Noah Balmer

This article discusses they different 'games' tribal cultures play and how videogames in our culture fill the same need for present day humans. They provide a release of tension for the player. The game is a place where you have freedom to do things you normally arnt aloud to do. The author describes it as "a sort of artificial paradise like Disneyland, or some Utopian vision by which we interpret and complete the meaning of our daily lives. For example, tearing someones arm off and beating them to death with it. I believe that different types of games act as different escapes. a first person shooter lets you get out pent up aggression. A game like World of Warcraft lets you be a magical character that you are not in real life. Other games help relax your mind such as Electroplankton or Flow. The article also discusses war ass a game of kings. This is a very sad truth. I often wondered why waring countries couldnt just have a winner takes all Unreal Tournament Capture the Flag game in which the winner acutally wins what the war would have won them. The loser loses but is still alive with no need to rebuild his country. The author also talks about art in relation to games. Many games that I enjoy are critques of our modern world. Grand Theft Auto has been publicly shunned as a game of extreme violence and bad taste. Actually playing the game leaves the gamer to decide what is right, and the authors at Rockstar Games took the game to new levels by using it as an exgagerated look at the world we are living in. The author discusses if games are mass media. They conclude the answer is yes and I agree with them. And its getting bad. It costs so much to create a game for a system as resource hungry as a PS3, xbox360, or PC that it is too risky to create a game that doesnt have mass appeal. This is the same way with movies in 2007. This is why we see sequel after sequel of any game that is popular.

I live with a millionaire nerd. As you can see from the pictures he is into videogames. He has a PS3, wii, and xbox360. The trifecta as i like to call it. He will never have to work in his life. So what he does for fun is play videogames. He knows this isn't 'healthy' but what would you do if you were set for life? I wonder if I was set what I would do with my time on the planet. There are worse addictions to have. He tells me that he wishes he had done something with his life earlier. Im 5 years younger than him. I tell him he should get into the computer game industry. After all, he has played basically every game. He is excelent at critiquing the games. He is one of those guys who buys the game just to understand its level design, learning curve, and buggyness. I find myself playing too long now that i live here. I just moved in. I still get my work done, but i definitely sleep less. Time will tell how well I can manage with so much button mashing at my fingertips, school, work, and a girlfriend. Ill keep you posted.

I am doing my midterm on the game flOw. It is a downloadable game for the Playstation 3. It uses the PS3's sixaxis controller. You move the controller around to control a little creature that swims around eating different creatures to get bigger. Eventually you 'evolve' and get a new creature to control. Thats it. The games slogan is 'life could be simple.' I am interested in how games can be a relaxing method. This game is so simple that you forget your even playing it. You really feel like you are swimming around in a feeding frenzy, especially when your playing with 4 players. You have to move cooperatively to eat all of the creatures on a given level. Going to the official site will get you a good idea of the game. http://www.us.playstation.com/flOw/

It was interesting to learn that the creator of pong failed at first because he created a game with 'complex' controls. Now most games have so many controls people who arn't 'gamers' are too afraid of the learning curve to try. I remember the first time i played a videogame. It was the Nintendo. I played Super Mario Brothers. My parents didn't allow me to have a console game system at that age so I was trying to move the character on the screen and I was waving the controller around. My friend laughed at me. Its funny now that Nintendo is starting to use motion as a controlling method.
Recently, my roommate made me play Rez. The abstraction in the game is not at all annoying like it would be if it was a first person shooter. When your trying to get that human hair to flow just right its hard to make it look real. If you just don't try, then you can focus on gameplay. This is what Nintendo is doing with the Wii. They don't want to get into the graphics arms race like the Sony and Microsoft.
flOw, the game I want to do my midterm on is also very abstract. One of the things I want to look at is what different people name the powerups in the game. My roommate calls some of the powerups you eat 'carbs' and others 'protein' based on how you get larger from eating them. I hope to videotape people playing it as well. Flow is a very classic feeling game in its control because you only use one button. It also is very beautiful tho. Escpecially in 1080p HD! Ive noticed my friends saying 'dude, check out how pretty my tail is' and in other games they would be more likely to say, 'Suck on that fucker!' That's a pretty big difference.
While was reading it kind of steped its way through my childhood with those games. It reminded me of a project I did for a Microsoft design competition. I designed a game system that began with simple 'classic' games and evolved into a fully functional laptop/ entertainment PC. I believe that children shouldn't be thrown into a 'virtual world' style environment the first time they play a video game. People of my generation evolved with the technology from simple text based and board game feeling games. What do you think?

So I really wanted to get the new game skate. for the xbox360. I downloaded the demo and played it for hours. By the time i decided to buy it for the steep price of 65$ the pre-orders were already sold out. So I thought I would just wait a few days. The preorders didn't come for 2 days after the shipping date. I could tell that this doesn't normally happen by the tone of the gamespot employees voice. He was flabbergasted. I asked if i could place a hold on a copy. I couldn't. Once they actually shipped I called around to find that skate. was not available in Oakland or SF ANYWHERE. Finally today, I got a copy. When the guy handed me the cd case I was amazed at how light it was. The instruction manual was like 4 pages long. All this got me wondering. How are companies able to cell a DVD disk and a case for 65$. I realized that I was buying the data. Thats all it is. Some texture maps, skins, models, audio tracks. Why can't they have enough in stock? How long does it take to make a dvd? Does it really take up that much space? Maybe they mean to only trickle out the games because then its cool if you're the guy that got it before anyone else, which makes other people want the game more. I don't know. I'm just glad i have it now.

I have been watching the evolution of game graphics since Wolfenstein 3d. Its crazy to think that I was playing violent games at 8 years old. I haven't even killed anyone yet!
Anyways, the point is I never really understood the brilliance of 3d graphics until I started 3d modeling for school. This image shows off 2 things. The first is the attention to detail. Look at that graffiti on the side of the house. It looks just as crappy and inartistic as most of the graffiti in the bay area.
The second thing is the shadow of the soldier. As you can see it is not only a actively moving shadow. based on the direction of the light source the shadow is going up the wall and realistically hitting the other side! This is something that most people casually playing the game would never notice but helps tell a more realistic story.
I beat halflife 2 with the creator commentary on and it was a great look into the level design of the game. I think you have to beat the game normally first in order to get the commentary....or cheat.

My roommate has a ps3 and an xbox360. I recently purchased a game called skate. It is available for both systems. The ps3 graphics might look about 5% better. Going from my computers 19" screen to sitting 4 feet from a 42" 1080p screen I am blown away by either. Hell, even the wii looks pretty good to me and thats just 2 gamecubes duct taped together. Through having to decide this I realized that the industrial design of the game controller was the most important difference in the two systems.
For a racing game, i would rather use the xbox 360 controller because the accelerate button is usually r2 which when depressed is easy to hold down because it is more of a trigger shape. On the ps3 controller when the r2 button is depressed you are pushing on a rounded surface, causing your finger to slide off.
for a fighting game i would rather have a ps3 controller because of the analog depressing of the right thumb buttons. The xbox360's right thumb buttons are either on or off.
The casual gamer would not really see the difference in these two controllers. Looking deeper i realized that the playstation controller was designed for Asian hands which are generally smaller. The first xbox controller that came out was made for American hands and was much larger. Asians couldn't play it! conversely, the ps3 controller hurts my hands after a while and the xbox 360 doesn't.
However, having said all this my favorite way to play a game is with a wasd and mouse. Its more comfortable and accurate than either console. PC gaming for the win!