Well since there is only 2 weeks of class left instead of starting on a whole new game I thought I would give my impressions of games I have played in the last week.

First up is Nintendo's Brain Age. I was shocked that I would be excited by a game that's main draw was seeing how fast I could do math or yell at my DS but leave it to Nintendo to make something like this fun. I also really think that the fact it was only $20 helped push me over that buy new / wait for it used line I often find myself standing at. Overall it's graphics are pretty basic. You have the Doctor who is a floating head that looks like Andross from Starfox guiding you on the way to mental stamina. Other then that the presentation is pretty spartan with most figures represented as stick figures or numbers and letters. The only issue I have found with this game is the handwriting and speech reconition. While the goal of the game is to either write or shout an answer as fast as you can, often the software interprets your answer wrong. This is more so for the speech then the writing because after a few rounds you figure out that it likes numbers to be written certian ways. While I don't think it will become the cultural hit that it has in Japan I think Brain Age will help not only present games in a way that shows they can be learning tools but also introduce games to people that might not have played them.

Another game I have spent some time with is MLB 2K6 for the Xbox 360. So far I have been slightly let down by the 360 so far with the exception of the port of Burnout Revenge and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. This game falls into the same problems almost all 360 games have and that is it's a port of the Xbox game with some hi-res textures slapped on it and streched out to widescreen presentation. The grass looks like plastic and the crowds still look fake. The gameplay itself is pretty decent but I can tell that after the Wii comes out that it will be hard to play any type of sports game To add to the realsim of the game the swinging of the bat is now a motion on the right analog stick that feels very poorly designed. It never feels timed right and leads to uneeded frustration. Overall its not a bad first attempt at a baseball game on the 360 but I can tell next years edition will be even better since it will be designed from the ground up as a next-gen game.

April 26th Reading.

1. I think Gee is on the right track with his Cutural models idea for games. Even if they don't know it players bring a great deal of personal baggage with them when they experience any type of media, be it games, movies, music, or books. These cutural models could also be a way to get people to experience things outside of their culture or area of interest and can even lead to people growing intellectualy. Games provide an easy way for people to ease into a different culture, be it a culture from a different country or race, or even a culture within games such as FPS games or RPGs.

2. I really think this would be a good way for the media to look at games. As I have always thought since the start of this class is that until games shake their child's toy image people will always respond retroactively insted of proactively. Maybe if critics like Gee continue to provide ways for games to be analyzed maybe people will be able to learn how to treat games as a form of media.

Game Journal:
Well I did it. I finally beat Zelda: the Wind Waker. As I saw that I have a ton of work to do for school for finals and whatnot I sat down and finished off the game over two 6 hour sessions over the last week. I am not going to lie and admit I looked a FAQ for the triforce quest. I did love the final dungeon and the battle with Gannon was top notch. Looking back on the game I would have to place it around 4th in my list of favorite Zelda games. The lack of dugeons and tacked on sailing mechanic took away slightly from the game but everything else about it was great and really makes me look forward to the Twilight Princess even more. This game took all that was great about the first two 3D Zeldas and refined them to perfection. I also really love the cel-shaded look because it gives the game a timeless look that can't be had with "realistic" graphics since you can always compare an old game to a new one. I mean look at some PS1 or even early PS2 games. Some look so bad you can't play them because they are so hard on your eyes. Overall I enjoyed my time with this game and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good adventure with a challenge but a challenge that is never so hard you quit playing.

Zelda Week 10

SO I put aside some serious time to get this quest out of the way. As I have been saying the entire time I have been blogging about my quest through the Wind Waker that I had learned to dread this quest as everyone I have ever talked to about this game as said the game was excellent besides this. I also know why I stopped playing this game almost 3 years ago when I first got it and that is because you have to go on a quest to get the items needed to get the triforce pieces. I learned that I had to find the rupee bag expansions so I could pay tingle to translate the maps I had to find. If the sailing was faster I would be a little more ok with this. When things like this are tacked onto games so reviewers can say " the game lasts for 20 plus hours" and unfortunetly companies need reviewers to say things like this so people will feel a little better about dropping $50 on a game. So after getting the needed things to go on my quest I started off on it.

Game Journal No .9

So after making up with my Gamecube after last week's outburst I dove back into the Wind Waker. I was relieved to find that I had actually saved at some point during the wind temple so I only had to finish that off. More clever puzzles in this one but it felt like a copy of the earth temple. In both you have a sage you have to escort through the temple and you have to use both Link and the sage to get through the temple. I thought that the Earth temple's puzzles made much better use of this mechanic. Oh well, it's time for the triforce hunt. This is one of those weird gameplay moments when you have heard so much about a segement of a game from other players that it affects the way you play the game. I have played the whole game with the idea that I knew at some point there was a rather tedious fetch quest towards the end, that for some spoiled an otherwise great game. I am trying to clear my mind of these thoughts as I go into this. I'll let you know how it turns out next week.

Reading Responses
Question 1
Things have changed a great deal in the 12 years since she wrote this book. The main thing that was changed is the level of graphical detail and customization that players can put into games now. Back in 1994 online was almost exlcusively text based with the exception of maybe a few First Person Shooters such as Doom. Now adays though, we have stunningly realistic enviroments and even additional features like voice chat, that make us feel like we are living a second life online. In a way there already is some acknowledgement of on-line activity in the real world but it is mostly limited to other fans of the game. Saying you have a +9 Ice sword might make you the hit of the Everquest con but it won't land you a job. Online play isn't wasted time though because while it's not as personal, it is another form of communication. Like any other situation where there is a common theme, you know you have at least one thing in common with other players of the game. This might lead to discussion of other games you might like and so on.

Question 2
I really like to think I am the same person both online and in real life. I keep the same name where ever I might go and try to act the same as well. I find that in real life I tend to sit back and let other people do the talking and just absorb what they say and then use that knowledge to my advantage. I do the same thing online when doing something like reading a message board. If someone has posted the latest press release and then nine other people already debated it I find that I don't really feel the need to join in. I don't think this is true for everyone though, since I have played online games and you can tell when someone is putting on an act, espcially since the rise of voice chat in games. Some people come online and either act like the person they want to be because their identity is hidden or else who they think they have to be since everyone else on their counter stirke server is acting a certain way.Online games are like high school, everyone wants to fit in somehow.

Game Journal
The Gamecube and myself are currently not on speaking terms. I did something that I haven't done in a long time and that is get so mad at the game I just flipped out, yelled a variety of things about the Gamecube's mother and shut off the game. While that's not as extreme as say tossing the Gamecube down the side of the grand caynon, which would be a sizable feat from my location, it still is something I thought I grew out of. See back in small times, I was known among my friends as the angry kid. I always threw the controller when I lost, and one time I got so mad after losing 8 games of RBI Baseball in a row I removed the game from the NES, walked to the front door, and threw the game outside. Those days have long since past but last night playing Zelda my inner child came out to play. I had made it through the Earth Temple with relative ease and really enjoyed the puzzles that required the use of light reflection between Link and the Earth sage, so I figured I would keep on going. I found the next item, the iron boots, and the next sage, who is the sage of the wind. I had made it about halfway through the Wind temple when I got to a point where there was a very long jumping puzzl e that involved the long time zelda seires staple the hookshot. I kept messing up the last jump at after about five tries got mad and shut off the game. It was at this point I had realized I hadn't saved since the end of the Earth Temple. If you need me I will be on a flight to Arizona, with my Gamecube tucked in the overhead bin.

Game On Extra Credit Visit

This past Thursday I took the opportunity to bypass the pleasant weather of the first real day of spring and spend it cooped up inside looking at the past forty something years of video game history. Now I fancy myself as knowledgeable on the history of video games and to a nerd like me there really wasn’t anything new to learn, but it was amazing to get some hands or eyes on time with some of the holy relics of the industry. The first thing you see as soon as you walk in is a PDP-1 and a nearby station running an emulation of the game Space War. I thought it was sad and almost disrespectful that so many of the people there rushed past it and other industry stalwarts like Pong and Nolan Bushnell’s original Computer Space to the section with the free arcade games. As I paid my respects to these forgotten idols I did come to the conclusion that it was their primitive nature that made people careless about them. They were behind glass and turned off, so unless you knew why there were there like I did you would have rushed past them too. This is more an issue with how the exhibit was set up and run then anything else. The next stop was the golden age of arcades area that had classics, like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, all set to free play. This was one of the more interesting areas of the exhibit to me since I have never played an actual Missile Command arcade cabinet or the original Bezerk, just the halfway decent Atari 2600 version. It was interesting to note that people would line up three or four deep to play Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, but almost all totally ignored Dig Dug. It really goes to show the staying power game characters have, it also shows Dig Dug is due for a comeback. The next part of the exhibit had systems from the original odyssey from the early 1970’s through the NES and all the way up to the Dreamcast. While this would have been an awesome trip to see the evolution of game design, a good 1 out of every 3 machines didn’t work in some way. This was a predominant trait among a large part of the exhibit and I will get into that in a second. The next section was the evolution of games from the mid 1980’s until the present day. The choices for some of the games on display were to put it nicely, questionable. The best example I can think of was a display running Infocom’s text adventure version of “ The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.” The text adventure is a genre long forgotten to the sands of time and I bet that almost no one has ever come across one in their life. When I walked up to it there was the game someone had just played and to quote it said “ Fuck You” then the games answer was “ I don’t understand the command ‘Fuck You” so while it was hilarious to see, it shows poor planning on the part of the creators of the event.
This leads to my issues with the exhibit both in how it was presented and how it was maintained. The exhibit seems to follow the old idea that games are only for kids. I say this because the place looked and smelled like a chuck e. cheese pizza. There were bright colors all around and these happy little robots by each game station explaining the game. Also to go along with this is the fact that most of the game stations were the perfect high for your average eleven year old to be the perfect height for the game. The thing is that when said eleven year old would approach the game is was most often broken is some way. A great number had either froze or wouldn’t load or the controllers were broken. I think this is due to the fact that almost every game up until current generation software was running on an emulator locked up under the display. I really think that almost all of this was due to the computers running these emulators overheating and the fact that a good deal of emulation is far from exact. The exhibit was also lacking in any staff to make sure the games kept running and to explain the significance to why the game was chosen to be in the exhibit. While each game did have a little card saying something about the game or system it’s on but most were about a sentence in length. For example they had a PC-Engine running Capcom’s “Fighting Street” and the entire card said was “ The PC-Engine was the first system to use CD-ROMS to play games from. First of all it doesn’t have anything to do with the game, which was the first Street Fighter game and secondly only nerds like me would have known what a PC-Engine was. They didn’t really go into any details about the system or the game. This was how pretty much all the games on display were, The cards also had basic instructions on how to play the game and I can see why a good deal of controllers might have been smashed in frustration. The card only offered extremely basic instructions and didn’t give any idea of what the player should be doing.

In closing, while it may not seem like I did really enjoy the exhibit. It may not be the best exhibit on video games ever put together but it’s a step in the right direction. Ten years ago the idea that video games belonged in a museum would have gotten whoever suggested the idea at best a stunned gasp and at worst beat up by a guy in a monocle. This does show that while games are starting to be accepted as an art form, they apparently can only be exhibited in a very childish way. I also knew going in that this wasn’t going to be for someone like me, someone that knows the causes of the great crash of 1984, or that the original name of Mario was Jumpman, but for people that like games to learn about where they video games have come from to understand where they are going. Perhaps if they do a Game On 3.0 and have some type of guide around to explain things like game play or cultural significance then people might get more out of it. In short for the hardcore gamer it’s like going to a shrine that is located in a Chuck E. Cheese. You’ve got the parents sitting along the walls checking their watches and trying to drag their kids away from the half broken Pac-Man machine. For the casual gamer it’s an interesting trip to see how games have gone from blocks to almost reality. For parents and non-gamers it’s a headache waiting to happen. Sadly there is no pizza here for them to drown their sorrows in.

Game Journal-
More sailing this week as I continued playing Zelda: the Wind Waker. This week I discovered a way to sail around faster by finding the warp zones the cyclones. The trick was hitting the cyclone god with the boomerang and now I can sail way less. The sailing is really ruining this game for me. It is something that is an interesting concept and gives the game a great sense of scope and makes the world feel huge, but when you have to sail to an island, get one thing, then sail all the way back to the other side of the map it gets on your nerves rather quickly. This week I managed to find the fire and ice arrows. I had to get the ice arrows to solve a puzzle on a volcano. I was able to freeze the lava and run up the mountain. Once in the moutain I found a few enemies and found the power bracelets that let Link carry heavier things. The next segement of the adventure is an example of the type of sailing fetch quest the game is some times. I have to sail to an island and find a sage playing a harp. After talking to the sage I find out I have to go talk to the sage with the exact same harp he has. So then I go play the song for the next sage and learn I have to go back right where I came from. After I got back to the original island I saved and quit because after an hour of sailing and wandering around I didn't want to tackle a whole dungeon. Next Week the Earth Temple.

Homework for March 29th

1.Grodal makes an interesting case but I think that a game to be fun and sucessful needs both narative elements and elements of real life simulation. Many games are grounded in reality of actual things someone can do in real life, but enhanced in a way, for example being able to jump or hover in a platform game. Sure I can jump in real life but I am not able to do a double jump or hover by spining around with my arms out or with a raccoon tale. If games stuck to real life to closely they wouldn't be fun to play because you could, you know, actually go outside and jump and hover instead of pressing the a button twice. On the other side of the coin the game needs elements of a story to drive the action. Sure jumping and hovering might be fun for a few minutes but if there is no where to go or nothing to accomplish then the player loses interest and quickly quits playing. The interesting thing about games though is they need minmal story to drive the action unlike passive media. In Super Mario Bros. the whole story is the Princess has been kidnapped and you need to save her. Even more modern games that we think are story driven still have a very basic structure to them. Most of them are " Oh no Aliens have invaded the Earth save us!" or something of that varitety but now they feature character development that wasn't possible in the past.

Overall, I think Grodal makes a good case for figuring out what games mean to society. The only flaw is the fact that not all games are entirely real and have to be looked at with a critical eye to figure out their meaning.

2. I do agree that tactile senses anchor us to games. Over the years developers have figured out to make games for each platform that work to the srengths of the platform they are one. Console games are played in the family room or a kids bedroom where a comfortable couch or bed is and the player can sit down for hours in front of the television and play the game. Console games are also much simplier then their PC cousins because since the player has to hold the controller they can't have too many buttons to press or it would be uncomfortable to hold. The PC on the other hand is where most more complicated game styles like RTS or simulation games are played. these games are succesful on the PC because the keyboard gives developers more options for keys that can be used as commands. The addition of the mouse also allows for the precise movements these games require. Also many PC games are designed, some exclusively, to be played online against or with other people. This is due to the fact that developers know that almost any PC will have an internet connection that the player can use to play the game online. Arcade games are different all together and have gone through a few phases. The first one was during their golden age when games were designed to be quick and simple. They had to be simple so a person could walk up and play it and right away feel sucessful. Presently since home systems offer a similar or better experience then arcade games can offer, arcade games have turned into things like Dance Dance Revolution. Games that are really unique and can't be played at home. Games that feature skis that a player rides on or a dirt bike that moves and shakes as the player rides it are examples of the unqiue experiences developers are bringing to arcades.