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Short games seem to be the norm these days. I finished up Heavenly Sword today, having played no more than four hours total. As I wrote in my last blog, the game hadn’t impressed me by two thirds of the way done. The final third was actually a vast improvement. Instead of the always blocking enemies of before, the game instead threw thousands of unblocking enemies at me. This let me actually use the deep and fun combo system, and was the best part of the game. The final chapter (out of six) in the game was just one huge boss battle. It took around half an hour or so to beat, not counting retries. The battle was generally well designed, but I felt that much of the difficulty came from the boss’s massive health bar, not from his generally easy to dodge attacks.

So I guess that in the end the first two chapters and last two chapters were generally enjoyable, while the middle two chapters were terrible. Unfortunately the middle two chapters make up the majority of the game, and are bad enough that the two enjoyable chapters don’t make up for it. The great voice acting held up throughout the game, and the ending was at least slightly moving. I guess there wasn’t much game left to talk about, so I’m going to cut this short for the week. Next week, I’ll get at least one blog in about whatever game Gamefly sends me next. Adios.

“Shoot Club” was one of my favorite readings this semester. I felt more connected to this type of writing and the topic it presented. But anyways, this article is about Tom Chick (the author) and his friend waiting for Doom 3 to come out because Tom had hyped it up so much. Although after he got the game, he thought it didn’t live up to the hype and they talk about this and try and argue it through. I think hype is one of the main selling points for products. There are a few games that are never heard of when they come out and work their way up to the top, but most are very hyped up.

Hype is what sells. Apple is probably the best example of this. They hype up most of their products and do deliver great products, but are they special in any way? No. They have the hype and following to make a product that is the same as any other become the best of the best. Its not the best outcome because better products end up fading away in the dust due to the hype and obsession with these products, but it does work. Apple is a brilliant company; not for their products, but for their marketing. I have a few apple products, but I generally like the “better” products, not the “cool” one. But damn are they smart.

“Virtuality and its Disconnects” by Sherry Turkle talks about basically virtual worlds vs reality and the connections between them. She talks about the dependencs of the internet and virtual worlds and how it has a negative effect on us because it disconnects us from reality. We have touched on this topic a lot in class and I feel it is a very important one. When I think of the future I think of movies where they show humans being fat and lazy and pretty much worthless and feel that it will end up being that but everyone just lives in a virutal world; I guess kind of like the matrix but we’re away that it is fake. Although thinking about it now maybe its better that way…. But back on topic, she also talks about how people feel more like themselves in virtual worlds because they can be who they want and don’t have to be how they are. I personally dont really understand this because why not just be who you want to be?

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/28/1823234

So for all of you PC gamers, this is pretty big news. This $100 graphics card rivals cards over twice its price. Although there are some cards in this cards’ price range that are very good cards, I would have to say that this is one of the best. But beyond just this cards’ performance, it has some breakthrough technology in it. For instance the GPU is a 40nm dye which is the first time that a GPU (graphics card) has beaten CPUs (processors) in dye size. The smaller the dye, the better because it consumes less power, creates less heat, and allows for more performance (based on higher clock speeds). Even if you dont game on your PC, this is still important considering that major consoles use ATI powered graphics and you might be seeing this technology in the next gen or updated consoles which would allow for greater performance at a cheaper price (and less heating issues).

“Why do I need a Second Life?  I’m fine with my first one.”

“Nothing but a load of furries and sex on Second Life.”

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s ugly.”

“Second Life is a crappy game.”

“Second Life is a waste of time and money”

These are all common thoughts shared when I say that my job involves working with and teaching in Second Life.  It’s what I do here at Columbia, primarily.  I work with Second Life.  What does that mean to you?

I’m going to write an impassioned blog entry about why people shouldn’t rag on Second Life, if they don’t know the facts about it, or the people in it.  Passing judgment on a population is juvenile and draconian, and I think we as a community are above it.  I’m going to address each of the criticisms above in order, and hopefully when I’m done I will have at least laid it on the line.  I don’t want to sway the hearts and minds, but I want people to understand why we have Second Life on every computer in the department, and what you can do with it if you choose to explore the possibilities. (more…)

If you could choose to be rich, revive your loved ones, or save the lives of thousands, which one would you choose? Me, I chose family for a few reasons:

1. The dog is useful

2. My spouse is a quest NPC who can’t be brought back

3. I’m sentimental

I just condemned thousands to death in the name of love. Then again, if you were going to commit mass murder, there usually isn’t a better reason than doing it for your family. Besides, I didn’t directly kill them, I just had the chance to revive them but didn’t. And I also need my dog to finish a quest (a quest that I would have completed earlier until I ran into a bug that won’t uncover the dig spot and will hopefully be patched in the near future) that I still have to do. Until the next patch comes along, I’m currently saving up to 1,000,000 for the final side quest in the game and after that I’ve done everything that I can until the next round of DLC. Now I can finally stop playing only one game for months on end! Hooray!

Until next time (whenever I feel like posting on here) this is Mancubus, signing off!

Please join us for the?2009 Sixth Annual Games for Change Festival, May 27 – 29, in New York City! ?This is the only event dedicated to the exciting new?movement of video games for social change – games about poverty, global conflict, climate change. Called “the Sundance of video games” for “socially-responsible game-makers” we’re building a new genre of video game - games to change the world - for the better.

This year’s festival features an Opening Keynote by Pulitzer-Prize winning author and world-changing New York Times journalist? Nicholas Kristof who will give us a sneak peek into his new book, television show and video game!

Other festival highlights include?a fireside chat with preeminent games and learning scholars Jim Geeand Henry Jenkins;?an interactive game design session by leading game designer Eric Zimmerman; and a closing keynote by Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer of Spore, and one of the 10 Most Influential Women In Games.

And don’t miss our Games Expo, where festival-goers can see and play these new games firsthand in a lively and media-friendly reception. ?And this year will see the first-ever Knight News Game Award, sponsored the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Come see how games are being used to address key events and issues in the news! 

Back by popular demand “Let the Games Begin: 101 Workshop on Making Social Issue Games,” our pre-festival day-long workshop for newbies on May 27th! (2008 MacArthur Foundation’s DML Competition award-winner) This workshop is a soup-to-nuts tutorial on the fundamentals of social issue games. Vital to those who are new to designing learning games but passionate about social issues, the workshop features leading experts on game design, fundraising, evaluation, youth participation, distribution, and press strategies. The 101 Workshop on Making Social Issue Games is made possible through the generous support of the AMD Foundation.

There are also special festival events for journalists, researchers, and funders. 

Festival panelists and speakers include: 
Ian Bogost, CEO of Persuasive Games and author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism
Heather Chaplin, journalist (NPR, NYT) and author of Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution.
Mary Flanagan, Director of the Tiltfactor Lab
Tracy Fullerton, Assistant Professor, USC, Interactive Media
Judith Helfand, Independent filmmaker
Frank Lantz, CEO Area Code; Acting Director, NYU Game Center
John Nordlinger, Senior Research Manager, Microsoft
Ian Rowe, former head of Public Affairs at mTV
Katie Salen, Executive Director, Institute of Play; Associate Professor, Design and Technology Department, Parsons The New School for Design
Seth Scheisel, New York Times game critic and technology journalist
Kurt Squire, Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison
Constance Steinkuehler, Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Clive Thompson, Contributor, The New York Times, Wired

Among many others. 

A recent Pew Report showing that 97% of teenagers playing games, noted that “some particular qualities of game play have a strong and consistent positive relationship to a range of civic outcomes”? making games perhaps one of the most powerful media of our day for learning and civic engagement.? The Annual Games for Change Festival brings together the world’s leading foundations, NGOs, game-makers, academics, and journalists to explore this potential and how best to harness games in addressing the most critical issues of our day, from poverty to climate change, global conflicts to human rights.? And some of these new games are being played by (literally) millions of people of all ages.

For more information, visit http://www.gamesforchange.org/fest2009.? We look forward to seeing you all there!
We are thankful for the generous support of our Festival sponsors, the AMD Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and Seed Magazine, as well as Parsons The New School for Design.

Mark Smith – Games for Change <mark@gamesforchange.org>

Here are some things we are looking for:

Required skills for web

Background in Design for web
Strong understanding of CSS, XHTML and W3C compliance
Proficient in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or comparable programs
Familiar with FTP

Desired skills

Workable or light knowledge in PHP, MySQL
Experience with Drupal
Workable knowledge with Flash
Workable knowledge in After Effects

They will get hands on experience working on websites as well as working side by side with our top web designers here at the studio.  We are looking for two or three interns to come in and help us with some amazing projects.  We would like to see a resume,  live sites online, and/or any design work.  This would be approximately a two month long internship. 

Zbigniew Zarudzki – zbigniew@3to1studios.com

3to1studios.com

http://kotaku.com/5232048/faith-fighter-returns-with-an-all+new-sequel

For those of you who remember Faith Fighter, it was a simple yet fun fighting game where you could play as Buddha and punch Mohammed in the face. If that doesn’t strike you as at least somewhat humorous, then you simply aren’t human. Yeah, it was politically incorrect, but it was still funny as hell. (No pun intended.)

It’s now back in the form of Faith Fighter II, which apparently no longer features any fighting whatsoever but rather has the player simply click on the sprites from the original game. It isn’t very fun but hopefully it will help more people learn about the existance of this game (which is still available on Newgrounds).

http://kotaku.com/5233309/first-mag-gameplay-trailer-shows-256-player-action

We finally got a gameplay trailer for the upcoming PS3 title, MAG.  It’s a pretty short video that gives a few quick clips of gameplay.  Like the article says, its not as visually impressive as Killzone 2, but remember this a 256 multiplayer game not a 6v6 kind of thing.  Graphically I think it seems right around Call of Duty 4 which is still good.  I dunno about the rest of you PS3 owners but I’m pretty excited for this title.

“Shoot Club: The Doom 3 Review” was written after my own heart. It is a delightful story of two friends that stood in line at Best Buy for six hours for the release of Doom 3. Tom Chick, the author, actually already played Doom 3 at that point, but he was standing with his friend who was very, very excited for the game. After playing the game nonstop, and relentlessly scouring every detail of the game, his friend slowly came to the realization that the game was not as good as he hyped it up to be, even though he didn’t want to admit it. He friend seems to be a hype junkie. In the article he mentioned that he has waited in line for dozens of hours at a time for things like the launch of X-Box 360 and Phantom Menace.

This is a man after my own heart. I, in fact, have also waited in line for obscene amounts of time for things like that, including the X-Box 360. Hype can really get to me. It can make me do crazy things. Perfect example of this story is with the 360. My friends and I were all camping out in sub zero weather for the blasted machine, and one of us was not even planning on purchasing the system. Same situation as in the article, he was just there because his friends were there, and it was more like an event, rather than just us waiting in line. Then when I got the system, besides it breaking on me after a week, I looked at the games I bought and thought “I never would have bought these games if the system didn’t just come out and I had to have it.” The games were not even all that fun. I just wanted the system because it was the newest and the best. I didn’t care about the actual content. I just wanted it because other people wanted it, because of the hype. Now the system serves as little more than a stand for my action figures. Hype seems to be a very powerful tool, I wonder how game companies use this to help market their games. Also, I wonder how much we can be effected by hype, I never thought I would be effected by it, but apparently I can be effected and not even realize it.

In “Virtuality and its Disconnects”, Sherry Turkle takes a different approach. She looks at a broader picture, an discusses how our increasing dependence on the internet has had a potentially negative effect on us and disconnected us from physical relationships. She references MUDs, online forums, online games, and social networking sites like Facebook among others. I found her argument about how we can have several personas particularly interesting. How we have our online persona and out real personality. But we also have different online personas. We act differently in different online settings. I know personally, I write radically different when posting on a site like 4chan, rather than on the site Gaia. I can be a totally different person from one site to another. So, an obvious question would be: what happens next? With the increasing popularity and availability of the internet and places like Facebook, does this mean that people will become even more withdrawn, or will this prove to be nothing more than some kind of big fad? Also, she mentioned the idea of rape in an online MUD. Does this necessarily mean that people can be forced to do something against their will in a game? Can this idea really be applied to a game where, if you really don’t like something, you can simply walk away from the computer, or does it go deeper than that?