Popular Video Games For The Holiday Season

It’s approaching that time of year when gaming stores alike blow up with the many customers coming in shopping for the hottest games for their kids and other family members. So what are some of the hottest games of the season?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the most popular game. 27% of the 5000 gamers surveyed said they were looking forward to this under their tree. CVG says that Zelda: The Skyward Sword for the Wii is to be a popular pick. And to top it off the anticipated wait of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is finally over and already many people have picked up their copy. I’m sure that Santa will still find many more copies is his big velvet bag.

The Wonderful Service of Gamefly

This past month I finally decided to give Gamefly a try. Gamefly is a video game rental service similar to Netflix, being that rentals are sent through the mail. There is a monthly charge for the service, which includes free shipping, no due dates and no late fees. Gamefly was founded in 2002 and has since then grown into a popular business. The end of the year report for 2010 shows that Gamefly’s total revenue had increased 32.2% to $85.5 million from $64.4 million 2008. Their total subscribers in 2010 was 328,000.

My experience with Gamefly was a good one. I had received an email from them offering an extended free trial of 30 days. Normally the trial is 10 days. I signed up for it and picked out from a wide variety of PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, and even older console games. The trial was for their 2 games out at a time service. I chose Catherine and L.A. Noire as my first two choices. Now here is where I ran into a problem. I provided them with a shipping address which was for my college P.O. Box. I had received an email from customer service saying there was a problem with the address and to contact them. I replied to the email and almost a week later I had not heard from them. I discovered that Gamefly customer service has a live chat available. I don’t believe that it is widely known therefore the wait time is only less than a minute usually. The first person I spoke to I explained that my P.O. Box address was correct and that I will receive their envelopes. The employee told me that she forced the address into the system and that it would work. About a week and half later I still had not received anything in the mail and my account still told me that I needed to contact customer service. At this point I was frustrated. I had lost about 2 weeks of my free trial waiting for games that hadn’t even shipped yet. So I signed back into the live chat and spoke to another employee. I explained my ordeal yet again and that the address would work. He apologized for the inconvenience, gave me back my 2 weeks I had lost, and said that he would personally monitor my account to make sure that I would have games shipped to me. He was very nice and knowledgeable about his job. A couple days later I received my two games.

Catherine was the first game I played, and I didn’t even think to check that L.A. Noire would work. After playing Catherine, I discovered that L.A. Noire was damaged and would not work in my console. Yet again, I signed into live chat, explained my ordeal, and the employee apologized and immediately sent me another copy, which did work. The only bad part was that L.A. Noire counted as my second game in both transactions so I only got 3. In a period of about 20 days I had received and completed 3 games.  I had another week to order more games, but due to school I stopped at 3.

Despite the fact that I had a couple of issues with shipping addresses, and damaged games, I did enjoy my time using Gamefly’s service. The customer service was very good, the shipping time was very fast, their selection of games is very extensive. I would very much love to subscribe to them again possibly during the summer when there is more time. Gamefly’s prices per month run:

• 1 game out at a time-$15.95 per month
• 2 games out at a time-$22.95 per month

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.

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…

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!!!

Sexualization in Video Game Characters

For many years now there has been a constant controversy with the sexualization of characters, and those characters that get caught in the fire are typically female characters. So how much sex is too much in a video game? There are many people that believe it fits in right with the story and gameplay, and then there are many people that find it to be completely pointless and degrading. Some of the earliest video games have introduced sexuality into gaming such as Duke Nukem and Tomb Raider. As time went on more games were developed that took it to a whole new level such as beach volleyball.

In 2008, Fox News did a report on how the popular video game, Mass Effect, depicted pornography. Talk show host, Cooper Lawrence said that it gave young boys the wrong idea about women and that it was, and that the video game showed full on nudity. Spike TV’s Geoff Keighly rebutted saying that it was nothing like that. Lawrence admitted that she had never played the game, but rather based her information off what someone told her just minutes before the show. Mass Effect in fact is not full of nudity and sex. There is barely any nudity at all and sex is just a small 30 second deal out of the whole game, and you can choose to not have your character engage in it.

Let’s look at a character that is widely criticized for her appearance: Lara Croft.

She has always wore the same style of outfit throughout her whole career; small shorts, a tank top, hiking boots, and her hair in a long, neat braid or ponytail. A lot of people feel that her outfit is a bit too revealing and that she is a disgrace to women. Because women don’t really climb mountains with no rope looking for treasure, and wield guns all while wearing comfortable clothing for such an occasion. The thing about Lara Croft is that she was never made to be over sexualized. She was created and portrayed to be a strong woman. How is it wrong for a woman to be able to defend herself while searching for the next big archeological find? She has always been one of my favorite female characters to play because she is so strong and smart. She doesn’t use her sexuality to get what she wants.

In 2007, a game came out with a female character that gave some women a small glimmer of hope for the portrayal of women in games. That game was Mirror’s Edge and the character was Faith Connors.

She wears a simple black tanktop with white pants that go to her ankles and red sneakers. People have described her as not being very attractive, but that was a positive. Then they compare her with Lara Croft and say that she is a much stronger character because she doesn’t dress like Lara. But look at these two characters; both are strong women fighting for what is right. Neither of them use sex in any way to advance in the game.

And then there are the bad game characters that do portray women incorrectly.

Personally I don’t judge these characters for looking this way. Mileena is my favorite fighter in the Mortal Kombat series. In Hollywood sex sells and gaming is no exception. Creators feel that they must create busty attractive characters in order to gain a profit by appealing the public masses. Since 60% of gamers are males then attractive female characters are going to be a high selling feature. It’s not wrong to give characters a strong role and if they are wearing a tank top and shorts what is the big deal? It’s probably hard to climb a mountain in jeans. But it is wrong to make them appear as submissive and not having minds of their own like most video games (Mileena is an exception of this since she is one of the top fighters).

So which side are you on?

Some Interesting Statistics

Ever wondered what the actual truth is behind video games? Well here are some interesting facts.

According to OnlineEducation.net :

• 65% of US households play video games.
• 49% of gamers are ages 18-49 and the average gamer is 32 years old. That’s an interesting fact since when it comes to marketing advertisements always seem directed to a more younger crowd. Also whenever there is a crisis that likes to point the finger at video games, such as the Columbine shooting, it always seems to involve teenagers.

The ESRB did their own study and found some more interesting statistics:

• 40% of gamers are indeed females. If you’ve ever been online to the many different gaming websites, such as Gamespot.com, a lot of the users will not be afraid to admit that they don’t believe that girls play video games. Why, when I was on that website for a few years so many of the people told me that they didn’t believe I was a girl since apparently girls don’t play video games….
• The average adult gamer has been playing for 12 years. I’ve been playing for 14 years. It’s not the average, but remember, the average gamer is a 32 year old male and I’m a 21 year old female so I’ve got room to stretch.
• 93% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented AND 97% of parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their child plays. So what is the deal with all the parents freaking out about their children playing bad games? How does the old saying go? A few bad apples ruin the bunch.

So there are some great facts about the real world of gaming. Video gaming has some of the most bizarre myths and I hope that this brings light to what some people may think.

Kingdom Hearts – A Quick Review

In 2002, the world of gaming was introduced to an all-new video game series the would capture the hearts of many. That game was Kingdom Hearts. It was marked to be new and innovative because the video game developer and publisher Square Enix paired up the characters of the ever popular characters from the Final Fantasy games, our favorite Disney characters that we know and love, as well as original characters of their own. It was new, it was refreshing, it was something we hadn’t seen before.

Kingdom Hearts is the story of a young boy named Sora who was chosen to wield the Keyblade to fight evil. The evil are called the Heartless and they are led by a man named Ansem. Ansem released the Heartless across the many different Disney worlds. Sora, paired with Donald and Goofy who he meets along the way, must fight against this power and save the worlds from being corrupted, and find his friends, Riku and Kairi.

The game features many recognizable characters which makes it even more enjoyable to play. Sora will meet characters such as Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Aladdin, Ariel, Simba, and more from the Disney movies, along with characters such as Tifa, Cloud, and Sephiroth  from the Final Fantasy series. Sora will even travel to different Disney worlds such as Halloween Town from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and into Monstro’s belly from Pinocchio.

So you might be thinking, “How serious can I take a game that has Disney characters in it? Won’t that make it all safe and childish?” I don’t blame you for thinking that, but it in fact doesn’t. All these characters can fight alongside you and send you out on dangerous missions to complete. It is so much fun to get chase after the bad guys while on a magic carpet ride. Disney made a good call in pairing up with Square Enix.

The games are of the RPG genre. Players will get to choose which attacks they want Sora to use, and will get to make other decisions such as where to go and what to say. At first the fighting style seemed slightly confusing because players can change keyblades, gain the ability to perform different magic, use potions and ethers, and summon other characters to help fight during battle. But it is actually quick to learn and players can use shortcuts for the different spells and items. Players will gain other abilities such as different fighting abilities. There is also a section of the game devoted to the Gummi Ship. It is what Sora and his friends will use to travel from world to world. While on the Gummi Ship players must fight against Heartless who try to stop them from getting through. Players can also customize their Gummi Ship to look and function different ways by collecting gummi blocks. In my opinion, don’t waste time on it. You can get through the level and the game with the Gummi Ship you’ve been given.

Overall, the story, characters, design, colors, everything is just amazing about this game series. As you progress to other games their will be a more developed plotline, more characters, and more fighting styles. They are super fun and extensive plays. I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes RPGs. Actually you don’t even have to like RPGs to play this game. I played it based on the sole fact that I’m a HUGE Disney fan. So there are so many different reasons to play these games. Check it out because there are other games such as Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep as well as the many others that are to be developed and released.