Paper 2 - Girls and Gaming: Gender Research, “Progress” and the death of interpretation

The authors might have a point about gender research being on sided but I haven’t been to other sources to find out if the opinions hold any truth. The paper itself does read like an academic paper but is a very confusing piece of writing I had to re read the parts of the paper to gauge an understanding of it. From the paper I found out that girls like to play games, they like to play the way boys do but encourage each other rather than beat them down. I have told you what the authors explained in 2000 words in 20 words, the word ramble springs to mind. All in all it is a very interesting research area for games designers to understand but seemed more of a well constructed rant rather than a well constructed convincing paper.

Lewis

Paper 1 - Designing Games to Effect Social Change

I found this to be a very interesting academic paper which proves that games technology and experience could be used to help teach and explain complicated problems. I agree with the paper in that most people are active learners and learn by doing, games would defiantly help the existing education establishment further its expertise.

Games for change has a nice ring to it, but really seems a very shallow and broad comment to make. Social change only happens on great scales when entry city’s, countries are shocked enough into action. Can games do this? Can some thing which is “real” change the opinions of a nation? Individual I think games can affect opinions, but it is a very egotistic point of view if you believe your game can effect social change in anyone.

Games designers would they be called that anymore? Or would teachers be a more appt title. Educational Games will not replace existing teaching methods but enhance them.

Lewis

Games and level design 2

I have pulled out of Brian’s magical hat a word which I am struggling to think of creative ideas for. But we must strive on; I have found definitions of the word in the oxford dictionary which only elaborates on what I knew already.

This task is only worth 5% of the overall grade but I want to see if I can pull something creative out of my bag, I'm going to have to sit and think about all the possibilities. I have order a book of the interweb which will hopefully help me get my Hammer editing skills of the ground; I hope to get a rough idea of the overall look of my room bye the end of the weekend.

Games History and context

To be able to view the history of games constructively and in an unbiased fashion, you must alleviate your misconceptions of it and base your opinions purely in the realm of fact.

You must become completely independent and objective in your view of the history of games, most importantly realise some source material may become void, because of the writers own biased position.

This being said it is difficult for someone of any era to objectively discuss games because of the emotional attachment they could place on the game and it’s characters; given that their knowledge and experiences of the early video games are invaluable to the discussion, you must beware that their view could be tainted not through fact but through there emotional observations.

I personally have a great affection for games like Golden Axe, Streets of Rage and Sonic 2. This is not because they made a breakthrough with the technology or that their game play was particularly groundbreaking; but because they have certain nostalgia for me and consequently I believe these games to be the best of the Sega/Nintendo console generation.

Assessing games of the past can only be by experiencing them first, only through playing will you be able to make an informed judgment on the quality of the game and its subsequent contribution to the gaming industry as a whole.

“There's more to the truth than just the facts.” ~ Author Unknown