Stephanie

The point that kept standing out to me throughout the article was McLuhan's view that games are models or reenactments of real life. I had never thought of it that way before. I also thought it was interesting how he points out that they release particular tensions. In that way, one could say that in video games one is acting out things they could never do in reality, such as kill others, go on elaborate adventures, etc. However, I think that video games do not really reflect real life (although I haven't ever played military games, which would be based in reality, I guess). What I also found interesting is that McLuhan writes continually about how a defining characteristic of games is interplay. If that's true, then where do video games come in? I think that most video games don't encourage interplay at all, but rather make the player isolated. They create a fantasy environment that the player experiences alone. Even with these online games ( I don't really get how they work, so I may change my mind later) in which a player is communicating or playing somehow with people on the internet, there is no real connection. I think that online gaming is a poor substitute for actually having personal contact with others in even a board game or a sport. The author writes that "games are extensions, not of our private but of our social selves, and that they are media of communication should now be plain." I think that video games are pretty much the opposite, and are an extension of our private selves and not at all about socializing. They are about immersing oneself into a private entertainment.

I'm thinking about playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the PC for my midterm project. I've read a lot of reviews and I'm really interested in how it's an RPG in which the character's interactions with other characters truly affects the outcome of the game and whether you become good/evil, etc. A lot of RPGs don't have that option and feel like you don't really have much choice in what happens, so I want to see what it's like playing a game like this.

Personally I think that abstraction in games works better than the super-realistic graphics so many companies are trying to use in video/computer games today. First of all, none of those graphic ever look ACTUALLY real. I do like when things are rendered to look "realistic" but are not of things or people that are really in existence. Also, 3D gameplay is never as much fun for me as side scrolling games. It's supposed to be realistic but it doesn't feel like it at all.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about the army making this game. My immediate reaction is pretty disgusted that they spent over $7 million on it and how cocky it all seems. I am interested in playing it though, I want to see what the big deal is. As a recruitment tactic it is quite brilliant on the army's part, to make the army cool is a time when a lot of people are super anti-military or don't really care. Something about the whole thing makes me feel kind of squeamish though, like it doesn't seem right somehow. I think it's the way in which they're trying to make the army seem SO cool, or likening it at all to a video game. It's like saying, see, fighting in a real war isn't so bad, it's actually fun and there aren't any real consequences. No matter how "realistic" a game is, it's still a game. There is no way that it can compare to the real experience of warfare. A quote from the reading that I really agree with is when Elaine Scarry writes, "The severe discrepancy in the scale of consequence makes the comparison of war and gaming nearly obscene, the analogy either trivializing the one or, conversely, attributing to the other a weight of motive and consequence it cannot bear." I think the whole idea of the army making a game because they "want the whole world to know how great the U.S. Army is," is a load of crap. First of all war isn't great and the people who follow orders and fight in it aren't particularly great either, in my opinion. What's so "great" about what the army is doing right now anyway?

I brought in some information on the Nintendo Wii, the newest console that they're about to release in November. I think it's really interesting how closely video game consoles are to being like computers these days, with the ability to link up to the internet and play with other people. I think video game companies might be trying to interest people who are mostly online gamers because of the popularity of the interactive aspect. THe controller is also really cool and different, called a Wii-mote and looks like a remote control for a TV. It can be used like the instrument in the game, i.e. sword, tennis racket, etc. I think this opens up possibilities for gameplay that have never been experienced before. It's also interesting because it uses Bluetooth technology. The Wii has various channels, like internet channel, forecast channel, you can store pictures on it, watch the news, etc. http://www.wii.com/en_US/