Chapter 6 – Playing a game and gameplay

So what is meant by gameplay?.. gameplay could be said to be a term that is found in a review and given a score or quality marking depending on the players experience whilst their interaction with a game. To make gameplay what it is and to make gameplay a memorable experience various team members have to come together and design a game that works as a whole. Every feature and every idea has to coincide with each other to make it look like as if it was thought out by one person and the next thing you know it’s a DVD in a game shop. Bringing various artists and specialists into the picture introduces new ideas and new ideas means some concepts or ideas may not run side by side with each other because of the different styles and ways various programmers and sub level designers work. To say what I’ve said again gameplay is what makes a game playable or what makes a game fun or crap. Gameplay to me defines if the game is worth playing or not because most of the times before you play a game you hear or read about it in a magazine review or on the tele or some other form of an advert and every time the game is being reviewed the reviewers discuss the game play and base their judgment on that and then give it a rating.

To achieve this so called gameplay many programmers and designers have to create ‘the perfect game’ and this comes through great ideas and ingenuity. Some of the earliest games had just that and that’s what made them great, compared to now we would only play them for a certain sentimental value otherwise they are not the type of games that would entertain you now, and if great games like that weren’t around then would gameplay really be different now? One of the earliest and first prospective 3D game ever made was supposed to be ‘Battlezone’, ‘Doom’ or even ‘Wolfenstein 3D’, I actually remember ‘Quake’ being my first ever 3D game although I maybe can agree with Doom being one of or the first 3d game ever.

Different games require different types of game design and design principles. All the high tech games that are made in the modem ages require a team of people working together creating a masterpiece. Each individual gives their own input and therefore has their specific talent or skill included in the game where as you can get a game might that is based on a design of a particular person or someone’s vision to make or create a particular atmosphere, but in reality a game requires specialists doing their part in order to achieve a common goal. Each game differs from each other in terms of how it’s made and developed, and this is mainly due to the type of game. If it’s a huge game like say an MMORPG like ‘World of Warcraft’ then its requires loads of analysts and programmers as well as designers, editors, creators and directors to manage, maintain and above all create such a big environment. On the other hand you can get a game like say EA’s ‘FIFA ‘07’ where the design template and characters are already mapped out from previous versions and all you have to do is simply remap some textures and tweak the game to create a better version of what you already had and that may only require a small team of programmers re-editing the game code.

I like playing most games and I can safely say I’ve played most games that have been out recently. Games appeal to people in different ways and to me a game is great if its one person’s vision put down into paper. I believe that because I think I’d make a great game if I could put it down on paper and usually that’s the hardest part of making a game. Games that appeal to me the most are games that have a lot of thought and time put into them and not just that but games that leave the space and potential for an expansion pack or a sequel because that means they’ve not just thought about that game but thought past that game and that to me makes a great game. Another thing that makes me say ‘ great fcuk*** game’ is a game that doesn’t just go from stage 1 to stage 10 and then say ‘The End’ but a game that starts from Stage 1 and then just carries on so there’s endless possibilities.

Chapter 4 – The $21st Century

The 21st century didn’t just bring ‘next generation gaming’ but also next generation costing. Costs of games were in the millions compared to old skool games like Pac-Man for the VCS (Video Computer System) which only took a single programmer a few weekends and a small amount ofUS$100,000 to conjure up.

A shocking yet believable game fell under this expensive category called ‘Halo 2’. This bad boy managed to only cost US$40 Million and took 190 people over 3 years to make, now either no-one turned up to work for a couple of years or this game must really be that good. I’ve never had the pleasure of playing Halo 2 otherwise would comment from my own experience but I think I shall but it in the near future just to see what the fuss is about, or rather download it…shhh.

Companies just found it hard to guarantee a winner. You can get games that cost a lot and sell minimal, then again you can get it the other way round. Microsoft creating Halo 2 had the same success rate as Pac-Man back in 1982 even though these two games are two worlds apart, they dramatically differ in graphics, game play, features, complexity, and the obvious the cost. Game manufacturers face that block in their creativity when a game they spend time, money and blood on doesn’t sell, or doesn’t sell enough to make it a ‘good game’. Most manufacturers stick to the original design they got and just elaborate on that particular game and think of ways to make it better. Perfect example could be EA because these guys not only have almost every single major sports game out there but have the same game play in all their games with just that little extra to make it the 4th in the trilogy.

Me personally I don’t like manufacturers who can’t be asked to put the time and effort into providing me some sort of virtual entertainment and naturally that’s why I think EA games suck….not all most. EA just get so boring in their game play and styles, its like if you’ve played FIFA 2007 that means you’ve played FIFA 2008 even though it isn’t even in development. When a tech team put effort and originality in a game they now it’s going to sell, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make them billions and trillions but enough to be recognised as a good game and one that sells of costs.

Now I love a game with originality, a game where you can call its own kind even though there loads of games similar to it. To me a game doesn’t have to be unique in the sense that it’s got never seen never heard of features but rather a game that you play and can instantly tell that there’s nothing like it. Each game leaves a signature in a gamers head where a gamer remembers specific scenes or specific cut scenes that made the gamer get a head rush now that’s the difference between a serious focused gamer and a every now and again casual gamer. Serious gaming is waking up at 9am, having some breaky at 10am, missing your lecture at 11am to play Warcraft till 18:00, then having another bite just before your ready to enter a dungeon for another 7 hours to bring home the mount baby. Then there’s the laid back gamer that plays games as often as I play golf and I play golf quite often? Through some personal experience I’ve also seen the seriously casual gamer and the casually serious gamer ftw! Its hard to build a picture for you but their something along the lines of playing 24 hours a day 7 days a week but when you play against them its like their trying to hit a monkey with an iron wrench. They may take the time and effort they put into it seriously but at the end of the day all their good at is being seriously shite and above all annoying.

Some people I would say are born to be gamers where they just know things that others wouldn’t or play ways that others would take time to get accustomed to. Natural born gamers are people who install a game and from the click of the start button are already near the end. Now imagine these people could actually create their ideas into consoles and games. Imagine computer games thought out and made by hardcore, serious, natural born gamers? Imagine a world where the best games could only get better. I have loads of images I can portray through the vision in my mind but can’t get it out on paper. I would like to see games so highly developed that no joy pad or console was even needed. It would be so real that you could wake up and be in a game scenario. Imagine turning on a game and being inside it, a place where you can’t die but can do endless things, no AI in the world could think or move like you do, no programme written yet could control the infinite amount of possibilities for you to explore, no high tech graphics card and monitor could capture the beauty seen through your eyes, imagine a game created by you.

Chapter 3 – Middle or Golden age

The games that I’ve talked about in my previous post, games like ‘OXO’ and ‘Tennis for Two’ were known as the early years of gaming when games were first invented or thought of as a source of entertainment. Games that are out and about now or coming out in the near future are referred to as ‘Next generation gaming’…so what about the games that were out between then and now that were referred to as the golden ages?

The golden ages sparked a whole new era of gaming. That was the time to make, develop and expand on games that would be remembered for years to come. Most games that are released today still use the basic principle of games developed in the late 70’s and early 80’s but obviously they’re much more advanced now due to technological resources.


The golden age started in the late 70’s with its popular release of ‘Space Invaders’ in 1978 made by Taito and the introduction of Pac-Man. This game made it so big that it inspired loads of manufacturers to enter this new market. One manufacturer was Atari which released a game called ‘Asteroids’ in the same year that also made it big. Atari was founded in 1972 by a man called Nolan Bushnell, Noaln worked with Ted Dabney for Nutting Associates and created an arcade version of Spacewar which manufactured 1,500 copies but Bushnell wasn’t receiving his fair share of the profits so decided to form his own company, good thing he did to because Atari is a console every one has played on at least 50 times.

In the same era just a little further on in time around 1982 consoles that were gods in their times were released. Consoles with titles such as Commodore 64, Apple II and the ZX Spectrum and of course the already mentioned Atari 800. All these consoles were known worldwide except maybe the ZX Spectrum which was only well known in the UK, to tell you the truth I didn’t even hear about it until I did some research on it. Over the time of 15 years Apple II had over a whopping 20,000 programs making it the 8-bit computer with the most software overall.

The golden era was half way through its time when it hadn’t even started yet. New games bought new ideas and creativity to the industry, they introduced new types of game play such as scrolling shooter (Defender 1980), vector graphics (Battlezone 1980), Pseudo-3D (Pole Position 1982), laserdisc and full motion video (Dragons Lair 1983).

After Commodore 64 came Commodore Amiga and with that came their rivals Atari ST. These consoles came out in 1985 and were the new era of 16-bit machines and for most users were far too expensive to purchase until later in the years but by the time it was cheap a new competitor was introduced, yay, they called them selves IBM PC’s. Now IBM offered the same package and service at lower costs than Atari and Commodore Amiga. IBM developed a VGA (Video Graphics Array) standard in 1987 that allowed their PC to potentially get a resolution of 720 by 400 pixels using 256-color graphics. This was a huge!!!! jump from the 8-bit games, used in home computers, but strangely enough still had to tag behind consoles like Amiga because of their lack in built –in sound and graphics hardware. Even more stranger that that was the odd trend between 1989-1991 that made it known as an inferior machine. Saying that Commodore Amiga and Atari ST were near the end of their times and their reign didn’t even last longer than that of the 8-bit consoles but will always be remembered as the hosts of many excellent games. Rest In Peace…

Chapter 2 – A stroll down memory lane

Gaming goes as far back as 1947 when Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann designed a game for a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube). This was obviously a very simple game where you had to fire a missile at a target, in fact it was so simple that only the missile was drawn on the CRT and could be controlled by a few knobs where as the target you where shooting at had to be drawn out on an overlay and placed in front of the monitor. Did someone say fun…?

Even though Thomas and Estle were the first to design a ‘computer game’ there were others that were bound to do the same and that’s when a man called A.S. Douglas developed ‘OXO’ which is a graphical version of what we call noughts and crosses aka tic-tac-toe which was programmed to be used on a EDSAC, a vacuum-tube computer for a CRT display back in 1952. Douglas was inspired to make this game whilst studying in the University of Cambridge where he was writing his thesis on human-computer interaction. Now just to give you and idea about how big this whole idea of gaming was back then, here’s a picture of the EDSAC computer that was used to play ‘OXO’

Pretty big huh?

Six years later in 1958 William Higinbotham created the so called first ever ‘video game’. The game was called ‘Tennis for Two’ and was used to entertain visitors’ at Brookhaven national Laboratory in New York. Now as you would imagine this game was a big step up from the classic ‘Shoot a missile at nothing’ and ‘OXO’ and it wasn’t just because of the graphics but because of a feature called gravity. The game showed a side view of a simplified tennis court and was played by hitting the ball over the net using bulky controllers that affect the trajectory of the ball. Sadly enough it had its glory for only two seasons before it was dismantled in 1959.

We owe a lot to these fellas because without them someone else would have thought of their ideas?

Gaming for me is like having drugs, same buzz, excitement, same high but without the fear of it being illegal, matter of fact in some cases games should be illegal. For me personally gaming goes as far back as around 1990, it would be a lie to say I remember the game and I enjoyed playing it but let’s just say that anyway. The first official game I actually remember playing was Sonic the hedgehog back when it was first released in the summer of 1991 on the amazingly entertaining ‘Mega Drive’. That game for me was my night and day because it just simply made sense to say to yourself “do nothing but play sonic and when you’ve finished playing it, play it some more” for me that game will never get old. Funny how now games are like a million light years ahead of the games that I used to play back then mainly because of the graphics but games now are hard to compare to games in the early years because of their sentimental value. I also remember playing my first ever PC game which was ‘Quake’. I remember going away on a week’s trip with my middle school class mates only to return to some sort of brand new machine that gave me endless hours of entertainment. I think back then it was something along the lines of a 355Mhz Pentium and seeing how that machine could do all what I needed it to do and the computer I have now, 3.2Ghz AMD, can’t run applications and software I want it to run makes you think are computers going to get better or worse?

Nowadays I play games along the lines of ‘Need for Speed Carbon’, ‘World of Warcraft’, ‘GTA: San Andreas’, ‘Half-Life 2’ etc….and it’s because of the old school games that remind me that the games I’m playing now are also soon to become classics and the classics I’ve played before are soon to become legends.

Chapter 1 - Finally...

... got this blog up and running after meaning to do so for so long. Even though this is my first blog entry I’m not going to write about something I want to write about but rather something I was told to write about. The reason for doing so is because we’re given task every week that require discussing on a certain topic, how you do so is up to your style of writing s long as the topic is touched upon.

This week’s task includes choosing a blog and writing a bit about it whilst also expressing your feelings on blogs in general.

The blog I choose was done by a bloke called John and can be found here à http://ohdearmybrainisleaking.blogspot.com/ . After reading a choice of seven this blog entry stood out to me mainly because of the title. Now for me that’s one of the main grasping points as a reader even though it would seem unfair not to read the rest just because they didn’t have a catchy title.

John here generally talks about his next blog entry, topics he’s started writing about and not finished or topics that are finished and he’s going to post up next. You can obviously tell this guys likes his blogs J…it’s almost as if he’s got things planned and knows what order to make posts in so you can see he’s enthusiastic and posts quite often as a couple of times a week. It’s interesting to know that people prepare themselves for a small thing like a simple blog entry, you find people fall in to two types of categories and they are i) people why can write and write without thinking twice about what they’ve wrote and ii) people who have to plan they’re conversations and make sure they say what they have to say exactly the way they want to say it. You may find that you start of as ii) and then once your comfortable with the whole blogg thing you can write and it all flows.


I perceive blogs to be more personal rather than objective and by saying personal I don’t only just mean how the writer discusses something personal or something that has happened to them over the last week but also how the style of writing and language used can portray their mental side. For me blogs are similar to forums, not nearly the same, but similar and this is because it’s all you and that means you can write about anything that comes in to your head or something that just happened to you recently or a topic that makes you want to get other peoples opinions on, it literally draws out an image in your head portraying the writer and some people feel more comfortable in this environment. It’s easier to talk about a subject, whether it’s personal or general, when the person you might be talking to is not there. Some people find it easier to write what you got to say on paper and make sure it sounds right the first time because rather than trying to explain something and it saying it the way you want it after a few attempts.

I see myself as a perfectionist, now as funny as that might seem I don’t mean anything along the lines of my posts or blogs are the best …I actually mean when I write I personally want the blogg to sound just right, if something doesn’t sound right I’ll go back a hundred times until I find something that fits ‘perfectly’. Making a blogg is quite simple but at the end of the day the blogg isn’t really there for you it’s for others to read up and comment on and you want to make sure the reader is interested in what you have to say so unless you put down what the reader wants to hear or write it the way you wanted to express yourself, you won’t be pleased and that’s what some people want, to express their feelings and make the reader intrigued by their thoughts.

After reading what I just wrote it kind of sounded like I just wrote a short essay and I definitely didn’t want to do that so I guess this makes me a hypocrite? Well like I said this is my first blog entry and I have been given guidelines as to what I’m supposed to be writing about so I have tried to keep it clear so my points and views are made so it’s easy for people to see that I’ve included certain areas of discussion rather than for instance writing about a game I really love playing. Saying that ill end today’s blog entry and think I might just make an essay type enjoyable post on the game I really love playing ‘World of Warcraft’ so if anyone plays that they’d appreciate the gesture and for those who haven’t played it…prepare to be intrigued.