The Light Is My Strength

2007-03-25T00:20:00.000Z

Serial Game Killers

Today video games are an important part of the entertainment of children and teenagers. However, many video games are characterized by violence which often contains aggressive and brutal elements.

How many times we have stopped playing a game because is too much violent for us? And how many times we’ve stopped because is crap or boring? The answers are easy to find but what is actually important is which the criteria to choose from are. It seams that over the years games have become more violent and now is a big concept of the industry. For example, over the years violent games are among the games which sell most.

Most violent games by vote:

10 Resident Evil 4 (PS2 - 2 million)

9 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2 - 14 million)

8 God of War (PS2 - 1 million in US only)

7 NARC

6 Killer 7

5 The Warriors

4 50 Cent: Bulletproof

3 Crime Life: Gang Wars

2 Condemned: Criminal Origins

1 True Crime: New York City

Also, at the Best 20 Selling Video Games some violent games are very high. At the 6^th place ‘Grand Theft Auto’ with 50 million sales, at the 14^th place ‘Resident Evil’ with 31 million, at the 19^th place ‘Street Fighter’ with 25 million and at the 20^th place ‘Mortal Kombat’ with 20 million sales.

So, what is the real reason to buy one of these games? Is the blood? Is the violent atmosphere? Is the opportunity to do a crime without going in jail? And worst to get credit for that? Is because the violent games give more adrenalin than other games? And how is this valid?

One reason is TV & cinema. Why? Because they have many violent-crime-killing movies, as well as the “News” of the channels are all about war, killings, serial killers, crimes, narcotics, guns and in other words we are all surrounded with violence. So, we are familiar with violence and at one point we have been used to it. To sum up, games with violence are nothing more than games with race-cars for us nowadays. In our conscience is all right because we are familiar with violence but subconsciously we have a problem.

Problems

There is an important number of video games with the same degree of attractiveness for the gamers, which have no violence and offer inventiveness, creativity, education and sociability to the gamers.

Nevertheless, violent games spreading very fast and becoming more and more popular. At the same time, there is a suspicion that people who plays violent video games suffer from changes in their brain such as negatively influence at the personality and at their behaviour.

It is important to be discovered in which degree, the violent games /and generally speaking the violence /, influence or promote the negative and aggressive social behaviour.

For first time, scientists from the University of Indianapolis search with objective criteria the functional effects of the violent games in the brain of teenagers. They distributed with random way 44 adolescents in 2 teams. The children of the first team should play a violent game for 30 minutes, and the children of the other team should play also for 30 minutes a non-violent but equally interesting game.

The results are particularly interesting:

For the gamers that played the violent game, was observed reduction of the activation of regions at brain which are responsible for the self-control, the concentration and the suspensions. Also was observed more activation of structures of brain which involve the emotion of excitation and agitation-confusion. On the other hand, for the gamers that played the non-violent game, was not observed any of the above. This short-term effects on the brain of the gamers may cause permanent changes in the character and the behaviour.

The EU strikes back

The possibility of establishment of limit of age in the sale of electronic games which contain scenes of violence is discussed by the ministers of Justice and the European Union, adopting the idea that the violent pictures which appear have lead to the increase of cases of children criminality.

(The initiative for the beginning of dialogue round the imposition of restrictions in the sale video games belongs in Germany (which maintains also the European presidency), country in which was marked and the last relative bloody incident: the passed November, 18year old get in his school and shooting indiscriminately and it wounded five students, before it puts an end to his life. The Germane police connected his aggressive behaviour with his love for the violent electronic games.)

2007-03-10T23:42:00.000Z

Programming thoughts

I imagine you all know the “Minority Report” like novel or film. For those who have not seen the film or have not read the book, the history concerns a society in which the “authorities” are in position to know in advance who commits a crime (without even realize it). However, this system is always corruptible, not only from innocent mistakes but from bad manipulations too.

The question that “Minority Report” places remains unanswered, in these days we have terrorism and restriction of individual freedoms, so the question is tragically suitable. Who will look after us from these “authorities”? The answer is coming from some neurologists of Max-Planck Institute announced that they can read our thoughts (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2009217,00.html ). They asked people to think if they would add or subtract two numbers that they would show them later. And achieved to predict with 70% accuracy their intentions, before the numbers flashed up. Scary?

Think that this can be the first step for policing our intentions. And if this method is going to be perfect in the future, who guarantees us that the “authorities” will wait to arrest a suspect after the crime, when they are in a position to know in advance the bad thought that someone can have? How far we are from the technology of “Minority Report”?

The scientists believe that as long as we learn more of how the brain works, the better we become to predict the human being. In December, in an article (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RQVPRVD ) in the magazine “economist”, they dispute the scientific prestige of what we name “free will”: the persons with concrete genetic characteristics in combination with certain conditions from the environment, that they have inclination for violence.

If we reach up to there, in a world like the one described in the “Minority Report”, I’m wondering if our thoughts, which is something that belongs only to us until today, is going to be exclusively ours.

2007-03-07T20:17:00.001Z

Task 21

The Last Stand

The university is a way to have a certificate for you knowledge . So is not so difficult to realaze what you know and what knowledge you gained from one course on a Univesity, because the educational system at the last few years specializing the students. So the when we finish the course is clear for as what we know and what we can do. The tricky thing is to find a way to use our abilites, creativity and knowledge to prove that we can get in the industry jobs. The unuversity will, for someone is the best or some of the best students, give them a chance to get a job at industry but nothing elses and only for few. So the way to get a job is to learn how to “sell” our selfs, ours abilites, our knowledge and for that we need to know, what we can do with ours knowledge (which we know), what we want for ours lifes (ambitions). I can see myself working with some game companies and at the same time working with some colleagues on our on-line game.

2007-02-25T21:35:00.001Z

Task 20 Creativity

Creativity is a mental process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts. From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness. An alternative, more everyday conception of creativity is that it is simply the act of making something new.

Some researchers believe that creativity is the outcome of the same cognitive processes as intelligence, and is only judged as creativity in terms of its consequences, i.e. when the outcome of cognitive processes happens to produce something novel, a view which Perkins has termed the "nothing special" hypothesis. However, a very popular model is what has come to be known as "the threshold hypothesis", stating that intelligence and creativity are more likely to be correlated in general samples, but that this correlation is not found in people with IQs over 120.

Creativity is typically used to refer to the act of producing new ideas, approaches or actions, while innovation is the process of both generating and applying such creative ideas in some specific context. “creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the second".

Measuring creativity

Several attempts have been made to develop a creativity quotient of an individual similar to the Intelligence quotient (IQ), however these have been unsuccessful. Most measures of creativity are dependent on the personal judgement of the tester, so a standardized measure is difficult to develop.

2007-02-15T22:12:00.000Z

Task 19

Luck and Knowledge

I think, luck and (a good-large field of) knowledge are the most important things for someone to have, in order to find a good job in game industry and generally in every field. So, the best thing to do to prove that you have the knowledge (because, for “luck” you must be lucky :P) is to have a good degree. The degree gives a label to your knowledge and also the employer can see what you know, for what you have been specialised and the extent of it. But for someone who hasn’t got a degree (in any field!) is very difficult to prove his abilities; he must present works, and if that works are good then he might have a chance to take the job.

So, in our field, game industry, there are the highly trained graduate artists, the programmers and the creative individuals with a good Liberal Art background. In other words, there are those who have a degree (in gaming) and those who haven’t got one. I believe that both can work together, can be together, and of course both can contest for a place in industry if they worth it. If someone have the skills to be creative (and he is able to prove it) then the other things (such as, no degree) are not that important.

The education and the (game) industry are the winners. Because people who have been trained have success and some of these are evolving and extent the knowledge of that field. On the other hand, the individuals with good Liberal Arts background can prove that all types of knowledge are useful and they can be very creative. So, the knowledge and the luck are the main important things someone needs.

Who feel lucky?
(And that is the right question…)

2007-02-11T15:53:00.000Z

Task 18

Breaking the Sound Barrier

The use of sound in games is like the shoes in a sprinter of 100m. Without the shoes the sprinter can’t reach the maximum of his performance.

A game must have sounds which suits to the game; the sounds must create the right atmosphere for the gamer, in order to make him feel part of the game!

So with the right sound (music) we can have pretty much everything, such as suspense, fear, mystery, rush, peacefulness, fun, and action atmosphere. The sounds (not the music) are another key to prove to gamers that the game is “real”, in other words that the graphics complete the sounds and vies versa. For example, the sound effects of the cars from Gran Tourismo 2 were marvelous, from the sounds of the exhaust of each car which were defferent, to the sounds of the tires of the cars while they were drifting at the corners.

Some of key composers
(http://www.last.fm/music/%E4%BC%8A%E8%97%A4%E8%B3%A2%E6%B2%BB/+similar )

Nobuo Uematsu (//Time Magazine's list of the Top 100 Innovators// "Eyes on Me" from Final Fantasy VIII and others games)

Yasunori Mitsuda (Square-Enix- Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenosaga EPISODE I: Der Wille zur Macht)

Tsuyoshi Sekito (Brave Fencer Musashi, Metal Gear Solid 2, FFVII: Advent Children, FFChronicles, FFIII)

Yoshitaka Hirota (Shadow Hearts, Shadow Hearts II and Shadow Hearts: From The New World)

Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia and Lunar series)

Hamauzu Masashi (Tobal No. 1, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Final Fantasy X)

Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3)

Well my key sonic moments in my gaming history are at the Final Fantasy VII (especially at the village Red XIII), V-rally 2, Colin McRae Raly 2.0 and Grun Turismo 2.

2007-02-04T16:32:00.000Z

Task 17

The engine

Game engine is the core software component of a computer-video game or other interactive applications with real-time graphics. It provides the underlying technologies, simplifies development, and often enables the game to run on multiple platforms such as game consoles and desktop operating systems such as Linux, Mac, OS X, and Microsoft Windows. These games are sometimes called “game middleware”.

The main advantages are the game reducing costs, complexities, and time-to-market. In other words the engines contain features to make a game easily (not to create everything for scratch). Disadvantages are pretty much the same like the advantages, except that the time and the cost reduced; the complexities you have to use are limited such as the engine. The next generation engines must give a better level of processing (page per second) and detail.

Let’s play with the colours..

The subtractive colour theory of mixing colours to create colours which absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. Also the additive colour system involve light emitted directly from a source or illuminant of some sort. The additive reproduction process usually use red, green and blue light to produce the other colours.

2007-01-29T18:57:00.000Z

Task 16

Culturation

I ‘ve played many games in my life and I spent many time on them, and I will play more games and I’ll spend more time, and from all these games I preffer to play games without gambling, music-dance, only-social games. In other words, I preffer games with action, like RPG, MOMPRG, FPS and turn base games. Of cource most of the games now have gambling, music and social parts in, but these are not the main consept of the game! Also I don’t like games with crime (although I play Omerta which is all about crime, but the game is a sort of a text-game).

The games always have a culture, patterns of human activity and symbolic structures which give such activity significance. The good games want/need the gamers to be part of the game, the structure of the games to be a different world for the gamers but at the same time to be familiar with the real one; like the money in the game, the power, the social part, gambling, crime and of cource death.
The games succeed what they want, that the gamer have a second life and a target to reach, easily when they use the culture images. They mix the cultures and they let us believe that the game have a new and different culture, and also they try to hide the origins the the mother-cultures. But the culture of the games is the culture of the humanity, because simply the humans create the games, and the humans are influenced by the cultures. So, I and all the gamers of the world, we play games with hide and un-hide cultures in them, and in the first case they are not familiar with the origin of the culture but only with the experience of that culture-through the game-!

MSN a home..at the internet

From the games, forums etc, we make “net-friends”, who are from different places (or not), but you know that probably you never going to meet them(and in many ways you don’t want to meet them, because they are just the “net-friends”). Well, in the games some times is difficult to chat, so what you can do is to chat via MSN. But the MSN in my opinion is something personal and even there you can catigorize the people you have add; still in many cases there are people that you don’t want them to bother you or you don’t have something to say with them-expect for the reason you invite them. Well I don’t have “net-friends”, and my contacts in MSN, are people that I’ve spent some time with them. For the net-friends, I prefer to communicate with e-mails.

2007-01-21T20:36:00.000Z

Task 15

The fate of industry

The game industry in those days is facing a big problem but it has sectors which are evolving. The technology in game industry is growing fast and has the knowledge to use it, and these two are the main good sectors. But the price of that is huge, huge like the development cost of the new-age games.

The game market is growing too, and the gamers have a lot games to see and choose from. So the antagonism is growing too (like the number of released games), faster than the market and the number of the gamers. So, to be more competitive a game company, needs better games and new ideas, in other words the best technology and more creativity which the industry have the first (with a dangerous nature) and looking for the other. Except of these, the have another challenge to face with, the copied games and the freeware games (donate, pay for extra feature, or complete free games). The “problems” are many and the solutions are risky…

How the game industry will win this race?

Well, I don’t really know but I can suspect. The big companies will fall or will take over (because of the competition or the huge debts). And this is not very rare because the history of game industry is full of take over and bankrupts, and maybe that will lead to monopoly markets.
What is for sure is going to survive is the freeware games (because their development is cheap!!) as well as the free-donate-online-games, which they’ll never be as good as the big-companies games, but they will be playable and free. I believe that the solution is the on-line games with monthly fees, because is the only way for the big companies to gain back the money they spent for the game and of course to have profit. Also is a way to win against the “copy” games.

Although, not many companies will exist, because a game which you are paying for it, you should play it regularly (otherwise there is no meaning to pay for it at all!!), and that’s why you cannot play 2-3 games at the same time (and the games are made in a way to keep the player into the game for long periods!). So, each company will have their followers.
Personally I believe that’s the only solution for the computer games; now for the console games, like for the computer games, not many consoles will be in the market, and the have to evolve to on-line-computer consoles (they have already begin!)

The online games are the future! They are the only solution… and where the “money” is!!!

All these will affect the employees. Lower salary, less working places, less creativity, smaller deadlines which means stress and maybe not the best working performance!
I can see myself working with some companies and at the same time working with some colleagues on our on-line game, for which we will be very proud!!!

2007-01-15T17:44:00.000Z

Task 11

The soul of the game

I said it before and I’ll say it again now. The Gameplay is the soul and the material of the games. Like the souls of people are an “abyss”, in the same way are for the games; and for that reason is difficult to difine them in a term. So, the next best thing to do is to say about the personality of the soul or better, Gameplay.

In video game terminology Gameplay is the overall experience of playing the game excluding the factors of graphics, sound, and the storyline. Excluding the Gameplay, in a way, all the factors helping to get the “best” experience, with the storyline to be on the top of that list. But Gameplay has an indefinite meaning.
I believe it’s a very complex nature, which combines the whole game and how easily you can play-live and love the game. The Gameplay has an object, to become a part of your life, of your self and if succeed then nothing can stop you playing the game; for example, I was playing the FF7 without colour, sound, color and sound, with broken gamepad and finally I restarted the game more than 4 time to succeed the very best. So, the Gameplay gives life to the game and is the most important thing because without it the game is just a toy.

"Let there be light". And there was light

A successful way, in my opinion, to have a good Gameplay is to create the game with love, to be like an extension of the creator. Of course, there are some rules and types you have to follow, but those are like making a cake you have a recipe but is up to you to make the material-cake. And that rules and types are the random interacting factors which are coming from your relationship with the creation of the game. To be more specific, you have a plan for a game and a Gameplay, and at the end the final work is different from that plan. So, what is most important for a Gameplay? The way of creation of the game-Gameplay or the main idea? The random factors? Your personality?
My opinion is that all these are important and is like an equation with random numbers and your result is multiplied with the care and love you put to solve it... and this is the Gameplay.

2006-12-18T18:19:00.000Z

Task 10

The influence of a Hero

From the start of the civilisation, the human kind wanted to share the “knowledge”. The knowledge has many forms, and the form I am interested in is the “stories”. The stories or myths, in many cases, are creating a Hero (a Hero of power, of love, of terror, of good, e.t.c.). The origin of each Hero is true in one point (the existence of the character) and false in others (the level of the power, of size, of strength, e.t.c.), and some times are all true or all lie. Now we have many stories, a lot of Heroes, and we have massive information (TV, Internet, Books, Magazines, newspapers e.t.c.). Eventually, the stories have funs and believers and we all have some favourite Heroes from books, movies, TV, comics [ Here are some of mine: wolverine, silver surfer, songogu (DragonBall), Naruto, Elric of Melniboné (Moorcock, Michael), Drizzt Do’urden (R. a. Salvatore), Araqorn - Legolas - Gandalf (The lord of the rings), William Wallace / Braveheart.].

Why we love these heroes? Why we wish every time we are across of them to be like them? Why we pain when they in pain? Maybe because we let our selves to identification, to be “them”, and whatever they express and whatever we might want them to express (like power, beauty, love, hate, justice, crime e.t.c.). To manipulate our mind, heroes generally are appeared to be smart in the stories with a lot of weaknesses which is something that make them more approachable and real , and not necessarily a combine of a fashion model, a very good body and high IQ; although there are these heroes too. But the story makes the Hero, our Hero, because good stories have the main power to manipulate us. The stories aren’t ordinary and they aim to “break” our routine (such as to live a big adventure, a big love, a different world e.t.c.). So, we have a good story, we have a Hero and to complete the manipulation, the Hero must act like a part of the story and not the centre of the story, because acting is very important too.

What stories are irresistible? Probably fantasy stories, comedy, war, love, are all quite irresistible. There are so many stories which aren’t irresistible but at the same time there are many of them which are. So, I can’t say that a type of the story, lets say fantasy stories are always good.

2006-12-10T14:22:00.000Z

Task 9

The future…on our hands

All this years I’ve played more game platforms than I bought, and unavoidable I am wondering which one was the easiest to use as well as if I can judge them correctly. So, my opinion is that the PlayStation consoles are the easiest in use. Why? Because the games in the last few years are very demanding in gameplay and the PS consoles have the best tools to fill their requirements. For me, the pad of the PS, which have the most comfortable design and it is one of the most beautiful. In the new PS 3 the pad is changed and is quite similar to the old one, but first I have to play with the new pad to be able to say for sure that is better.

The good appearance is very important for a product in order to be successful, and the consoles are following this factor. But which one has the best looking? I believe the PS 3, because it is combining a new style with the old identity, and also it is different from the other consoles. Maybe the players didn’t think which the most beautiful console is anymore, but I am sure they think what console can be easy to use, enjoyable, comfortable, and of course the power of the console. The players need all these, and they search them in the market. And because of that the technology of game consoles is evolving such as the console pads.

The future is the console pads because a pad is the tool, a way to live the game or to blame when your “plans” are not going well. I believe the level of technology in game pads is in embryonic form for the next big step. I’m thinking the future pads will be “on” our hands and we will be able to “move” in the game to be “in” the game with our body or with our actions and reactions. Maybe those days is far away…and maybe not…

2006-12-03T23:48:00.000Z

Task 8

Some stories are created to be the best and some to change your world.

Well, what is the relationship between stories and history? I can say, in a way, that without stories you don’t have history. So, what an ordinary story must have in order to be part of the history? The way you can say the story is one answer because it is very important how the story is taking place in the mind of each one. There are many ways to write a story, but a good story must be written in a stunning way. The story must lead you to an 'Emotional Journey’, to live and die with the characters of the story. In games, the stories are the journey to the final target, but they should exist in a succesfull way to take you to that point! And that happens when the story wins your attention. Then the story is playing with your mind and try to manipulate you, and you are becoming one with the story. But a story needs “heroes” to manipulate you succesefully, and the heroes are the graphical quality, sound, and the use of the best technology. With that “packet” the story have the power to win you or you let the story to win you /depends on how much enthusiam you have/.

All the games have a target, but not all of them have a story (puzzle games, card games, arcade games, board games) and if they have a small story, is just an introduction for the main target. Mainly, the games that are following a story are RPG, FPS, Adventure games and others. Those games must have a wide interpretation because they must hold the attention of the player and have enough time to relax him before the next “change” of emotions. So a game needs a good story and the story needs a good game, and the victims/ in a good way/ are the players.

What is more important for a player, to follow a target or to follow a story? To be the best (score, time, wins, the first place) or to live a story? Can those two combined? What is the best for us? Do we need them both? We need them in one game or we need two different games? What about a game with no main story but to make one for us and for the game?

2006-11-27T15:58:00.000Z

Task 7

Is the right person?

”Who is the right person?” is the question that must be answered by the project director, the owner of the company or anyone else who has the authority to employ an Art Director. That resposibillity is almost equal to a risk sometimes and sometimes is not.
A good formula for success for Plan maker (project director, owner of the company) and vision Maker (Art Director) is when both of them respect the idies of each other.

The Dreamers

The key person for a game project is the Art Director. He is the person who coordinates the leaders of the development teams (animation director, chief programmer) and the teams. He must create a remarkable vision for the game and take opinions for that vision, but he must stick to the project plan until he evolves the project with that vision;(is like you create the basic form for a game and then you give your touch with the special vision because the specifics do the deffirence). When the game is developing, research should be done too, and this is another resposibillity for the Art Derector as well as the manage of time. An Art Director must also have good knowldege in art design and programming in order to solve problems, to communicate corectly with the others, and because without this knowldege the deadlines he will set will be wrong.
Is like you heared about a new world and then you have your own dream for a better world (game). Then you have (or gain) the belief followners(the development teams) and you create that world with the followners.

How to be..

I don’t now extacly how, but I’m sure about some things.An Art Director must have good organisation, good communication, to be patient, creative, infectious, to have leadership skills,art – programming knowldege as well as time management. If you don’t want to be an Art Director, you can be a Creative Director whose job is about the environments, the way you can take the sceenshots and the perfomance of the actors (who choose them). So is very similar to Art director’s job. Both of them have the main idea, the “tools” to give life to the idea and the full resposibillity for that. The main difference is that the Creative director take the idea and the vision, and then he must create the film expressing that idea and vision in his own way!

2006-11-18T14:21:00.000Z

Task 6

Gameplay: A way of expression

Well, Gameplay is a term which is used to judge the quality of the experience gained by a gamer while playing a game. That’s the main use of the term “Gameplay” on press. But Gameplay has an indefinite meaning. I believe it’s a very complex nature, which combine the whole game and how easily you can play the game. In a way, Gameplay is the soul and the material of the game and the graphics give the appearance. A good game combines those two, but a good Gameplay can easily make a big success without good graphics.

Generally, the famous games which are created from the “big” developers (like Blizzard, Sports Interactive, Valve, Square Enix, Infogrames), who are the leading lights in the game design, are not responsibility of a single person, but of many different development teams. However, there are always some “key” people who express the main idea of the game, and on the other hand there are many games created from one person (the most of those games are nearly unknown). The “elite” of game designers are in long term (1-3 years) projects with enormous development cost. So, generally I can say that the Game Design take place in the game industry.

I like a lot of game types such as RPG, FPS, strategy and some car racing types. And each of them has their own personal style in Gameplay and in structure. If all the games had the same design principles, they will probably all look similar. A chess Master said, if you find a good move then try to find a better one; so, if you think the same about games, is valid. Because the evolution in games designs, from the beginning until now, they find different and better types of game design. To sum up, the most important thing for a game when we play it is the Gameplay.

2006-11-10T02:26:00.000Z

Task 5

The Elephants. Salvador Dali

Well, before I wrote the task, I looked into the mirror and I saw a small NGJ (yes it was me! And I’m not crazy) and he talked to me about things I must know.

Reviewing a game: A powerful art

I can say that it is a very old art. The art of writing something; anything! And in that case, the art of reviewing a game, it seems easy but it isn’t. I believe is a piece of art because the artists can express themselves-and I’m talking about the NGJs- they can create a huge success for a game but easily they can “destroy” it. They have the opportunity to “believe” and support games, and they are doing it with passion, pleasure, as well as to enjoy themselves. Because is a way of living and not a way to live.

The Middlemen

Because of their characteristic to unite the two sides/games and gamers/ in many ways, they have a lot of power, but not always the essential time to use that power as they should. But in the case that they are running out of time, they should compromise as they are only humans and not machines. Because the games and the game developers need good publicity, and so they need the experts for that, them! They are the people that the gamers trust. Of course they have the opportunity to write attractive reviews for a game as well as negative reviews; also in some they can drift the readers just like they can drift themselves. Finally, without the NGJ, gamers and game developers cannot communicate, at least not effectively.

Deceit them!

Give them a nice reason to lose their time. You don’t have one? Then fix one. They are not asking from you to be the best, they only ask from you the basics. But there is a small different between the “basics” they mean, with the “basics” you probably understand! And is not very difficult to find out that basics from the press; the only thing you have to is to read some NGJ articles (and we all know who they are, and if we don’t, them we must recognize them from the way they are writing).
So, first you must read that articles, and then sent a copy of your work. They don’t have much time, so you have to do the “read-see the copy” easy, fast, interesting and creative.

Reflect your work

See you work. And “review” it for them. Try to be concise and clever and you must be objective with your work but not boring. Try to create the curiosity in their eyes/with words or images/and sent them your work. Now you have to realise the nature of NGJ, the chances for your game to be reviewed, famous or unknown are equal. You can avoid the review (bad or good) and be placed in the top 100 games of the internet (but that will not approach the truth) or hold you breath and give your work to the experts. Not all the times numbers are saying the truth, so some rating lists are not the correct place for your work, and definitely they can help you to sold you game for that try to have your work reviewed from an expert(NGJ) and then your game will appear into the experts lists.(but some good reviews are far more good from any kind of list).

Realisation

You have to know what will happen to you. Probably you will be like a NGJ; to be more specific you will be a NGD (“New Generation Developer” with whatever that means) for game industry. Just like the NGJ you will have an “ok” salary, from you main job/for example the NGJ main job is the game magazines, and they maybe have some other activities for which they manage to combine fun with a small amount of money/ with a lot hours of work. But you are going to feel much better from others because you are going to do what you want to do with your life. Enjoy your work.

“So, now I know some thinks.” I said.I looked the mirror again, I watched carefully my self and….I’ve to go to sleep…

2006-11-03T01:22:00.000Z

Task 4

The current history

From 2000 until today, in game industry we have huge development in all sectors. The progress on computer power, graphic accelerator cards, sound cards and in games development tools are rapidly increasing. But the leader on “current history” is the console games. The computer games market is a very stable one, but the market of console games are far more interesting and more powerful than all the others. Because of that we saw and will see new powerful consoles. Microsoft produce the ultimate, X-Box 360, console but the start came from Sony, with PlayStation 2, a 128 bit console (and its a DVD player too). Nintendo release the CameCube and Game Boy Advance. Microsoft entered the video game industry with X-Box in 2001. Nokia released N-Gage game-phone and later in 2004 the N-Gage QD. Sony in 2005 released the PlayStation Portable which gives you the ability to play video games, watch videos, listen to music, upload and view photos, as well as Internet browsing functionality and some on-line games. In 2006 Nintendo announced Wii, which features a new controller (whatever you do in real life affects what happens on the screen). In the same year the Envizions Computer Entertainment announced Evo: Phase One a multimedia entertainment hub which they hope to take the place of DVD player and PC ( play DVD, record live TV, store files and play Computer games).

Microsoft Vs Sony: Titans Battle

Nintendo’s, Wii? Yes, I’ll say if someone asks me about what the significant developments in 21st century. Evo? Yes again. They give new perspective in game industry. But all the knowledge on games development and games hardware (computers and console technology) are the most significant developments. We were expecting the computers to be the “future”, but the “future” came from a console. Xbox 360 is the best game performer in time and with on line-games. The Xbox 360 systems Performance is simply ex-ordinary.

CPU: 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each,2 hardware threads per core, Custom ATI Graphics Processor : 500 MHz, Memory: 512 MB GDDR3 RAM, 700 MHz DDR, Storage: Detachable and upgradeable 20 GB hard drive , 12X dual-layer DVD-ROM and 3 USB 2.0 ports.

Sony in 2005 demonstrates the PlayStation 3 and in 2006 releases it and appeared with a very strong system. Inside it beats a complex heart in the form of the 3.2GHz Cell processor (created form IBM and Toshiba), 550MHzRSX graphics processor and XDR 256 MB memories. Storage: 60GB, Except CD-DVD-ROM. It'll also be one of the first devices which accept the Blu-ray Disc ROM format, which is capable of storing 54 Gigabytes on a single disc and 6 USB 2.0 ports.

The nature of the industry

In a market with 75 million PlayStation 2 owners and 20 million each of Xbox and Game Cube owners, the cost of developing new consoles (PS3 and Xbox 360) and high-profile games, has increased exponentially over the last few years. For example, in 2004 Microsoft released Halo 2. Over 190 people are listed in its credits, and the game took three years to complete with a total development cost of over US$40 million and the cost of consoles is high because of their processor and others parts. And because of that publishers are looking for large returns above all other considerations. The publisher mentality tends to dismiss quirky new game ideas in favour of sequels and licensed properties from movies, comics and TV shows.

Part 2.0- My games…

1997-2006

Playstation

The most games I’ve played were in PlayStation and few in PlayStation 2. But some of them have a special place in my heart. Ace Combat 1, 2, Gran Tourismo 1, 2 (especially 2) and Colin MacRae Raly 1 and 2 for PlayStation 1 are some of the best games I have played. But when I’m thinking about PlayStation the first game that comes in my mind is Final Fantasy 7, which is the first RPG I’ve ever played and the best one. I also played FF8 and FF9 and they were very good games but FF7 had life inside it!! With my brother we beat all the Ultima Weapons except the red one, we collect all the materials, except the summon ones (bahamut zero), and the best weapons for all the characters. Cloud, Aeris, Sephiroth, chocobo… moments that I’m never going to forget.
Computer & On-line Games
On the other hand, computer games were for me, (on-line, lan-game, and some times at home), pleasure and not. I mean that I played games for fun but also to compete and be one of the best and maybe one of the best worldwideJ.

CounterStraike-the period of glory!

I start playing this game at 2000 with my friends in an on-line, lan, game store. The first (and my officially) nick name was “empty_” because I didn’t really thing what name to put for nick-name as I didn’t know anything about the game. At the beginning we played for fun, in public-lan maps or maps with my friends only. The Kalashnikov was my favourite gun but my speciality was the AwP. We became in really short time very good players, very good to play only for fun!
The “fun” CounterStaike became game of “ClanMatch”. The first clan match was in 2001. And from then we played only clan matches, until our clan was one of the best in Crete in 2002 and in top 10 in Greece in 2003 (unofficially).

Diablo Series-(“Okrim_Valor”)

I played Diablo 1 on-line and it was a very good game, I loved it right away. It has poor graphics and sound, was a simple game; but the simple some times is very beautiful, at least for me. However, Diablo 2 expansion was the best from the series. The game has a lot of things to do, explore, find, create and kill. And in that game we played as a team too. With my friends again, we created the Valor clan and it was on of the best clans on Diablo 2. Today only two of us we continue to play Diablo 2.

WarCraft 3-team spirit

The game I love to play and I’m never boring with is WarCraft 3, sorry I mean Dota!! Dota is a map of WarCraft 3. First, you choose a side (5 at each side) Scourge or Sentinels, then you pick a hero and play with your team to win. Guess what? Yes we create a clan for this game too.

On Line RpG-Feel the game or don’t play

Lineage 2 is the game I played most of the times in net-shops in the last years. I am really enjoying playing with my character and helping my clan in many servers. But now (in England) without my friends I’m bored to play alone. Well in the net-sore you can have direct contact with each other and not only in the game. And for now I play SilkRoad, which is another RPG game quite good.

At Home

At home, alone or with my brother I often play Manager! Say it Football or Championship Manager. The objective is the same, pick a team and try to take all the cups or at least be better from your opponents. I played all the series and I’ll continue to play the new ones, because I love the football, and I like very much this game.

2006-10-27T01:41:00.000+01:00

Task 3

For the games, the periods of 80’s and 90’s (for computers and console) it was a time of pioneer and development in all the sectors.
In the economic sector game companies made enormous incomes and gave real battles for who will be the dominant in the market, where computer and console industries flourish. The phrase which is saying that the world is evolved, it is suits absolutely to the technological sector of games, then and now.
In computer industry now appear new products, like Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, IBM PC, PC/AT, Apple Macintosh, PC/2, Intel 386-486, Motorola 68030 which are progressively increase computing power and decrease the cost of processors.
Also, the first sound cards appeared from IBM, and afterwards other sound cards appeared, more developed like the AdLib and Sound Blaster. In 1996, accelerator cards appeared called the Voodoo.
On the other hand, console industry, had their first good sample of their technology when they released Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and followed with Master System, Mega Drive, Nintendo Super NES, Sega Suturn, PlayStation and Nintendo 64 which starts from 8 bit and reach 64 bit.
But enough with the technical parts. The important thing is that appeared games which lay the foundations for the games categories today.
· Text adventure games like Zork
· Stealth-based games like Metal Gear series
· First-person shooters (FPS) like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Queke, CounterStrike and Unreal Tournament
· Real-time strategy (RTS) like DuneII, Age of Empires, War Craft and StarCraft.
· Survival horror like Alone in the Dark, Sweet Home, Resident Evil and Silent Hill
· Puzzle-based adventure like Myst
· Simulation games like SimCity, SimEarth
· Role-playng games like Ultima, EverQuest, Final Fantasy and Zelda
· Music video games like PaRappa The Rapper, Beatmania and Dance Dance Revlution
· Third-person shooter games as Grand Theft Auto III, SplinterCell,GoldenEye 007, Enter The Matrix and Hitman
· And arcade games like SuperMarioBros, Sonic, SuperMario64.

What were the significant developments during this time?

I believe that all the developments of the 80’s and 90’s were significant. Is like, you want to reach the top of a mountain, and you using only the left leg and left hand.
What I want to say is that, one development need and use the others, and upwards. But if I have to pick some out… theses would be: 1)The Maniac Mansion built with its SCUMM system which allowed a point-and-click interface. 2)The new PS/2 line in 1987 gave to the PC the potential for 256-color graphics. 3)The sound cards which appeared. 4) The first accelerator cards. 5) The console technology which starts from 8 bit and reach 64 bit.

How were games different by the end of this period than at the beginning?

At the beginning of this period the games were “text” adventure type or they were graphic adventures (poor graphics, with or not sound).
At the end, quite a lot of games came out, with beautiful graphics and nice sounds, which were also range in many different categories.
Also, the number of the games that exist before and after that period has change. Now zillions of games have been created, which attract many people, from the very young ones to the older ones.

Part 1.5

The first game that I loved was the Contra (NES).
I played it for days until I became good enough in order to finish the game with my brother. And we won it many times! The game was not particularly good (poor graphics and sound), but it was my first love.
Suddenly Mega Drive came in my hands!! I played many games in Mega Drive (like sonic series, fifa 94, terminator), wasting quite a lot of hours every day.
Because of that my mother hid it from me many times!!!
Another addicted game was the “Road Rash” which I played for 10-12 hours some days. The game was simple and with "good" graphics. You had a character and you were able to give him name (Yeeeaaaah! It was the first game that I was able to do that!!! ) and it was running illegal races in order to win and collect money to buy a better bike. One better thing in that game was the codes that gave you in order to start from where you had finished the previous time.
However, my real love was “Jewel Master”! (In my list appears like: “The master of the rings [I hope is like that]”). A game with not very good graphics, but with a combination of strategy and action. It has a lot of rings with different forces each one (and once you combined them, your blast was becoming more powerfull), a lot of different enemies with different forces. Also, many levels and some of these really difficult, good sound effects-different in each level- and at the end of the game a final boss, which took me a lot of time to win him – win the game.

continued in part 2.0

2006-10-19T19:18:00.000+01:00

Task 2

The early history of the Games…
In 1952 at the University of Cambridge, A.S Douglas created OXO, a graphical version of tic-tac-toe, in order to explain his thesis on human-computer interaction. The game was played on the old now EDSAC computer.
In 1958, William Higinbotham, created a game called Tennis for Two on an oscilloscope to entertain visitors at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.
In 1961, Steve Russell, who was part of a student group in MIT (Massachusetts Institution of Technology) programmed the first computer game called Spacewar!, on the new DEC PDP-1.
In 1966 the first videogame appears and it could be displayed on television set. Chase created by Ralph Baer, and two years later he had a prototype that could play several different games (including table tennis and target shooting).
In 1969 R.Baer had a prototype console that hooked up to a TV set and played ball and piddle games. This prototype was sold to Magnavox who released it in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first video game console.
The first arcade game, Computer Space and which was based on Spacewar!, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1971.
In 1972 N. Bushnell creates the arcade game Pong. That year Bushnell and Dabney started Atari Computers and they released the first arcade video game Atari’s Pong at the same year.
The arcade game industry entered its Golden Age in 1978 with the release of Space Invaders, by Taito. Also, Asteroids released by Atari that year.
And finally the colour arcade games became more popular in 1979 and 1980 with the arrival of titles as Pac-Man.

Who decided to use computers to have fun? What was their background?

The first computer game is generally assumed to be the game Spacewar!, which first conceived in 1961 at Massachusetts Institution of Technology by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen, with the intent of implementing it on a DEC PDP-1. After Alan Kotok obtained some changes(sine and cosine routines) from DEC, Russell began coding, and by February 1962 had produced his first version. Spacewar originally ran on a PDP-1 computer.
The game was not bad even if the graphics were primal. Two players each control a spaceship circling a planet. The players could shoot each other, turned their ships, and accelerate. The goal was to hit the other player before being hit yourself.
Obviously, Spacewar! is the first computer game designed for having fun, as its construction requires two players in order to play it.

Does this strike you as significant?

At this period of time (when the Spacewar! created), the abilities of the computers were almost zero, just like their number. However the knowledge Russell a.o had about these computers were the best they could. If the idea of the game was not coming on PDP-1, then it could have come later, on other computer. If was not Russell a.o who created Spacewar!, it could have been someone else later, with another game relative to Spacewar!.
I believe that the most important is how a game runs and not where it runs.
“After you discover tea… is not difficult to find where you can savour it...”

The first game I’ve played in my life was on Atari. Well..I don’t really remember my age,probably 8-9 year old, and the name of the game. It was a game with a spaceship where you were flying above the enemies and killed them with laser(on screen it looked like “”) and it ends only when you lose. Because of that I played hours to do the best score I could.
The most recent game I’ve played is the lineage 2, which I played it a lot last year in many servers. But for the last 3 years I also played Dota(game mode of warcraft),diablo 2 exp. and from 2000 I was playing Counterstrike series. So last year when I was feeling bored with lineage, I was playing the others games too.
All these years, from my first game until now, I was playing these games because some of them tranfer you in other ages and other places, some others in fantastic situations and also they wake up the competion inside you.

Games I have played:

Atari

NES

Mega Drive

USA FIFA 94, Road Rash 3, Sonic2,3,4
The master of the rings (I hope is like that), Terminator

PlayStation and PlayStation2
Ace Combat2, Ace Combat3
Gran Tourismo 1, Gran Tourismo 2, Music 2000
Gradia, LMA 2002, Carmageddon, Championship Motocross
Championship Motocross 2000, Crash Bandicoot, 2, 3
Command and Conquer: Red Alert , Driver
ISS 2 and 3, James Bond 007
James Bond 007 Everything or Nothing
Knochout Kings 2001, 2002, Max Payne
Max Payne 2, Metal of Honor, Metal Gear Solit
Metal Gear Solit Special Missions
Metal Slug XMortal Combat Trilogy
NBA Live Need for Speed 1, 2, 3
Pro Evolution, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6
Resident Evil, 2 ,3
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 9
Spaderman, Tekken 4
Moto Race 2, Toca Race Driver
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, V-rally 2
Total Club Manager 04, 05
www Smackdonw! Here come the Pain
Formula 1, 97, 98, 99 ,Formula one 2000
Diablo, Duke Nuke ‘em, Duke Nuke Land of babes
Duke Nuke Time to Kill, ESPN Extreme Games
Excalibur 2555, Grand Theft Auto, 2, London 1969
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Marvel Vs. Capcom
Dune, Nascar 2000 , NBA 96, 97, 98, 99
Colin McRae Raly , Colin McRae Raly 2.0
Tomb Raider, 2, 3 , Silent Hill, 2
Suikoden , Suikoden 2

PC games
Championship Manager 1999-2000
Championship Manager 2000-2001
Football Manager 2002, Football Manager 2003
Football Manager 2004, Football Manager 2005
Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 2 Expantion
Warcraft 3 Reign of Chos, Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne
Civilization 3 ,Civilization 4, Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2
Line age 2
CounterStrike 1.5
CounterStrike 1.6
Roller Coaster Tycoon 1
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2
Runeword, Sims, Adventure Quest
Mu Online, Omerta, Run escape
Max Payne, Silkroad

2006-10-11T00:22:00.000+01:00

Blogg The Creation Trainer

I know the way that I faulter
Can't be afraid of my patience
There's a sacred place where Razel keeps safe
Follow me
I've seen so much I'm behind again
Follow me
I feel so bad I'm in love again
Follow me
All that I wanted were things I had before All that I needed I've never needed more
All of my questions are answers to my sins All of my endings waiting to begin...Circle

My name is Emmanouil Pyrgiannakis, but most people know me as Manos. I’m a first year student and I’m studying Electronic Games Technology which seems to be a really interesting course. This year is going to be very creative, but at the same time difficult. But, since when creativity is easy and uncomplicated?
Easy or not to crate, blog is made up from time; time we have spent to give voice to ourselves in public. It is a way to communicate with other people, like students and staff as well as with ourselves; and because of that I see the blog as a personal pleasure and I’m going to associate it with my legalities from the university as good as I can.

The greater pleasure is to complete successively something difficult!!

I’m quite used to write down histories, thoughts and poems… but I don’t know if that will help me with the blog!
By giving parts of yourself, your experiences, your knowledge and your problems you are open and accessible not only to other people but to yourself too, and I believe that this can help you understand and solve any problems you may have. However, in practise is not as simple as it sounds.

In the games, you are given a role and you should play it as good as you can and of course you should be the best.
I’m here to create the games and make them the bestJ
Blog is like a game for me, they give me a role and I should play my best game!!

If that is not education…then what is it?