Journal Block 2

Journal Block: #2

-Nick Walker

Uncharted 2

        Overall I liked Uncharted 2 as well as the article written about it. Reading the other person's experiences and ideas of the game gave a different point of view, which I like to see because everyone has different impressions and different perspectives even when playing a game as linear as Uncharted 2. One of my favorite moments in the article is when the author mentions the part where you as the player need to do something on your game pad in order to wake up an unconscious Nathan Drake. I like that this small point was noticed by somebody else because I love these moments in games. The author mentions that it is “a bit fourth wall breaking,” which I would agree with if this were entirely a movie or a play and the audience has to shout in order for the production goes on. But Uncharted 2, while very cinematic in it's own right, is a game and moments where the play does something can do very small but progresses the game just makes me very happy. Because in a lot of games the player would not have any control over an action that small at all, a cut scene would end and then your character would just get up on their own and continue the game.

Heavy Rain

       The article on Heavy Rain started on with the same sort of feelings that I had when I had first heard about heavy rain. The author had similar feelings to the game as I did when I played it. Near the beginning of the article the author mentions the topic of “meaningful choices” in games. The author points out that such a thing is normally either a cliché or a paradox in games and while I find this to be true normally I understand why that is the case. Games are still a relatively new medium and as they develop I feel that ways to implement more meaningful choices will develop with it. I also feel that a “meaningful choice” in a game can be in two different ways, a gameplay choice or a story choice. A meaningful choice in gameplay is something that a lot of games do very well at. RPGs in particular do this well because in games where you can create a character and play in different ways is a meaningful choice, you will experience the game in a very different way that somebody else. A meaningful choice in story seems to be much more difficult to do. This is due to things like needing to make a branching story arc to accommodate radically different choices and that take a lot of time and money to put in the game. Some day though I feel that that is the sort of things that will be in games and I can't wait for that day.

Fallout 3

       Fallout 3 is a game that I have sunk a lot of hours into and I certainly have not experienced all of it. In the article on Fallout 3 the author mentions that the game attracts all manner of different people and many of them will play very differently. You can be the hero, or the scavenger, or as the author mentions you can me a murderous raider. The game is open up to a lot of different possibilities and that is something that makes Fallout 3 a game that a person can always come back to and experience something different, or even come back, play the same way, and go to totally new places that they have never seen before. These small differences in play can even go as deep as playing specific quests differently and having different outcomes. The author mentions the questline where he seeks “the Family.” His ideas and feelings about that small story are something that he can come back to in a different playthrough and experience differently. That is one of the many things in Fallout 3 that are very well done and make it a game that will stand the test of time.