Sneak, Dark Souls and more Dark Souls

During the week of March 17, game studies was very enjoyable. Tuesday we played Sneak and on Thursday we played Dark Souls. These are the only thing I remember, I have been playing a lot of Dark Souls II since it came out on March 11, so my memory is foggy.

Sneak is a fun game that is simple to play. I think the goal is to find the sneak and receive the most points. There are three different types of people in this game; spork, foon and sneak. People have to complete challenges, gather information of other people and figure out who the slimy sneak is. Well I wasn't the sneak but seven people voted for me so I have that going for me which is nice. I don't believe that anybody voted for the sneak.

Thursday we were playing one of my favorite games at the moment, Dark Souls. I could go and talk all day about why I love this game. The top three reasons would be the limitless repeatability, the wonderfully crafted environments and the epic boss battles. But this isn't about me, it is about the class. So team “Prison Shank” was showing off the “first” necessary boss battle, but they couldn't beat it. So they let people who have never played Dark Souls play. This series is one of the series that when a new player is playing, he or she should not be given advice. The person has to figure out what to do on their own. I also find it amusing when somebody has no idea what is a round the corner but you know they are about to get destroyed.

Research Paper, Titian Fall and shooting people with shit

During the week of March 10 during Game Studies we discussed the research paper and played Titian Fall. On Tuesday we discussed the research paper, that I almost started. Everybody had to come up with a topic. These ranged from sex in video games, jiggle physics and if video games cause violence why has nobody ever stolen a sewage truck and then proceeded to shoot people with shit. My idea is the best I think because if video games do cause violence, even though it is not proven. This will mean that video game are influential to cause a person to do what they were doing in the game. So a person that played Saints Row 2 would in fact steal a sewage truck and shoot people with shit. I have yet to find an article where this has happen. People blame video games because they don't see the real problem of minors playing M- rated games. If one is not mature enough he or she might be influenced to be a douche but where are the parents that let him or her become a douche bag.

On Thursday we played Titian Fall, which came out on Tuesday with Dark Souls II. We were suppose to play Civilization V but it kept crashing on one laptop. Even though I don't really play FPS Titian Fall was fun. It does seem revolutionizing with parkour, AI companions and giant robots. The robots were the best you could shoot rockets at people and punch the other team's players. When it comes to fighting robots I think size matters. Sure you could use a smaller more mobile robot that gets behind me so I cant shoot it but if I would rather have a robot that doesn't die in one attack. I want people to fear me in my robot. I want them to run away and to know that I will find them.

No school, Halo and Awesome Giant Robots

During the week of March 3 we only had class on Thursday for Game Studies. The school canceled all classes on Tuesday for some reason I don't care enough to know about. I had the day off that is all I care about.

So on Thursday my group, Super Awesome Dude Guys, decided to bring in Halo for the class to play. My group decided to bring in Halo to play because it was revolutionary. At least that is what I was told, I never really played Halo so I don't know. I never really played it because I own a Play Station, not Xbox, and I don't really like first person shooters. It was revolutionary for the fact of having lan parties with friends. I never had a lan party not because I don't have friends but because I don't play multiplayer and for the fact that I don't have friends.

So we showed the class a YouTube video called Red vs Blue Grifball. Then we played monster trucks in Halo. It was a fun game of driving a truck and trying to knock the other people off the platform. When I played this game I blew up before I even entered my vehicle, somehow. After everybody played that we switched it up garbage man. In this game one person is pushing objects into a pit that launches it at the three other people. This game was fun because it is unpredictable, I was the garbage man once and the fact that the garbage man can get into a giant robot and fire missiles at the other players. Even though Halo isn't a game I would normally play or buy it was fun to play.

Explosions, Apples to Apples and Free Cake

During the week of February 24, game studies was very weird. This week was more weird than the week we were playing a game and about half the class was drawing penises. I don't remember Tuesday that much but I believed we reiterated the definition of play, voluntary movement fixed in rigid rules. Then we broke up into our groups to try and make up a new Olympic game. Me and my partner, because everybody else in my group didn't show up, came up with a sport called Durgjoog. I believe it was called that. In this sport two athletes would be in a big hamster ball, that has holes in it so they can breathe. The goal is to make it up a snow covered hill as fast as possible. This was were my partner and I, not in a relationship, had disagreements. He liked it just the way it was, but I wanted girls in bikinis and explosions. The viewership would increase because of the bikinis, the athletes might not like it because of the risk of hypothermia and frostbite but it would be a part of the sport. I also wanted it so they would have to dodge explosions because explosions are awesome and would also increase the viewership. Apparently exploding or dying in a sport causes the sport to not be in the Olympics.

Thursday was when the class became weird. So class started and Smalls walks in eating a piece of cake. So I ask him if I can have the cake, because I haven't eaten for like six hours, and he gives me the cake. It was awesome, I don't even care if he spat or ruffied the cake because food is food. Then him and Jew Fro, I believe his name is Jeremy, felt up my mustache.

Then we played Apples to Apples, it is similar to Dixit, but I thought it sucked. Maybe because my cards sucked, there was to many people or nobody received funny cards. The best part apart the game was when Werewolf, because I don't know her name, was yelling out obscenities: such as penis, anal beads and vagina. This class might be unusual but it is awesome.

The history of Games, what is Art and the worst game ever created?

During the week of February 17 we discussed the history of video games, what games are art and played some classic games. We discussed video games from 1950 to the present day, the time periods were broken up by ten years each. We had the classics like The Legend of Zelda, and broken games, including Sonic '06 and ET. Everyone in the class had to think of a game that is considered art. It has to have good graphics, music, sound effects, story, gameplay and it must have been memorable. I said Dark Souls, it might not be the best game ever made, or the most evolutionary game but it is a fun masochistic game and it is one of my favorites. Sure the music is wonderful even though I play with the music off. The story is different because you have to search for it. The reason I love the game so much is because the infinite re-playability you can beat the game only using daggers, a shield, a bow, claws, great swords or magic. I beat this game like ten times but I am still playing it because it is fun and addicting.

On Thursday we were playing and watching people play classic games on the Odyssey, Atari, NES and SNES. The first game ever created Space War was the most reliable to play. The next reliable game to run was ET although the game itself is not reliable to play. Most of the games were not reliable to run or play on the emulator. I tried three separate games but none of them would let me actually play. So I gave up and made someone play ET. He beat Dark Souls multiple times but raged quit ET.

The homework for this week was horrible, I had to play games and blog about it. I decided I wanted to try ET myself. The game isn't that bad except in my first and only playthrough the pedophile in the overcoat glitched and he was just having a seizure. When I fell into the hole for like the 7^th time, every time I tried to travel up I would fall back into the hole no matter where I was when I started to elevate. The third thing that makes this game suck besides the graphics is the fact that I have no idea what I am supposed to do. I think I am supposed to collect black pixels and escape the pedophile. But I also picked up a spring looking thing and then all my pixel counter disappeared. So I gave up with that game and tried something else I tried Final Fantasy VI. It was my first experience at Final Fantasy, even though I love role-playing games. The music was nice and I liked the graphics, they are dated but still good to look at. There was one down side that I didn't like, the game was in Japanese so I had no idea what was going on and once I died to a giant snail I stopped playing.

Rules, Fiasco and sticking coins up your bum

    During the week of February 2^nd we discussed making quality rules and played some Fiasco. We didn't finish the game yet. The characteristics of rules are rules limit player action, rules are explicit and unambiguous, rules are shared by all players, rules are fixed, rules are binding and rules are repeatable. These characteristics all seem self explanatory. A game can have a thirty page rule book or a simple two sentence explanation. How to play Fiasco or flipping a coin are total opposites in the amount of rules.

     So we split up into groups to make flipping a coin more exciting. Many groups made it into a drinking game or having to flip it on the other person. The group I was in had a completely different idea. Apparently you have to put it in your bum and fart it out and if it is a head the other person picks it up with their mouth and burps it out if it is tails you have to pick it up with your bum. The last person to throw up wins. Yeah it probably is not a winning game but it would be entertaining to watch other people play.

     We also started to play Fiasco, I believe that my group again is a winner. So two people known as Bitch Tits and Sparkle Anus had a gay one night stand behind a sex shop and now both of them have gonorrhea. While Cricket and me, Dirty Sanchez, are a pair of messy and high functioning addicts that just want to get high on the good stuff just once. We have a suitcase full of cut product, half as pure as advertised and we are at the peep show. As one can see this story should be very entertaining since the story is about as messed up and as perfect as one can hope for.

Game, Play and Culture

    During the week of Jan 27, the lecture for Intro for Game Studies, we discussed the definition of game, play and culture. Game, like most enjoyable activities, there are multiple definitions. Ranging from the complex, “proceeds according to rules that limit players”, to the simple, “voluntary”, “uncertain” and “inefficient”. The one definition I would have to disagree with is “inefficient”. Most games you have to be inefficient because of the rules, such as playing basketball. It would be more efficient to just hold the ball then dribble. The one example that contradicts this is speedruns. The point of speedruns is to complete the game as fast as possible. The easiest way to do this is to be as efficient as the game will let you. These techniques sometimes include glitches, skips and cheats. One could make the case that they are playing the game unlike he creator developed. Technically the are still playing the game.

     Play can either be a part of game or game can be a part of play. It depends what way you look at it. Play can be unorganized shenanigans like two dogs chases after each other or play can be a subset of game because one plays a game.

     The culture of a game is how people understand the game. I believe that is what my teacher was saying. I was too busy talking about Kingdom Hearts and how it was an average RPG with Disney characters. Apparently everybody knew what I was talking about because of the culture that we live in.

     The cards games we played were “Gloom” and “Zombie Fluxx”. “Gloom” was supposed to be a fun game where you make your family miserable before killing them. Every sadist would love this game but I didn't enjoy it maybe because nobody knew how to play and the one person to read the instructions still didn't know how to play. So we called it a tie and decided to play “Zombie Fluxx”. This is the simplest game, pick a card play a card. You win when you reach a goal. Lets just say it was too easy for me to grasp the game but it was fun to play.