GAMES GRADS CANCELLED

Just in case some of you who were intending to go didnt know, games grads has been cancelled. Chances are you already do know its just i went to register and it said it has been postponed up until next year.

FEZ

IGS 2007 - 'Innovation in Indie Games'

'Innovation in Indie Games'

When I grow up, I want to go to Youtube University

Hey People

I was just reading Lifehacker and their top story of the day is that Youtube has launched their own educational protal from their website called YoutubeEDU featuring lectures from Universitys and Colleges from all over the world.

Going to have a propper look through the channels they have up at the moment, but they are part of lectures and even some full ones, all of them can be put on the ipods or Mp4 players as well for your convenience.

The Link is:

http://www.youtube.com/edu

Cheers Dudes

Games & Learning

Again from the Guardian Games Blog, this article links to a video of Aleks Krotoski interviewing Henry Jenkins on the relationship of games and learning. Most relevant probably for Steven but of interest to all. As I've said in the past, Henry Jenkins is a big name in game studies, particularly in the USA due to his Congressional testimonies.

Link to the video from this article.

The Point and Click strikes back

In relation to the last post, check out this article on the resurgence of 'Point & Click' games in the Guardian Games Blog (a site worth adding to your live bookmarks/rss feeds)



Charles Cecil talks Broken Sword Directors Cut and why point and click adventures are back

Ready Set... Point and Click

I have always been a fan of point and click adventure games (especially the Monkey Island series) so I have devoted some time today to play Double Fines new mini game to comemorate Tim Schafer hosting the GDA Choice awards... I thought i'd share. (if anyone can find the 22nd joke you are a better man than me, I have one half of a joke on a sticky note left). It is amazing what you can do inside a browser game...

(It is well worth leaving the room when you have no jokes, then with some... i couldn't tell you what happens when you have all of them)

Unraveling Xi (Well trying to)

Hey People

I hav just logged onto Playstation Home and have found some weird grafitti on the walls, I thought that it was a piece of promo for a game but actually is a launchpad for a new game for the Playstation Home and possibly Network too.

It is an alternate reality game called Xi and apparently is like a real time scavenger hunt much like The Lost Experience and Perplex City discussed at the beggining of the course.

The servers are at bursting point at the moment, but when it quietens down should be good to have a look at.

There is an artical on Kotaku at the moment about it, so have a look and see what you think.

For those students keen on viewing the film As Real As Your Life which was briefly discussed during the History and Analysis 3 module and was planned to be shown as part of the "Becoming Cyborg" lecture on the 12th March there will be another chance to view this movie on 30th March at 6pm at MMU as part of the Technolust season that is currently screening.

For those that have not seen the trailer for this short film i have embeded it below

This screening will be a double bill of As Real As Your Life and the Korean film I'm A Cyborg But That's OK

X48 and Game Jamming

I thought that i would draw the class' attention to this event that has been running this weekend... The X48 GameCamp at the University of Derby. I have been following this as it has developed over the weekend after latching onto it as it flew by on my blog dashboard of updates from Wonderland. As an event closely relating to the idea of Indie Game Jams and the Global Game Jam discussed in the first session.

I am not sure how i feel about the corporate sponsorship of these sorts of indie events as it seems to fit somewhere between "Cool Hunting" and good publicity.

I think one of the things that is so interesting is the use of web 2.0 technologies to publicise the event and follow its progress (YouTube, twitter, blogging, facebook, Flicker, daytum, Last.FM play lists).

(I think we could all learn a little from this approach)

I think that it is also interesting to see the idea of a Jam with XNA rather than Flash or the ipod dev tools seen at a lot of other Jams.

InterfaceLIFT - Bit of Randomness

Hey People

Nothing to do with the blog, but just wanted to share this as it is a great little website. Its a wallpaper website that is full of user content, but there are some good wallpapers on pictures on here which are free to use.

The website is http://interfacelift.com/

See what you think and enjoy some good backgrounds for your computer

Violence in Video Games

My topic I will be writing my essay on will be Violence in video games. There are a lot of controversies surrounding this topic in recent times and I find it very interesting to do some more research about this topic and what other people think. This has been everywhere in the news, magazines and even in the newspapers so this is no news to anyone. I will be using various researches sources such as magazines, article and internet sources to do my research. The reason why I chose to do my essay on this topic was, as a gamer I like violence in video games and I find it a little boring to play games with little violence it them. So choosing this topic will help me express myself freely in a way I would like and argue for and against violence in Video games. This research at the end will give me a broad idea about the effects violence can have in a video games and children.

Mountain Dew Gets Warcrafted

Hey People

I have just found this on Kotaku and thought it would be useful for Alex's work at the moment. Mountain Dew have released a special Warcraft edition of their drink called Game Fuel. They have done this a few times before with some other games such as Halo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 3 (if I am thinking right)

You can find the link at

http://kotaku.com/5173387/world-of-warcraft-the-soft-drink

Cheers

Luke

Student Presentations - Peer Review

As those that presented for the H&A3 module will know I run a system of peer review with presentations, some of the marking criteria have changed so i thought i would release a copy of this terms peer marking sheet for you to see before you present

Charlie Brooker on Gaming. What's not to like?

Charlie Brooker in the Guardian discussing gaming.

Harsh, vitriolic, and amusing all at the same time. Just a short comment on the popularity of videogames and their sometimes deceptively un-intuitive interfaces. Not very deep but Brooker is always, in the very least, perceptive if you can shift through the swear words.

If he could team up with a design team and publisher, do you think a videogame from his imagination would rival his reality TV parody Dead Set (2008)? I'd buy it.

Resident Evil 5 - I Take It All Back

Hello People

Not In Thursday's Lecture, I said that I was not going to buy Resident Evil 5 and said how bad the demo was. But I won some money and ended up buying it after saw a video of Chris and Wesker fighting each other, so was hooked there and then.

I do take it all back though, the demo was bad but the game is so much better and the team based game mechanics work very well, even if they are a bit wooden and glitchy.

So I think I have learned a lesson in all this which is don't judge a game on the demo that is released (before or after the game has been released)

See you all soon

Are Games Good For Learning - Academic Paper

Hey people

I have been doing research for my presentation/essay and came across a usefull paper for ste matthews presentation. It poses the question are "Video Games Good For Learning?" and I have read the first few pages and looks good.

It is a bit old now as one of its focuses is Thief: Deadly Shadows and Dues Ex, but can be applied to modern games easily me thinks.

You can find the paper at the following URL

http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/documents/MacArthur.pdf

Cheers People

Presentation Abstract - Title Change (Bio-Terrorism to Terrorism)

Hey People

Sorry about the late notice of this, but I have decided to change the title of my presentation to include all forms of terrorism and not Bio Terrorism imparticular. I have been doing research tonight and have found out that my terrorism research contains more infomation than the bioterrorism research to going to include both in the presentation/essay.

Hope this is OK and see you all next week

Luke

Resident Evil Research - Gametrailers Retrospective

As people know, I have been researching terrorism and bioterrorism in videogames and imparticular Resident Evil.

I have played all of the titles in the series already, but have been watching this retrospective in case I have missed anything in the story timeline.

I thought if people haven't seen it, it is a good video to watch just to recap over the series.

You can find the video at http://www.gametrailers.com/player/46616.html

The Unfinished Swan