Pats spin on smash..bros that is.

I am a very mild gamer and am not really into the newest confusing, double knob games, where I usually get stuck in the corner or end up shooting at the sky . That being said I am one of the biggest fans of Nintendo 64s' Super Smash Brothers. It easy very easy to use and even a "newbie" can just pick up a controller and have hours of fun. The whole Nintendo platform is awesome letting it's users have between 1-4 players which is rare these days I find. In my opinion I would rather play with 3 of my friends then several unknown hairy men in boxer shorts sitting in their basements... but thats just me. Overall the game has great bright esthetics and background score that is alluring and soothing enough to keep its players occupied for hours. My final remark on this wonderful game is the amount of options we are given. People LOVE options in games and this game let's you choose everything including items time or stock, characters, opponents and of course setting. I would write more but Donkey Kong is chirping me and he's about to get his hairy ass kicked! Cheers!

Video Games Can Have A Theory?

Our theory is games are more than interaction, more than story, and are enjoyable on many different levels and in different ways than by more traditional forms of entertainment, such as movies or books.

The Puzzle Pieces are a very good way to show this, since without any of the other pieces the puzzle is incomplete. A video game with an amazing story, but poorly executed controls is less rewarding than a game with immersive story and well articulated controls.

The puzzle breaks down into four major components: Gameplay, Story, Design, and Experience. These components are then further sub-divided by the developer’s reasoning or intent, and the end user’s experience with these components. Much like a director makes a choice of angle or a writer selects a phrase and the watcher or reader interprets these signals, so to do these choices and interpretations exist in the video game media.

Below we shall delve more deeply into the four major components and the various ideas that exist within them.

GamePlay

Developer

● Mechanics: Mechanics such as how the game will be controlled, which button is jump or shoot etc. Do these controls help or hinder the play?

● Flow: You are no longer you, you are the marine saving the world, or the elf killing the orcs etc.

● Innovation: What is new about this game what if anything will it change or pioneer?

Users:

● Ease of using controls: Based on the developer’s mechanics, did the controls conform to standard and comfortable positions ie: WASD for movement in an FPS on a PC. Did the controls help you forget that you are playing a game, or did they serve as a barrier to immersion?

● Learning: How is this world different than my own? How is it different than another fictional world I have also played in? What is the extent of my control over this world?

● Entertaining: Are the responses you get from the world entertaining? When you complete a level or beat a boss why is it so rewarding? Was it a fun and entertaining simulation?

● Difficulty: How hard was the game? Did the AI offer enough of a challenge? Were the puzzles especially hard to solve? Did you have to think outside the box? Did you change the difficulty? Why? Did increasing the difficulty decrease or increase the enjoyment of mastering the world?

● Break Expectations: Can I jump on top of a building that I am not supposed to be able to get onto? Can I “break the game?” or “Find the Cake?” so to speak. Are there hacks that exist outside of the game to enhance or change my experiences?

● Push the Limits of the World: How can I utilize the rules and physics of this world to my best advantage without actually breaking anything? Teamwork in a co-operative multiplayer game for instance like luring an enemy down a hallway into an ambush.

Story

Developer:

● Complex Themes: The story could be a deep and meaningful rich experience. The story could be as enthralling or teach us as much as novels claim to do.

● Arc: Does the story follow the traditional model of story telling? i.e. Set up, rising action, climax, conflict resolution, falling action etc. How does this affect your view of events and characters.

● Characters: How do the characters feel in this game? Are they fleshed out people? Or do they respond with the same few words over and over? How does this affect player involvement?

● Descriptions: Will there be a way for the user to learn more about the world? ex. scannable objects in the Metroid series for the Gamecube. How will these function? What will they say? What will the text be?

User:

● Descriptions: Was there a way to learn more about how things in the world got there? Ie. The ability to know even the details of a crate in Mass Effect. Did this enhance the feeling of your attachment to the world?

● Immersion: Did you feel immersed more in the world because of the story? Did it give you a better understanding of why you had to kill monsters/zombies/nazis or what your motivation was? Did it help you develop attachment to your character? Other characters? Or the world as a whole?

● Depth: Did the story touch on some deep issues? Did it explore the human condition? Did it make you re-evaluate your actions (in-game or in meat-life)? Did it make you think critically?

● Skippable: If given the option did you watch the cut scenes? Read the flavour text if available? Comprehend the mission objective. Or generally care at all about the overall fate/state of this fictional world.

● Characters: Are the characters in keeping with the overall theme of the game? Do they respond as you might expect them to? Do some gameplay events change the dialogue or attitude of these characters as you would expect?

Experience

Developer:

● Linear/Non-Linear: Should the user pick the order of the quests/missions? Should there only be one set path to follow?

● Time: Is this game a sequel? Or a Prequel? How does that change things for the player’s experience? What needs to be changed or added to make this game different?

User:

● Accumulation: Your experience of the game comes from the elements of story, play, and design if the game finds the right balance (or perhaps it doesn’t but you like it that way anyway) of story and play.

● Catharsis: Did you feel accomplishment, and a sense of the cleansing of emotion after rescuing the Princess or beating the final boss or from the story coming to close?

● Completion: Did you play the game just to beat all the bosses in the right order? If it was a broader game did you explore all the areas of the map? Did you complete bonus/side missions/quests/levels? Did you complete all of them?

● Replay: Would you re-play the game again? Are there multiple endings you can get? How will it affect your play next time? Your enjoyment of the story? Your sense of catharsis?

● Response: Did the scary monster that jumped out actually scare you? Were the sound effects on cue? Did the textures help to carry the theme of the game (scary bloody walls in Bioshock for instance.) Did you die a lot before you realized breaking certain crates caused them to explode?

● Dreams: If the game is played enough are there real world side effects? Dreaming about a post apocalyptic wasteland after too much Fallout for example.

● Merging Realities: Does enough play begin to affect your real world interactions... Believing that there’s a splicer behind the shower curtain, or talking in a medieval tongue for instance.

● Fandom: Is it possible to be affected to the point of fandom? Dressing as the Companion Cube from p0rtal at a convention for example.

Design

Developer:

● Theme: The unifying idea throughout the game, this determines many elements of the design is the theme a boy gets girl story? A horror type scenario in which only the blonde virgin survives?

● Genre: Which genre is the game going to be? FPS? RPG? Why this choice? How will it affect play and story and style?

● Atmosphere:

○ Sound: What will the in game sounds be? What will the scoring be like? How does a score without vocals compare to ingame music with vocals?

○ Textures: Do the walls and floors and ceilings make sense? Are the characters real looking? Do they convey the theme well?

○ Colour/Line: what choices were made where? Yellow conveys happiness or joy green signifies jealousy. A zigzag conveys excitement, a long straight line may make your eye follow it for instance.

○ Lighting: Does the lighting and its position make for a scary setting? Or a happy meadow? Where and when should lights be and play off of? Katamari has a lot more light than F.E.A.R

○ HUD/Menus: How will the HUD look? Why? It’s something players will see a lot during some games it should fit with the theme or personality of the character.

User:

● Mods: Does the developer give you the tools to model your own scenarios or concepts? If not is there a way to do it anyway? What did you make? Why? Was it more or less enjoyable than the original?

● User feedback: Sales of a game are a way to determine if the players liked a game, so are letters or emails to the company. Have you ever expressed dislike or like of a game or concept? Why? Was there any feedback from the developer?

Jess's Current Thoughts on LittleBigPlanet

This is the first game I have played on PS3. One of the reasons I bought the console.
I want to first off by saying I love the way they have done the credits. Forcing the user to view them as they learn the basic controls of the game, is a brilliant idea. It is fun and I have actually played it a few times just to see how they did everything. If I ever create a game, I want players to have fun while watching being forced to view the credits.

The controls are quite simple, even my parents have figured them out. They actually quite enjoy playing this game, my dad is a fan of fps and my mom a fan of wii games, its a perfect blend of challenges, skill, and crafty graphics. The gameplay gets more challenging as you move along, as games should. The checkpoints are wonderful but sometimes frustrating that you cannot recharge them if you go backwards. From grabbing to balancing to swinging this game really uses thoughtful ways to get you to move other then the classic jump button.

Although the story mode is short, the locations and characters are so creative, and different. Each theme of the locations is completely different and exciting. Having the ability to create your own levels and access other's levels online helps expand the story line. Each new level in the game has a different story that some how links to the rest of the world. User created levels might relate to the game world or to their own unique world.

I honestly can spend hours playing this game. Although it gets frustrating at times, there are always challenges or going back to collect stickers in past levels. You cannot only experience worlds other players have create but create your own to share with the community. To create a good world can take a long time, but if they are good then people will play them. Multi-player turns co-op in this game. Its a fun to explore each location with friends but if you had no friends... Just go online and find some new ones. I love that you need to play multi-player to get certain areas of the game, it makes it worth playing co-op with someone.

The graphics are stunning, and I love the homemade feel to them. They are adorable and twisted at the same time. Costumes, and props help express your creativity as you explore the world. I personally think the strongest element of the game is that possibility to create your own levels and share them with the community. It allows users with big imaginations create pieces of art and share them with the public. It really has endless possibilities, you honestly can edit everything in your own levels. The amount of thought and details that went into each level of the game is really outstanding. Each world has a different feel not only with graphics but music and general atmosphere. The soundtrack consists of such a wide selection to match each level's theme.

This is game is honestly one of my favourites, and will probably be one I keep returning to once I finish it. I love the ability to animate my character and dress them up. It is playful and very lighthearted. The amount of thought and creativity that went into this game is inspiring. If you haven't played it, I suggest you do.

Curtis on Starcraft 2

Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty is your basic game of rock paper scissors taken to a whole new level. This sequel from blizzard is the first part in a three part trilogy. It allows its user to choose from three races Terran (human), Zerg (aliens) and Protoss (highly advanced beings). No one race is particularly more powerful then the next, instead the races offer different strategies and it is up to the player to use them correctly.

The Wings of Liberty installment focuses on the Terran side of things, Blizzard does this to quickly and easily get new players into the story fast. As well they begin with the Terran race as they are the most simplistic and well-rounded to use. This game as well offers its players various tutorials to get even the biggest noobs good in a hurry. This was one of Blizzards attempts to keep you from getting smashed online. This game boasts a sensational campaign mode featuring 26 missions which will keep you playing for at least 24hours. This Campaign takes place where the second one ended. With the discovery of the queen of blades and of her old relationship with Jim Raynor. However even if you are new to this franchise, the beginning of the campaign does quite a good job of catching you up.

With 26 missions you would think that this game would get quite repetitive like its predecessor Starcraft 1, you would be wrong. Blizzard made these missions so every one isn't simply build an army and attack your opponent. In some missions you must reach and objective, in others you must defend your base. It even boasts a mission which forces you to be one character the entire level, and use cunning to get around you opponents. With gripping cinematic’s this game is not only able to appeal its users need for blood and gore. But as well, you will find it will be playing with your emotions and keeping you on the edge of your seat.

How can you end off a review on Starcraft 2 without mentioning the most epic soundtrack ever made. The music directors at Blizzard truly spared no expense when producing this game. For not only does it boast epic in game music, it also contains a jukebox with many custom Starcraft 2 based songs (lyrics included). The music in this game makes the player want to have the most epic battle possible and helps add to the many amazing features of Starcraft 2.

- Curtis

Trying to Connect with Kinect

Occasionally I can be found dancing up a storm in the living room, however lately it has been because I have been playing Dance Central on Xbox 360’s Kinect. With over 30 songs, old and new, you can chose to ‘break it down’ with step by step tutorial, ‘perform it’ by yourself or ‘dance battle’ against another person.

We had to rearrange our living room in order to have enough room to dance in front of the sensor; Xbox says you need 6 to 10 feet. Standing in front of the sensor, on screen it shows you where you should stand and usually has no issue finding you. The sensor can lose you if are too close, too far away or if another person steps into the frame and confuses it. Mirroring the dancer on the screen, you have to focus on every aspect of the body, unlike Wii, which could only really sense one arm movement.

The graphics are very impressive of both the main dancer that you follow and the back up dancers. The sensors pick up on all your movements as well, highlighting in red the part of you body that is not doing the right action. While there may not be a story line, the game does progress, once completing the dance with a 4 star rating you are able to unlock new difficulty levels, meaning new dance move for songs.

Wireless and control-less makes Kinect very different and fun to play. While using your hands to scroll and select, it can feel very futurist, but can also be a bit difficult to select. There is the option to use the Xbox controller, but that takes away from the whole feel of the sensor.

Overall the fact that I can dance in front of the Kinect and it can sense all of my movements (and even play back certain parts of my dance from use of the webcam) is very amazing and as I said earlier, futurist! Technology is moving very rapidly and the Kinect for Xbox is just the next step!

Fallout: New Vegas - So very, very frustrating

I am the type of gamer who enjoys really good game. Not that put a really good RPG. That’s why when I first started playing Fallout: New Vegas I was really looking forward to the experience. The game promised to offer so much and improve upon the previous game in the series, Fallout 3. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when NV failed to live up to either its hype, or relation to Fallout 3.

Let’s start off at the most logical place to begin the discussion, the beginning of the game. The game begins with you awakening in a doctor’s office after he used to fine skills in medicine to save you after you get shot in the head. Now I’m no medical expert but I’m pretty sure that getting shot in the head has a very low survival rate under the most ideal circumstances (not that there are ideal circumstances to for getting shot in the head), let alone getting shot in the middle of a post apocalyptic wasteland where the nearest doctor is some weird old dude living in a shack. Anyways back to the review. The game starts out with you waking up in a doctor’s office, and then being put through the most pointless tests ever to determine your psych profile. These tests are pointless however because you can end up changing the results to whatever you want anyways.

Now let’s move on to the point where you take control of your character and start out free to roam the wasteland. Now this is the point where you can choose whether you want to do the tutorial and learn how to play game, or just go off on your own. Let’s say we go off on our own this time. Now when I first played NV I had one goal in mind: get to New Vegas. It is the title of the game anyways. Now as nice as it would have been to start out in New Vegas, I don’t mind that you have to get there first, it helps add to the satisfaction of the game when you finally reach it. And it really would have been satisfying if I didn’t have to take the scenic route to get there. I don’t know if the developers forgot what game they were making or if they just don’t care but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Fallout: New Vegas. More like Fallout: Scenic Mojave Safari or some other bulls***. I mean they tease you with the sight of New Vegas from the very beginning of the game. You can see it right there in front of you, the only problem is that between you and the city is a whole canyon full of Deathclaws. And for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, a deathclaw is a dinosaur, that’s the easiest way to put it. So pretty much if you want to get to New Vegas you have to take a long journey, weaving through a bunch of ramshackle towns, until, after many hours later, you reach the gates of New Vegas itself.

So you have reached the gates of New Vegas, congratulations. I bet you’d like to celebrate by going in and having fun in the casinos. Well guess what, you can’t. You see this game likes to taunt you with the big shiny neon lights. Every time you think you have reached them you are wrong and have to try again. Anyways it turns out that to get into the Strip you have to have one of two things, a passcard, or two-thousand bottlecaps. TWO THOUSAND! Where do they expect you to get that money from? Whenever I played I also had to use what precious few caps I had to keep from DYING! Luckily the game offers several ways to obtain a passcard to get into the city. I decided to help out this one guy who leads a gang of Elvis impersonators. And all I had to do was help his robot dog get a new brain. Luckily this was easy because the brain doctor lived right across the street. WRONG! Turns out he lives across the desert in a town on top of a f***ing mountain! So anyways long story short, two hours later the dog has a new brain, I get into the Strip and the game crashes. F*** it! I’m going to go play Fallout 3.

Sam & God of War 2

I first heard about the God of War series when hype for the GOW3 release began. I heard the story line and found the mythical Greek elements intriguing but I didn't have a PS3! Instead, I bought GOW2 for PS2 and was surprised by the graphics! I had already done my research and watched trailers, teasers and interviews and drooled over the concept art. So, it was like finding treasure when I opened the pack and there was a special feature disk waiting for me.

You don't need to know the whole story to play, but it's not hard to catch up from the start either. The character of Kratos holds the guilt and vengeance of a beast so to play/act that side of a character is a great experience. The weapons are fun and the brutal kills top off my adrenaline. The music moves you forward like a king to his warriors in battle, but it also lets you pause to feel pathos for Kratos - until you go onto more neck-ripping, sword thrashing moments. The artists did a tremendous job of creating environments and characters with a Greek likeness. Every sacred monument, costume, weapon and creature has an element of originality tweaked from the initial mythical story of Greek Gods.

God of War gameplay isn't my absolute favourite. I do enjoy the puzzles; They're not too easy or hard. But when I arrive at each boss it kills me to see symbols pop up on my screen; It ruins the moment really. I suppose they make up for it with the dramatic and amusing quick times though. The cyclops eye-rip has become a Press favourite. My second peeve is the text pop-ups that instruct you throughout the game. The font is almost illegible because of their choice of size and style.

Overall, God of War is a fun game with a great plot filled with history, myth and fantastic art. Even if you're not a big gamer like myself, you will appreciate the work put into this game. I can't help but wonder what possibilities could arise if it became 2 player. Definitely check out the bonus disk to see the characters, environments and levels that didn't make the final cut.

Details:
Released in North America: March 2007
Genre: Action-Adventure
Single Player
Director: Cory Barlog
ESRB: M 17+
Sony

Kev's Thoughts on Metal Gear Solid

Okay, Metal Gear Solid (Playstation, 1998) was one of my favourites back in the day. Just the fact that the game’s story took up two discs made me I was gonna get so much in this game. And boy was I right. Being eight years old playing this game with my brother, I thought it was groundbreaking. In ways, it was. It created a new genre with its focus on stealth and infiltration. At the time, the graphics were unbelievable. You couldn’t believe that they had developed all of this; it was like a movie, unlike anything I had seen before outside of movies. Looking back at it nowadays, the game is still great. But most of the things I thought were incredible are now annoying to me, having seen the developments in videogames throughout the years. But I’m gonna look at the game and not judge it based on today’s standards.

Gameplay:
One thing about MGS is that it is really hard to pick up and play. If I was to give this game to someone and say play this, they wouldn’t know what to do. The controls are fun and interesting, especially with the inventory being mapped to the L2 and R2 rather than in the pause menu, but they take some getting used to. The mix of perspectives while playing is a little daunting, particularly when you constantly change your 3rd person perspective from top down, to forward, then to first person for certain parts. One part in particular comes to mind: the Metal Gear Rex showdown at the end of the game has you running around in 3rd person with the camera facing forward, then when you get to certain parts of the room the camera changes to top-down. Then when using the Stinger missiles, it goes into first person. Talk about disorientating.

Story:
Being 8 year old playing this, I had no idea what was going on and how deep this game’s themes were. Looking at it now, the game’s themes of global domination, nuclear war, corruption and takeover seem incredibly apparent. The games creator Hideo Kojima crafts an elaborate story following its predecessors on the NES that takes the series beyond anything that gamers had seen before in videogame stories.

Experience:
This game is a great experience. However, it is just beyond frustrating at times. But that adds to the sense of accomplishment that the game gives you. You knock one boss down, only to encounter a new and harder one later that makes you want to persevere. MGS also contains a different ending to the story (one of the first games to do so, I believe) and that adds to the replayability of the game. As well, after beating the game, new difficulty levels are unlocked, creating a new challenge for the player.

Design:
The graphics are impressive for the time. The game resembles a film at times, with its many cut scenes and cut scenes within cut scenes. Yea. Cut scenes within cut scenes. The game also presents a very dark, eerie atmosphere of authority and militarism. The game’s colours are dark, and dull, with many shades of grey and black. The HUD is great, especially the radar as well as the inventory of equipping items.

Final Thoughts:
The game is very critically acclaimed, and I tend to agree. It’s one of the games I will keep coming back to on the Playstation, and I see or learn something new every time I play the game.

8.5/10

Kristin's Thoughts on Fallout New Vegas

I'd like to think of myself as more of a casual gamer. I like being able to pick up a controller and just play without much of a learning curve. With that being said, I couldn't really get into Fallout New Vegas, but that doesn't mean I think it's a bad game. Because of this however, I can only truly comment on a few elements of the game.

To begin with, this game is buggy. Right from the beginning I got stuck in a part of Doc Mitchell's house. I attempted to jump out of this spot and my character got stuck higher and higher in the air. Because this happened right after the character creation, I had to restart my game.

Skip to the tutorial mission. As someone who had never played any of the other Fallout games, I had no idea what I was doing so I of course opted for the tutorial missions. All is going well until I am asked to kill some Geckos. After killing a few, I was kind of checking out the area taking my time to progress to the next few Geckos. When I finally found them, Sunny Smiles and her dog Cheyenne were both laying on the ground, dead. I didn't take this as a big deal until I got into town and was asked to get Sunny to help me which is kind of impossible as she is lying motionless on the grounds of the Wasteland. And of course, I opted to restart my game yet again.

So onto character creation round number three. By this point I was starting to get fed up with the game. Did I mention that the character creation process takes forever? Because it does. And when you have to do it three times you begin to not care what your character is like. After creating my character again, I managed to complete the tutorial missions successfully - without killing Sunny OR Cheyenne this time - and was finally able to continue on. So on to Primm I went, slowly. VERY slowly. The characters move very slow in this game which I found to be quite frustrating. Also, as I am not very good with these types of games, upon entering Primm I had no idea what I was doing and managed to die every time. At this point, I became frustrated and have barely touched the game since.

Although this may be a very negative experience of Fallout New Vegas, I still think it's a good game, just not the game for me. I've heard many positive reviews of the game but as a very casual gamer it just did not keep my attention.