http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html

The above is a Cracked.com article that offers up "The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey". the article provides some lengthy yet often interesting arguments regarding the faults of several modern video games and what should be done to remedy said faults.

All-in-all, I found these sentiments to be mostly reasonable. Even the best games can make needless mistakes. One interesting trend I noticed in these "Commandments" is that most of the related complaints are against trends of recent years. The very first entry derides the lack of local split-screen mutiplayer in favor of online play in games such as Grand Theft Auto IV and MotorStorm, defending said assertion with the claim that Super Smash Bros. Brawl was one of the best-selling games of 2008 and does feature local multiplayer (in addition to online play). Another "Commandment" regards the huge leap in graphics technology in this console generation, citing the fact that the Wii, the most graphically underpowered of the current generation consoles, is also the best-selling so far.

The big reason why these particular arguments got my attention more than others is because it constitutes a larger problem in digital media. There's so much cool new stuff out there nowadays, that designers can forget their roots and get too caught up in trends. Likewise, some game developers are getting so caught in all the new and exciting innovations being made in that field, that they seem to have forgotten the purpose of a game: to entertain. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of new features such as online play and photorealistic graphics technology; in fact, such things are to be expected. But some developers seem to forget that they need to make games that can entertain and engage people.

That's really one of the big challenges of all designers. They must be willing to embrace new innovations in design, but at the same time, they also need to remember their roots and why they do what they do. Otherwise, they're missing the point.

Courtesy of Cracked.com, this is an image of a sidewalk-turned-Mordor. How was this done, you ask? Nope, not Photoshop; sidewalk paint. The whole thing took a week to paint, and the artists' contingency plan for rain amounted to "leave and paint a new picture tomorrow".

Aside from its mind-blowing detail, this piece got my attention because it ties in closely with some of the things we've discussed in lecture. This image is no mastery of any software application like Photoshop or Illustrator; it's sidewalk art, done with nothing but paint. Overall, the thing I really got out of this is that design isn't really about what you can do, but rather, it's about how you make use of what you can do.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

The above is a page from the TV Tropes Wiki that discusses "Fake Difficulty", or in other words, the tendency of games (though primarily video games) to give the player an unfair disadvantage in a half-hearted attempt to add more challenge to the game. This can range from making the game too luck-based, rooted in trial and error, or simply too difficult to be conceivably won by any decently competent player.

This concept of Fake Difficulty is an interesting one that hasn't really been touched on in lecture. We've talked a lot about how games need rules and restrictions in order to be enjoyable, but what we haven't talked about is the question of how far is too far when putting restrictions on a player. After all, just because a game is supposed to be challenging, that doesn't mean it should be excruciatingly difficult. And although it's not easy finding that right balance between challenge and fairness, if one has to edge towards either extreme, I'd say go for fairness. Even if a game comes across as too easy, it can still be much more fun than it has any right to be if it plays fair. Meanwhile, a game that is "artificially" difficult can become extremely frustrating, as the player may feel like the game is cheating.

The moral of the story is that difficulty should evolve organically from the subject matter of the game. When a game developer tries to shoehorn challenge into a game, it can show badly. The challenge factor of the game should be allowed to developed on its own, not forced.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/film-adaptations-and-their-source-material-how-faithful-should-they-be

I'd like to discuss yet another editorial from Brad Brevet (I promise, this will be the last one...probably), this time on the issue of adaptations. It goes without saying that the greatest challenge of any adaptation, especially a cross-medium one, is remaining faithful to the source material while leaving one's mark on the adaptation to avoid a tedious rehash of the source. Although discussing film adaptations as a whole, Brevet does take some time to focus on those of the Harry Potter series, namely the latest film in that franchise. He defends the changes in said film, with the assertion that, "When it comes to the Harry Potter films I have a hard time believing someone like 'Anonymous Friend' could be happy with any of the films released so far. None of them have stuck strictly to the narrative".

Overall, I agree with Brevet's sentiments. None of the Potter films are what I would call the epitome of outstanding cinema, but I would strongly argue that they all accomplish what they set out to do (aside from make millions of dollars): offer up a visual and cinematic rendition of Rowling's novels. Whenever you're adapting a particular work from one medium to another, there's far more to it than simply getting all the details and plot points nailed down. It has to be tailored to the medium you're adapting to. Furthermore, the adaptation must capture the spirit and overall mood of the original work. That's the real key to a good adaptation.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/are-general-audiences-too-stupid-to-enjoy-smart-movies

A quasi-follow-up to my previous dissertation, I'd like to discuss another excellent article from Brad Brevet, this time about whether general audiences are "too stupid to enjoy smart movies". One of the classic excuses used by moviegoers defending the films they like from said films' detractors is, "You just don't get it". Brevet admits to disliking this argument, and while I would agree in the vast majority of cases, sometimes, there might be a bit more to that argument than meets the eye. Sometimes, a film can get a little too smart for its own good to the point of alienating audiences. But whose fault is that: the film's or the viewer's?

I say neither. It's not really anyone's fault. It's simply a case of people having different tastes. Just because someone doesn't necessarily "get" a film, that doesn't make the film bad or make the person stupid. It simply means the film isn't for everyone, and as long as it can please someone, it succeeds.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/what-are-your-guilty-pleasure-movies-but-dont-like-to-admit-it

This is an editorial about people's "guilty pleasures" in movies. Author Brad Brevet provides a short yet insightful dissertation about why people have guilty pleasures and why they are "guilty" pleasures in the first place. Although Brevet focuses more on exactly what films might qualify for such status, I'm more interested in the question of why some people are ashamed to admit to liking certain films. There are bound to be countless theories, so I might as well join the crowd and sum up my own.

Somehow, society has gotten to a point where people feel like they are defined by their taste in entertainment. They feel that others will judge them based on what things in public media they like and don't like. It's a true testament to how much entertainment media has been ingrained in the public consciousness. Furthermore, it stresses the task that we designers have set up for ourselves. Almost nobody wants to make something that becomes a "guilty pleasure" in the public eye. The hard part is coming up with something that people won't be afraid to admit to appreciating and will willingly embrace for a long time to come.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15209_10-most-insane-sports-in-world.html

The above article, courtesy of Cracked.com, is a list of "The 10 Most Insane 'Sports' in the World", offering tongue-in-cheek dissertations on such games as cheese rolling, hurling, and Eukonkanto (aka wife carrying).

In addition to being both insightful and very funny, the article also ties in to the concept of games, something we've been talking about for quite some time in lecture. In lecture, we came to the conclusion that in a game, there is an over-arching goal, obstacles standing between the player and said goal, and rules to increase the challenge factor. The article proves that there is a seemingly infinite number of ways to create such an experience. My picks for the most outlandish sports in this countdown are the Eton Wall Game and chess boxing.

http://games.ign.com/articles/944/944826p1.html

This is an article from ign.com that discusses "Ten Trends That Are Destroying Videogames". Most of said trends center primarily on the fact that modern games have suffered from a noticeable absence in innovation and risk-taking. Things seen as novelties when they were introduced are now seen as tired and old news.

Overall, the views expressed in the article seem to be legitimate concerns. Many elements of game development have been overused to the point of losing their novelty. The entry here that I have to agree with most is the "Motion 'Control'" trend. When the Wii was introduced, it opened up whole new worlds of possibilities in game development. More often than not, however, motion control tends to work to most games' detriment than it does to their advantage. That's not to say that it doesn't benefit any games at all, but it definetly hasn't been used to its fullest potential. Overall, it's a good compilation of very real concerns in game development, and hopefully, such concerns will be addressed soon.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/104/1047635p1.html

A little while ago, I stumbled across this article which offers an analysis of where the appeal of the long-running Super Mario video game series can be traced back to. The article gives an extensive, almost scholarly dissertation about what has made Mario a pop culture icon. To sum up, author Michael Thomsen compares the Mario games to Vaudeville, what with its cartoonish atmosphere and dreamlike sensibilities. Furthermore, Thomsen offers insight into his own admiration for the games, asserting that, "Before anything, Mario has been about the fundamental joy of movement". In a statement sure to have Mario fans everywhere swamping him in hatemail, Thomsen claims that he, "never liked the 3D Mario games very much" because their emphasis on open-ended play breaks from the, "Homeric dream odyssey" of the "classic" Mario titles.

Although I was interested by some of the article's insights, I find myself disagreeing with several of Thomsen's sentiments. My main issue with this article is that it overanalyzes what basically amounts to a series of video games (albeit very good ones) with cartoon characters. His comparisons of Mario to, "the Homeric dream odyssey" border on hyperbole. Why can't a Mario game just be a Mario game? Is Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto knocking on Thomsen's door to congratulate him for cracking the code? Another issue I have is that Thomsen seems to hold a purist's attitude, that the Mario games must adhere to a strict formula and that anything that detracts from said formula (such as the aforementioned 3D Mario titles) is not a "true" Mario experience. What he seems to have failed to realize is that the reason why the 3D Mario games such as Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy were so popular and critically-acclaimed was because they successfully captured the spirit of the "classic" renditions of Mario while simultaneously taking the series in bold new directions.

As something of a follow-up to my previous dissertation, I'd now like to dig a little deeper into a concept discussed in lecture: metaphors. The world of media is full of metaphors, not the least of which is the film Up.

In the film, our hero, the septuagenarian Carl Frederickson, does the only logical thing to do to overcome the death of his wife: tie hundreds of thousands of balloons to his house so he can fly it to the Venezuelan jungle, a vacation he had previously promised his wife when they were younger, but couldn't carry out thanks to life repeatedly getting in the way. Absurd and implausible as the balloon-assisted flying house may be, a particularly insightful edit on this page of the TV Tropes Wiki asserts that it makes for great symbolism in an adventure story that revolves around the theme of hanging on to the past. Carl is obsessively protective of his house and possessions, they being the only things he has left to remember his wife by, and the house hanging on to the balloons is a great representation of that. Later in the film, the house is grounded due to several popped balloons, leaving him stranded. He only manages to get the house floating again by dumping out all his possessions to lighten the weight. This marks a crucial point in Carl's character development because in order to "move on", he has to both literally and metaphorically "let go" of his past.

"Simplexity" is a term coined by the creators of the Disney/Pixar film Up to describe the film's animation style as "the art of simplifying an image down to its essence. But the complexity that you layer on top of it-in texture, design, or detail is masked by how simple the form is". Basically, the film was animated with the mindset of making the basic designs of the characters abstract and cartoonish while adding enough detail to features like skin and hair to maintain believability.

So much of modern animation tries too hard to make images more realistic that they come across as dull. One of the chief offenders of recent years is Robert Zemeckis with his work on motion capture in such films as The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. His "mo-cap" films have a remarkable degree of detail and realism, but they don't take advantage of the surrealism that animation makes possible. What Zemeckis seems to have failed to realize is that just as animation opens up new possibilities, there are things in live-action that simply don't work in animation. Furthermore, if a computer-generated world strives for as much realism as Zemeckis seems to be trying to convey, the use of animation seems somewhat pointless.

Pixar's approach in Up proves to be far more successful, as they manage to capture the basic key elements of an image while remaining believable. The important part is that Up strives for believability rather than realism, and that's why it works.