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I will be the first to admit that I speculated this intersession before I joined. And to be honest, I was pulled in by a freind, im not a big video gammer. But, however, my oppinion began to change. I was actually productive, and played very little games. In fact, there were some days were it took me all day to write the perfect blog, and I did that while listening to music and letting my creative juices flow. What I also liked was before entering I had no idea how to create a blog which in my oppinion due to todays technology phenomena is pretty essential. Now I understand how to make one and is simplier than I expected. 


Actually, I feel like blogging could become a new hobby for me considering I enjoy free writing. Another atrribute that was awesome was our guest speaker Alan O Brian came to visit us, he is Senior Advisor of animations for Rockstar and he gave us an insight on the experience. I also had fun with making the magazine and look forward to seeing the final product. Video games ar a form of art, for some people, they are enjoyed because they see that art, (drawing, role play, ect.). For others, they require thier attention to detail so the gammer could be effective, and  in some cases a good leader (decision making, thinking logically). So all in all it was fun and productive, and allowed some classmates to bond through these video games. 

Blast From The Past: GTA San Andreas

Today I took time aside to write about my favorite game, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, GTA SA for short. Even though it is a more up to date game than the others I have written about, It is still a game of the past for me. San Andreas was realesed in 2004 for older consoles such as PS2 and X-box, then a year later it was realesed for PC. San Andreas is an RPG (Role Playing Game) that takes place in San Andreas, which was suppose to represent California, or mainly the West Coast. The main character is CJ, Carl Johnson who comes home from the East Coast when his brother tells him that their mother was murdered.

Sgt. Frank Tenpenny

What I thought was cool about SA is that it featured a couple of celebrities including Samuel Jackson, whose role was a Police officer in a special operations unit called C.R.A.S.H (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums). His name was Sgt. Officer Frank Tenpenny. The game featured many metropolitan cities like Los Santos (Los Angeles) CJs hometown, San Fierro (San Fransisco), and Las Venturas (Las Vegas). When CJ returns home on Grove Street in Ganton (Compton), he finds his freinds and fellow gang memebers heading down the path to desturction due to the 1980s-1990s Crack epedemic. Throughout the game, CJ tends to stray away from drugs and gang violence and resorts to his entrepreneurial aspect, finding a better life for his remaining brother and sister, Sweet and Kendel. On CJ's way home Officer Tenpenny pulls him over and frames him for homicide of a cop. Throughout the game CJ is constantly harrassed by Tenpenny as he keeps black  mailing CJ. Eventually, the at the end CJ unravels the story behind his mothers death, the plot of the story is said to be related to the LAPD Rampart Scandal.

Some of the reasons I loved San Andreas was one, the radio stations. The radio stations played a lot of classic hip hop and rap, gangsta rap like Eazy-E, NWA , funk such as Zapp, soul, R&B and others. The music really reflected the time period, the early 1990s. I liked the stations because the music is kind of what I grew up listening to, a lot of oldies. Another reason is because of the setting. I loved the fact that it was set on the west coast, this is because previous GTA's seemed to be set on the east and SA was set somewhere different. Another attibute SA offered was the story. The story was one of the best I ever played and always kept me interested. But most of all, I enjoyed the gameplay.

Because SA is free roam, the player can do many things around the map. For example, character customization, if CJ wanted a haircut he can go to Old Reces barber shop and get a high fade or afro, if he wanted to work out and get buff he could go to the Ganton Gym, and if he wanted to be over weight he could eat at Cluckin Bell all day long. Car customization was awesome, you could mod cars with hydraulics and paint colors, and last but not least CJ had some interaction with people in the city and you were given the choice to respond positivley or negativley. I have always been a fan of Rockstar and GTA, and I look forward to thier upcoming title GTA 5 which is said to be set in Los Santos again. I am excited for this becuase the GTA 4 era was set in Liberty City (New York). I think that now graphics are improved and cities and landmarks are realistic, GTA 5 will be extremley sucsessful.

Until Next Time!

GTA 5 Trailer Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkkoHAzjnUs

Day 4 History of Pac-Man, The Story Behind One of The Biggest Video Gaming Icons In History

Pac-Man is arguably one of the most successful video games. It is also one of the most iconic games in the whole world. Pac-Man is  an arcade game that was developed by Namco. Namco in short explanation is a Japanese corporation that got known when they were video game developing. Pac-Man was first released in Japan on May, 22, 1980, then released later that year in the United States.  Toru Iwatani, a Namco employee was hit with the idea of Pac-Man while eating pizza, which I've always found comical. The whole pizza was missing two slices, which gave him the idea of how Pac-Man would look visually. At first he called it Pakku-Man, which was the Japanese word for eating by the snapping of the mouth, which I thought was a cool interesting fact. Then he called it "Puck-Man" but later in 1980 changed it to Pac-Man to avoid "vandalism" to the P in "Puck". 


Everyone has at least played Pac-Man once or knows how the game play works, but avoiding assumptions I will just explain shortly how it works; One player controls Pac-Man, he maneuvers him through a maze collecting as many dots as possible. Power Pellets provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat enemies that flash blue indicating they can be eaten. I thought the enemy details were amusing, each "ghost" has a nickname, Shadow/Binky, Speedy/Pinky, Bashful/Inky and Pokey/Clyde.

Pac-Man will always be a classic video game "Namco estimates that the original Pac-Man arcade title has been played more than ten billion times in its 20-year history. Namco's total Pac-Man revenues have reached $100 million... one quarter at a time." says   http://www.mameworld.info article "The History of Pac-Man: Pac-Facts". At the end of the 1990s it was estimated that Pac-Man made $2.5 Billion in quarters. When Pac-Man came in, the popular games at that moment were Asteroids and Space Invaders and Pong, none of which were as popular for Mainstream society like Pac-Man. Pac-Man was the landmark for video game history, which is why I wrote this article. It will always be one of my favorite classical arcade games of all time. 

Until Next Time!

Day 3 Mario Brothers The History Behind the Legend

My parents recently purchased a Wii video game console for my younger sister, one of the games she plays is Super Mario Brothers. I really enjoy playing the game with her. Its just got such a classic video game feel, I felt inspired to write a blog on a short history behind Mario Brothers. It was published and developed by Nintendo in 1983, developed by a man named Shigeru Miyamoto with Gunpei Yokoi. Miyamoto is a video game designer, who began his career by working with Nintendo. In 1981, Mario first appeared on Miyamotos first game title, Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong was actually created using the same hardware as Radar Scope an early  arcade game title which had a "shooting theme". Miyamoto decided he wanted to chage the theme and designed Mario to doge barrels instead. 

What I found cleverly amusing was how Mario aquired the name "Mario". He was originally known as "Jumpman", "However, when Nintendo's US office were trying to think of a better name in time for the American release of the game, they were interrupted by their landlord Mario Segale, after whom they christened the character" according to http://www.guardian.co.uk article on Super Mario Bros: 25 Mario facts, for the 25 anniversary. When Mario got the spotight, the story changed from Donkey Kong, he was now an Italian American plumber whose objective of the game, along with his brother/sidekick Luigi, was to defeat strange creatures underneath the sewers in New York City. Mario Brothers was a very successful arcade game title, but by 1985, Famicon was Nintendos new platform.  

Now, Mario Brothers moved away from sewers to the Mushroom Kingdom; "Careful attention went into creating the Mushroom Kingdom's challenges. Miyamoto wanted the player's experience to be consistently good and constantly evolving... always interesting, never overwhelming. Enemies balanced threat with whimsy. "Mushroom traitor" Goombas and pokey turtle Koopa Troopas got their comeuppance when Mario (Luigi for Player two) stomped on them or punted empty Koopa shells in their direction. Power-ups turned him into giant-sized Super Mario, fireball-throwing Fire Mario, or made him temporarily invincible" (http://games.ign.com). This is when we began to see the Super Mario adventures we all know and love today that are available on platforms likeWii. I thought it was very interesting and fun to understand how this game was made and will continue writing on viedo game history. 

Until Next Time!

Day 3 A Brief History of Early Video Gaming

Tennis For Two

In order to appreciate video games I thought it would be fun to write a brief history on classic early video games and video games that changed the world of graphics and animation. What I didn’t know that I found quite interesting was that the history of video games goes as far back as the 1940s. In 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a United States patent request for an entertainment invention they described as a "cathode ray tube amusement device" which I found comical. In 1958 a man named William Higinbotham created a game using an oscilloscope and analog computer, the game was called Tennis  For Two.   “Two people played the electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and used an oscilloscope for a screen” was how you played the game according to www.bnl.gov.  During the 1970s, early arcade video games began to appear. In September 1971, the Galaxy Game was installed at a student union at University. This game was the first coin-operated video game. 

Atari 2600

In 1977, the Atari 2600 was released as a second generation home console. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, contrary to having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. The console had classic games such as Space Invaders, Mario Brothers, Asteroids and Atari Video Cubes. Activision was created in 1979 by former Atari developers. By 1982, approximately 8 million American homes owned a video game console, and the home video game industry was generating an annual revenue of $3.8 billion.

Galaga 

 In the late 1970s throughout the 1980s this was considered the Golden Age of Video Arcade Games. This is when we began to see games like Pac-Man and Galaga in arcades. The arcade video game industry would continue to make an annual revenue of $5 billion in quarters throughout to 1985. Then came the 1990s and we see 3rd generation consoles like The Nintendo Entertainment System or NES and games like Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong Classics and Adventure Island. This was only a brief history of video games but I hope it was informative and interesting. I also hoped it showed why we should appreciate video games, and admire them for the way they evolved and always keep the classics in mind. So next time you are getting angry over a glitch on Modern Warfare 3 or Skyrim, remember the evolution and how far we have achieved in the entertainment industry. 

Day 2 The Video Game Industry

Today I thought it would be appropriate If I wrote an article on the video game industry in America during todays society. Today, video gamming is significant in American culture, in fact according to www.esrb.org 67% of American households play video games. The Industrys average Revenue is 10.5 Billion dollars. One big contributer to the video game phenomena is the Call of Duty series, simply abbreviated COD. One of COD’s publishers is well known, and that is Activision. Activisions CEO  Robert Kotick. In 2010, Robert A. Kotick received $5,597,310 in total compensation. . COD is a fps or, first person shooter franchise and  The series began on the PC, and later expanded to consoles and handhelds. The series first themes were set in World War II however, the last decade or so the series has turned to Modern Warfare (with the acception of Black Ops set in the Cold War). Some of CODs developers are Spark Unlimited, Treyarch and Infinity Ward.

COD has an extremely big influence on adolesence and teens, in fact Thirty-six percent of teen boys said they prefer Call of Duty: Modern Warfare according to http://www.gamasutra.com. Even though we can name many negative aspects of video gaming, on the contrary there are many pros that go un recognized; “Playing video games demands an interactive involvement of the players. As a player, you start identifying with some character in the game and act for it. This excited state of mind has a positive effect on the player. It is also said that playing video games is surely better than watching television as video games are interactive. 

Playing video games involves problem solving, planning, estimation and analysis of the moves or actions of both you and your opponent. This affects the player positively by developing in him/her problem-solving skills, analytical and estimation skills and quick decision-making.” (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/positive-effects-of-video-games).  The site also stated that “If there is no limit to the time for which a child is allowed to play a video game or no supervision on the way in which the game is being played, the not-so-positive effects of video games will start showing up.” This in my oppinion is true, and ultimatley, it does come down to oppinion, whether or not the parent is okay with their child playing games such as the COD series. Another positive aspect which I myself (as somewhat of a gamer) came up with is video games stir creative emotion in a child. Nowadays, video games are becoming like “playable movies” and many include story lines and script writing which I think is good. Some games are actually taking time to make an in depth story, some examples are the Grand Theft Auto series, Skyrim and even the Modern Warfare series. So video games games ultimatley can be used for the good or the bad, it depends on the time spent and how they are precieved.

Introduction

Hello my name is Peter Villa and I am 16 years old and attend High Tech High Point Loma. I am currently in the 11th grade. My favorite video game is Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. I have always been a "GTA" fan becuase I think thier storylines are amazing and fun. It was also one of the best 3rd person shooter games I played on the PS2. The free roaming was also advanced at the time and I consider it a classic GTA. I also enjoy fps' or 1st person shooters as well. I really enjoy playing older games becuase it makes me appreciate how advanced we are in our modern technology today.