~*~*~The Official Halo 2 is the Best Game of all Time Blog Post~*~*~

Well as we all know, Halo 2 is the best game of all time and deserves a blog post. This is because Halo 2 was the first game to feature guns. It was also the first FPS to feature vehicles and explosions, and for that matter it was in fact the first FPS of all time.

Also Halo 2 was the first game in the Halo series which is quite a respectable title to have. I think Halo 2 will always be remembered as the first game to use the Wii remote and it’s often forgotten that Halo 2 was in fact the first game to feature real time weapon change.

Contrary to popular belief, Halo 2 was the first game to feature clothed characters and was also the only game to appear on the Super Nintendo AND the Nintendo 64. It was also the first game to use Blue-Ray discs and is known to be the first game that charged its lazer.

Before you think twice about it being the best game of All Time, remember that it was the only game ever created by Nintendo. If that doesn’t persuade you, cast your mind back and remember that it was the first game that allowed you to choose your own ending. R.L. Stein would later steal the idea for his Goosebumps book series.

It was also the first game to ever feature the "Hot Coffee" mod.

Halo 2

Feel free to contribute as to why YOU agree that Halo 2 is the best game of all the time.

Life Changing or Career Building?

Hm, looks to be a challenging one. It’d seem to me that technical ability is surely a benefit so somebody who has done a degree should have the advantage over somebody diving into the industry on purely art-based credentials. After completing a degree you would have learned various skills and abilities that will save the company you’re entering time and money which they would otherwise have to spend on training. But surely you can have technically competent liberally minded arty people? That should be indisputably better than one or the other.

After having a wander ‘round the internets, it seems that having a “Relevant Degree” is desirable but not essential but pretty much everywhere seems to want good 3D and technical skills, there seems to be a worrying lack of desire for creative and art based skills.

I really think that a combination of technical/3D skills and traditional artistic ability would be the best way forward as the industry won’t move anywhere if there’s no creativity in what people are producing, and I think at where gaming is currently, creativity is lacking so this is a definite issue.

It’s a bit of a tricky situation as it seems that many developers don’t really care for the creative side of things, relying more on hyper-technical skills to get the jobs done faster and more efficiently, but “efficiency” isn’t just technical stuff in an industry that requires fresh ideas and artistic ability. Anyway I’m confusing myself a bit now so I think I’ll wrap it up here, but it was an interesting subject to have a think about, even if I've gone off the point a bit.

Sound in Games

Eaargh, I am falling behind! I’ll set things straight here and now. So! Sound in games. It’s vital, nice sound effects and a moving musical score really gives a feel of immersion and quality to a game. Sound can also play an active role in how you play, such as listening out for footsteps, gunshots or the rev of the chainsaw.

I’d say the key composers working in games would include Koji Kondo, whose Zelda songs are very memorable. Everybody knows the Zelda theme and for good reason, he’d really pushed the NES technically in terms of its musical capabilities. All his following efforts have been fantastic too, though I was disappointed with the small amount of orchestral music in Twilight Princess. Apparently Koji had pushed for more orchestral stuff but didn’t get his way.

Then there’s the Final Fantasy guy… I don’t know his name nor do I know his music very well as I don’t like Final Fantasy very much at all. I realise I’m now going to be strung by the class for stating such blasphemy but I just don’t like it! Confront me if you want my reasons! I don’t often follow game composers as they don’t tend to cross genres and franchises very often, but recently I enjoyed the work of Kow Otani. His Roar of the Earth soundtrack for Shadow of the Colossus was a brilliant epic orchestral showpiece and enhanced the experience of dangling from the beard of a 200 foot high monster even more than I thought possible.

So personally, my most memorable sonic moments in my gaming history range from those catchy little hum-along tunes like the track themes on Mario Kart to the rousing epic scores, as heard in Ocarina of Time and Halo. I actually think Halo has a very suited and cool soundtrack and the composer, Martin O’Donnell seems to have a very good grasp as to what game music is all about. He explains that the use of music in Halo is sparse because he believes that "[music] is best used in a game to quicken the emotional state of the player and it works best when used least" Wise words, methinks. He says that his soundtrack was made to convey "a feeling of importance, weight, and sense of the 'ancient'." I think the combination of voice and classical fundamentals fused with the electrical rock elements really convey this to make a soundtrack that’s got a perfect balance of ambience and excitement.

And erm… Good Times, eh? I hear it was sampled many a time by many an artist/band. Can it hold the title of Most Influential Recording of the 20^th Century? Who knows… or dares to dream...

Game Engines

I suppose game engines are the bones of the game, the frame on which to apply the muscle, the blood, the flesh! Aahahhhaa! …As far as I can comprehend, the game engine governs physics, AI interaction, interaction within the game world, rendering the graphics, the scripting, and is pretty much the basis for us artists to build upon and make it all pretty and shiny with nice character models, worlds and objects for the engine to work with.

Engines are created by developers to suit their needs for the games they desire to make. Many developers choose buy current engines already popularised by games of the genre as using a pre-made engine cuts on development costs, for example, the Unreal engine. A disadvantage is that the developer will have to work around the limitations of the engine which could be restricting on the potential of what can be achieved within the game. Having to start an engine from scratch is expensive and difficult but is often vital to create those particular and original games. Other engine technologies include additional engines for the individual purposes and needs of the game, such as separate AI or physics engines that a developer can purchase and add to their current engine.

Now, finding out about subtractive and additive game development hurt my head but as far as I can tell, they are terms simply used to describe the production of a playable space or environment within a game. In an additive environment, you start with emptiness, or “The Void”, a space in which you can create your objects and build up your level. Examples include the Quake and Half-Life engines. Alternately, the subtractive environment is the opposite and begins with “infinite solid”, which you have to carve into and extract areas to create the environment. This is how the Unreal engine works. Interesting stuff, and it makes me more eager to get my ass in gear and have a go with the Unreal Editor.

Now with next-gen engines, the key issues seem to be on engines with powerful shaders and the manipulation of light. The engine used within Crysis, CryENGINE2, is said to use subsurface scattering, where light is able to penetrate translucent surfaces (such as skin) and is reflected at irregular angles before passing back out. It makes for some scarily realistic looking stuff and I’m sure you’ll agree.

Image from Crytec's "Crysis", showing subsurface scattering

THE XBOX 360

Yes, I think it deserves a post. Quite recently, my brothers have got their hands on the console so I'll write this post as if it actually belongs to me. The 360 could quite easily be lumped into the category of consoles that bring nothing new to the gaming scene besides nice graphics, but I'd have to disagree pureley on the strength of it's online service, Xbox Live. I've never come across such intuative and helpful online capabilities before and I think it's a big step forward to bringing online gaming to the console mainstream.

The game I've been playing way more than others is Gears of War. It's a lot of good violent fun and although the single player campaign seems kinda lacking, the online multiplayer more than makes up for it. Visually, as everyone knows, it's stunning and it really helps to make the whole experience more immersive and visceral. Although I've heard many people argue that it's "just another shooter", I'd have to disagree. I think Gears' cover system has totally freshened up third person shooting, changing the action pace from Run 'n Gun to "Stop 'n Pop" has made everything more tactical and adds to the tension in those multiplayer matches as you really will get torn apart if you ignore using cover and just run in.

I'm sort of basing this whole next-gen experience soley on playing Gears of War since I haven't given any of the other games enough play time to make a proper judgement, but if there are more games like this one on the horizon then things are looking pretty positive.

Gaming culture is a pretty interesting thing I reckon. That's 'cause I'm partial to finding it more interesting than other cultures due to such a heavy interest in games. With such a vast range of genres and styles of gameplay comes a massively diverse culture.

I suppose I'm part of various game cultures all of which are all quite different, for example, there'd be the Game Art Design course, a great culture with loads of people who are passionate about games. Then there'd be my Xbox Live online gamer culture with loads of angry 12 year olds who are passionate about insulting yo' Mom and corpsehumping. All of them are individual and interesting in different ways and I think gamers have a larger variety of cultures than many other forms of media don't achieve, due to the variety and player interaction found in games.

Internet culture is another fantastic and hilarious thing and I can never get enough of the fads that periodically fade in and out of existence. I think it's safe to say it goes hand in hand with games culture as the majority of heavy internet forum users are likely to be gamers in some form or another. Internet humour is probably one of the lowest forms of comedy but nowhere else have I found so many different things that make me burst into a choking fit of girlish giggles. Yes, it actually makes me LOL, lol. I'm still searching for something to make me ROFL, though.



I would say gaming culture occupies quite a large part of my life which is why it's nice to be able to have access to the different cultures surrounding gaming and things have never been better since I've joined the course, a whole new group of gamers to play against!