Anh Nguyen

It was quite interesting reading/learning about the origins/theory of gaming from another perspective rather than my own. Gaming has always been an escape route for me, a digital world where i can explore endless boundaries, smack digital punching bags, and relieve my mind from the stressful everyday life. Not until i read this article:

"A game is a machine that can get into action only if the players consent to become puppets for a time."

A game is merely a machine... and we are nothing but puppets. From a place of peace/happiness to an artificial world, it's interesting to me how different people perceive games differently. To the author of this article, to play a game is to put yourself into another characters shoes and be controlled... but to me it's always been an endless world of excitement!

Purchasing a Nintendo Wii a few months ago was a struggle due to the fact that it was sold out everywhere, for months. Luckily i got my hands on a brand new system a couple of days ago, and i cannot tell you how surprised i am with the technology! It's interesting to see the Wii outsell xbox360's and PS3's, with its dumbed down graphics!

Me and my roommates cannot get our hands off of this thing... and the games actually give us a pretty good work out!

"Games with representational graphics often rely on conventions from other audiovisual media, and increasingly, on conventions established in earlier video games, giving them a built-in familiarity that allows players to begin playing without having to learn the interface."

In our hearts and minds these three(Star Wars, Battlezone, Space Invaders)games will always be treated as "classics." As basic as they were, these games set the standards for all games today. And as simple as they were, the built-in familiarity that allowed game-play without having to learn the interface will never be the same!

Check out this article!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2007420867,00.html

I thougt HalfLife 2 was an awesome game. It's a bit different from other first person shooters i've played... lessed based on slaughtering and gore... more based on storyline. I also thought of half life 2 as a beautiful game, packed with action as well as beautiful scenery/art work. I included some random screen shots of scenery. The shots were taken at an ugly area(acidic waste land)... but was designed so well that it made the wastelands look beautiful.

Overall the shooting/movement is pretty basic and strait forward. I found the crouching and jumping on this game alot easier than Americas Army. The graphics were sweeter too!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=86szS-wXcI0
"A hacker called "AhMan" has created a software mod that enables two PSPs to play PSOne games over an adhoc WiFi connection"