Week 4 - A history of computer games, part 3, 2000 - the future...

I've read the information on platforms of the future and I have to say that the future of games looks bright except for a couple of problems.

One thing that really caught my attention was the sharp rise in the cost of games development, I guess that with an increase in Game Quaility, comes an increase in Game Deevlopment Cost, but a rise as sharp as that has pushed the prices of games up as well, for example, a version of pac-man was released in 1982 by Atari, and cost $100,000 to develop and sold for $30 a piece. However when Halo 2 was released in 2004, it cost over $40 million to develop and though it's a record sales game, costs $50 a piece.

See where my worry lies?

The way things are going, it's going to cost people a rediculous amount of money to buy consoles and games, for example, the PS2, when released is going to cost £450 at least, a lot of the gaming population cannot afford it right off the mat, and will have to wait for the price to drop considerably.

However I am rather glad of the drop in sequals of games, since very few games sequals are as good as the original, for example, Final Fantasy X2 was one of the biggest mistakes ever made, and yet Final Fantasy X was quite a good game.

The idea of games that span over many platforms, is a really good idea, I feel. Because it is not always possible to own all the consoles, and if you like the look of a game, you are more likey to buy it if it's on a platform you like, for example, I like the look of some of the XBox games however because I do not own an XBox, I cannot buy these games, and it is pointless to buy a console to only play one or two games on it.

Looking at the HDR video webpage I have to agree that graphics shown in that format are about a zillion times better as my best friend back home has a HDR tv and things shown on it are amazing. And I also agree with Shin'ichi Okamoto, who is quoted on the webpage, http://news.com.com/2100-1040-866288.html, as saying "Moore's Law is too slow for us, we can't wait 20 years to achieve a 1,000-fold increase in PlayStation performance." If they did, gamers would get impatient and go to rival games companies for new games.

Games of the future should be original, and it is no good sacrificing game play for graphics, which is what has happened in quite a few games recently, in the furture I'd like to see more fanatasy/action games with decent storylines, and less of the lets see how many people we can run over/kill for no reason games. And what the hell is going on with a game I saw relaesed recently where you have to bully your way to the top at a school? That's not good games, that's people coming up with crap and trying to sell it.

It's a long way off in the future but I would love Virtual Reality games, that you could play 3D or like you see in Sci-Fi films and shows, with you plugged in so you hear, smell, taste ect the game you're playing that would be awesome.

However until VR is reality I vote for more fantasy and action and puzzle games with storylines to be played on any format and I really would like games I like for the Wii's really weird controllers!!! :)

And ouch I've just got my phone bill... £85.53 ow ow ow ow ow, note to self, do not use phone as much.... owey!!!!!!

So this is Joey signing off and thinking ouch!

The Fellowship...

It was rather odd at lunch time today, as some of my friends decided that we were a Fellowship and started giving each other nicknames from the books, 'The Lord of the Rings.'

However, at first we thought we only had seven people, so it was voted that Merry and Pippin would be dropped, but working it out there's actually eight of us, so Merry stayed.

There's me, Dave, Nicki, James, Alex, David, Joel and Caz.

Aragron, Frodo, Legolas, Gandalf the Grey (He says Gandlaf the white is boring), Borameer, and the list goes on, though if I remember rightly, David decided that since James went to his flat for dinner, not to the SU with us that he was Legolas.

See the random things uni students come up with?

Lol, so to add to my ever growing list of nicknames, which consists of Joey, Kari, Mai, Kairi, Yamita, Yami and Pikabitch (yes I will explain that one), I am also apparently Aragorn.

That's fun.

(To explain Pikabitch, when I play Smash Bros I always play as Pikachu, and one of my flatmates was playing too, about two weeks ago and when she managed to kill me, she yelled "Got you Pikabitch!" and it kinda stuck.)

Miss Leicestershire

This year I would like to win the above contest.

After competing in the Miss England regionals in my area for a couple of years, this year I have to enter Miss Leicestershire and hope I do well.

However this year I will have two bites of the apple, for I have been entered into the Miss Photographic round which, if I win, will give me auto entry into the Miss England finals next June, which I would love to have the chance to compete in, so if my picture goes up on the Miss England site I will soon be trying to raise publisity so people can vote for me by text, because I would love to make it to the finals just once.

The entry into Miss Photographic means that on the 17th of November, I am going into London for a photo shoot provided by one of the sponsers of Miss England, Fairlight Studios, and while I am looking forward to it I am also very nervous, because looking at what they want me to bring, I'm wondering if...

1. I have everything I need.

and...

2. If I can afford what I don't have.

I hope pay day comes soon.

FGPIP

Fat Gay Pink Italian Plumbers

Yes I am talking about the Luigis that vicously attacked me and my friends when I had everyone around playing Super Samsh Bros Melee.

I, and everyone else bar two people can beat three CPU opponantes at level 9, and yet two pink, yes pink, Luigis at level 9 beat us multiple times.

o.0

Fat Gay Pink Italian Plumbers wasn't the worst thing they were being called by the end of the night.

But please don't ever ever ever mention Luigi to me ever again.

Week 3 - A history of Games, part 2 - from 1980 - 1990

Time goes by so slowly, for those who wait, no time to hesitate. - Hung Up, Madonna

So here I am, sat in my room, thinking what to write, I feel that I should begin by answering the question posed by Mr P in his comment, a wiccan is a person who follows the religion, rules and restrictions of witchcraft, in all essance a Wiccan is a Witch by another name.

Right then, work time, that picture btw is a picture of the case of the Dizzy game for the Master System, or Mega Drive... can't remember which now.

And thank you to my flatmate, Sarah, who found Sanctuary, the Kingdom Hearts 2 intro song.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Sorry...

Right, will focus and not be distracted by the little bunny rabbit boucning up and down in my line of vision.

I hate plot bunnies.

Especally plot bunnies that have nothing to do with the thing you're trying to write at the moment.

Kingdom Hearts plot bunnies are taking over the world!

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Right games from 1980 - 1990...

The start of the 80s games companies sprang up, but not all of them were legit and some companys were formed that cheated developers. Some early 80's games were copies of arcade games, but later on in the century other 'genre defining games' www.wikipedia.com has this to say about the games described as such...

"Defender (1980) established the scrolling shooter and was the first to have events taking place outside the player's view, displayed by a radar view showing a map of the whole playfield. Battlezone (1980) used wireframe vector graphics to create the first true three-dimensional game world. 3D Monster Maze (1981) was the first 3D game for a home computer (meanwhile a 3D game for the PET computer was discovered, dating back to 1977), while Dungeons of Daggorath (1982) added various weapons and monsters, sophisticated sound effects, and a "heartbeat" health monitor. Pole Position (1982) used sprite-based, pseudo-3D graphics when it pioneered the "rear-view racer format" where the player's view is behind and above the vehicle, looking forward along the road with the horizon in sight. The style would remain in wide use even after true 3D graphics became standard for racing games. Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right. Dragon's Lair (1983) was the first laserdisc game, and introduced full-motion video to video games."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_and_video_games#The_1980s)

What it says is true as the rear view racer format is used pretty much all the time in racing games, Pac-man has recently been reinvented for the Nintendo DS and remains popular to this day, Dungeons of Daggorath sounds a lot like a fore-runner for quite a few modern fantasy based rpgs nowadays.

1985 showed the development of 16 bit consoles, improving the quailty of games, but thier dominance was short lived as more and more developements occured over the course of the 1980s. Interactive games started to be played at the start of the 1980s but until 1987 they only used text.

Nintendo's Game and Watch console appeared in this age, something that reappeared in Super Smash Bros Melee recently as a playable Character and a battle level.

In 1987 Final Fantasy was born as an attempt to save Squaresoft from bankruptcy and has survived the course of time to be one of the most popular games series ever made and the most successful RPG franchise ever. Though the graphics are impossiblly

In the same year Metal Gear Solid came out, and was ported to the NES just two years later (1988). The birth of this game proved to be the the birth of the stealth based game genre, which nowadays includes things like Hitman and Splinter Cell.

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So that's what I understand about the 1980s - 1990s for games development, it was a time of great development for the industry and it has kept being improved since then.

Joey

Hey look what I can do!

I finally worked out how to get pictures to come up on my posts without crashing my computer... =)

So here is a pic of my favourate Keyblade in all of the Kingdom Hearts games just to make sure I got it right.

This is the Oathkeeper Keyblade, created when you attach Kairi's lucky charm to your Keyblade, I love it, it's really strong.

Please expect me to add pics to my other blogs now =)

So, with a smily face for cause I worked it out, here's Joey signing out.

Week 2 - A history of games - Part one 1950's - 1970's... Pong...

The idea of computer and video games orginally came from a young, male engineer, who wanted to introduce the idea of playing games on TV. I somehow doubt that he ever thought it would grow this big. :) This was back in 1951, however the first true vidoe game that was played on a screen wasn't created until the year 1952, when a man, who'd just finished his PhD created a game of tic tac toe to play agianst the computer, which the reading material says used "special algorithms to win whenever possible" (http://www.pong-story.com/) Could this have been the first example of a Computer cheating to win? Many games seem to do nowadays, no matter how much thier designers claim otherwise.

The men who started designing games were all smart and intelligent people, which to me proves that games designers must use thier brains, also they worked as enginners or computer experts, showing a knowledge of computers is nessessary.

However reading thier information I began to wonder if I was the only person to own an Atari?

There was a lot of talk about Pong, which I remember playing as my first computer game because my dad had this ancient machine that you plugged into the Tv and you could play games.

I was only about five and I was scared of computer/video games, weird huh? Now I'm not sure if I was scared of the games or dad's shouting when it cheated again.

But I started to love games when my parents bought an Atari. I wonder if anyone remembers Dizzy, the egg, that had all that trouble with the Wizard, Zacks, that had to be one of my favourates, escpecaly when it was relased for the Master System, or was it the Mega Drive? Not sure, but between it and Sonic the Hedgehog, I grew to love computer games, and most of them grew to love me, except Rainbow Island for the Atari which just grew more evil the better I got. When I bought it for my DS, after it was re-realsed I showed my dad, who ran upstairs yelling, "AHHHHH NOOOOOO!"

Rainbow Island was the one game that ended up in the bin so many times I lost count, and yet we'd always fish it out, before anything that could damge it went in there, we were adicted even back then...

And I belive it went something more like this;

"Dad? Do you remember Rainbow Island for the Atari?"

"Yes?" I had to stop myself from laughing at the wary look he got.

"Look what I got."

"AHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! KEEP IT AWAY!"

Nowadays you wouldn't find me dead without the lastest Nintendo Console but when I first started playing games, the fat red plumber annoyed me so much I ignored Nintendo altogether, right up until about eight nine years ago when Pokemon Red and Blue came out. A fat Italian guy who yells muma mia and jumps around making weird noises, was no where near as cool as the super fast, blue hedgehog that I am still a complete fan of today. Sonic the Hedgehog could take Mario down before you could say Chilli Dog, run circles round Bowser and still have time to save the World from Dr Robotnik, (Now Dr Eggman, which if you read the comics like me, is understandable), and chill out with his best bro, Miles J Prowler, or Tails as everyone knows him.

Since being introduced to Nintendo, I have been introduced to the worlds of Ledgend of Zelda, Pokemon, and many more, though the fat red plumber still annoys me a lot. How does he fit down those tubes anyway? Surley he'd get stuck at some point...

Hmmm, I guess I was probably nine when I really started playing games, and from there I went from small games to very very large ones like Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider, you have to love both series, though I am a little worried about work in the future after I heard that the company that makes Tomb Raider, fired everyone who worked on Tomb Raider, Angel of Darkness after the game was a huge dissapointment to the fans and sparked a public outrage that ruined the company's rep for years until Tomb Raider, Ledgends was released, proving that they still can make good games.

Hmmm, what would I class as my favourate game at the moment, I think that's pretty easy, the Kingdom Hearts series, Kingdom Hearts (PS2), Kingdom Hearts; Chain of Memories (Gameboy Advance, but I played it on my Nintendo DS), and most recently, though Dave disagrees, Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2).

I love the storyline and the action and the adventure and the... I love it all really. I'm a person who likes her games to have plots as opposed to just going around running people over or beating the rubbish out of people (though I won't deny I do love Super Smash Bros Melee), you'll find only one or two racing games in my collection at Uni, and that would both be Crash Team Racing titles, the rest are probably almost all action/adventure/rpgs.

I guess that's all i wanna say right now, I have work soon and i don't want to sleep through my alarm, oh, other then I've had to put my real name in my profile name, but I still prefer Joey, it's just to make life easier for the tutor.

Oh, and I've posted two new fanfics, both one shots (meaning only one chapter) but if you haven't finished Kingdom Hearts 2, don't read them, the link is further down the page.

See ya soon,

Joey.

Complete... or is it...?

"Oh, come on Riku, you've been hanging out in darkness too long, try to think positive."

I do believe that after more then I think it's about 44 hours of playtime, I have finally completed Kingdom Hearts 2, and I have to say the final boss is a complete and utter DASTARD! No, I'm not giving names or giving advice, suffice to say that it was really hard and I probably made it harder by not leveling up as much as other people, but the ending is totally worth the pain and hardship involved in beating the boss.

I have just one thing lest to do in the game now, complete it in hard mode and get the secret ending... oh hell... if the boss was evil in standard, what's he gunna be like in hard mode?

And I want a copy of 'My Sancutary' the offical song for this game.

Hehe, I'm happy!!!!!!!!!

And slightly petrified about hard mode....

EEP!!!!

Wow, cool ending though, you have to watch the credits.

Totally worth it.

It came up with a battle report at the end,

Game Level - Standard Mode
Completion of Jiminy's Journal -87%
Completion of Gummi Routes -10%
Healed Party Members -48 times
Saved By Mickey -1 time
Most used Form -Valor Form 56 times
Used Anti-form -8 times
Most used Summon -Genie 1 time

That's not fair!!!!!!!!

100% on Jiminy's Journal would've meant I would've gotten the secret ending without playing it again...

Ah well, I'll do better next time :)

Joey

Sunday shift...

Tonight, I am the only sane person in my flat.

I belive this would be because I am the only one who is both awake and not drunk.

I had my first day of work, offically, if you don't count the 7 hours they had me working the counters on Thursday as "Training." 4 Hours of serving customers pretty much non stop, my feet hurt!

On a plus side, I have gotten things written and drawn today, and I will be going out to do some more drawing tomorrow. However I haven't written the next chapter, just a bit that will be used later on, towards the Finals of Quidditch, I like it though...

Oh, since I keep talking about my fanfiction writing... or lack of it... here's my Fanfiction.net account...

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/911977/

Ok, I have to actually answer the qustions we were set now, so I'm Joey Lawrence... Anne Lawrence... It's really hard, when I've been going by my nickname for two weeks, to refer to myself by my real name... And I'm stubborn, impulsive and often hot tempered. If something seems like a good idea at the time I will often do it. I'm Wiccan, if you don't like it tough, it's part of who I am, so get used to it, and I'm also bisexual with preferance to women, so sorry men, you're out of luck with this girl.

I like blogging, I can put more of me into the page, essays are really hard for me so this is much better, I can write what I think instead of trying to keep it impersonal and boring. I will be writing in this blog as often as I have something to say, about anything I have to talk about. I see myself using this blog to express myself and my views on topics, instead of me just hiding behind minimal facts like I do for essays. I'm more comfortable writing about myself then talking about myself, but I love to talk about other things, like anime and games and books, and Fanfiction...And as an online author, writing for an invisable audiance doesn't faze me 'cause I never get to meet my reviewers in person either.

I've only just realised my favourate quotes from my writing changes every five seconds... currently it's...

“Do I wanna know what that does?” Yugi asked.

“Do you want credible deniability?” Fred replied, “It’s for us to know and the rest of the school to find out sooner or later.”

“Probably sooner.” George said with an evil smirk...

The Weasley Twins are some of my faves to write, even if it is hard to get the twin talk right. :)

Any way, I will leave you with all this information about me, and leave you to make your own opinions,

And see you in class on Tuesday,

Joey

Sephiroth...

Wow, I can offically say that was the fastest battle ever...

Two moves long...

And I got owned.

Kingdom Hearts 2, now up to 39:05 hours play time and it took Sephiroth all of TWO moves to beat me... I think I need to level up.

Gah...

On the plus side I had mytraining for work today, and it all went well, so I'll be starting on the deli at Sainsburys in Fosse Park on Sunday so incoming money will hopefully be nice and enough to keep the flow of games coming...

On a down side I didn't get any drawing done today, there isn't much you can do while serving customers meat and cheese, though it was still more fun then serving people on checkouts where I feel like a broken record.

EXAMPLE: -
"Hi, how are you, would you like a hand with your packing, do you have a Necter card? Have a good monring/day/evening, Hi, how are you?..."

However I will be going out and drawing on Fri/Sat/Mon so I will be getting the practise in, I've deliberatly taken less hours at the Sainsbury's up here so I can avoid doing what I was doing back home which is working at the store way too much and as such my coursework suffered.

*Sighs*

I'm a Fanfiction and Fantasy writer too, and I ahven't got any of that written since I got the game, my fanbase is going to be baying for blood soon, I must not forget to do that either...

Crossover series is way behind on updates, and my regular series has't had a new story in about half a year... or more... I can't remember when I started my Yu-Gi-Oh!/Harry Potter crossover, which has become quite popular and has taken over my account...

Right three reminders then...

GO OUT DRAWING TOMORROW

GET NEXT CHAPTER WRITTEN FOR CROSSOVER

FIND IDEA FOR NEXT NORMAL SERIES STORY

BEAT SEPHIROTH ON KINGDOM HEARTS 2...

Wait that's four reminders... oh well, and the last one will be hard until my level goers up substancally.




Ah well, the first three are do able...

Joey

Photoshop and Max

Oh, I completely forgot, the others were playing with Photoshop in the computer studio… I didn’t get a chance because there wasn’t enough computers this week, but it’s all good because I can use Photoshop easily, thank goodness, and I’ve been playing with Gmax, trying to do on it what Joel showed us on Tuesday… I think I’m getting there.

We shall see.

Week 1 - Blogging.... A girl gamer's first blog

Well, I've just finished the last lesson of my first week at DMU, if you don't count fresher's week, and I have to say, at this point of time I'd quite like to run away screaming. I've seen the level of work we're going to be expected to produce at the end of this course, and I've seen everyone else’s drawing skills and I have a horrible urge to run, run away... but come back before class next Tuesday, because I refuse to let this chance go to waste.

I think it's probably going to be a long three years, because we have a LOT to learn if we're to get to that standard, and I dare say most of us will, but I'm seriously going to have to work on my drawing to catch up with some of the others, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! However, no matter how much work I’ll have to do, I’m looking forward to it, because I’ve wanted to take a course like this for what seems like ever.

I wonder how much I should put about myself… One thing I will say is that while my name is Anne, I do prefer my nickname to my real name, so I’ve introduced myself to people by said nickname, so most of the class already know me as Joey.

I’m a complete game’s freak, I love RPGs and Action games, especially from the Fantasy genre, like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy, though games like Tomb Raider are great too, and Sonic the Hedgehog rules over all. I’ve bought a few new games since I’ve been here and Kingdom Hearts 2 is amazing, I was talking about it with some classmates and decided that I play games way too much, I only got it Friday and already I have a playtime of 37 hours and 43 minutes, it’s because my internet went down over the weekend and I ended up playing it while my flatmates got internet withdrawal. Plus side, now that I’m getting work to do for my courses I should be able to resist the call of the game better…

Anyway that’s all I have to say at the moment… Next blog in, uhhhh, next time I have something to say, or there’s a task.