Note: Sorry to be posting this right before class but my internet has been down since late Monday night.

Reading #1
"Rather, what is most fascinating is that the gameplay may modify the player's behavior in interpersonal relationships. Gameplay,particularly with violent and frustrating games, seems to elicit increased perception of threat, increased physiological arousal in game threat situations ( which may translate to other perceived threat siutations), and less use of traditional verbal problem solving strategies and appropriately assertive person to person conflict resolution."

The question I would ask is what exactly were the reactions of of the people that played violent games? They say that players responded with game-play like
responses to problems that work in the surreal world of games but not in the real world. What kind of reactions did these people have?

Response #2
This writer goes on to say after that quote that in general people that play violent games view people that appose them as the same as the villian from a game and can only respond by using things they learned in the game e.g. violence. As with all articles about violence and gaming I always question if they look into the lives of these people that play violent games then go out and do violent things. Critics of games always seem to leave the bit out about how a kid's stepdad slapped him around a lot or how a person might have been beaten up in school before striking back. These types of people are drawn to violent games because it allows them to be the one dishing out the punishment instead of taking it. They are in control and not the victim while in the game world. The reason many people turn to violence is not just because they play violent games, but violence is the only way they know how to solve a problem. If they get beat up everyday they might think the only way to deal with that is do the exact same thing to the person beating them up, and if they can't use thier fists they turn to guns. While I won't totally discredit the author's line of thinking, I do think that all people that decide to sit down and write about games and violence should spend some time with the people that play them and see what thier life is like. I mean personally I play almost nothing but Nintedno made "Kiddy" games, but I was also raised in a way where violence wasn't the answer to a problem and never really picked on at school, so based on my upbringing and gameplay habits, I think there is a deeper conncection all these armchair critics aren't making.

Reading 2

Response #1
“But the crucial relationship in many games-both contemporary standards like the Quake series and its ancestors from the 1960s and 1970s such as Spacewar, Space Invaders, and Battlezone-is not between avatar or environment or even between protagonist and antagonist, but between the human player and the image of him or herself encountered onscreen.”

The question I have is why would the conflict be between the player and their on-screen counterpart? The reason most of us pick up a game is because we like the look or style of the main character, not because we hate ourselves so much that we need to play as a person we're not. Most emotional attachment to characters comes much later in a game, after you learn more of the story behind the character. Take for example the Metal Gear games. I picked it up because the main character Solid Snake, is a total badass and has a great style to him. I didn't really care about him at all at the start of the game though, but after learning of his past and learning to care about him did I feel any type of connection with him. I also don't understand how the golden-age games figure into his statement. I mean I can see feeling attached to a human or even animal or robot character that talks and has visable emotions, but in a game where your a triangle or a diffrent type of triangle I don't see how any connection can be made on the terms the author suggests.

Response #2
Overall I think this author makes some interesting connections between player and avatar, some I like and some I don't. While I personally can identify with the character I'm playing, I have never invested myself so much in a character that I became the character, but maybe I don't have enough imagination left. I do think that he makes an interesting point to say that people view games to fix what they see has "wrong" with themselves and that your in control of everything in the game world. Look, most "hardcore" gamers may not be the most socially adept people, or even the best looking, and that is why a number of them retreat into games. I mean personally I was an only child so I spent a great deal of time entertaining myself playing games, so I can see why a large number of people, espcially with the rise of the MMO genre that people are retreating from the harsh world they live in to a world that they think they are "perfect" and have control.

Game Journal Post less then 4 but more then 2.

Before I start I wanted to point out something I noticed about myself playing games in general. Back in the N64/PSX era I could spend hours upon hours playing games, often to completion. Now adays it seems that even though I have about the same amount of time to play games, I rarely do so. I find that I spend more time reading about games, arguing about them and even shopping for them then actually playing them. I wonder if it's because of the games or because of myself. The last console game I played all the way through was Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes over break and before that was God of War back in the Spring. In Between I aquired almost 200 games across all the major systems thanks to my job and I think I have played maybe 10 of them. So what does this have to do with my playing of my game for this assignment? Well I think it's interesting that when I think I HAVE to play this game for a grade I am more likely to sit down and play it. I have also found that it has revitalized my interest in gaming and so maybe I will start to get through some of that backlog.

Alright so enough of my pontificating on my gameplay habits and get to why your here, to see those nitro burning funny cars, or in other words, hear about my time with Zelda:The Wind Waker

A this point I am really starting to get back in the swing of playing Zelda games, like always looking for hidden clues and getting into the mindset that these games require for the puzzles. This week I finished playing through the second dungeon which was forrest themed. Again I found the puzzles interesting and challenging but never to the point where I wanted to toss the Gamecube at the wall. As usual each dungeon is designed around the use of items you either recieve before entering the dungeon or find inside it. This time was the Deku Leaf and Boomerang. The Deku leaf is an interesting item because it has two uses. First you can use it as a weapon and send a gust of wind in the direction your facing. This was used in a number of puzzles where you were standing on a platform and had to push your way across the chasm. The leaf also allows you to float when you jump off a platform. The boomerang is pretty much the same as it has been in previous Zelda games, you can use it to stun enemies or get out of reach objects. The boss of this level is fought with the Boomerang in a clever way but due to the camera angles it was sometimes tough to line your shot up without being attacked. I find this is a problem in a great deal of 3D games, but so far in Zelda this was the first time it had messed up my progress.

After defeating the boss you have to sail to the dungeon where the final pearl is but when you get there it's gone! This leads me to what a lot of people hate about this game and I can find myself joining them quickly. The game word is huge and takes a noticeable length of time to sail across. To get from the last dungeon to the next one you have to sail across most of the map and it seems to take an annoying amount of time to get there and find out you have to sail back in the direction you just came from. So after more sailing I ended up back where I started at Onset Island where I saved the game and felt seasick.

~Nick

Game Journal #2

So back to the magical land of Hyrule I went this week to continue playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This week I attacked what is the first dungeon. I can tell already that this game is following the same pattern every Zelda game since 1992's A Link to the Past followed. That pattern being you set out on your quest and have to get three of something, such as pendants, or in this case pearls from the gods. While I don't mind this because the game is so enjoyable it seems like Zelda's popularity has painted the franchise into a corner. Previous games in the series are held in such high regard that Nintendo has become afraid of changing the format or taking risks with the series.
Anyways back to the game. The theme of this dungeon is fire and using the grappling hook your given before you enter the dungeon. As with all Zelda games the puzzles in this dungeon are top notch and while can be tricky to pull off they are never hidden from view to the point of being frustrating. Several of the puzzles had you lighting a number of torches to open a door for example, and the enemies you were fighting just so happen to be carrying wooden sticks. Another neat little bit had you on a drawbridge with no way to get to lower level unless you cut the ropes that held the bridge.
As for the boss of the dungeon, to defeat him you have to use your grappling hook yet again. This took me a second to figure out as my first instinct was to target the eye of the boss and attack him directly. After losing some life I noticed that there was a target right over the bosses head. It turns out this was the tail of a dragon sitting on top of the mountain and by swinging on his tail he banged on the mountain and caused an avalanche. Following standard video game procedure I had to do this three times then attack him with my sword. Yay me! Now it's on the forrest dungeon.

Reading Response for Feb 15th

Rape in Cyberspace response:

This article treads a fine line in the subject it deals with, because it barely seems to deal with it all and instead uses big words to impress the reader. I thought this was an interesting read though because it is an interesting idea. If you can dig through the dense language it uses you'll find an interesting story. The story tells of a person that was raping women with his words and not physically. The important part of the story is the intense emotional and actual physical pain that the women felt. They were angry and demanded what would be the real world equivelent of death for this man. The article deals with how some people blew this off since it technically didn't really happen since it was on a computer screen and not a street. Violence in words can be just as bad or worse then actual violence because sometimes the emotional scars last longer then physical scars. The thing with this article is that it is twelve years old and online communities have advanced well beyond words. Now players can create life-like recreations of themselves, and since there is now a graphical representation of the person, the connection to this player can be much more intense. Humans are unfortunetly creepy and when that annoying thing called reality is removed and creeps can hide behind a character that they can erase and start over with once too many people are creeped out by them, they are free to run amok and that is an unfortunate side-effect of our newly connected society.

Game Journal-Entry 1

The game I have selected to play is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for Nintendo Gamecube. Now before I get a bunch of angry comments on why I haven't played this yet let me give you a little history between this game and myself.

It was a bright spring day in 2003. I had recently purchased my second Gamecube after selling off my lauch one to pay for my computer. The reason I suddenly decided to go out and spend a few hundred dollars was the fact there was a new Zelda game out and I did not have it. Now my inner Nintendo fanboy was screaming at me to get this or else.
So I bought it and took it home and played about half of it. Then I totally lost interest in it and have ment to finish ever since, but since it has been over a year since I last played it I forgot what was going on and decided that if I picked it for this class I would finally play it all the way through.

So my first impression of the game is even almost three years after coming out the game still looks as great as it did then. The cartoony visual style has been the subject of debate since the first shots of the game were released to the press. Some people found the style amazing while some hated it since it looked too kiddie for them. I personally think the style is unmatched and not only gives the game a timeless look but also makes it stand out from similar games.

So as usual there is the opening level/section where you learn how to play the game. In Wind Waker you explore the island for a little bit and then have to go through sword training before you can advance the story. I usually hate any kind of training level because they can really take you out of the game. In Wind Waker though it is handled quite well as sword training is part of the story. After training you go to helpa girl you saw being attacked on the mountian by a large bird. After a short battle you learn the girl's name is Tetra and is the leader of the pirates. After a short dialouge you see that your sister has come to the mountian to see if your alright and she is captured by a large bird. After this is where I saved since this week I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and really get into the game.

Overall this little opening section is set up extremely well and by the end of it I had a good grasp on how to control Link. I also like the way the story flowed between tutorial, cut scene and gameplay. Since everything is done in the game engine there is not a big difference between them which leads to a better overall gameplay experience.

~Nick

Homework for Feb 8.

Fair Play Article-
I take issue with this article on several fronts. First of all this article is from a supposedly unbiased media watchdog group, which should discredit it from the get go. Anytime you have an organization putting out a piece like this, it is going to bend the facts to support the position it has adopted. Now before I dig into the article I would like to state that I do agree with the general points the article makes. Yes games are violent, more often then not more then they need to be, and women are portrayed as either helpless airheads or as scantily clad eye candy, but this article doesn’t take several factors into account.

First of all, I think they handle their argument on violence extremely poorly. The authors of this piece are living in a time warp. At the start of the article they mention games such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Frogger. Now the whole point the article tries to make is that games today are violent, but right off the bat they ruin any chance of making a decent point with these examples. In all three games violence plays a major role. In Space Invaders your only goal is to shoot anything that moves. In Pac-Man you can only defeat your foes by eating them, and while Frogger is the least violent of the games, when your frog is run over by a car to end your turn, there is a puddle of blood that appears on the screen. They also at the start of the article it says that 145 million people play videogames on a regular basis, but they make no distinction as to the average age of this group. While a majority of game players are younger, this has changed significantly over the last decade or so. This article makes no mention of the fact that a growing number of adults make up that 145 million people that play games. It’s been thirty years since Pong was released and in that time an entire generation has grown up playing games and that has adults they want something closer to movies in theme and complexity. Videogames were originally marketed as a toy and has such acquired the label as child’s toy. This is why people such as this organization get so bent out of shape at the idea of violence in games. Adults now play games but a majority of the public still feels that games a strictly for kids. This paper also makes no claims as how to solve these problems, just puts out these so-called “facts” and condemns videogames as a socially acceptable hobby. The article also fails to note games are a Business first and a baby-sitter for your children second. If games seem more violent today then unfortunately that means there is a market out there that wants violence in their games. Game makers know who their core audience is and panders to them like few other industries do. They know their main consumer is no longer a kid age 8-12, but are now closer to a male age 16-25. This leads me to my next point on gender in games.
This article misses one major point on gender that ruins its case. The article fails to note that a majority of games come from Japan, who have very different ideas on gender roles then we do in the west. While this is not an excuse it is a point that needs to be made since, as usual, the authors of this piece are not giving us all the facts. The article also says that videogames present a negative body image of females with a large number of female characters being modeled with “unhealthy or unrealistic proportions.” Unfortunately for the reader it doesn’t say what games these poorly modeled females are from. If the art style of the game has all main characters and environments out of proportion then it would be only fitting that the females were also out of proportion compared to real life.
Overall this article makes some fairly obvious points and not only backs them up poorly but also fails to solve any of the problems it outlines. Games have changed, both in the way they are presented and how they are marketed. The only thing that hasn’t changed is how the general public views games. They are no longer strictly for little children. The only way parents are going to be able to monitor what their children play is by getting involved, which is obviously a hassle for some people. Unless parents take an active interest in what their children are doing then they have no one to blame then themselves for what their kids play.

The Sims-
The main point that Mia Consalvo is trying to make in this article is that in an open ended game such as The Sims the player is able to act however they want, gay or straight, since there is no forced sexuality attached to a traditional story. For example a game on the opposite end of the spectrum would be a game like Metal Gear Solid. In Metal Gear Solid the main character, Snake, is cast in the mold of the traditional Hollywood action hero. He is simply oozing with testosterone and creates an idea that “real” men go around sneaking through army bases, shooting everyone that they can, and generally blowing up everything he can. Now one has to wonder if the issue of sexuality is brought to the game by the player or by the story of the game. Take a game like Super Mario, which has a “rescue the princess” storyline to it. Just because Mario is saving the princess does that mean they have to be anything other then friends or does the player automatically assume that since Mario is a man and the Princess is a girl that they have to be involved on some level (possibly level 8-4, since that is the only time you see the princess anytime in the game.) Overall I don’t think games “promote” heterosexuality in conscious way, but that they are the products of the designer’s imagination. This article is saying that by removing the bias of the designer and leaving creation to the player they are free to express themselves however they want, and that games like The Sims allow players to explore sides of themselves they might not have known existed.