Tools in Play

From the first game we had a controller to play it, though one of the web links shows pong to have the first controller it was tennis for two actually that started it off. They may have only been block with dials and buttons but that’s a controller isn’t it, if it controls something it’s a controller, same in life just different principles.

Over the years though controllers have come in all shapes and sizes, some more awkward to use than others. Every time there’s been a new games system released a new, more improved in performance controller has come out with it, in cases this is true in others it’s been a letdown. We had a thing of increasing buttons on a controller to decreasing them again, a load of ups and downs really.

I can’t say I have an opinion on how the older controllers like the SNEZ and N64 handled, though i did use the them once or twice my history doesn’t show me into gaming fully till much later in my life. The more modern ones I can comment on though. Listing through them all they all have good points but also have faults. Nintendo for instance. The Game boys, for me, wore my tips out pressing low risen buttons against plastic where as the GameCube’s, though many people complained of this controller, worked for me except after constant use of the second analogue stick, that was saw. Xbox was huge I always insulted the sheer size of the thing saying it was impractical. The play stations problem for me was its unneeded shape; to me it made a challenge of reaching buttons. But even with the insults I could still comfortably play with these controllers.

Now days I’ve got the Wii and 360 remotes to juggle, and may I say wireless controllers are a blessing, never pulling over your console with fear of breaking it... oh heaven. Over the two I’d chose the 360 due the fact that all the buttons are in reaching distance, you don’t have to grow another thumb to press the Y button, and it fits comfortably in your hands. The Wii though wireless is again awkward. The length of the remote make hard work to press button and having to aim the controller at the sensor whilst trying to shoot someone to death is a cup of tea.

But this is how things are develop isn’t it. We make, we play, and we progress. Though the controller will be around for some time to come in my mind but the next step to going wireless and controller free I think is in the hands, play games with movements of our hands, like gate control in Zion in The Matrix.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050523/console_timeline/http://ps3.qj.net/The-Ergonomics-Behind-the-PS3-Controller/pg/49/aid/503http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/gaming/productdetails.aspx?pid=091http://wii.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=6355&pg=1&comments=full

Storytelling

Stories used to be told round a fire centuries ago, these days there told and depicted in so many ways and through so many mediums. Games are just one of these mediums. The whole point of a story is to put an image in your head, the better the story the better the image and so the more your dragged in. The same principle applies to games. I find there are a couple points of having a story behind a game. It sets the scene of the game, the atmosphere, it’s what drags us into the game making us play on to find out what happens next, you’ll find a strong story will attract loads of gamers in just by the trailer. The story also helps portray the characters. It helps to bring them alive as if real human beings; emotions, personality and so on. Most films have it easy as actors/esses already being human have the life inside them so don’t need to be portrayed so harshly if you see where I’m coming from.

Obviously you need to play the story right as every story has a beginning, middle and an end. Jump to the straight to the end then there’s no point playing on, you know what happens. Start in the middle and you get people lost, no one knows what has happened or where you’re going. So if you play it right you can create sequels. Halo, Call of duty, Red Alert all big well known games with more than one game to them because they stories have been played in such a way that they can be continued, each time intent on revealing new plots, characters and schemes. As long as the story’s good of course, you can end destroying a whole franchise by going cheap on the story; it’s one of those corners that shouldn’t be bent round, without a story, you haven’t got a game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Payne_2:_The_Fall_of_Max_Payne
http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/596/596254p1.html
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/jun98/lazy2.htm
http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Interviews.Detail&id=10
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/forum.asp?forum_id=32

Out With The Old Inter The New

Ever since the birth of Electronic Games magazine there’s been reviews, reports and criticisms of games, new companies under different names have entered the arena doing the same things for years, maybe this is the problem.

The bringing of the internet has seen many things change in the world. Communication, finance, shopping, advertising and so on. Now while this has an up for most people it has or still can put out the older methods that people have used or relied on for years, human ‘creativity’ for you. The NGJ is internet based, so apart from being easier to get and by the way cheaper there’s a personalised side to them. Now I’ve bought game magazines for years but just recently discovered NGJ and one big noticeable difference I can tell between the two is that there is a distinct border line. The magazines seem to focus on the games whereas people doing NGJ’s, well they add a personal touch to it. You get the dish on the games from them but you also get the gamers point of view , you can connect with them, it’s not just some person whose been told to play a game and give feed back ..... Boring.

From what I’ve read off the links to me the magazines are failing because they live in corrupt world. Their told what they have to write about, what their allowed to research, all controlled by the money men, the guys who fill their pockets with the big note whilst the readers get the loose change. They tighten budgets to save money, restrict working hours on magazines so not a lot of good stuff goes into them and personally I think the only reason (conspiracy wise) that the game ranking system exists is to encourage people to buy the latest games meaning more money for, guess who, the money men.

I can only imagine they’ll get worse with sales plummeting against NGJ’S growing in popularity. Thing I prefer about NGJ’s is they explain things in my language as if they actually speaking to me as a person that to me is the most single and key unique feature to me which is making them out best magazines. I can right like that, I find it more compelling against what seems to be puppet talk in Magazines.

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=693

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62798

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/game_culture/2005/03/ten_unmissable_examples_of_new_games_journalism.html

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=3

http://shinyshinyshiny.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_shinyshinyshiny_archive.html

The birth and Revolution

In thirty years the games industry saw many up and downs. New software developed new competitors to the market and new games but that’s not to say there weren’t worse bumps in the road to come.

Straight in the deep end setting it off us had Magnavox with their own and the very first home playable cartridge console the Odessy. Now this was a development from the arcades. Baer had developed two games of their before this time as home playable games, chase and tennis, however future founders of Atari Nolan B and Ted D created the first ever arcade game, computer space. This along with pong launched a new era of gaming, however players would get two different experiences depending on whether they played on the arcades or home systems as different variables were played to effect between the two.

In close proximity to those years Atari would be founded. Many companies would come to light in the coming decades of the game industries growth and creation. Coleco would release it own home console a few years later, Telstar, whereas FC&I would play a role of putting more music into games. Other companies of the time included Midway, Mattel Intellevision, Cinematronics, Nintendo, Taitos, Sony and many more including the first game magazine Electronic Games.
All these companies would see fortunes made and lost as they grew to power, especially when the game revolution came along, people were sick of the cartridge systems at home not being very reliable or choice of games but then a wave of new ideas hit the hearts worldwide, companies lost out at the time, Atari especially their apple idea was rejected and the very first hand held never saw shop shelves.

It’s probably due to the fact that games and the systems went worldwide finally, for years they struggled to get into Europe and now even Europe had its own companies. This movement also saw the creation of the Entertainment software rating board. So for now as long as we stay worldwide we aren’t having any more revolutions, at least not with the constant flow of new consoles and games that followed...

http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-2/vgmusnew.html
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=to5zEwOC9BcC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=game+companies+from+the+1970
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/gamestimeline3.html

The Beginning of History for Games

When people think back to the beginning of gaming they’d probably think back to tennis for two, those who know what is thought to be the first game anyway. However there’s more to gaming then just the game. Going back to the turning point of time, going from BC to AD a Babylonian by the name of Talmud had a complication with three of his wives when it came to the division of his estates. Through two millennia’s of research into the matter he actually discovered the theory of gaming; his settlements were the first evidence of cooperative gaming. Weird to think it goes back that far really. Through the centuries the theory’s grown and seems to sound like hidden proper gander in what we play, the links below go further in-depth into the theory.

http://www.econ.canterbury.ac.nz/personal_pages/paul_walker/gt/hist.htm
http://en.whttp//www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/history/timeline_flash.html

Moving from the Gaming Theory and back to games. Now there’s a bit of dispute as to whether pong or tennis for two came first, evidence these days shows tennis for two came first, but where’d did these come from in the first place. Surprisingly enough the US Army. They’d been working on software to simulate situations for battles and firing sequences but thankfully somewhere along the same software went into more civil use and came to be the base use of the very first computer you could play on. You have to wonder if America planned it though; the whole American seems to have its arms wrapped round this one especially when you see that most games today are to do with war or if not the American dream again, brainwashing?

After the big fad with tennis for two and pong the sixties saw the computer size down a bit in the form of arcade machines bringing space invaders among other small but memorable games. We also saw the first proper house gaming system the ‘Magnavox’, which until the 70’s destroyed all other developing gaming systems.

http://www.designboom.com/eng/education/pong.html
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/history/timeline_flash.html

Creativity

Creativity.

It’s one of those words in the world that is actually so much more than most people will associate it to be. If you were to go up to someone and ask them what they thought creativity was they’d most likely connect it to art in some way or another. In a way it is but it really depends at you think is art.

In a sum of words it seems simply to be the process of creating something new to you or something new all together. However the process, people argue, has two sides to it, the imaginative side at the beginning coming up with the ideas in the first place to then actually creating the final idea. It’s how you really determine how creative someone is, they can be imaginative, coming up with loads of ideas but if they can’t create it then they’re not really creative, or are they? Don’t you have to be creative to keep coming u p with ideas and developing them, this is the big argument.

It’s said humans are the most creative beings on the planet as were the only creatures on the planet to create problems to creatively solve as opposed to animals just trying to create a solution to everyday problems they face in day to day life. We strive to make our lives easier, better as well to keep constantly testing ourselves. Poor things must think were mad.

From the day were born we put our minds to creative use, children have it naturally as their minds are still growing, developing they take everything in and turn it into something. Test have shown that where an adult may give 6-8 ideas for a project where as teenager or child my give up to 60 ideas, problem is as we grow up we seem to lack the interests we had when we’re younger and without practice we lose much of our creative nature.

This is why people associate creativity with art because artists are people constantly practicing and being creativity. However just because people don’t practice being creative in a way most people associate as being creative doesn’t mean that they aren’t. We all have to be creative in some way or another to overcome tasks we run into, like the animals. If we look at how it would be interpreted into the games industry hierarchy you can see everyone uses their creativeness in some way or another. The artists use their creativeness to come up with and design characters, props and scenes for the game. The programmers use their creativeness to give characters their own unique feelings and expressions, to give a personality through movements. Writers create the world, atmosphere and story line for the game, trying to make each one new and different. The art director has to creatively manage the team in order to create what their after create the right decisions.

So obviously the more creativenesses (creative skill) in the team and that is poured into making the game, whether it be a whole new name or a sequel like the halo games, the more enthralling the game will be to player. All ideas pushed to the limits and created to their finest being, from paper to screen, the process of creating an idea.

http://www.creativityatwork.com/articlesContent/whatis.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/articles/art-director-jobs.htm