Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Is Swapping Video Games With Other Gamers a Better Way to Play New Video Games?

Every gamer goes through the process of buying a new video game - playing it to boredom or completion and then moving onto the next game. For some, the retail value of £40 (~$60) for most new video games makes moving onto the next game a tricky task, making gaming an expensive hobby! This article will discuss several methods of buying/getting new video games available to gamers and consider whether video game swapping sites represent the best possible value to a gamer when moving onto a new video game.

Trading in Video Games

Trading your video game in at a local store is one method - this will often mean losing over half the value of the game you paid in the first place. And the local store is probably going to sell your video game at a markedly greater price. So the trade in value they offer you isn't going to get you very much at the store so you'll still have to contribute some extra cash to get a new game. However, this process is convenient and you have your next game in hand as soon as you're in the store!

Advantages:

1. Convenient
2. Instant

Disadvantages:

1. Low trade in value
2. Hefty mark up by retailer means you pay more cash for the next game

Monday, January 14, 2013

What Makes a Good Game, and Where Will it Lead Us From Here?

Considering the variety of different games available to us, let alone the type of games; flash, Internet, computer, video game, it's really hard to be able to say what makes a good game a good game. However, no matter how hard of a question this is, many people are still asking it. I'm sure I could list a few games I love in the console world such as Need For Speed and the ever popular Tom Clancy trilogies, but just because I may like these games, doesn't mean everyone else does! Examples of good games are out there but, they don't really answer the question at hand. All in all I think for everyone, the question; what is a good game? Comes down to a few major attributes. These attributes are included in the following paragraphs, these are of course generalizations and don't count towards or include game titles, there are merely categorical opinions.
The Game Design - In some instances you may hear people talking about the design of the game, and how it does or doesn't "work" with the game. Usually when people are talking about the design they are speaking in specifics of how the game was set up, and the rules of the game or the rules of engagement so to speak. The phrase is also expended to distinguish both the game design embodied in an actual game as well as software documentation that identifies such a design. Other attributes of the gaming design include; narrative, mechanics, visual arts, programming and audio.
Game Play - This includes all player experience during the interaction with gaming systems, particularly formal games. Appropriate utilization is coupled with acknowledgment to "what the player does". Arising alongside game evolution in the 1980s, game play was applied exclusively within the context of video or computer games, though now its popularity has begun to see use in the description of other more traditional game forms. Broadly Speaking, the phrase game play in video game language is used to identify the overall experience of playing the game omitting factors like artwork and sound!
Graphics - Back in the days of the original Nintendo and even flash based games like Asteroids, the graphics were very "blocky" of course most of didn't even realize it at the time until newer consoles like SNES and particularly XBOX and XBOX 360 came out. I think the important of graphics is more steadily sought after nowadays because people want to the best. It's been argued that the differences between XBOX and XBOX 360 are different or aren't different. Just the same, more people have bought XBOX 360 than XBOX, maybe for this reasoning alone.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Popular Electronic Games - They Are Not Just For Kids Anymore

Superheroes battle monsters and space invaders in fast action games. Players take on the role of these superheroes in epic battles. In other games players race cars, boats, motorcycles, helicopters and planes against villains and even less evil opponents to win high stakes races.

Game titles such as Burnout3: Takedown, ESPN, NHL - 2K5, Silent Hill 4: The Room, Terminator 3: The Redemption, Donkey Kong 3, and, Pokemon have joined the national lexicon as kids have flocked to the lure of electronic games.

Parents, teachers, preachers and politicians, have criticized and in some cases even banned electronic games. Electronic games have been blamed for poor grades, poor conduct and even poor health. If you listen long enough, electronic games are responsible for all of the problems our young people experience today.
One thing is certain. Kids love them. They buy and play them in ever increasing numbers. Electronic games are here to stay.

People have been trying to play games on computers almost since the days of the very first computer. As early as 1950, Claude Shannon, a mathematician and engineer, believed that computers could be programmed to play chess in competition with humans. He became intrigued with the concept of artificial intelligence. In pursuit of this idea researchers and scientists designed crude games that could be played on the huge and clumsy computers of the 1950s and 1960s.


The first actual electronic games as a consumer product were built as coin operated arcade games in the early 1970s. In 1971 Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney and Al Alcorn formed the first game company, Atari. Soon after they produced the first game console and their first electronic game, Pong, as an arcade game. Pong was immediately successful.

This success led Atari and other firms to begin work on home game consoles that could be hooked to TV sets. Atari released its first home console in 1977. Soon games were put on cartridges that could be changed at the whim of the player.

By 1979, the company, Activision, was formed by former Atari game designers. The purpose of this new company was to focus strictly on game software. They decided to leave the development of equipment to play electronic games to other people. This was the first company to build a business of developing and selling electronic games software.

In a short time a spate of game companies sprang up trying to develop software for the infant electronic game industry. The result was a glut of poorly conceived games hitting the market. Consumers turned away in droves and the home electronic game industry faded hit the skids.

By the early 1980s, electronic games were being developed for personal computers. Color graphics, flexible storage capacity and general purpose processors made games much easier to play on personal computers. The game console business was all but dead.

In the late 1980s, two Japanese companies introduced a new generation of game consoles that were technologically capable of handling the new electronic games being produced. These companies were Nintendo and Sega. These game consoles had graphics capabilities that exceeded those of most personal computers. Nintendo also offered a feature that let the console record the game action so a player could pause the action of a game.

Right behind Nintendo came Game Boy, a hand-held game console. Game consoles enjoyed a resurgence of popularity during the 1990s. A new, even more sophisticated generation of electronic games was introduced by 2001. These consoles included Playstation2 and Xbox. Electronic games continued to become more complex with more action and more graphics.

Electronic games, today, have achieved art form status. They are sort of a wonderful combination of board games and comic books all rolled up into one medium with spectacular graphics and compelling audio. Curiously enough, most electronic games are similar to board games. They have one of two central themes. The first is racing and the other is capturing area or opponents. Perhaps it is because of these similarities that electronic games have begun to capture a wider audience.

As electronic games have matured they have begun to attract more mature audiences. Initially these games were primarily toys for boys. The growth area in the game industry is no longer adolescent males. It is mature adults, both men and women. Many of the most popular board games have been adapted to electronic game formats. Where youngsters hooked game consoles to TV sets, adults are playing games on their PCs, often against other players across the Internet. Grandparents are playing electronic games with grandchildren. They are also joining game clubs to play electronic games on the Internet with other senior citizens in another state or half a world away. Many of the top game companies are betting that older adults are the new growth market for the game industry.

Claude Shannon believed that computers could be programmed to play chess. In a sense he was right. He certainly never imagined chess players reaching across cyberspace as they exercise chess strategies on computerized game boards. Nor could he have imagined video poker, Internet casinos and all of the other popular electronic games people of all ages are playing. Electronic games aren't just for kids anymore.