Bibliography task

Hopefully these will be a little different from other peoples :)

BOOKS

Brathwaite B, Schreiber I, 2009, "Challengers for computer games designers", Charles river media

Meier's S, 2010, "Civilization V the art of the game", Take two interactive software

Articles

Reimer J, 2006, "The evolution of gaming:computers, consoles and arcade", ars technica

Leather A, 2009, "What is the best gaming keyboard", Bit-tech

Contributions

Baker D, 2010, "Civilization V the art of the game", "Terrian", Take two interactive software, page 117

Newcomb D, 2010, "Civilization V the art of the game", "Introduction", Take two interactive software, page 1

The mechanic of health regeneration, deep analysis

"Yeah yeah mike we all know about that....you dick!" AH but do you????

Do you know why all FPS decided to take this mechanic, and how it changes a FPS almost completely.

First off, before this me had the old trusted med-kits and Armour, yay to doom and half life.

Then came halo, with the strange shield mechanic, although at this was fully used.

And now we have games like cod, gears of war and crysis 2 which don't just have a regeneration mechanic, no sign of med kits.

But why do most FPS's use this now, why is it so popular??

Well this look at the obvious difference between the 2 mechanics, with med-kits, you  had to keep an eye on your health, no just jumping out of cover and shooting, hiding again and back to full health, gamers had to be way more careful, although with 100% health with this mechanic, you could take way more bullets than with the new one.

The other thing is you had to go and look for med-kits, which forced you to explore, with new mechanic, players don't need to do this, so normally don't explore that much, so designers had to make sure all the ammo and what not was in their path, rather than make them look for it.

However the biggest thing is the placement of enemies, with the old mechanic, the designer had to guess (on average) how much health player had, at each stage of the level, sure there may a super health pick on the level, but would the player find it?? if he did he would need a few enemies to face for a challenge, but what if he didn't?? Then there couldn't be too many enemies or they couldn't get through the level. This was a challenge for the designers, but cured by halo.

With the new mechanic, the designer knew at every stage of the level how much health the player had, so the placement of enemies was easy, this was the greatest advantage for designers with the mechanic and is most likely the reason they use it now, to save lots of level designing time.

So...... a random post lol, but might make people think twice about the much under thought about health system

A basic computer guide

The amount of times my friends have come to me asking about computers and what to and not to buy must suggest I know a little about computers, but why do I know so much......

I don't even remember the first time I used a computer, I have no idea, and I have no idea how I learnt everything i know now, part from a 2 year computing course at college :P. But yeah I though I would write up a quick guide to computers, you never though someone might find it useful.

The 4 Categories of Computers


Home - These computers will basically just be used for internet, mail and things like word, the basic home user need basically, these are the lower end of computers in terms of specs as well there not needed to be fast.

Business - These computers will be used by people who's work is mainly done on the computer, these computers are tbh essentially used the same as home, apart from more applications will be opened at any one time, so a slightly faster computer is preferred.

Gaming/video - These are the computers that have the widest range, and these are used for playing games and 3d modelling, video editing, etc, heavy thread tasks basically. Obviously computers like home and business can play games and what not, but too the same degree as these ones.

Extreme - These are the real deal in the computer world, now i bet you have heard of alienware right?? Computers along those lines are considered extreme computers, basically these computers will destroy anything they come across, including your wallet!!!!

 Main Hardware for games

Processor - The brain of the computer, and thats about all people need to know, but when you see I5-760 2.96Ghz for example ( made the number up:P) do you know what the 2.96 Ghz means?

Well basically that number is how many instructions the core of the processor can do every second(although this actually isn't true when it come to mutli core processors but you don't need to know about that).

so say you have a 3.00Ghz processor, that means that processor will be doing 3,000,000,000 instructions every second....that's right 3 billion. Insane ain't it :P. There are loads more to do with processors but this will do for now.

RAM(random access memory) - the simplest way for me to explain RAM is it being like a motor way, and the instructions of the processors are cars, the cars have to travel through RAM(the motor way) to reach all the places they need to go. The more RAM you have, the more lanes on your motor way. "Ah ok thanks mike, so in my next computer I will get 16 GB's of RAM) NOOOOO!!! that would be a mistake, I wont explain why but if you are planning on buying a computer, you don't need more that 6GB's really 8GB's would be the maximum I suggest, Put it this way, if you had 8GB;s games wouldn't even touch it for at least a year if not more.

GPU - Just as I typed that i decided it would take too much time to explain really, but basic this thing makes all your images on the computer, plays your videos etc. In essence if you spent over £150 on one it would last you a while for gaming. The more money you spend the longer it will last. I think the latests GPU is 10 times as powerful as the PS3 or Xbox 360 by itself lol.

If you have read this and actually found it helpful and want to know even more just give me a shout. If you are thinking about buying a new computer or upgrading and not too sure what to get and would liek advise then give me a shout aswell if you want.

Sound with Matt Applegate

We had the pleasure of having Matt Applegate come in for a couple of months to teach us about sound. Now at first I thought these lessons would purely be just learning about how to make sound, but no, we also learnt the effects sounds have in games and movies(when I say movies I mean star wars ;P).


And I found this quite interesting, I didn't know just how deep the thought process of adding sound is, I mean people really think about the effects that sound has on people when they are watching their film or playing their game. We looked a few games and looked at how the sound was used and what it meant. And it was very surprising how much information you can get it from it.


However these lesson were annoying for a bit because all the time when i was playing a game or watching a film i was analyzing the sound lol. I suppose this the whole point of all the lessons just annoying how I did it without even thinking about it. Overall I enjoyed these lessons and loved the fact how he can make pretty much anything into a machine which can be used for music lol.


Also I am sad to say I was the one who got him into left for dead 2 :P however he thanked me a lot because of the great usage of sound, which is why i told him about it in the first place.

New vs Old Games Journalism

With Eddie, we got to look at old and new games journalism and the differences between them which I'm required to talk about now...

Old Games Journalism

This is the sort of "Games Review" Most people are familiar with, where the game is talked about in sort of sections, like gameplay, graphics, controls etc. This type of journalism anyone can read and probably understand well. It talks about the game in way so people know if the writer thinks the game is worth buying or not. Lots of people I know and many more go online and read these reviews to decide if they want to buy the game or not, which has pro's and con's. The pro's are that the review is quick and straight  to the point so you know if the writer likes or dislikes the game. And that normally the game is rate out of 10 in different areas, so if you want game with purely good storyline and you can look at the score for that section. The con is that well, the review was written by one person, and only that person opinion of the game. So what he or she may think is a rubbish game with no replay value, you may think is the greatest game since DOOM. So lots of people decide if they want to buy the game or not from one persons opinion.


New Games Journalism

New Games Journalism is very different from old, it focuses on a players experience of a given moment in the game, rather than the mechanics of the game itself. For example we looked at a article called "Bow nigger" where a player talked about his experience in "Jedi Knights 2: Jedi Outcast" . He talked about his experience in an online game where he came across a player who basically in simple terms is a wanker. He talked about his feelings when he came across this player and journey he took to overcome him. At no point in this article did he talk about how good the graphics are, and how good the story is. This is because it wasn't review, it was just a player telling us about one game he had. If I was interested in buying this game and read his article to decide if I wanted it or not, it wouldn't help. But it did give me an insight in what the game may be like if I was to play it online and it affects me as a player.

Maths defence

Basic coding for the game has been done, as well some good artwork. The team finally cracked down and decided what was going to be in the game instead of having all these ideas running around our heads. We got our concept doc to hand in tomorrow, which is going good on my part, and I believe on my fellow team members.

Crictical game studies Newman game analysis

The game I have chosen to use Newman's "game criteria" on is "Left for Dead 2".

Paidea vs Ludus

Newman refers to these terms by the following:

Paidea : effectively, "play" for pleasure

Ludus : more constrained by rules, with a clear outcome (e.g. "winning")

Left for Dead 2 has the elements of both of these, but does lean more to  being ludus. It is a FPS with clear objectives and rules, in which a team of 4 players or less must fight through hordes of zombies in order to reach the "safe room" of each level (safe room being the end of the level). So in that context it is ludus, players can't complete the levels in any other way, ant there are rules to stop players leaving the level boundaries and having unlimited ammo and flying etc. However Left for Dead 2 is one of the few shooters that allows players to complete the level in a number of ways, which allows freedom and choice so players aren't constricted. Also the game was mainly designed to be co-operative, and for players just to have a good time rather than take it serious. The levels allow to groups of players to find different ways to complete the levels, so for this reason I would the game does have an element of being paidea.

Newman also considers aspects of gameplay in these 4 catergious:

Agon : competition
Alea : chance/randomness
Ilinx : movement
Mimicry : simulation, make-believe, role-play

Left for Dead 2 has the first 3 aspects, in that players do compete against each other to win the game, e.g. zombie team vs survivor team. The randomness of the game is the fact that each time you play the same level it will be different, the game AI engine randomly creates the hordes of zombies so no level will be played the same way again. Obviously the game has movement, it's  a FPS, it has too allow the player to move. However I’m not sure if it has the last gameplay aspect, has the term "make-believe" in this context probably means elves and orks etc, but this is a zombie apocalypse game so is make-believe really I suppose. But the last gameplay is quite wide so lots of games will fall under its category, same with the movement aspect, there not too useful really I think.