I was looking at a feature article on Kotaku about the reason gamers game every day of their lives and it got me thinking about why I play video games and I would also like to have you readers think about why you play your Fallouts and your Call of Duties.
Family is a big part of why I play video games today. I’ve been playing games ever since I was a little boy. My cousin introduced me to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis and it was a match made in video game heaven. I played Super Mario World and Sonic and I couldn't stop after those two experiences. .
Video games take me out of my reality and place me into someone else’s life with someone else’s take on other subjects that I would of either wise never thought about or never of had a clear opinion about. I enjoy my life greatly, but I would like to get the other side of a story and video games are the platform that supports that desire. Video games have gone from being time wasters (which they still are in most cases) to interactive stories. Mass Effect is a great example of a game that is an experience told through mostly conversation I can control.
I also play games because they help pass the time by between classes. Plain and simple.
The first two titles in the Final Fantasy saga have been released on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
It has all of the extras that were released with the Gameboy advance versions which include The Soul f Chaos pack and The Labyrinth of Time as well as the five extra dungeons, the Soul of Rebirth and Arcane Labyrinth pack in Final Fantasy II
This is great release right before Final Fantasy XIII's release. It makes me think about more RPG games on the iPod Touch like this one.
When I owned an iPod Touch, I spent most of my time with it listening to music and more importantly, playing games. I hadn't seen any sign of a grand RPG likes Final Fantasy 1 & 2. I saw not one turn based RPG and it made me sad.
I could never picture an RPG with the grandness of Square Enix's famous title. Luckily today, I can.
Fan-created Logo of an imagined Final Fantasy VII sequel
I am an avid fan of the Final Fantasy series. I am one of many who enjoyed Final Fantasy VII a lot. I love that there is still hope for a new entry in the continuation of the Final Fantasy VII story.
This video on Kotaku made by a fellow fan is not only funny, but makes me sad I will probably never see Cloud, Tifa, and Vincent in a party ever again unless I pull out my old copy of FF VII which I have lying around….somewhere.
Music games are a dime a dozen and there is not very much variety in them anymore. In most, you play with a guitar, set of drums, or a mic. Some of the best music games are the ones that change the flow of how music games are played and have you enjoying it while at the same time testing your mind.
Chime is a music/puzzle game developed by Zoe Mode that takes elements from Sony’s popular Lumines and the legendary Tetris to create a wonderful time-waster that challenges gamers for such a small price.
Chime is a “musical puzzle game” that works depending on the flexibility of the players mind. Quick reflexes also help create a 9, 6, or 3 minute session of music making. You can even play in free mode which grants you an unlimited amount of time of play songs from artists such as Phillip Glass, Moby, and Paul Hartnoll.
The objective of Chime is to cover a grid with as many “quads” as possible. Quads are created with Tetris-like pieces and can be a square or any sized rectangle that can fit on the grid. The grids are shaped depending on the song the player chooses. A line crosses the screen from left to right as you build quads. This line will activate the quads and play tunes as it passes them. For every quad you make, a music note is played along with the background theme song. This is what makes the game most enjoyable as you pay because you are creating soothing or exciting music that you start to tap your toes to.
The developers have decided to do something very selfless by giving no less than 60% of the purchase price of Chime to charity and pricing the game at a mere five dollars. Chime is an exceptional little game packed with enough content to last gamers quite a long time and it is worth spending the money on a title that is giving back to the community.
Check out the YouTube page to view a clip from Chime.
Mass Effect 2 is a great action RPG with memorable characters. They have so much personality for people that do not exist yet they grab us and don’t let go. Jack and Thane are only two examples of personalities that grasp you with their depth and attitude. They made me think about how characters in video games have become so complex and in some cases give us the desire to hang with them rather than our real friends.
Tetris and Pong didn’t really give us characters, but icons. The two paddles and small cube they pass around or the L-shaped piece that you needed to create that last square could be considered characters without a personality, but they still were able to grab gamers into their simple worlds for years to come.
Video games like Mass Effect, Fallout 3, and Uncharted have given us characters that are powerful and live such dramatic lives that can’t help but give us a reason to continue to the end of their stories. They are people who we care about and we want to know what will happen to them. They make us hurt for them when they are hurt. They give us strength when they gain power and make gamers feel like the bad asses that they are.
Some video games create powerful characters by giving gamers the power to use their imagination in order to create the hero of their stories. The Halo series reaching from Halo to Halo 3 have provided a character without a personality but still give the vibe of a hero in the making. Bungie created a character that players can imagine themselves as because there is no exact personality to give, so the gamer must inject him or herself into the suit of Master Chief and become the last Spartan.
Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard is a character that belongs to the gamer. He is your commander Shepard. The gamer sets what skills Shepard has to where he came from. All those little aspects of the game enhance it dramatically and also advance your plot lines with other characters you meet throughout your journey. Shepard is also one of the few characters in video games where he has a voice you can control with the sleek and powerful speech wheel that Bioware has placed in the Mass Effect series.
Video games have become more than just a pass time; they are interactive stories. They are pieces of art that tell an imaginative tale told by the actions of interesting characters that draw gamers into a world that they will never want to leave.
Mass Effect: Redemption expands the story of Liara T’soni and her search for Commander Shepard after the attack on the Normandy that starts Mass Effect 2.
They are pretty good reads, without the voices of the series the comic just doesn’t have the same feeling that grabs you and pulls you into the story as the video games do.
The first and second issue of the four part series has been released as of now.
Mass Effect was one of the best western Role Playing Games on the Xbox 360 when it came out in (year it came out). Then Bioware released the PC version and fixed a number of issues. Mass Effect 2 is a revamped experience. Everything that was wrong with Mass Effect has been tweaked and Bioware has created an adventure in the inner most depths of space, and it all starts with a bang.
Mass Effect 2 is the third-person action role playing game that Bioware was trying to achieve with Mass Effect. Bioware has tweaked the controls to fit that of a standard third-person shooter. They are more responsive and quick. Taking cover, switching from a pistol to grenade launcher, killing a group of enemies, and vaulting to more cover is almost seamless and natural. You will be finally taking a more commander-like role as Shepard as you command your party to certain positions for them to take the enemies out. Action has become more bloody and brutal as you lead your squad into bigger battles and more diverse enemies. The Drell, Batarians, and Collectors are just a few of the new races that will join the roster of species in the Mass Effect universe and pile of enemies Shepard will be facing.
The team Shepard scrounges up in Mass Effect 2 has not only gotten smarter, but has more depth. They are ruthless, immensely powerful, and you will need to gain their trust throughout the game in order to finish your mission. Shepard will also run into a few old friends and learn the fate of old ones.
Mass Effect 2 is the third-person action role playing game that Bioware was trying to achieve with Mass Effect. Bioware has tweaked the controls to fit that of a standard third-person shooter. They are more responsive and quick. Taking cover, switching from a pistol to grenade launcher, killing a group of enemies, and vaulting to more cover is almost seamless and natural. You will be finally taking a more commander-like role as Shepard as you command your party to certain positions for them to take the enemies out. Action has become more bloody and brutal as you lead your squad into bigger battles and more diverse enemies. The Drell, Batarians, and Collectors are just a few of the new races that will join the roster of species in the Mass Effect universe and pile of enemies Shepard will be facing.
The way players explore the galaxy has been changed as well. Instead of just selecting a world and hoping there is something there to land on, players will ride their ship across the universe, exploring and harvesting resources in order to upgrade the Normandy and Weapons. Gaining these resources involves scanning a planet and sending out probes to find points of interest for you, no more landing and exploring on the Mako.
The inventory system has been totally wiped clean. You don’t pick up different variations of the same weapons. Instead, there is a small amount of weapons available in the game, but they will be upgradable with a number of different kinds of tweaks and fixes to make them more deadly than the last.
The conversations have not changed, but advanced. They kept the speech wheel that made Mass Effect such a success and added an interruption feature that allows the conversations to end a little more quickly and add depth to an event.
Mass Effect 2 is a great sequel because it not only tells a story players can dive into, but because it realizes and fixes all the issues the last installment. The combat is a great improvement on what it had been, the characters are just as great or even greater than the past ones and there is enough innovation, but still more room to grow in the third title in the growing franchise.
Shoko Nakagawa is a TV and video game star, a cat licker, a blogger, a model, not afraid to wear ridiculous costumes, and now a manga character.
“Shoko Nakagawa’s Story” is Nakagawa’s first manga staring the likeness of her. It centers on emotional aspects of her life like the death of her father at a young age and Grade-school bullying. It will be issued by Kodansha, a Japanese publisher.
Microsoft will be cutting all original Xbox multiplayer support. Halo 2, the top Live game still being played from the era of the first Xbox, will be having one last day of play for Halo 2 players.
Bungie says they will be holding "One final farewell and one final opportunity for all of you to kick our asses at Halo 2."
Video games have become more than just a time waster, they are stories. They are interactive stories created by developers with a vision.
I was playing Mass Effect 2 last night for a review and my friends who were watching were making comments that made me think about what video games have become throughout the years. One of my friends was commenting on all the conversations that went on through the game. She believed it was boring and there was no game at all. She then fell asleep after three hours of playing.
The video game industry has morphed into a band of authors creating priceless pieces of fiction that are meant to draw the players into a visual ride that create a unique moment for each individual gamer.
She made me think about how video games have become more like a novel from an author rather than a video game from a developer and how the line between the two have become thin. Video games have become more than a good time for 30 minutes or a waste of time. They have become a visual experience that draws gamers in with characters that have depth and vivid settings that take you out of your chair and into a creative world.
It is a fairly creepy early bit of tech with its evil red eye. The Gorillapod stand just makes it look like it's going to come alive at any second and use its sensors to destroy us all once it hits home.
Hopefully, when it does get to the homes of Xbox 360 users, it won't look so prototype-ish and evil.
This is my brand spanking new Mass Effect 2 that I got from New Egg. Sadly, I can't play it until I get the right components for my Xbox 360 to connect it to my PC monitor. So sad.
