Video Game Rhetoric

       During the years, people have considered video games a form of entertainment and for kids. There actually has been a very serious misconception of video games, that once you hit a certain age, it becomes sad that you play video games. While there are people who misrepresent the gaming industry, such as people who play 18 hours a day, the majority of people who regularly play games are not "nerds", or "kids playing in their parents basement", or any such ridiculous notions. I personally have been on both sides of the spectrum, as for a while in college I played as often as I could. My plans were going to class, and then going back to my dorm room and playing video games. While I did hang out with friends and go to parties, I played way too much. In one year of a game being out, I played over 700 hours of Battlefield 3. That is almost 30 days of playing one game. On the other hand, that is an example of moderation not being a factor. It was not the game that was making me play that much. I never learned about moderation growing up, as I played whenever I could, as I never had time to between school, helping out on the ranch, and not having a console nearby to play.As I grew older, I learned more moderation, and with that moderation I am able to analyze games better.
         As I want to focus on narrative and game design with my major, the ability to play a game and see it as I play, rather than binge on the game allows me to be able to see what the developer is doing. This opens up my eyes to the possibilities that games are not just forms of entertainment. They are to a certain degree. They are built to be played and thus, have fun playing them. On the other hand, the ability to convey a message through a certain medium is exactly what English for New Media is all about right? We are not just trying to put up classic authors famous stories on a website. We are trying to push the edges of the box, so that we can tell a story, as a lesson or a commentary on current events, in an interesting way. One of my favorite developers From Software does an amazing job with their narrative. The director leaves his world wide open, while establishing facts in between so that the fans can create their own theories. As long as it doesn't clash with facts laid down through items and the narrative, any theory is plausible. This causes people to critically think about the story and fill in their own. Most stories give the reader this sort of linear timeline and there is no way to deviate from it, such as Tolkien. I love the Lord of the Rings world and narrative but there is no wiggle room to have a person create their own ideas within it. I think that in order to push stories to  further limits, stories need to be pushing the idea of imagination. Less amounts of content while creating this rich narrative for the reader to create this world within their own mind. At least, that is from an English majors point of view who enjoys the past works, but doesn't think that focusing on the past is the best way to push our limits.
       

Hm looks like i have been getting a huge amount of page views! Wait, no....I was reading it wrong.Honestly, to boost blog hits, at least to get new people coming in, would need to hit on popular topics or controversial. People that are interested in the hot topics are more likely to come and visit and keep coming back if they enjoy your stuff.

Youtube - The Ten Year Journey

10 years of Youtube, this medium is a huge part of many peoples life. How-to videos, music videos, replays of games; the amount of content is amazing and vast. What is the message of this medium though? What is youtube's message, among the vast arrays of different content? Accessibility. Control. You have control over ever bit that you want to do on it. Watch Later, pause, share, like, comment. These are the things that people want, and this is what they get.

Does memory play a role in games?

"Left, right, left ....wait..what was the code again?" Early in gaming, Konami gave gamers the code that would be remembered as the greatest code, the ultimate code for Contra: 30 lives. A game as hard as Contra almost everyone used the Konami code. At what point did the code become necessary for the game, impossible to beat without it? Maybe it was just a feature of the game, but everyone knew it. Everyone had it memorized. 

Memory is not always people’s strongest trait when playing games. One of the earliest uses of “memory” was the use of maps in text based games. There would be a set dungeon that the player would go through. With no map for them to see visibly, the player would need either keep the direction they were going mentally, or write it down on a piece of paper. These were the dungeon games on PC games. Of course there were the typical memory games: flip a card over, try to find two cards to match them, rinse repeat until you win. There are more subtle ways that memory play a part. In the game Resident Evil, there are keys that you have to collect. Once these keys are collected, you have to remember, while you were exploring the Mansion, which doors you need to open with which keys. 

Galaxy Gaming?

Want to play games but don't have a console of your own?
Want to play laser tag like the future solider that you are?

Galaxy Gaming has everything you need! Hit them up for gaming and all you laser tag needs.
https://www.facebook.com/thegalaxygaming
http://www.thegalaxygaming.com/home.html

Itty Bitty electronics

Games
NES
SNES
Playstation
PS2
PS3
PS4
Gamecube
Xbox
Xbox360
Oregon Trail
Little Bible games -spiritual warfare
PC-books/games
Books/other media
Walkman-books
CD player-books
Ipod
PALM PILOT

Rules of Nature Goes with everything right?

I LOVE the song "Rules of Nature" from the MGR soundtrack. Someone went ahead and synched it with some pretty cool stuff. Enjoy

                 
If you really want to see more here is part 2!