November 27th, 2009 chris
Previously we discussed a critical storytelling element: the power of characterisation. It seems to me as though books are the best medium for character development, and there seems to be something about the medium that really makes it stand out here. Fundamentally, it’s tied to how long the reader is engaged with the material. The typical moviegoer’s attention is fixed for two to three hours on average, while someone reading a book tends to focus their attention for much longer. Thus with the extra time, books can really develop their characters in a superior fashion. By the same logic, a television series also has great potential to develop and strengthen its characters over time, since the TV series also has ample time to engage its viewer. But while characterisation is an important storytelling element, I feel like we beat that point into the ground last time. This time, I want to talk about a different key storytelling element: immersion.
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Posted in Book of the Week, Video Games | Comments Off
June 29th, 2009 chris
Nowadays it seems like every sequel gets a bad treatment. They totally butcher the story and blah blah blah you’ve heard this a million times already. But there is no doubt that God of War 3 will keep true to it’s roots:
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December 28th, 2008 chris
While I’ve got a short break from school and the like, I’ve been looking over playing Metal Gear Solid again. Before I do so, I’ve heard a bit online and offline about Metal Gear Solid 3′s boss team, the Cobra Unit, being markedly superior to it’s successor’s team, the Beauty and the Beast Unit. Since MGS4 is so fresh in my mind I fought it off for quite a while, but now I think I can talk about it a lot better than before.
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Posted in Battlefield Control, Metal Gear, Video Games | No Comments »
December 11th, 2008 chris
It’s pretty rare that I find a good programming language-video game metaphor, but after a bit of thinking, I think I’ve got something. For me, it’s a natural match between the C programming language (and C++) and Fallout 3′s Fat Man, a “tactical nuclear catapult”. They’re both super-powerful and exceedingly dangerous to your health if not used correctly.
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Posted in C++, Programming, Ranting, Video Games | 1 Comment »
October 7th, 2008 chris
Video games and I have had a long running on-off relationship. Sometimes I’m really into them and sometimes I just can’t play them. While I was on the last video game binge I got to play two eerily similar games: No More Heroes for the Wii, and Assassin’s Creed for the PS3. If you play video games at all you’ve likely heard of the latter, although despite all the hype it got, I really love the former a million times more.
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