Japanese Games Vs American/European Games (448 Words)

The console gaming revolution started properly in the late eighties, with the 8-bit systems from developers Nintendo, Sega and Atari. These consoles started a fierce competition that has seen the rise and fall of many companies. Such companies include Sega and Atari who now focus on games development and the latest console developers Sony and Microsoft who have now entered the console gaming market.

The Atari 7800 was developed to replace the unpopular Atari 5200. The aim was to make an affordable console that would help the company regain supremacy in the console market. This worked very well until the company was sold the Atari was pulled of the shelves to pursue other interests. When console gaming took of again due to the release of Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom), Atari re-released the 7800 only for it to fail due to Nintendo’s dominance.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES/Famicom) was the most successful console of it’s time and helped to revitalize the games industry after the video games crash of 1983. With games such as Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong the Nintendo Entertainment System was the preferred console choice in many homes.

The Sega Master System was the only console at the time that could give Nintendo Entertainment System any competition. While it eventually failed in the America and Japan. It did enjoy a success in secondary markets such as Brazil.

The games on these consoles and even the ones today still show a vast difference in game play. The earlier games were very stereo-typical to where they were released with Japanese games usually focusing on fighting with games like Mortal Kombat, and American/European games focusing on shooting side scrolled screen. The only games that seemed to appear to both regions would be mascot games such as Mario or Sonic.

One main problem with the American/European games market is the necessity for licensing. This can be a good thing in small doses but as usual, big publishing houses such as Electronic Arts always focus on repeating one successful title rather than producing new ones. This is not normally found in Japan as we see more and more different titles arriving with new and different games mechanics. New games mechanics do origin from America/Europe but it is rare.

Another major factor that is present in America and Europe is they are developers and publishers as two separate companies. This causes problems as the publishers have the say to what games are produced as they are the ones with the money.

In future games we can only hope that American/European and Japanese developers combine their best qualities to create something fantastic and will appeal to all audiences whatever they may be.

Call Of Duty 2 (489 Words)

From the developers Infinity Ward and publishers Activision, Call of Duty 2 was the First Person Shooter to buy for the Xbox 360 on launch date. Set in the environment of World War 2, with the player experiencing the lifestyles of three nations during the war Russia, United Kingdom (UK), and United States of America (USA). Call of Duty 2 offers thrilling gameplay to all its players.

Being ported from the PC version, the game as always with console/PC games came under fire on what differences they would be between versions. Fortunately as Microsoft’s next generation console the Xbox 360 had the capabilities of a high end PC, this resulted in an almost perfect if not better gaming experience.

The game has well scripted sequences that help with the story of that particular campaign. With real events being mentioned by using old archives of video and photo with voice over explanations it helps and even informs the player of what actually happened on those days even created the right atmosphere for which the player is about to play.

The developers Infinity Ward have a long history of first person shooter as many of the staff was involved with successful first person shooter games such as Medal of Honour series and Terminator: Dawn of Fate among other titles in games as well as several film titles for certain members of staff in their field of expertise. Although mainly making games for the PC since the release of the Xbox 360 and the future release of other next generation consoles from Sony and Nintendo. The company seems to be putting resources into producing games for these computers as well.

The history of first person shooters can only really have been started from GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 (Although it was really started with Wolfenstein 3D) as this was the only first person shooter game that was actually good. Although Doom and Quake were both good titles as well, GoldenEye opened the platform up to different game styles and storylines apart from the traditional Sci-Fi. As the years have past many games have been produced some bad and some good such as James Bond 007: Nightfire being bad and Unreal Tournament be superb.

Just recently we see the movie industry has recognised the first person shooter game with the movie release of Doom starting The Rock (The People’s Champion) in their ever increasing interest in game to movie port since the release of Resident Evil. Not to mention the future release of Unreal Tournament 2007 that has already caused a stir in the games industry.

As newer titles of games appear on our shelves we can only hope that we are kept on the edge of our seats with fantastic game play that puts us right in the game. With perhaps another Call of Duty focussing on a more recent war e.g. the Cold War or Gulf War to name a few.

Violence in Computer Games (440 Words)

After watching the American/Canadian documentary First Person Shooter, I found myself thinking about what violence is in our video games. I came to the conclusion that whilst there is a lot of violence in video games, I found it to be closely monitored, with age limits posted on the packaging by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

I cannot speak for other countries but is seems that the United Kingdom is trying to protect its children as best it can from violence that is distributed in games and many other medias. However, bearing this in mind, we are still finding that children can access violence via the news and even in their history lessons. Therefore, it seems to me, that the games industry has become the latest media to be used as a punch bag for political arguments.

On a more positive note, British research (the best kind) has found no link to suggest that violence in children and adults results from any video game they may play. Also, we have not yet seen any Trevor McDonald documentary on the subject.

There are many games that have been criticised for their violence, from the early fighting games such as Mortal Combat to the latest Grand Theft Auto series. Although newer games have been given a strict age licensing on them preventing children from buying them, unfortunately, there are many other ways for these games to be purchased, such as the Internet and parents.

With this is mind, we have to ask ourselves is it really the designers of these games that are the problem or should the finger be pointed at those parents who allow their children to play these games. Misguided parents who don’t understand the problems continue to give their children money to feed this so called addition, not realising the potential harm they may be doing. Another point of view that was put forward but never developed was that of friendship. The video shows the main character in question making friends with all ages, and, in events where the character lost, no hard feelings were shown by the shaking of hands. That would rarely be found in today’s sports amongst fans of opposing teams.

Even though the violence we see in computer games doesn’t affect this generation like previous generations, I am sure we will be appearing in similar idiotic documentaries on the latest new age media that we don’t like or understand. As I am sure you are all aware we do eventually become our parents (God help us!).

For those wishing to watch the documentary it can be found at the following link.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2791133924012342287&q=documentary

Bill Budge (446 Words)

As the first person in gaming history to be described as “famous”, Bill Budge is a renowned computer game programmer and designer. With two main claims to fame being 1981’s Raster Blaster – a pinball game for the Apple 2 and 1983’s Pinball Construction Set for the Apple 2 and Atari 800. Making him the best known game designer in North America in the early eighties.

Starting out by creating Penny Arcade a clone of the classic Pong game using his own custom graphics. He traded the computer game with Apple Computers for a Centronics printer. While still a graduate at The University of California, Berkeley United States of America (USA) studying Computer Science. He continued to produce other game which he tired to market commercially. Whilst teaming up with floppy disk salesmen, generating fifty percent profit for his creations he managed to receive a first pay check of 7,000 USD.

With this inspiration in mind he proceeded to create faster graphics libraries for game programmers stating:

“I wasn't that interested in playing or designing games. My real love was in writing fast graphics code. It occurred to me that creating tools for others to make games was a way for me to indulge my interest in programming without having to make games.”

While working for Apple Computer in 1981 Bill Budge became interested in writing a pinball game. Raster Blaster was created and prevented challengers for the Apple 2, such as physics and collision detection that were too much for the limitations of the processor.

After creating Raster Blaster, BudgeCo was founded with the intentions of the company handling the distribution of his games. In 1983 the game publishing arena became too much and he decided to produce games instead of becoming an entrepreneur. He was later approached by Trip Hawkins (founder of EA) to publish his games which he agreed to and later produced Pinball Construction Set. Towards the mid 1980’s he decides to leave the games industry to semi-retirement in the San Francisco Bay Area California USA.

Returning in the 1990’s working only on work he enjoyed he decided he preferred programming and developing something cutting edge. Later he decided to port his Pinball Construction Set (under the new title Virtual Pinball) to one of the hottest platforms of that time the SEGA Genesis.

Towards the mid nineties he went to work for 3DO, a computer console developer before switching to game developer, developing a game engine for the computer game Bladeforce. He remained at the company until bankruptcy in 2003 where he returned to Electronic Arts (EA) for less than two years. In 2004 he joined Sony Computer Entertainment as Lead Tools Programmer.