Writing About Games

In the age of social media, the carefully crafted analyses of reviewers are usually overshadowed by the opinions of our peers. Gaming magazines, which would’ve acted as people’s primary buying guides in the past, are losing readers. For example- GamesMaster magazine, a publication I myself used to occasionally read, has seen reader numbers drop from 28003 to 23313 throughout 2011. There are also issues regarding the trustworthiness of some reviews- there have been examples of developers bribing journalists to give their games better ratings.

No holiday is complete without a magazine your mum bought you for the journey.

The problem with objectively reviewing games and rating aspects of them is that it makes us take their word as fact, when their judgement will always be to some degree their personal opinion. This is more an issue with amateur reviewers though, those without a sense of what the most important factors are with each individual game. Objectivity is pretty important for sales, but mainly because it lets you calculate exactly what you want from a game. A reviewer may say that a game is flawed in some areas, but if you’re looking to get something else from the game then why disregard it over those things?
Without objectivity how would the games be rated? By how fun they are? What if the reviewer just didn’t like that kind of game? There is a somewhat new form of games journalism attempting to give readers an idea of how games play, and it is dubbed, unsurprisingly, ‘New Games Journalism”. It’s more or less telling stories involving their experiences with playing the game. It can make for an interesting read, though some examples give a better sense of what they are playing than others. For example, I just read two different NGJ-style articles, one called ‘Bow, Nigger’ which gives some interesting social commentary regarding racism, fair play and justice, and ‘Saving Private Donny’, a story with themes including the inability to control the influences of children to and the relationship between war in videogames and real-life conflicts. Both were quite enjoyable reads, but whereas the former was clearly about Jedi Knight 2, and gave a great description of the gameplay, I found Saving Private Donny to focus far too little on the actual game. Seriously, I read the thing about an hour ago and I already can’t remember what game it was even about. But I guess that’s not the point, I mean as long as it’s entertaining, people will read it and the writers will get their money? The game devs will lose out though. If you want to write a story then don’t pass it off as a review.

If I were to write about a game (seeing as I haven’t done so as of yet) I’d try to take an objective approach, but I’d have to be subjective in some areas. If a game gets me particularly excited I’m going to want to explain why, even if I know that another person playing the game won’t necessarily agree. My hope is that other people would empathise with my points and understand my experiences with the game rather than just what the game is.

So yeah, I’d say balance of objectivity and subjectivity is what makes for the most interesting read. They have to be clearly defined of course- no passing off opinion as fact.

My Personal Gaming History

I’m not entirely sure what the first game I played was. Thinking logically, two of my aunties had Sega Mega Drives, each with different instalments of Sonic the Hedgehog among their few games, so there’s a good chance I played one of them quite early on. However I do not recall any of that.
I do know my first games console was a silver game boy advance, although as to what games I had I have no clue. I do however remember playing my brother’s copy of Pokémon Ruby after he got bored of it, and getting quite far. This also happened with his copy of Yellow, but I get a feeling that came later. My first GBA game I remember owning was Pokémon Sapphire, as I was obsessed with Pokémon from then on.

My favourite Pokemon at the time was Mudkip. No, I'm not trying to be funny.

The first game I owned on a non-portable console was Bionicle- Mask of Light, played on my brother’s PS2. I thought it was really good at the time, but looking at gameplay videos now I really wonder how I could’ve ever found it entertaining.

My Pokémon obsession was what led me to asking for a GameCube one Christmas, as I found out about Pokémon Colosseum and really wanted it. When I got the console however, I found Colosseum to be really quite boring- it was too slow-paced. Fortunately I had also asked for a couple of other games- Metroid Prime and The Urbz- Sims in the City. I vividly remember repeatedly dying to the Parasite Queen, the first boss of Metroid Prime, and spending most of that Christmas day with the Urbz. My brother had also gotten a GameCube that Christmas. He had a copy of Metroid Prime too (of course we wouldn’t share!) as well as F-Zero GX and Mario Party [Insert Number Here]. He didn’t fare too well with Prime either.
I borrowed F-Zero GX a couple of times and thought it was pretty good, my focus stayed on Pokémon though, partially because of my friends. They influenced me to get other games, such as Sonic Heroes, but sometimes the games they liked were ones I didn’t have the console for.

Eventually my brother started to lose interest in gaming. For my 13th birthday I got my parents to buy my brother’s old PS2 from him and give it to me. The game I got to play with it was Final Fantasy X-2, a game that my friends had been talking about for months. I never did complete it though! My brother sold his GameCube too and all of the games he had, so I could no longer borrow anything.

I bought F-Zero GX for myself a few years later. It was the only racing game I was ever any good at, and I ended up playing quite a lot. It turned out other people considered it pretty hard. One year I heard about there being one of the few remaining arcade cabinets for it in an arcade in London. One of my biggest regrets is not finding out sooner, as when I went to look for it, it was gone. It wasn’t even the first time I’d been to that arcade. Without the cabinet to unlock the extras I had to beat every Grand Prix and every story mode chapter on the hardest difficulty …which I eventually managed. It is definitely my greatest gaming achievement!

One day I'll care enough to record off the TV properly. Today is not that day.

I had attempted to play Metroid Prime a few times, though the only time I managed to get very far was using cheats. When I discovered that that game file had been wiped somehow (it seemed I had a tendency to overwrite or corrupt game data around that time) I finally had started to appreciate the exploration aspect and managed to knuckle down and play it properly. I believe I only got around to finishing the game within the last four or so years (blame the Phazon Mines) but the environments had all become stuck in my memory. I ended up playing the other games in the trilogy and Super Metroid. The treasure hunt kind of gameplay is something I’ve come to really enjoy.

I suppose technically my ultimate game would be a mix of the speed from F-Zero GX and the exploration and adventure of Metroid. It’s difficult to see them coming together though, I mean gameplay-wise they’re pretty much polar opposites. Maybe if it were a racing game with a more detailed hub world that you could explore, that might be close. It would still be very hard to incorporate the feeling of discovery into it though.
As long as there are enough futuristic/sci-fi titles I’ll be happy, but having them on futuristic technology would be a plus. Virtual Reality? Yes please! …Don’t make me play stealth games that way though; the stress would probably kill me.

History of Video Games- Part 3

Will there ever be a controller as comfortable as that of the GameCube again?

The 6th generation consisted of the Sega Dreamcast, the Nintendo GameCube, the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox. The Dreamcast was the first to be released, in 1998, and did not last long despite pioneering support of online play. The competition from the newly announced PS2 killed it’s sales, and in less than 4 years it was discontinued. With this Sega left the console market entirely, which is probably why the console is the most likely to be forgotten amongst the other sixth-gen consoles.
The PlayStation 2 was by far the most successful, in part due to its backwards compatibility with the original PlayStation ensuring their audience stayed. It could also play DVD’s, unlike any of the other consoles in this generation.
The Xbox, although not the first to feature it, had the strongest support of online play with Xbox live. This became the main selling point of the console.
The GameCube was considered the more family-friendly option from the reputation it had built up with the Nintendo 64. This was not the largest target audience, but it still managed to sell quite well by delivering to fans of existing franchises. In it’s advertising it emphasized its connectivity with the GameBoy Advance, with which Nintendo continued to rule the handheld console market. It wasn’t the only one on the market- there were newcomers such as the Nokia N-Gage, but this had several design flaws such as having to remove the battery to change games. It was essentially a mobile phone with more focus on games, and while the N-Gage itself didn’t do that well, the concept of mobile-phones having more than just simple games was starting to develop.

The 7th generation continued the war between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo with the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii respectively. Starting in 2005, this was practically the era of motion controls- the Wii making them its key selling point and advertising to more casual gamers. With this approach Nintendo didn’t feel the need to update much from the GameCube’s hardware, and so the graphics weren’t anywhere near as advanced as Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles. Nevertheless the audience change worked and the Wii became the best selling of the three. Another key advancement was HD graphics- both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 offered HD resolutions, and the PS3 even had a built-in Blu-Ray player. Blu-Ray owes most of its success to being part of the PS3. Both of the more ‘hardcore gamer’ orientated consoles eventually got their own motion-control peripherals to appeal to a wider audience. All three consoles supported some degree of online play.
Nintendo released the DS and various versions of it, and Sony released the PlayStation Portable. Nintendo’s console again appealed to the wider audience, introducing touch-screen gaming. Meanwhile mobile phone technology was changing, and touch screens were becoming popular on them too. The iPhone, released in 2007 was the main spreader of the technology, and its App Store allowed games to be bought for it.

As of writing, the Wii U has just been released in America, and it just about to be released in the rest of the world. It is the first 8th generation console, and makes use of touch screen, motion controls and HD graphics. It also has more social networking functions. Microsoft and Sony have yet to release details on their next offerings, although they are both expected to release something new within the next few years. There’s also Ouya, developed by newcomer Boxer8. Thanks to the development of mobile gaming, it will run on the Android mobile OS- a system allowing for the download of apps, like the aforementioned iPhone.

All these new advances in technology obviously mean more time and effort needs to be put into each game. While early games could’ve been programmed by a single person fairly quickly, games today can easily require a team of more than 100 people in its development team and take years to produce. The exception to this is with most apps for mobile phones, and also indie games produced by small teams. Indie games have been able to get much more notice in recent years thanks to the rise of social media. However it has also helped made competition between developers more fierce as communities can gain collective opinions on what titles are better than others. Games that get universally overshadowed or criticized will not do well, no matter how much work went into them.

History of Video Games- Part 2

There were a lot of second generation games consoles, in fact the over-abundance of them and the large number of games being produced led to an over saturated market. Gen 2 consoles started to make use of cartridges so many games could be produced for each console. After many Atari programmers left to form the games publisher Activision due to lack of recognition, the two companies got into a legal battle as to whether Activision could develop games for Atari’s consoles. In 1982 the case was settled, but with third party development now legal. This led to many inexperienced companies making their own games, often for the purpose of advertising, which were usually over hyped and of poor quality.

To be fair, not all the games made by first party developers were that great either.

At the beginning of the 80’s computers had just started to be made affordable. They were built to use TVs as an output, and had the practical advantage in that they could be used for purposes other than gaming. The games were also quite affordable, more so than consoles. They had much better graphics and sound than consoles, and they had more memory too. In fact, the computer’s memory could allow players to save their progress in games, something that could not be done on the writable memory lacking consoles of the time.

The result of what I have mentioned so far was what is now called the ‘Great Video Games Crash of 1983’. The games market became so saturated that smaller publishers quickly went bust, and the shops selling the games couldn't return them. These low-quality titles were then sold cheap to get rid of them, and the market began to centre around them rather than the more expensive, well-made games. Subsequently the larger publishers, including the ones that made the consoles themselves, started losing a lot of money. Meanwhile the home computers market was thriving, taking away many console industry customers. To make things worse, toy retailers assumed that video games were a fad, and that the fad was over. The poor sales continued until the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, which Nintendo managed to get into toy stores by packaging with R.O.B, which was pretty much the console’s mascot. By the time the market had recovered, third party developers had to have licenses to produce games for consoles, ensuring a similar crash couldn't reoccur.

Apparently in the future we'll be building giant statues of useless game peripherals.

The third generation of consoles was largely dominated by the NES, along with the Sega SG-1000. Consoles started to be referred to by the number of bits their processors used in this generation, though it was not that this generation was the first to be 8-bit, just that the next generation was dominated by 16-bit consoles. The fourth generation was also primarily dominated by Nintendo and Sega, with their Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Mega Drive respectively. Also notable is that during this generation was the release of the Game Boy. There had been other handhelds before it and even some with better hardware, but none had a decent battery life before the Game Boy, and this was before rechargeable batteries were widely available.
The fifth generation, beginning in 1993, was led by the Nintendo 64, the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. This generation, games made in full 3D became the norm- 3D games had just started being made in the previous generation. Pretty much every console around this time used CDs to store games, other than the Nintendo 64, the last to use this form. Many Nintendo third party franchises (such as Final Fantasy) switched consoles because of this- cartridges could hold nowhere near as much data as discs.
As for computer gaming at this time, the rapid development of the internet began to increase the popularity of emulating games, especially older titles that were no longer available.

History of Video Games- Part 1

Since early computers were developed for scientific, military and educational purposes, early video games were developed on and for these systems. When one asks “what was the first video game?” the answer is not that simple. The exact definition of the term ‘video game’ can be debated, but the basic meaning defines games that make use of graphical outputs. The first computer game was a digital version of noughts-and-crosses made by a Cambridge student called A.S.Douglas in 1952 as part of his thesis. It made use of what was essentially a 32x16 pixel display and the programming contained algorithms allowing the computer to react accordingly with the moves made by the player. However, although this was the first computer game to make use of a visual display, many don’t consider this to be the first Video Game, possibly because of the visual display was only calculating graphics in a very basic manner. Instead the game ‘Spacewar!’ is often considered to be the first. This game, made in 1961, was the first to use vector graphics. Created by students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the DEC PDP-1, it allowed two players to go head-to-head with spaceships, shooting at each other (hence it also was the first example of the shooter genre). Another example that took a different approach to the concept of computer games was ‘Tennis for Two’ in 1958. It was made using an oscilloscope at a nuclear research lab in New York as a fun learning aid. This game is also argued by some to be the first ‘video game’.

Now despite what one would assume, none of the people who made these early video games were actually the inventors of the concept. That honour goes to Ralph Baer- with a background in various types of electronics, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Television Engineering, he was able to imagine the creative possibilities for the developing technologies. He first had the idea to make games to be played on a television set back in 1951. He was working at a TV company at the time, but his chief engineer did not give him permission to implement the idea. He wasn’t able to develop any games until 1966.

Video games started to become popular with the public once they began being used in arcades. Early arcade games in the mid 60’s were electro-mechanical, making use of image projection. Proper video games were not introduced until 1971, when ‘Spacewar’ was released in cabinet form. Of course, the game that really caught the public’s eye and developed arcade gaming into an industry was ‘Pong’, released by Atari the following year. Another important release would be ‘Space Invaders’ which was so popular it kick-started the arcade craze lasting well into the 80s.

The first home console was the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, having been finally developed by Ralph Baer, although it’s popularity didn’t last very long. Atari then released a home version of Pong in 1975. Both companies dominated the market during the first console generation.

Introductions

My name is Rebecca and I am just starting my first year on De Montfort University’s Game Art Design course. I come from Camberley in Surrey, but my Dad grew up here so Leicester is not entirely unfamiliar. I was very happy to get a place on this course- after seeing how it would aid me in developing my skills I was very keen on it. It’s also a bonus that students seem to come out of this course with a high level of employability. As for what I’d like to do within the industry, obviously it would be great to become a concept artist if I could, but being an environment artist sounds like it could be quite rewarding.

My goals for this year are pretty basic- I want to be able to draw fast (spending 22 hours on a sketch smaller than A4 is not exactly impressive) and on a different subject, as twee as it sounds I’d like to make some really good friends.

The games industry is notoriously difficult to find work in, but maybe the biggest hurdle is just becoming skilled enough for you to be chosen over others. I’ve been looking at some industry vacancies on www.gamesindustry.biz/jobs and seen some interesting stuff. I was not expecting to find a position being advertised for lead concept artist at the famous Kojima Productions in L.A. Of course they wanted more than 4 years of experience in concept art, but it shows that those jobs aren’t quite as impossible to get as I’d have thought. I went down the whole list of vacancies in the Art and Animation category to see what kind of work was available right now. As of writing, 70% of the jobs listed (and I did count) explicitly state they require prior experience in the industry, and many of the others imply it. I suppose this shows the importance of working your way up to get the exact position you want, and also it links back to the benefit of getting on a course with good connections to the industry!

It’s interesting to compare some of the enjoyable sounding posts to the skills I have now. To pick a random example, a Cambridge based game studio is advertising for an Illustrator of Creative Fantasy Art (Illustrator of Creative Fantasy Art) with requirements that -for the most part- I could see myself achieving within the next few years. With the first thing on the list- “Expert use of Photoshop and other advanced painting tools” I’d say I’m already quite well acquainted with Photoshop, but then again there are many tools on there I have yet to need and so are foreign to me. I can’t say I’ve used any other painting programs though, at least not extensively. They then specify they want someone with great understanding of anatomy, colour and lighting. I have… okay anatomy skills, my application of colour is somewhat hit-and-miss and while I can keep lighting consistent it can get really quite confusing sometimes. Lighting is something I really want to master though, because it lends so much to creating atmosphere, which for me is just so important in art. There are a few other things on the list, but the only major problem I’d be likely to have is where they demand “Excellent communication skills”. That's not really my speciality.

That’s it for now, I was hoping to get this entry up sooner, but I was re-discovering my ineptitude when it comes to writing… pretty much anything. I’ve also still been getting used to managing my workload effectively, but hopefully when my new computer arrives (which should be within the next week- exciting stuff!) I’ll be able to do 3D work whenever I need to rather than only when the lab is open, which could save me from wasting the daytime I need to get the drawing tasks done.