings and warnings. If you don’t want your kid to play M-rated video games, don’t buy the games for them and set the parental controls on the game system to block the play of those games. The way to do the latter can probably be found online or in the system manual, and with new laws you have to be 17 to buy an M-rated game. The V-chip was invented so that parents can keep content their children from seeing content they don’t think is suitable for them. The argument I make is for younger children, because they are least likely to disobey their parents and will find something their parents approve of to watch or play, whereas teenagers will find a way to play those games or watch those shows if they really want to.

Book Dismisses Link Between Games and Violence: New data suggests kids aren’t corrupted little hellions.

Game Couch interviewed co-author Dr. Cheryl K. Olson about their book Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games. The book is to not point that violent games, like GTA  (which is a hot topic for politicians for the upcoming elections),promote violence. Rather the book “focuses on the effects games have when children simply talk about what they are already playing.”

“One reassuring thing we found is that most children who play GTA don’t see the characters as role models, and don’t see the game as like real life,”  “In fact, the ‘unreality’ is one thing they like about the series. They can test boundaries.”

They want parents to be more responsible in knowing what their children are playing and to talk with them.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3166792

I love ranged attackers, I level Ranger to 10 relatively fast. This is a really strong job class, I’m seeing people do over 20 damage while i’m over here doing 70-100 damage a hit. It’s this move called a 2hour which every job gets. Mine is called “eagle Eye Shot”, and does really big amounts of damage to monsters. Every time I’ve used it so far it instantly kills anything I fight. This job is much easier than Red Mage. Then again I am subbing Red Mage now. So I can cure myself right before I die. I got into a group in this desert and the leader just started cursing out other players and how they should play. I got really angry and left. It really sucks the fact that there isn’t a Player vs Player part of this game. Only thing you can do is add players to your black list. All that is, is making it so you can’t see any of the text they write you. This game sucks competitively, I think I’m gonna log out for a bit, I don’t like it when games make me angry.

Turned level 19 and now people are telling me I need to start over to level a job. People are telling me to level white mage or black mage. Which I don’t want to do, because they are really weak jobs that need to depend on other people. So, I did some quest for grabbing 3 items that is impossible to do alone. Some level 44 paladin came to help and took me into some mine to get me one of the hardest items apparently. Magicked Skull I got in like 4 minutes with this guy cause he was just attacked like 10 skeletons at the same time, and killed them really fast. So I get all 3 items, go to the town and turn them in to the NPC who controls the subjobs function. It allows me to have two jobs of the same time, but the subjob can only be half of my main job. 10/5, 20/10, 30/15 etc, I go back to my home nation to my mog house and switch my job to blm. Blm is really strong job, but really slow and I die a lot. I tried doing some of the missions one of them called “Save the Children” had to fight a bunch of orcs which was really exciting, but easy. Apparently that mission was for people level 10 and I was level 19 so fighting those orcs was like swatting flies. This game went from fast to slow to fast again with all the things that happened so close together. When I get this job to level 15 or so I’m gonna go to the area where the stronger players go which is apparently called Jeuno. That’s where all the airships lead to, and basically like the main merchant town. This game is so weird, I didn’t hear that from a NPC or game booklet, players in the game told me. They almost play out the story instead of NPC’s, players really make this game. Talking about defending something in a town that I haven’t been to yet. Telling me to keep leveling up redmage cause they need me to help fight.

I kind of saw a kind of “Pure War” as stated in the Chapter “Game Time”. Everything around this game is completely centered around a a war that happened 20 years ago. How the opposing forces are trying to get back into power and as long as the people of the world keep fighting the beastmen and keep getting stronger there won’t be a major war again. This game kind of feels like…World War II as far as ally forces and how japan, germany, and Italy. The game has 3 main beastmen forces Orcs, Yagudo, and Quadavs. Who from the story tells wouldn’t work together normally but after persuading decided to fight together. Not saying Japanese, Germans, and Italians are Beastmen, but you know what I’m saying.

I don’t own a Xbox 360, but lucky I go to Columbia where the library owns one for me.  Between classes on Friday I discovered a hidden gem in our library:  a shiny Xbox 360 that was connected to a big screen HDTV.  I decided it was time to use my well spent tuition money and booted it up. They had a large selection of two games consisting of Table Tennis and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.  I picked Ghost Recon so that I could discuss and examine the “myth” behind the game.  I also wanted to look at a phenomenon that occurs regularly in video games:  the creation of a well designed and fun game, that features content that boils down to propaganda.  Games that sway minds to support the war, and love the patriarchy that exploits women, the poor and under privilege. A game that turns war into just a game, completely overlooking war’s true nature.  I know that as I play this game I’m taking in these messages, but I’m having a blast.  

The myth behind the war game’s text is that war is an acceptable option.  War is clean, swift, and only eliminates those that wish to do harm to the innocent.  Specifically, the United States fights wars in this way, and that it has the right to conduct war in any country that we see fit.  We bring justice to the world.  This has been a part of our culture for generations.  The game puts forth this idea through normal game conventions: shoot the enemy, move to the next location and shoot more, reach end of the stage, watch the cut scene congratulating you.  The game hooks us in by placing itself in realistic settings that remind us of current world issues, like the war in Iraq.  War games have pushed to be more and more realistic; to represent real world conflicts. The game world, however, is a world without consequences.  If a team member dies you can revive them with the Y button, and of course you can retry from the nearest save point if you happen to be killed. The enemies are reduced in this game as nothing more that red diamonds which indicate their location in the game screen, and when they die the diamonds turn white.  In game play terms this is useful in that it keeps the game easily accessible, but in turn, it completely dehumanizes the NPCs.  And speaking of white, the only choice for the main character is a white male, who leads a squad of culturally diverse troops through the battlefield.  No big deal if your African American gunner gets killed–you can just revive them, but if the white commander gets shot, it’s game over.  The enemies are also non-white, and the action takes place in a Mexican-influenced third world country.  This defines the myth that America can do what it wants in poor countries.  

To get back to a previous point, even after knowing all of this I still have fun with it.  Overall, it is a well designed video game, with pretty graphics, interesting situations, and good controls.  But herein lies the rub.  Too often people play these good games, and get caught up in the game play, not grasping what they are saying to them.  It’s perfect propaganda: the player gets to have a great time, while imperialism feeds them messages of war.  Why would advertisers be making games, as the reading suggested, and why would the actual army make a game, if it’s not a strong form of suggestion? It’s the power of simulation, which was also talked about in the reading.  Being able to act out in a simulated environment and make mistakes, to explore and hop into the role of soldier, allows a person to understand what it is like.  It fills them with the mentality needed to act in the situation.  If you have played a shooter on X-Box Live it is clear to see this soldier mentality in action.  It’s creating people that will support war.  If the design of the game is to further reinforce this fairly tale notion of war, then it only serves those that benefit from war.  I think it to be possible to reflect on war in a way that would leave the player not siding with it.  Or to a least start a debate.  A perfect example would be Shadow of the Colossus, a fun game that examines themes of violence and the exploitation of nature.  Playing GRAW and other games like it reminds me of how we have to be aware of the messages within our media, so that we are in control.