Seeing as how I haven’t written in quite a while and seeing as how I took a new volunteer role at a brand new up and coming website called Broken Joysticks, I figured I would start writing a bit more. I have recently completed and savored Max Payne 3. You all know Max, right? Well, you should. He’s the vigilante cop that has nothing to lose; and when I mean nothing to lose, I mean zero. Max, in his adult years, Max has had some major problems. The death of his wife and daughter, the loss of a partner in crime and the loss of his job. When we first meet Max, he is undercover, still working at the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). Aesir Corporation is a drug developing business that created a special type of drug to kill PTSD. The drug was named Valkyre. Unfortunately, the drug was not going the way they planned. This unfortunate failure resulted in the projects cancellation. The problem, however, arises when Nicole Horn, the head of Aesir took control of the project. Max’s wife stumbled on to these plans and was silenced.
After Max found his wife and daughter killed by the hands of a druggy, the man is sent into a spiral that will not only effect the people around him, but the world around him too. Max has a keen sense of just messing up almost any situation he can encounter. That includes blowing his cover and being wanted for murder of a DEA agent, Agent Alex Baulder. Of course, this is quite the contrary, but Max likes to play thing bogart and starts investigating more into the New York City’s problems.
After witnessing his friend’s murder, Max Payne is triggered into a killing frenzy that will amass the deaths of multiple crime mobsters and drug filled demons. After leaving the station at Roscoe Street in New York City, Max Payne decides to hit up the head of the Punchinello family, Angelo Punchinello. However, every time he gets within an eyelash of finding him, he is met with all sorts of baddies that want to murder Max. Thus, he killing streak begins. After clearing out the hotel, Max is met with a choice of getting caught by the police and deputy chief Jim Bravara attempts to apprehend him. Unfortunately, Max is a tough bastard and escapes the police.
Max continues to fight his way to up the ladder. Meeting Angelo and a bunch of crazy psychopath’s leading up to the head of a major corportation.
Max then finds his way to Aesir with an armada that could rival a small country and destroys the inner workers with help from a man named Alfred Woden. The inner circle, a group of mystery men that wanted to rid the city of the same drug and drop the politics behind them. Max takes out Nicole Horne with a M97 to a satellite toward, crushing Nicole Horne and her escape toward. Max took great pleasure, killing and crushing his enemies. He used, what he called practiced bravado in killing and maiming. The killer in Max finally had his revenge. He was finally free from his demons. Or was he? Did Max Payne really find the peace he was looking for, or was he story just beginning?
Part two will cover Max Payne 2 and why his new love could have been the death of him.
Today starts an experiment that I wanted to do for a while. Now, with a little bit of magic, I have the ability to do more with my website’s blog! In an earlier blog, posted on my gaming habits and likes. This video will take those descriptions even further and bring these new topic in logging.
Game logging, for those that don’t know, is where you record your progress of a game you’re playing. You can do it in multiple ways, but I feel that the way I do it, will be more enjoyable. Not only for me, but for the people that watch them!
In this blog in-particular, I will be playing SSX. The latest extreme snowboarding game from Electronic Arts. I have been a fan of these games for a long time now. It’s awesome to see a new HD and updated version of the game finally hit the current generation of consoles that isn’t just on Wii.
Progress
Currently, my progress in the game has me already beaten the WORLD TOUR mode. The WORLD TOUR mode is the storyline mode where you must descend 9 Deadly Decents in order to beat a rival member that ditched Team SSX! With that complete, I took to the Global Events and that where this log will take place.
You can view the entire race along with commentary on the race above.
I start out the race doing some very simple tricks and even beefing it too. The more tricks you do, the more boost you get. The more boost you get means you can go into TRICKY mode and do these insane tricks. Doing these insane tricks over and over will result you getting a duplicate trick message and halved tricky boost, which is never good.
You can also grind on rails and different parts of the landscape and the more combo’s you do, the more points you will get. This will also build your multiplier. Building your multiplier is the biggest part of getting great and big points. However, if you bail, your Tricky meter will deplete and you so will your combo and multiplier.
This happened to me quite a bit on Serenity. I think I was rushing a lot during this video as well, which won’t help getting a lot of points either. Serenity is filled with obstacles that can and will get in your way which makes thing a lot hard and possibly more fun as you play through the run. The player needs to be careful and watch the line (your field of view) and just be wary of your surroundings so that you won’t bail. The big airs were the key in getting the highest score as possible. In the video, you will also notice that also do some ground tricks like a nose slide and tail slide. These helped in keeping the TRICKY meter going. During the times in air, you will notice that I do a bunch of different tricks, flips, and rotations. These all help with getting a whole slew of points and increasing your multiplier to x20, which is the highest it can go. Beefing it was the worst thing that happened on this run. I made a lot of careless mistakes and rushed a bunch to get more points. Adjusting this will be key in getting a solid line forming and a bunch of points once the race finishes.
Result
At the end of the run, you will notice that I gained over 12,000,000 points which, unfortunately, made me not place in the race. My hope is with better board control, and trick sticking, I will be able to do a much better run in my next update.
I hope you enjoyed the video and my thoughts about my run. Along with a little preview of what the game is like if you’re looking for the game.
I have been talking about games for the longest time. I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t a gamer. I began my gaming around the age of 4 years old. I had just missed the Atari generation and was on the NES as my first video game console. I remember being a big fan of TMNT 2: The Arcade Game. It was an awesome game that combined two elements. Action packed gameplay…and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Of course, the main arcade game was better when you played at the arcade. The thing about the NES version was, was the fact that you can fight in more areas and against more areas.
Back to the point. I wasn’t a big gamer at first. When I was young, I used to play some Mario and mostly sports games. I wasn’t the Chrono Trigger or Zelda type when I was younger. It might have been due to the fact that I was younger and didn’t understand those games or it was just a lack of interest. Back then, I was more of a sports gamer. I loved playing Baseball and Basketball games back in those days and a lot of the arcade games that would migrate to the consoles like NBA Jam or NFL Blitz. When people think of video games today, they would think of games like Call of Duty, Final Fantasy or the Legend of Zelda. Back then, I would think video games was just a way to digitally play the sports I couldn’t play during the winter months due to snow or school.
When I got a bit older, I got into more video games like Zelda with Ocarina of Time being the first Zelda game that I have ever beaten. I had played the original Zelda on the Nintendo, but I didn’t know what I was doing and was really young at the time. Ocarina of Time was probably the best game I had ever played at the point and was the game that cemented me as a gamer and went on to play a lot more of a Gamers Game like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy IX and X, Conker’s Bad Fur Day and even Tetris, which is now today’s casual game.
Another type of game that I consider to be a gamer’s game was the Nintendo 64 wrestling games. This will probably be disputed by the people that I know, but I always said that wrestling games are one of the best examples of a gamer’s game that you can play. Sure, it definitely seems like product placement, but wrestling games were very good back in those days and even today. If you were a fan of the sport (sport is obviously disputed as wrestling is now known as Sports Entertainment) then the games were just as much fun as you could book matches you would like to see and if you jack the difficulty up, you could really get a feel on how tough a wrestling game could be and it was really fun, even during the frustrating times.
At this point, I was heading into high school, I was milling around with my love for wrestling and games. To this day, I cannot go without both things and some times is tough to switch between the two things and manage other aspects of life. It’s then that I decided that video games had become something that I have loved longer than wrestling and one of the aspects of my life that I wanted to continue throughout and after games like Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Call of Duty came into my life, I had decided that I wanted to be in the video game industry. The video game industry is a great industry. A casual industry that is based on creativity and social interaction. It has created games like Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Sonic the Hedgehog and of course, the greatest game of all time (my opinion) The Legend of Zelda. But, this is not to mention the current great games that have appeared over the years: Uncharted, Gears of War, Call of Duty and Assassins Creed. These are gamers game that would find back in the day. They are rich in features and gameplay, they have great storylines that gets the player pumped to move onto the next part of the game, that part of the game is the multiplayer.
The multiplayer is now a huge part of why I play games now. The social interaction with Xbox Live and PC games is the main reason why I keep coming back to games. I love to play with my friends from my own living room and when they are in their own living room. It’s fun to play against or even with people that share the same love for a game and have fun in general. This is why I love the video game industry. My favorite multiplayer game is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Back in it’s day, it was one of the funnest and feature rich multiplayer games that was available on the Xbox and PC. Today, we are playing Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and other great multiplayer games that are all rivals, but all of them are great to play and fun.
My gaming history has seen it’s ups and downs. I love platforming games. I love First-Person Shooters to RPG’s to music games. I love games and what they have given me. My time as a gamer will always take me to new places and my hope is that I can contribute any contribution that I can to help the next generation of gamers have the same experiences that I have had in the past.
There is never a good time to say goodbye to someone you always thought was invincible. It’s been one of those years hasn’t it? A world full of controversy, technology evolving and people becoming restless as we continue a downward spiral into depression. What makes it even worse, is that people are dying left and right with no remorse from God. Today, God took someone that made this world just a little bit brighter to live in and that man is Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs is the Co-Founder of Apple. He was a man that took the creative juices that only some men can contain and colored the world with the birth of computing. Jobs is the man behind the Apple Macintosh, a highly durable and likable computer that has been touted as an easy to use. While others may disagree which computer is better, the Macintosh is still a wonderful computer that is without a doubt one of the biggest sellers in Apple’s library.
Jobs not only conceive user-driven computer, however; the man also loved music. Jobs created the iPod, a real contender in the music industry that changed the game along with iTunes. Most people are more akin to know Jobs as the creator of the iPod and later the iPhone, which also changed the mobile industry. The contributions of Steve Jobs are immeasurable and may never be topped again.
Jobs was man who pride himself in being innovative. The amazing leaps and bounds this man took in his short, but meaningful life has brought people together like no one else could imagine. I am a proud owner of an Apple computer myself and once owned multiple iPhones and iPods. While I certainly didn’t agree with the man’s business model at times, I have certainly respected his reliably for producing great products.
Steve Jobs; the world has lost an amazing person and creative mind to the likes that no one may ever see again. I just want to say thank you for all that you have done and to have given me the hobby that I love more than I can ever know.
Xbox. Today, it’s more than just a game console. It is the means to entertain the world. I remember going back, to 2002 when the service (a paid online service) first launched, there were very few games to play online. Back then, that’s all you could do! There was no Xbox Live Arcade nor was there an Netflix, Hulu or Last.fm. The community of gamers that encompass the service range from 18-35 (source: http://www.thealistdaily.com/news/prime-demographics-playing-xbox-live-during-prime-time/) and games like Call of Duty, Gears of War and other typers of shooters are the main reason people are playing this games.
It astounds me how the Xbox Live service has come to pass these years. Take a look at the original Xbox video below. Can you imagine that the Xbox Live dashboard used to look like this?
Some of the first Xbox Live games were pretty cool games, but they didn’t really catch on as I believed Xbox wanted. One of those games were my favorite Xbox games Whacked!.
(Sorry for the music, getting things from Youtube is tricky sometimes).
The community at the time was brand new. They were excited for the service to come out. Microsoft even initiated a beta test that got people using the service early and to test some of the features that would be coming for the service. However, there were a lot of broken hearts during the time of the beta. Many didn’t get as Microsoft wanted to keep the field trial limited. (Source: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-954927.html)
This was the first test in building the community and it seemed as though people wanted XBL badly. When the service finally launched, people ran to their local gamestore to pick up the hardware that included a headset and a headset adapter. I was one of the first people to get the service myself; I was such a youngin’ back in those days. During it’s time, it has gained millions of users and a massive slew of features. Not to mention all of the games that have come out on the platform that use the service. DLC, Netflix, Zune and of course Xbox Live Arcade. Xbox Live has been an onslaught of digital presence since its inception.
Whether you like it or not, there has been no better presence than Xbox Live. While the Playstation Network has been a dominant presence in it’s own right. I feel that there is still a lot of catching up to do for the service.
So, get to gaming! It’s a good time to be a gamer.
If you originally visited this blog post, then you will know that it was more focused on Game Designing and what not. Since becoming a Community Manager, I have found a whole new love for our industry and why Community Management has become oh-so-important in today’s era of video games.
There are a lot of people that feel as though video games have gone over and above Hollywood. Why is that? Is it because of the interactive touch that games give to players? Is that that people can fall in love with a character or hate a character in a video game, even though the character isn’t real? The player is a few different things:
The Controller.
The Hero
The Lover
The Villian
Anything they want to be.
The player is the controller in the sense that, the player is the one that is effecting the world around him/her. In this day and age, the player can change any part of the game and effect the world around him. Games like Minecraft are games that players can really sink in to and create their own world. Filled with traps, filled with exploration and filled with wonder.
If you’re playing a story based game, the player can be the hero, the lover, the villian, the sidekick. Of course, this is up to the game design team/developers themselves to let you know who you’re going to be. In Mass Effect, you could be a glorious hero. One who is considered to be one of the greatest soldiers in space and on the fictional Citadel. In certain parts of the game, Commander Sheppard can even get into a romantic plot with one or more of the Commander’s squad mates (If I were a commander, I would probably keep it in my pants). However, you can also be the anti-hero. Be ridiculed by your choices on who you save at the end, be an asshole, be a jerk to all that is around you. It doesn’t take much to piss people off.
In a video game. The player can be anyone. This is why people are drawn to video games. It’s a new form of expression. It’s a new form of entertainment. When something is entertaining, people will come!
This is why, I, Jason Bassett will be writing about on my blog. What makes a good community and how they are drawn to certain games and how communities should be handled. I have worked with a lot of different communities. IGN, Player Affinity, schools, the Game Developers Conference and many more. I hope that you all enjoy my blog and take an interest into building game communities or help managed them!
Remember: Without the community, the industry is dead!
