Competition in Video Games A.K.A RAGE!!!!!

In one of my previous posts I mentioned the game League of Legends. Now I am not going to go off on my usual rants about how exciting I think the game is, don't worry, I will spare you this time :). In fact, I will not be blogging about a video game as I normally do. Instead, I thought it would be interesting to talk about a behavior that I found to be very common when playing with my friends and even with people online.

Usually on the weekends and sometimes on Tuesdays, me and my friends would gather together under one roof and have ourselves a good old fashioned "LAN party". We would log onto League of Legends and join a game with other players around the globe for some strategic action. As we start up playing, depending on which team begins to take the advantage, slander, obscenities, and threats would soon fill the screen. The loosing team does not, and probably never will, learn to loose graciously. Even when we are winning and are sometimes unfortunate enough to have a teammate die, we too become venom spitting lunatics. This extreme competitiveness is not just prevalent in LoL, but in any video game.

As with any video game, or I should just say game, people are going to be better than other people. Sorry, its just the way of life. But when two people are usually on even footing, competitiveness shows its sometimes ugly face. With every point, kill, goal or win, the two competitive players don't look at it as that there opponent is very good and that they need to learn to adapt to playing against them, but instead, they have the idea in there head that if someone is doing better than them, then it means they themselves are weak and will never be as good as there opponent.

But this is not true, as I said before, there will always be people who are better at things than other people, but those other people can sure as hell try to hone their skills so that they give the better players a run for there money. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice will help develop ones skills in a game to become a better player and who knows, one that might surpass the skills of a naturally talented competitor.

Competition is a good thing, it is what drives us to do better. But never get sore if you loose, because that only means you will learn from your mistakes and become a better player, even if it is by just a little bit, next time.

Jaws Unleashed: A terrible game that is close to heart

So the general consensus is that games adapted from films are bad. The only exception to this unwritten law is considered to have been Spider man, simply because who the hell doesn't want to swing around building to building in a free roam sandbox game? It has never been done before, and that why people ate it up. But for me however, one game that also breaks this rule is Jaws Unleashed, and boy let me explain.

Ok so Jaws Unleashed was released in 2006  and was licenced from the motion picture from 1975 a.k.a my favorite movie.The game is a free roam sandbox game set on and in the waters of Amity Island. Here comes the best part, you do not play as a boat, trying to find the shark (which you did play as in the original game for Nintendo...we will not get into that now, possibly next week or in the future) but instead you ARE THE SHARK! WOOHOO!!! And let me tell you, nothing can stand in your way, you fly around underwater, destroying docks and boats, terrifying beaches, and eating EVERYTHING!. Other sharks, dolphins, fish, people, dogs, whales, squids, submarines (yes submarines), nothing can stand up against your awe-inspiring sharky powers!

Oh yea..where is your God now, scuba man?

Ok so all my praise aside, the game is not great, it is filled with glitches, sometimes your massive shark body gets the best of you and turning around can be a severely difficult task, and the graphics are meh. The reason I enjoy the game even with its serious downfalls and boring repetition of eat, eat, eat, swim, swim, swim, Is because it is a homage to my favorite movie. I feel like a lot of these "movie video games" are made are solely for the fans, yes they might not be award winning masterpieces, but to those who love the story they coincide with love them because they love the movie. I feel like games like this  let the player "live", for lack of a better term, in the movie, which can give them an experience that goes further than the movie. These games are not enjoyable by everyone, only by those such as me enjoy them because they add to the love and appreciation for the movies that they are adapted from. Us movie fanatics would like to get a game that allows us to step into our favorite movies, and Jaws Unleashed allows me to, be it from the perspective of a twenty foot, bloodthirsty missile with teeth.

Roller Coaster Tycoon... This Blog Would Be Better But I Can't Stop Playing...

So In class this week we spoke about the different types of video games genres. One of the genres that stood out to me was that of Advertising games. Now, because my brain works in the marvelous way it does, I thought what that meant was games where advertising was a goal of the game, as in the player has to advertise for something….I know….how many games would have that as a mechanic? One came to mind, Roller Coaster Tycoon.  So what do I do? I go home that day and reinstall a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon, which surprised me that it was still able to run on my computer due to the games old age of ten years.

Roller Coaster Tycoon is one of my favorite games and in my eyes, has stood the test of time.  The object of the game is simple, construct theme parks and meet specific requirements to advance to the next park. These simple objectives to meet allow for much creativity and design of your theme park. Finance, advertizing, and hiring employees also are a major part of the game, as some objectives require you to meet a certain monthly income or to have a number of guests in your park by a specific time. Pathways also need to be clean and rides need to be fixed when they break down so employing handymen and engineers is important. The game lets you develop your park anyway you like, allows you much scenery to choose from so if you want to have an overall theme to you park, you can.

It was fun going back in time and playing this game again. It was like reliving an old memory that always stuck with you. I hear there is a new version that came out not too long ago and I am excited to say that I will be gladly picking it up soon.