2013 Season Updates from D.Dawson

As 2013 kicks off with a bang - Battlefield 3 sound-effects of heads exploding in the flatmates room followed closely by champagne corks hitting the roof (Mmm champagne!!) - I take to the daunting task of Summer School. Well at least on the positive side I get to explore the mystical, magical and out-right fantastical world of videogames!!! So I thought what a better way to begin than by setting out some of the goals and highlights of the year to come and focus on releases.


Hitman: HD Trilogy
Following close on the heels of the November 2012 release of Hitman: Absolution; the 29th of January in North America and 1st of February in Europe sees the release of the Hitman trilogy to both PS3 and Xbox platforms. Ohhh yeahh!!! Now you can complete the best of the box set with one easy purchase!

http://hitman.com/
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=131854





SIMCITY
Defiantlyy the most anticipated date on my computer calendar for 2013 is March 5 with Maxis' sixth major release of the SimCity series. The title was expected for a February release, but it is now to be officially released on March 5, 2013 on Windows and Mac.


http://www.simcity.com/en_US
https://www.facebook.com/SimCity







Tomb Raider
March is a busy month for many fans this year, with the release of the fifth title developed by Crystal Dynamics in the Tomb Raider franchise.
As taken from wiki:
 "the game is set to provide no correlation to the entirety of the previous entries in the series; a reboot that emphasizes the reconstructed origins of the culturally influential lead character, Lara Croft.^[4][5]"

Tomb Raider is scheduled for release on 5 March 2013 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows.


Unannounced 
Plenty more titles are hitting the gaming community this season with as much global anticipation as perhaps the crowning of the US president.

Grand Theft Auto V
http://www.facebook.com/rockstargames
http://www.rockstargames.com/V/

Battlefield 4
Potential unveiling coming soon.


Any further forms, threads, posts or videos are welcome to follow. May the season be just as exciting for you all and "May the force be with you"!! :)

jkin 263 Jordyn King Offical blog part 1

Blog Post 1 of 5- Jordyn King- jkin263

Hi guys. As mentioned in my previous post it appears than whenever a mass shooting occurs the blame is not just directed at the availability of guns in society but also violent video games. Grand Theft Auto is perhaps one of the most famous examples of this as many of the goals of the game involve slaughtering members of society. Grand Theft Auto was released firstly in the 1990s with the perspective being bird’s eye; however the third Grand Theft Auto in 2001 had a 3 dimensional playing field making it much more realistic to the player. In this game and it’s sequels you are for example encouraged to kill prostitutes within the game if they refuse your services. However, does this simulation of violence really encourage someone to commit violent acts? Just recently a Senator from the United States Joe Manchin suggested that video games in light of the Connecticut shooting should have limitations on what games they should be to release. He even suggested banning Grand Theft Auto to prevent an occurrence like this to occur again. However, I believe censorship is never the answer. If you look throughout human history far before any violent video games were released these kind of actions were always occurring as they are now. Even as recently as the 20^th century we had two world wars where over 60 million people were killed. This was at least 40 or 50 years before video games became mainstream let alone the R18 themed games like Grand Theft Auto. We had serial killers long before Grand Theft Auto with notorious villains like Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy and even in 1990 in New Zealand we had the Aramoana shooting leaving over 13 people dead in a small town. The problem is not violent video games, the problem is a violent culture. As human beings unfortunately we love depictions of fighting and shooting and I believe games like Grand Theft Auto are simply a product of a violent society that has grown up with violence all around them. Video games should not be blamed for any violent actions because murderers and violent people have always been around regardless of our access to violent video games. That’s life.

Alternate endings (and YUSS. This posting thing works)

Eight words down, a thousand and a bit to go.

Anyway, this paper is a great excuse to google "video game memes", which brings me to this oh-so-valid point about the temporality and 'playtime' you get from a movie, versus the humble video game.

(for brief context, Mass Effect 3 was something of a marathon, a novella if you will. At least that's what I think it is, having never played any of the trilogy)

Regarding multiple endings in films, a quick trip to Google and Wikipedia the library and academic sources leads me to this. The list is filled with what even Bill & Ted would consider less-than-excellent films.
Quite a few sequels populate the list too, which I guess could be directors attempting to please and placate established fan bases, with preexisting ideals of how the films should pan out.

Video games on the other hand, some dating to the nineties (90s kids wooh!) seem to feature alternate endings quite frequently, but in each case obviously centered around a player's choices in-game.

With some video game properties needing upwards of 50 hours of effective gameplay (Final Fantasy, here's looking at you), the time investment and sheer sense of reward is immense. Providing multiple endings centered around decisions throughout a game is far more complex than simply tacking on an alternate finale to Terminator 2 in the DVD extras.

Gah, god knows where I was going with this train of thought.
Can anyone think of any memorable or downright unsatisfying endings? Film, video game, 50ShadesofGrey?
Boom! 250 words!





(No Google pop-up, I don't want to mention people in my posts. Sorry.)

Hello everyone! I have a question about the Columbine disaster. If you guys remember seeing the documentary on that mass murder, the media blamed violent video games for this. In light of the recent disaster in the elementary school shooting does anyone think it is fair to blame violent video games for someone's actions because they simulate violent actions?