games

After reading Nikki_00's blog "going beyond internal interactivity", I couldn't help being reminded of almost every game on the Game Boy Advanced (GBA). In the GBA, when you start up, it is extremely easy to change the date/time, since you normally start in the main menu (this can be changed by the users preference, but it can still be easily accessed). With most of the games running time-based, it seems really easy to cheat. For instance, in "The Sims 2" (I don’t recommend playing it), you run a hotel and there are certain things you can only do once a day, and the rest of your time is spent cleaning (I Really don’t recommend playing it). Well, if you are like me and want your money ASAP, you may be tempted to well, "Time travel" as it’s called, by pushing the GBA's date forward one day. In doing this, 90% of the time, some sort of consequence happens (i've had times where the consequences didn’t happen, I’m not sure why). In "the sims 2", the bus boy calls you a cheater, and an alien invasion comes and you have to get rid of them (which is Very annoying), and you cant do what you wanted to do in the first place; collect your money.  read more »

I guess I wanted to respond or further elaborate on ideas in Greg's Blog about DOOM, since I found his post rather entertaining. I have never played DOOM, but I've played other games of the same genre. Sill, I'm sure the experience cannot be equated, as I've heard horror stories about how DOOM frightened many children and also addicted them to gaming in general. Plus, I've also heard that the game is just incredibly hilarious at times.  read more »

Oh dear. I knew there was trouble brewing when I first started to read Markku Eskelien's 'Towards Computer Game Studies'. "What's this?" asked my brain, "Complete and utter refutation of the narrative theory we've been studying, in relation to video games, which we've also been studying?!" What a mess. Jeez, it's just like an English/literature class to bolster your confidence in one theory or theoretician and then bring it all crashing down around you a few weeks later with the next name on the list. Except after four years of this, you start to realize that they're all right. Or they're all wrong. Really, they got some of it right, and they were just guessing at the rest. Anything to stir up some controversy.  read more »

Since discovering how much I enjoy adventure games, I have tried on several occasions to play text-based adventures. I am inherently curious about classic geek culture, so it was only natural for me to be interested in Adventure and Zork, and my abiding love for all things Douglas Adams led me to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text game and the even more obscure Bureaucracy. But to say that I have any experience with these games would be a lie. I have plenty of experience in trying to play them, getting frustrated, and giving up, but not in playing.

I wanted so much to play these games – I like to be in on geeky in-jokes, and I am an incurable completist when it comes to my favorite authors. But somehow, even with walkthroughs, I just cannot figure out these games. I got the cursed ring off of Elaine Marley's finger with minimal assistance, but I got Arthur Dent run over by the bulldozer countless times, despite the fact that I know full well how he survives in every other version of the story.  read more »

I have never been much of a gamer. Perhaps anticipating my addictive personality, my parents never upgraded our video game system beyond the Atari 5200. Although I was occasionally able to play Sonic or Mario while visiting my cousin, my early experiences with video games were almost entirely defined by River Raid, Pitfall, SuperBreakout, and the like.

In high school, a friend introduced me to Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and, when I discovered that Eric Idle had starred in two of the games based on the series, I purchased my very first non-educational computer game. Missing, Presumed...!? proved to be infuriatingly difficult, and a walkthrough became my best friend for a few weeks. Even so, the experience was an entertaining one, and I soon found myself playing Simon the Sorcerer, Monkey Island, and other such adventure games.  read more »

(I apologize if a similar entry has already been posted – I have not been able to keep up with the blog lately. That should be remedied in the near future.)

I try to approach unconventional media with no assumptions about how it should be experienced, and I like to think that I do a fairly good job of remaining objective and accepting of all manner of weirdness. In theory, this works well and allows me to better appreciate games like Passage or game, game, game, and again game than I would if I expected them to conform to some commonly accepted standard of what a video game is. Unfortunately, it also makes it rather difficult to judge whether or not I am experiencing it the way it was meant to be experienced.  read more »

So here we are, Blog entry number one.

I may very well be the first person in our class to make the digital leap and post my writings/ramblings on this site, so I hope this is a worthwhile entry into the realm that will be our home for many assignments, present and future.

I understand that we may craft our first writings around the game/story of "Passage", so I shall do that. Upon starting up the game, I believed that there was something wrong with my computer, as everyone by now is familiar with the blurry video that is associated with the "future" of your character's lifespan. After having firmly decided that the game was a pile of crap and a malfunctioning pile of crap at that, I closed the program out promptly having decided that my time was better spent putting on my Beatles' "White Album" LP on my turntable.

Allow me to say it first: I was wrong.  read more »