L.A. Noire and the technology of the future gaming

     This past week in gaming I’ve been playing Rockstar’s Games L.A. Noire. I haven’t finished the game yet, but I have played enough to have a pretty good opinion about it. The element that stuck out to me the most was the animation. A new form of technology was used to capture facial emotions and movement. 32 camera were set up around the actors to capture all of their scene.  It is so interesting to see the actor in the game and then see what they look like in real life. They look the exact same!

The technology used gives the characters much more depth and feeling as if they were real and they are real people. It is extremely interesting and adds so much more to the game play experience. Check out this behind the scenes video of the facial capture…

Sony PSVita Release Date Announced

The Playstation Vita will be released on February 22, 2012. The Vita was announced at this past year’s E3 Expo. During the convention a sample video of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception was played on the new Vita. The new handheld console has amazing graphics and is sure to be a hit among gamers. The Vita will cost $299 for a 3G Wifi version.

Yeah, I’ve heard of that.

Today while I was shopping for new video games, I stopped by one of the most popular video game retail stores, GameStop. I went into the store with a specific game on mind, L.A. Noire. I walked into the store where I was greeted by a very friendly employee. He welcomed me, asked what I was looking for, and asked what kind of games I like to play. I told him that I was a fan of survival horror even though I was well aware of L.A. Noire not being of that genre. The employee then began to tell me about various survival horror games that were going to be released soon. Of the games he listed, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and the re-release of Resident Evil 4 for the Xbox 360. I informed him that I was already well aware of those games since I was subscriber to GameInformer Magazine. But once I told him that I already knew the details of the game he proceeded to tell me what the games where about. So I was stuck there not knowing what to tell the guy, and had to suffer through a long explanation of something I was already aware of. After he gave was done talking the only thing I could respond with was, “Yeah, I’ve heard of that.” I ended up leaving the store without buying anything. Not because of the employee. I had discovered that this particular store was selling L.A. Noire for a higher price is all. I have noticed that whenever I go into these stores the employees are always so anxious to tell me about new games that are coming out, and despite the fact that I told them I was already aware of the game. It would seem as if the reasoning for it is because they WANT you to buy something from the store. Now I’m not saying that this is a bad marketing scheme. I’ve actually had quite a few good conversations with employees of the store. It’s just amusing to me that they always do that. But when I think about it, it has to be pretty fun getting to tell people all about the new games that are coming out, so I can’t really blame them for wanting to stop me and talk to me.

Catherine – A Review

This past week I indulged in the world of Catherine. An action-adventure puzzle based game from Atlus, Catherine was widely anticipated by many. This game tells the story of a man named Vincent. He is a 32-year old man who has been with his girlfriend, Katherine, for several years now. She is pressuring him to marry her, but he isn’t so sure if he’s ready to commit to her for the rest of his life. During one night at his favorite bar, The Stray Sheep, he meets a young woman with springy blonde hair named Catherine. From then on Vincent has an affair with Catherine and in result spends the next 8 nights living in a nightmare while he sleeps. In the nightmare Vincent meets a group of anthropomorphic sheep who are also living in the nightmare. Each sheep sees themselves as human, but others see them as sheep. In order to wake up from his nightmare, Vincent must climb a tower of blocks and make it through the door. If he dies in the dream then he dies in real life. When Vincent is awake he must deal with both Katherine, and Catherine, and decide who he loves the most.

The story for this game is a very interesting one. It’s almost like watching a soap opera. In fact the beginning of the game introduces a woman who is our “host” for a channel called Golden Playhouse, and she tells us to sit back and enjoy the “romantic horror” that is Catherine. The story is very twisted and shapes to how the player plays the game and answers questions. A feature in the game is whenever Vincent is in the bar he will be able to send and receive text messages. Players are able to shape the text message from several different options they can choose from. Players can also manipulate Vincent’s meter which will determine how the game will end. This is caused by what kind of text messages the player sends and how they answer questions that are given to them after each block level.

The graphics are excellent. Atlus is known for releasing games that have a Japanese anime style to it. The gameplay and some cutscenes have a 3-dimensional styles, and other cutscenes have a 2-dimensional anime style.

The overall gameplay is a hit or miss with people. Catherine for sure surprised me with the block levels. That is the only real gameplay in the level. Players are featured with a tower of blocks that Vincent must climb. Most of the blocks will have to be pulled and pushes in order to create a path for Vincent to climb up. Vincent can only climb one block at a time, and while he is climbing he will be faced with enemies, trap blocks, as well as the tower disintegrating from the bottom. Vincent must make it to the top and through the door in order to wake up alive. While he is awake players control who Vincent talks to in the bar, how to reply to text messages, and can make Vincent play an arcade game called “Rapunzel” that is similar to his nightmares. Throughout the game Vincent will discover that many of the people that are surrounding him will end up as sheep in his nightmare.

The sound and voice acting is decent. I have always like the music that is in Atlus games. It can be soft and it can also be rigid at the same time. It’s somewhat similar to elevator music, but I like to think of it as good elevator music. The voiceovers are good for the most part. I was able to recognize several voice actors that were in previous games released by Atlus.

Overall the game is worth playing at least once. For as big a deal as Atlus and gamers made it out to be it was a slight disappointment. I knew about the game’s storyline before I knew about the gameplay. Once I found out that it was basically about moving a bunch of blocks around I had an iffy feeling about it. It’s more fun to play with a group of friends who are also on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens in the story next. My only true complaint is the length of cutscenes. I came across one cutscene towards the end that was probably a little under 30 minutes long. I’ve never experienced a cutscene that long before in gaming. And it turned out that it wasn’t even the ending cutscene so that upset me even more because I felt like I wasted time. Overall I would recommend this game to someone who wants a game to play. Catherine is different than any other game that Atlus has released and is worth playing through once.

Catherine was rated #14 on IGN’s Top 25 Playstation 3 Games.

I give it a 7/10.

Video Games as Art – Paintings and Exhibits

Aside from what is actually on the screen when playing and game, and gaming tattoos, paintings and drawings are also a big portion of the side of video games as art. Check out some of these amazing pieces from artists on deviantART.com…

Video games in art form is popular among pop culture. It’s on our tee shirts, in our books, and now it’s in museums. The Smithsonian American Art Museum will be displaying many pieces of video game related art in their gallery. The exhibition is called The Art of Video Games and it will begin showcasing on March 16, 2012 and last until September 30, 2012. There will be 80 games on display including Tomb Raider, Okami, Bioshock, DOOM II, Pac-Man, and many more. Chris Melissinos is the man in charge for the exhibit.

Video Games as Art – Tattoos

This week in blogging I’d like to focus on video games as more than just a game, but as art. People all over the world go to different lengths to create an artistic representation of games. Today the focus will be on video game tattoos in honor of receiving my first game based tattoo this past Monday.

This is my Organization XIII tattoo based of the video game, Kingdom Hearts (pardon my odd posture. It’s hard to take a photograph of your own ankle!).

Here are some other popular gaming tattoos…

So what do people think about the concept of video game tattoo? Some people think it’s lame. Some people think it’s awesome. People who find the idea of gaming tattoos to be ridiculous are usually not gamers themselves. They might not play video games at all, and think it’s “geeky”.  But what about that person’s tattoo of say, a unicorn? As with all tattoos it is up to the person getting it. What does it mean to them? To me, my tattoo is a representation of one of my favorite games. And there is a more personal underlying meaning behind why I favor the characters in the game. If someone wants to know, they should just ask me and I would happily tell the story.

WhatCulture! did a piece on the art of video gaming in tattoo form. They said in their article, “…each tattoo shows the players love for gaming and demonstrates the mediums power to communicate as an art form.”

Kotaku.com offers a few tips on committing to video game based tattoo:

1. Make sure the art is exactly what you want so that you’re favorite character isn’t inaccurately depicted.
2. Try it out first. There is such a thing as temporary inkjet tattoo paper so that you can make your own tattoos at home!
3. As with all tattoos, go somewhere that you trust. You don’t want your Mario tattoo to look like a stick figure mess.
4. It IS a tattoo and it is going to be there forever. Make SURE it’s what you want to see when you’re 50 years old. Personally I look forward to seeing my XIII tattoo when I’m old and have grandkids.

Photos for DMC

This past week in my digital media convergence class I was given the assignment to take 50 photos using 4 different compositions. Here are the top 5 photos, 4 with one composition each, and 1 with a combination of the compositions.

Foreground Framing

Geometric Patterns

Rule of Thirds

Leading Lines

Leading Lines, Geometric Patterns, and Rule of Thirds

 

Is Changing a Video Game a Smart Idea?

That is a question that has boggled many gamers for a long time now. Now when I say changing people can interpret that many different ways. Some people might see it as updating the video game and giving it better higher quality graphics. That’s okay. But what I mean by changing is really changing it. Almost to the point of being unrecognizable and it upsets many gamers. Let’s look at an example…

This is Spyro the Dragon:

Spyro the Dragon debuted in September of 1998 and was developed by Insomniac and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. He was a small, cute purple dragon who was sent on an adventure to save the dragons from a spell cast by Gnasty Gnorc. Spyro was in the homes of many children during the late 90’s and early 2000’s. He had two more successful sequels released on the Playstation; Spyro the Dragon: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. In 2002, Insomniac decided to let go of Spryo and develop more new games while Universal Interactive continued with the series. 10 games and too many publishers and developers later, Spyro the Dragon was a destroyed series. He seemed to have lost his touch after Insomniac gave him up.

This year it was announced that Spyro would come back to the more recent consoles in a brand new game, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. This video game introduces a new way of gaming. Players will have to buy different action figures of the characters, “Skylanders”, they want to play (there are 32 in all). Players will place the skylander on a dock and that character will show up on the screen and play.

Along with a brand new of playing comes brand new character design! Meet the new Spyro the Dragon:

So many people were upset with the new design. This new Spyro looks so much more ferocious than what 90’s kids grew up with. So why change the game? Why change something when it is already a known fact that the original worked? Perhaps it’s because developers and publishers want to try a new demographic. In the 90’s people that were playing this game were probably young, around the age of maybe 7-10. As the game went on further the original fans went along with it. When developers saw that the fans were not taking to the newer games for the PS2 and GBA, they decided a new tactic. Let’s add toys to our game. By adding collectible figures that are needed to get through the game it focuses it’s appeal on younger kids of this generation. Perhaps the developers are expecting to gain a whole new following of fans this way and there games will sell once again. I am 21 years old and a die hard Spyro fan. I am not impressed with the new concept. My brother, who is 8 years old, is super excited about this game because of the new action figures. See, it’s already working. This is just a theory. It has not been proven or researched even. There isn’t any article online where this comes from. This is just my straightforward opinion and observation. I guess for children of the 90’s it is time to let go of Spyro the Dragon. We had our fun with him and it’s time to let others have their turn.

There have been plenty of other video games that have went through a major character change. Not all have upset fans. Some were for the better (Cloud Strife), but some were for the worst. Examples include:

Dante from Devil May Cry

Ethan Thomas from the Condemned series

Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII

Lara Croft from Tomb Raider

A quick note about Lara Croft’s change. The one on the left is supposed to be her at a younger age therefore the game is set a bit of time before any of the other games. However, in the trailer Lara has a smartphone as well as Beats by Dr. Dre earbuds which were not sold until 2009. In this game Lara is supposed to be 21 years old. She was born in 1968 meaning that the year is at least 1989 when she is supposed to be in this game however she has a smartphone and technologically advanced earbuds. So this timeline has now been severely shattered.  If you’re going to change a game, at least try to do it in the right span of time…

Sony’s New “Michael” Ad Has Gamers Amazed

Several days ago Sony released a new ad that had tons of diehard PS3 fans in awe. A quick summary of the ad shows several different video game characters in an old tavern saluting a person by the name of “Michael”. It’s a great way of showing how much Sony appreciates their loyal customers. I have been a Sony user since I was 7 with my first video game console, the Playstation. Even with the recent PSN hacking Sony has kept millions of people using their products. Despite the fact that Sony offers the Playstation Network for free to millions of people they gave away a ton of freebies in a Welcome Back Program after the hacking was resolved. Seeing this ad is almost like a personal thank you to the players. It’s also fun to see how many video game characters you can spot? Go on ahead and give it a try. See this amazing ad below:

Extra Life gives lives to those who need it

Gamers will be happy to know that they can help the people around them by doing what they do best- playing video games. “Play Games. Heal Kids.” That is the tag like for Extra Life a website that every year in October hosts an event where people pledge to play games for 24 hours straight and others donate money during that time. Extra Life has raised money for 170 different children’s hospitals and in total has raised $440,000. Earlier this month, Xbox 360 held an event called Gaming and Giving for Good on Xbox Live to help raise money for Extra Life as well.

This year’s Extra Life event will be held on Saturday, October 15th beginning at 9 a.m. To register for the event is simple. You can register for free by signing up under the Extra Life Classic and your goal will be to raise $100. You must enter in your PSN, or Xbox LIVE Gamertag in order to participate. Participants will then be asked to recruit 4 sponsors who will donate $1 an hour during the marathon ($24 total). Participants will also be given a link to a page where they can ask for donations and a goal tracker will be displayed showing how much they’ve raised.

This year I will be trying my hand at raising money for this charity event. It only makes sense, right? The most I’ve played in a day was 15 hours. Can I make it to 24? If you’d like to help please visit my page to donate! I will be helping raise money for University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina. The gaming begins October 15th!!!