Week 8: Storytelling in games

I suppose the story isn't the first thing that comes to mind when talking about games but it really is one of the bigger points to consider. If it wasn't, would we really have a whole group of people called Ludologists?

I don't particularly want to place myself into a group as I really enjoy games as they are and would prefer not to go into what goes into a game and thus ruin it for myself. I know I'm a wanna-be game artist and knowing what goes into games is now my thing but when I buy a new one I prefer to take it as it's there.
However that isn't always possible. Some games will take a story and show it to you in the instruction manual or through an opening story and then thrust you into the game. That;ll be the last you hear of it for some games coming out now such as MMOs. They rely on the player creating a story for themselves, doing what they want to progress in the game and essentially be a part of the world
itself. The stories shown to you in this manner are not integral to the enjoyment of a game nor do
they affect how the game will play out. Other games require little or no story at all. Racing and sports games have no stories, just
 objectives to be better than the competition. FPS games didn't really have a story either until
recently. Bioshock, even though I haven't played it, does have a story which explains the little
 sisters and the Big Daddies. The majority of others are merely a circumstance such as Gordon
 Freeman running. I'm playing HL2 right now and I barely have any idea why he is a wanted man.

Finally, the big genre of games that has a main selling point of stories is the RPG. Without a story, these games would be like FPS's in the way you direct a character from A
to B and kill some things on the way. With a story, you have a reason for going to different areas in the world and for killing all the evil doers. It adds depth and motivation to all the characters in the world, the links between the characters and their cities, the characters and other characters too. A well written story will also envelop the player into sticking with the game and keeping them
immersed for hours at a time. It can be what has a player starting up for a second playthrough or having it being put on the shelf never to be finished. Since I'm a big fan of RPGs I will give stories a big thumbs up and say they are definitely recommended for a majority of games that can have one.

Week 7: Art Directors

In the games art industry, there are different levels of artist in the hierarchy. Art Director is at the top of the list and is what we will all hope to aspire to. While they are not at the top of the chain, they still hold alot of responsibility which could essentially make or break a game. Gamers are always looking at how a game looks and are very upset when things seem out of place or just plain wrong and it is the job of the Director to make sure the gamers are kept happy.

We can say that an Art Director is responsible for the look and feel of all the elements in a game. They will decide how buildings and streets should look, then proceed to describe this to the artists below. As these elements are being created, the director will overlook production and suggest ways
to improve what is already there. For example; if a building doesn't look run down enough, they will come up with solutions
 of how to overcome this problem. It is their visualisation that the game needs to meet, so they are supposed to improve anything which doesn't live up to standards. In this respect, it is fair to say that they are the most creative people on the team. Coming up with the visuals for an entire game will take alot of research and imagery and therefore will take a very imaginative person for the task.

Art Directors are expected to be skilled at public relations so that they may interact with their team in a respectful manner and also to communicate their ideas successfully. In addition to these, it is important that a director have some connections within and outside of the industry. Considered that an Art Director will be required to know what things look like, it is useful to seek help from people in the know rather than guessing or even to see what objects and scenery look like.

One Art Director from the games industry is probably interchangeable with the other forms of industry whether it be screen or print as they are fundamentally the same. They will be trained to communicate ideas, with people and how to visualize images and scenarios. However it may be difficult to place a Games Director into film due to the differences in software and in principles. Films generally being 90-120 minutes long while Games can be anywhere from 20-40 hours long. This could cause problems since a game director may have been working in alot lower quality in films and other restrictions. At the core, I think Art directors are interchangeable between industries with minor discrepancies.

Week 6:

Gameplay is a term that is used to describe how a game is shown and how it interacts with the user. A first person shooter game will have fast gameplay requiring quick reflexes whereas an RPG will have slower gameplay requiring a stronger mind to get the best out of your party. However game play can be used as a more general term used in reviews to talk about everything the game has to offer and how well
it handles as well as how easy or hard the game is. Game play is a hard term to pin down but I believe you can use it to compare games to eachother especially when you look at fundamentals. Taking out the story and context of a game will make alot of them seem very familiar. Alot of RPGs involve you saving the world from some madman same with platformers too. Both these games expect you to avoid many hazards while going from point A all the way to point Z and Sports and racing games all boil down to being better than the competition.

It is from these foundations that visuals and stories are thought up. It is the job of the artists to draw down some designs of places and people from descriptions that the storyline writer has given. While it may be up to only one writer, it could be the job of many artists to show everything that the gamer will see. After these designs are given the go ahead, they are modelled in 3D. Some companies may want to produce sculptures of their characters and objects in order to show every angle and perhaps how movement can be portrayed. As well as character and object artists, there are also the level designers who will show what an environment will look like. Whether it be the inside of a science lab or a dense rainforest, the level designers will work on showing these elements. It is certainly cheaper to hire a limited amount of all around designers but for a better visual, a company should hire specialists in to create the look. While working on a game like Doom, it would be far better to hire people who specialise in creating aliens and non-humans and people who can make caves and sterile interiors rather than those who specialise in the militia and large fields.

Week 5: New games journalism

All writers aim to set out a convey something to the reader. Wether it be a story, an article about modern life or telling people about a piece of upcoming entertainment, all writers face issues. Reviewers

tend to come under alot of pressure from many sources. Firstly there are the people who make the games will always push onto the reviewers to

 have them write good reviews on their game. In this case they may be paid off like many of the

specialist magazines. I'm pretty sure Official Nintendo Magazine get some money to say good things about first party titles. Just reading one magazine 
will show that the third party developers will get worse reviews compared to the likes of Mario. In
one of the links I read, the company flew a developer across the atlantic to make the reviewer see
that their game was 90% worthy rather than 80% worthy. You also want to keep a developer happy
so that they keep sending you games to review otherwise part of your business will be gone or theyll
tell other companies about your magazine. (OK thats just a guess but it may happen like that).

Reviewers also need to score games and maybe even add a little list of pros and cons. It can be hard 
to pick out two things that you really enjoy out of a whole game and two things you don't like. This
rating could also make and break games. If a con is written that someone doesnt like, they will
avoid the game entirely. A score is required too. As Mike says 97% of what? He is right, there is
no full 100% of anything, it's just a number . We can assume that 100% is a perfect game and the higher this number is the better a game it is. However this is just in the reviewers opinion. I found Sonic and the Secret Rings deserving of a higher score than it got and Nintendogs a
lower one. So it is entirely the reviewers idea of how a game is and that is where bias is introduced.

So that is the games review business. New games journalism is about games but using them as a subject rather than a reivew about them then placing a score on the end. An interesting piece I read from edge was how Prince of Persia is a completely new style of game. The entire game is a story being told by the main character and the events have already happened. But at the same time, this story hasnt even happened. It was completely prevented
 before the game began. The piece went on to say how games need to go in this direction, a fresh
direction to what we have seen and played time and time again. Another piece, which I remember reading years back and refreshed my memory of today,
is of the game Rez which comes with a vibrator. The game itself isnt reviewed part from the fact
that it is loud and is like a long acid trip but it talks about the very random periphiral that it comes packed with.

These new game journalism pieces are mainly written in a subjective view that fully expresses the writers opinions on a matter, much like other journalism. In a very professional standing, it would be difficult to write about a vibrating game in
an objective point of view. You could only really say; "It shakes with the music" and thatd be the end of. Subjective is a lot more fun to read as it can give you a link with the writer and also make you want to return to any of their future works.

Week 4: 2000s onward

The new decade/millenium begun with people playing on their playstations and their N64s having great fun with the relatively new 3D graphics. Games such as Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time being the leading games on their respective consoles. I personally don't know much about the PC since I didn't bother with it too much.
Then it happened, the brand new PS2 was released showing brand new graphics, characters and environments looking more realistic than ever. Games also became a lot longer due to the DVDRs holding more data than the standard PS1 discs. Its processor was alot better too which allowed more objects to be shown at once, longer fields of view and for it to handle more animations.

2001 was a big year for gaming as Sega pulled out of the console wars saying that no more games would be produced for the Dreamcast. In the time that the Dreamcast was released, it released games that looked better than those on the PS2 and Gamecube and also had steady online play, majorly through Phantasy Star Online.
Nintendo shower out their successor to the N64 with the Gamecube. It did lack in power compared to the XBox and the PS2 but it was the cheapest and continued many of the series that Nintendo fans had come to love. On the handheld front, the Gameboy Advance was released featuring smaller carts, better graphics and faster games than the gameboy colour.
Microsoft, growing rapidly in the computing industry, released its own efforts into the console market with the XBox. Because the XBox was produced by microsoft, it was able to have many of the components a PC does making it the most powerful machine on the market at the time. It had the greatest capabilities of all three consoles and also had an easily accessable online gaming community.

Games progressed alot since the release of these consoles with all of the launch games playing and looking inferior to those released at the end of their lives. Resident Evil 4, easily one of the best looking (and best game full stop) on the cube came out towards the end of its life and pushed the system to its limit.

That may have been a year ago but those consoles set the base for the new upgrades. The Playstation 3 and the XBox360 following tradition and going for larger hard-drives, better looking games and faster/quicker loading games. The Nintendo Wii venturing off the path after having been around for so long and making games accessable to everyone. Games that are cheap, easy and fun to play, a more pick up and play style rather than spending an hour or so trying to learn a game. I'm probably a bit biased because I have a Wii but it really is more fun than playing just better looking games.
This approach works well for Nintendo as selling a good console cheap, and games that cost less to make, they are making a lot of profit. It is also cheaper for developers as they can re-use gamecube developer kits therefore not wasting time having to learn anything new. Sony on the other hand, have had rumours that they might be pulling out of the console market. With the newer games looking as good as they do, they take a lot longer to make and alot more money to produce. Because the games are costing so much to produce, they need to be sold at a higher price to even come close to breaking even. Paired with the high price of the console and the higher price of the games mean that Sony are losing business and money.

So as far as gaming goes, it is apparent to see that it is much easier to sell family friendly games that look a lil bit worse but are more fun than it is to spend millions into games that look good but wont have much of an audience.