Just a quick update on progress

Just making a quick update of the progress I have made in the past few weeks. Most stuff is mentioned in this cringe worthy presentation but since this has been done I have visited Woodhorn (a blog about that will be appearing soon), sent of questions to the organizers of the exhibition, collected a large amount of footage for my creative work which i am just starting to put together (I know I'm a bit behind in my schedule) and started to put together my discussion for unit 1. In addition the Ubisoft training days have been confirmed for this Sunday and next. i will post a blog on how that goes.

My thanks to Arts Award Leader Adam Graham for this footage.

Shut up you F#*!ing Noob

Although one of the so called advantages of online gaming is the ability to access a community, the majority of those gaming seem unable to interact with other players in a friendly way. This may be because of the competitive aspect of these games, but in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare especially there is a large number of verbal attacks on players. As a result I have been unable to ask the majority of people on these games for their opinion on online gaming. Instead I have been getting drawn into these arguments and took some inspiration from our weekly meetings (warning excessive swearing)

Timeline for Gold Arts Award

This is a rough time line for the completion of each unit of the Gold Arts Award with key events included. This will help me keep track of my progress and my overall work load.

Woodhorn exhibition                                                                                                     05/09/2011

Unit 1 part A completion                                                                                               07/09/2011

School restart                                                                                                                08/09/2011

Ubisoft training days                                                                                                    in September

Berwick Film Festival volunteering (Unit 1 part B)                                                                                                                                        25/09/2011

Unit 1 part D completion                                                                                               01/10/2011

Unit 1 part C completion                                                                                               15/11/2011

Project completion                                                                                                         end of 2011

Progress Update for Last Few Weeks.

Just a quick update on what I have been doing that past couple of weeks and how it is going overall.

Week 1

Began to look into possible games I could look at to investigate the appeal of online gaming.

Meeting 1

·         Finalised topic for Unit 1 Part A as investigating the appeal of online games.

·         Film quiz 1 score 4/8

·         Watched “Event Horizon” and played “Dead Space” comparing and contrasting the two.

·         Looked at blogs and other work produced by people doing Gold Arts Award.

Week 2

Unable to work as I was away.

Week 3

Set up Blog with confirmed title and a small description of what I would be doing.

Meeting 3

·         Played a series of demo games and dicussed the appeal of demos and whether they ever influenced the purchase of a game. The games played were Limbo, Outland and Swarm. Compared the differences of Limbo (scary) and Outland as they were both 2D games.

·         Setup an initial timeline for objectives (to be posted)

·         Film quiz 6/9

·         Watched “Blood Simple” by Coen Brothers.

Week 4

Started to attempt to contact people while playing online games such as Call Of Duty Modern Warfare. Complete failure blog to explain coming soon.

Meeting 4

·         Time line confirmed

·         First blog  rewritten up and posted.

·         Film quiz 3/10 (getting harder)

·         Applied for Berwick Film Festival

·         Debate idea chosen online gaming versus single player games

·         Watched “The Big Lebowski” by Coen Brothers as backup film.

Captain America - the story of a small weedy man getting bigger

Captain America has succeeded in fulfilling the expectations of fans of other Marvel films such as Iron Man and Thor with plenty of action and a classically retro feel. The CGI graphics were used less than I expected for a film based on super heroes; but when it was used it was done superbly, to the extent that people in the pack cinema were openly arguing which body really belonged to Chris Evans (playing the protagonist Steve Rogers).

Based during World War 2 the story follows Steve Rogers; an asthmatic weakly who can’t step away from a fight, who volunteers for a scientific experiment which he is told, could change the course of the war. When this weedy kid is transformed into a muscle machine the people around him set out to each use him for their own personal gain. At the same time the films antagonist, a group called Hydra lead by the evil Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), find an ancient artefact which they mean to use to DESTROY THE WORLD (what an original idea, right?).

The tension of the film was lifted by common use of comedy which is often seen in movies produced by Marvel Studios. In this case the main punch line was mockery of Steve Rogers’s former feebleness.

As with all films this one has its shortfalls. The storyline is not overly imaginative and has a strong feeling that it has been condensed. Also there are points in the film where you can see the producers have not thought things through, a kamikaze nuclear bomb thing having an ejector seat being one.  

But despite these problems the film I feel was overall a success and was certainly enjoyable to watch.

Why has online gaming become so popular?

On its first day alone gamers clocked up a total of 5.2 million hours of online gameplay on the game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare", and this is only one game; in April of 2011 there were 77 million registered accounts. My question is this: how has a gaming genre that has no storylines, no learning curve and, in my view anyway, caused game designers to become lazy, become one of the most popular game genres in the world?