Criteria 2- Comparison of two different video games

Just Cause 2


Just Cause 2 is an open world and action adventure game and it is a single player game. The main character uses gadgets like the grappling hook which allows the player to grapple to anything and the can use it to grapple on to cars, planes, boats and helicopters. When you grapple to a vehicle you can open your parachute at any time to glide around. You can jump off a mountain or out of a vehicle from a great height and sky dive and then open your parachute so you don't die.




Just Cause 2's cover shows a lot of action. It is platinum because it is one of the best selling games of its time. It shows the age rating in the bottom left corner. They used red and white because red represents blood, violence and resistance and the white shows surrender. The words in black and red are big to show adrenaline action and intense gameplay. 


The objective of the game is to over throw the president of Panau who is called Pandak "Baby" Panay who is smilier to the former president of North Korea Kim Jong Il from Team America because of all the strict laws and propaganda.









Little Big Planet 2


Little Big Planet 2 is a 2.5 D, puzzle-platform and sandbox game. You can make your own level and post it so other players can play it and they can then rate it good or bad. The visuals of the game is arts and craft because the main character is a sackboy and has a lot of stitches on it.

Little big planet 2 is different to Just Cause 2 because in Little big planet you can create your own level and change what the main character looks like. In Just Cause 2 you cannot make your own level but you can upgrade the main characters weapons,cars, boats, planes, quad bikes, motorbikes and health.





The graphics of Just Cause 2 is realistic for that time of year and they made the main bad guy look all most cartoony and they did that so it would add a bit of comic to the game. The engine they used is Avalanche Engine 2.0 and Havok (physics engine). Havok (physics engine) has been used for Alan Wake, Battlefield 3, Binary Domain, BioShock, BioShock 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Sleeping Dogs and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent. 

The graphics for Little Big Planet 2 are cartoony and arts and crafty. The engine is Media Molecule or for short Mm and it has been used for all the Little Big Planet games. They have made the game look like a animated TV series. 

The story of Little Big Planet 2 is Players continue Sackboy's journey after the events of the first game and the portable version are brought to an end. An inter-dimensional vacuum cleaner called the Negativitron appears over the skies of Little Big Planet and begins to suck up its inhabitants, including Sackboy. Larry Da Vinci  the leader of a semi-secret semi-organised group known as "The Alliance", comes to Sackboy's rescue, saving him from the Negativitron. The organisation is dedicated to battling with the Negativitron and defeating it before it destroys Craftworld. After Sackboy passes the tests in Larry's Hideout, he tells him that they must get to Victoria Von Bathysphere's  Laboratory, since she has built a Sackbot army for the Alliance.
The cover for Little Big Planet 2 is colourful shows some of the costumes your sackboy can wear. It shows the age rating and the title is big and easy to read and it appeals to a family audience. It also says its only for PlayStation and you can use the PlayStation Move as well. You can play both games in different languages such as English, Dutch, french, Spanish and German. The cover also has stickers in the background and the main title is a sticker itself. It also has buttons on the globes and the whole theme of the case is arts and craft and it looks like everything has been hand made. For example the sackboy has been knitted and the earth has been sowen together. By making it arts and crafts it really appeals to the family audience and it is a really unquie style to use and I haven't seen it on any other video game case before. 

Criteria 2 and 4

Review of Batman Arkham City


The game is called Batman Arkham City and it is a sequel to Batman Arkham Asylum and and the genre is action-adventure. The release date is EU October 21 of 2011, AU October 19 of 2011 and NA October 18 of 2011. The age rating is 15+ and the publisher is Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and the developer is Rocksteady Studios.  It is been released for PS3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Wii U and OS X.
The objective of the game is to stop Joker and Hugo Strange and also get the cure of Joker because he has poisoned Batman. The reason you have to stop Hugo Strange is because he knows his identity and he activates Protocol 10 which is meant for Batman. The riddler gives Batman riddles to solve which will save innocent civilians but these are side missions.

The gameplay is really amazing because the combat flows nicely and its not a stop start fighting game because when you fight its more free flow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd45u9EYNrc


If you are a beginner gamer it has an easy difficulty and if you are a casual gamer there is a difficulty normal and if you are an expert gamer there is a difficulty hard. The movement of Batman and Catwoman is good they move with ease and Catwoman can reach places Batman cannot reach. There are collectibles to collect which are riddler trophies which go towards tracking down The Riddler.




You can play as Catwoman because she has her own story in Arkham City and  once you have completed the game you can switch between Batman and Catwoman and certain parts of the game.
There are different outfits you can use for Batman and Catwoman but you can only use them after you have completed the game or if you replay the game in + mode which is a hell of a lot harder. It gives you all the gadgets and upgrades but takes away the symbol which tells you to counter.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0kxJiHGP8Y 


The graphics are really good and the speech is in sync with the movement of the mouth. The engine they used for Batman is Unreal Engine 3. The graphics are good because the game looks realistic and when its a cut scene and theres a close up of batman his emotions look real and are perfect.
 This engine has been used for Gears of War franchise, Unreal Torment, I am Alive, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell franchise and Bioshock Infinite.

It is still using the challenge mode from Batman Arkham Asylum which you can fight of a wave of enemies until you lose all your health. A predator mode which is where you stealthy take down enemies as fast as you can. For both these game modes you can play as Batman in any one of his suits and the same for Catwoman. At the end of a challenge you are given your score and it goes to a leaderboard where you can see what over players got in the challenge. You can also play as Night Wing or Robin if you buy the pack online and you can chage there suits as well. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSps4fncNxI
There is also a Dlc for it which is called Harley Quinns Revenge and for most of it you play as Robin. Harley Quinn's Revenge, the final chapter in Batman: Arkham City that adds more than two hours of original gameplay. Harley Quinn's Revenge sends players back into Arkham City to face their final challenge as they interchange between playing as both Batman and Robin. Utilize each of the characters' unique combat and investigative skills to uncover Harley's vengeful plan and shut the gates on the urban mega-prison forever. In addition to experiencing a new storyline, fans can explore new environments and face-off against Harley's all new gang of thugs.
There are side missions to do like AR Training which is where you have to file through rings around Arkham City, acts of violence which is where you have to save political prisoners from the thugs. 


Overall the game is really good and has a really interesting and exciting story and I give it a 9.5 out of 10.

Assignment 2: Criteria 2 and 4

Group Review:
Ciaran McMillan
David Price
James Scholfield
John Tamin

Review of Tomb Raider 2013 Review
The review of this game shows that the game is called Tomb Raider, it is rated 18 because of the graphical scenery and also the foul language used, it’s a third person/action adventure and platform game; released on the 5th of March on the PlayStation 3, Windows PC and Apple Mac and also the Xbox 360. The review mentions that it is developed by Crystal Dynamics and uses the Modified Crystal Engine, this game was published Square Enix, although it doesn't really explain about the systems requirements.

The review doesn't explain that much detail about what the objective of the game is and what you have to do, but it does however explain that you have to survive the island that the character has crashed into with a group of other survivors. Also mentions that both the player and character don't have their first kill in the game until like an hour through the game play and that when it happens it is an emotional scene...and that pretty much after that the player is experiencing more of a killing spree, much like how they would in the original tomb raider games. This gives both the player and character a much easier way to survive the island by killing enemies, who are mercenaries, and killing animals that attack and try to kill the character.

The review states about the multi-player mode in the game but it also mentions that it is its downfall, only because it doesn't feel the same as a multi-player based game would feel like and that it isn't as good as the story, but it does say that the multi-player is fun though to play...this part of the review seems a little bias as the reviewer is only one person, but they do have a fair point on their review because the game isn't really a focus on the multi-player, it is mostly focused on the story itself showing how the Lara Craft became the Lara we know to this day...

The reviewer expresses their feeling on the game saying that it is "well written, sympathetic, exciting; beautiful and just incredibly well made" and that the feeling in the campaign is that you get to feel as if an actual explorer and never losses touch on the original character. They go on about how the game's controls are easy to use and fun to play and that it's graphics in the game are well designed and created. They don't go into detail about the graphics, sound nor quality but they do mention that it it's "incredibly made" and the sounds are as how they would feel in the original tomb raider games.

The review does go on about after the completion of the campaign, will the game still be playable??. They talk about the collectibles in the game that you can go back on missions to get and also that it will be fun to play it on different levels of hardness to get more unlock able contents on consoles. so that will be achievements for Xbox and trophies for PlayStation. They talk about the multi-player mode yet again and say "At best it's passably entertaining, but I'll be surprised if anyone is still playing it in a couple of months"

Now the review doesn't say anything about related games with same sort of genres but it does mention "It is a greatly successful origin story, a series reboot that feels both authentic and hugely exciting" so this shows that the review does mention something about a new franchise plus its predecessors, from a certain point of view.

The reviewers overall opinion on this game is "Tomb Raider is well-written, sympathetic, exciting, beautiful and just incredibly well-made. The single-player rarely makes a mis-step, and though Lara's quick transformation into a hardened killer seems at odds with the narrative at first, the game quickly moves past it. It is a superb action game that brings a new emotional dimension to one of gaming's most enduring icons, and repositions her alongside Nathan Drake at the top of gaming's action-hero hierarchy" and gives the game a rating of a 9.1/10 which I believe is a pretty much fair rating being that the multi-player does lack structure.

5 most important things that a good game review should have in it

Blog – Tomb Raider

Gameplay, storyline, characters, characters background, release date, fair review.

5 potential problems – biased, bribed, not playing the game all the way through, If the reviewer was too negative or too positive

Criteria 4

To show you are able to develop responses to media products.

Narrative


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ddd418Sj-A

I have chosen to do Aliens colonial marines.


It is a section of the intro.
It is explaining that a lot of colonial marines have died but they don't know what killed them. It is all saying the colonial marines have to go to a ship which is sending a SOS and see what happen.
Colonial marines are the main agents in the section I know this because they are the characters you play as in the game.
It is similar to the Alien films because it takes place after the events in Aliens the second film in the franchise.
The game has flashbacks of the ship sending the SOS signal and flash forwards of the colonial marines getting attacked by the aliens. It all so has present time where the general is telling the other marines about what their missions are.
It is broken up because some bits are in the past, present and future and there is a single narrative.
There is a voice over of a general speaking but you do see him in the trailer.
Yes there are clear hero's and villains in the intro because the intro is portraying the marines as the hero's and it shows the aliens as the villains.
It is a bit of both overt and covert because it explains who the enemies are and what the players mission is going to be but there is a bit of the trailer which is a bit of a mystery because they bring back a survivor but they don't know who he is.

Semiotics
The signifier of the rose is it has a strong smell and pretty. It means romantic and love. The connotation is a rose has been used in wars and in films. Lancashire cricket club use a rose.

The signifier of Bioshock is it can be related to films like Bodyguard, Safe and Children of men. The two hands reaching out means that the two are getting drawn away from each other. It also looks dark and spooky which signify horror, tension and dramatic game with dark themes in it.




The signifier of Lego Indiana Jones is its related to Lego and the Indiana Jones franchise. It show adventure and action. It can also be related to Lara Croft Tomb Raider,  National treasure, Pirates of Caribbean and the video game Uncharted because they are all to do with treasure hunting.

























The signifier of the peace sign is it means peace and its a hand gesture. Winston Churchill is famous for using it during the World Wars. In most countries it means peace. Peace has been used by the hippies in the 60s because they were against war. In some countries peace means different things which are insults like the finger, the longbowman salute, the forks and the two-finger salute.










The signifier for Alan Wake is its dark and spooky. Can bee related to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and X Files. The woods mean that its a creepy place and something bad will happen. The black and ghostly colours indicate it is a horror, dramatic and dark game. The character looks like he is holding a gun and a torch which makes people think that there is going to be a lot of danger and not a lot of light in the game. It also adds more mystery to the game.

Understand how media audiences respond tp media products

Effects theory
Explain in your own words what the effects theory is?
Effects theory looks at how media texts influence those who consume them particularly  how negative messages for example sexual and violent content can affect the most vulnerable of audience groups.

Explain in your own words what the hypodermic needle model is going examples?
The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change.

Several factors contributed to this strong effects theory of communication which are the fast rise and popularisation of radio and television he emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda.Hitler's monopolisation of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party

Explain what the cultivation model is and what is meant by dissemination. give at least one example where desseniation to violent gamers has been mentioned in the media in relation to violent crime?
Finish for homework.

Cultivation is a social theory which looks at long term effects of video games and how people spend more time in the video game world than in reality. Dissemination is communication which has a sender and a receiver. The sender sends information and the receiver collects it and then processes it and sends it back to the receiver. In Alabama a teenager called Devin Moore killed 3 people because he was playing Grand Theft Auto 4 and he had no criminal history but then snapped.

Which factors influence whether you buy a game or not.
Advertisement
Word of mouth- friends recommendation
Expert reviews- on gaming in magazines
Look at advertisement for that game and explain why they might  want you to buy the game how are they influencing you?
Then discuss the game with your friends- how might this influence you what do your friends say? Is it positive or negative?
Read a selection of expert reviews of the game, what do these tell you. how do these influence you?
Finally which of the 3 factors has influenced you the most and why/




I have chosen to do Hitman Absolution


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzTHY3eiWVs

The trailer for Hitman Absolution shows Agent 47 sneaking around and stealth killing enemies and disguising him self to get passed guards. It really appleals to me because I like stealth games and I have been a big fan of the Hitman franchise and all so in the trailer it shows hitman's new skills which are like blending in with the environment and point shooting. These skills will make the game even better and the graphics are very realistic which all of this would appeal to Hitman franchise fans. It has all so taken the company 5 years to make the next Hitman game and now they show a trailer of the new Hitman game which will make all the Hitman franchise fans excited.
A few of my friends say it looks good and they would by it but some of my other friends do not like it because it is not their sort of game they would play.

http://uk.gamespot.com/search/?qs=hitman+absolution
On Gamespot they gave Hitman Absolution a 7.5 and said "The best missions are open-ended and allow you to be stealthy or shooty

Stealth game play is tense and challenging

Excellent production values instill a strong sense of place". "Hitman: Absolution is an intense mix of serenity and obscenity, its foul-mouthed criminals and grubby henchmen adding a layer of thick grime to otherwise quaint small-town streets and warm desert sands. Returning antihero Agent 47 is a ruthless contrast to both the beauty of his surroundings and the foul crooks he butts heads with; he's a steadfast and well-dressed killer who finds pleasure in careful planning and clean kills". 

http://www.ign.com/games/reviews/ps3?sortBy=reviewDate&sortOrder=desc

On IGN they gave Hitman Absolution a 9 which is a really good rating and this is what they said about it. "For a game built upon the concept of slipping by unnoticed, Hitman: Absolution is certainly doing the opposite. It’s standing conspicuously amongst today’s fad-driven modern shooters and me-too multiplayer hopefuls, middle fingers extended. A slow-paced, single-player focused sneak ’em up, Absolution looms in stark opposition to many of the most pervading trends in gaming today". "Above everything, Absolution is a game that wants you to experiment with it. It refuses to be rushed through, rewarding brains over brawn. It wants you to spend time inside it, methodically picking your way around and discovering morbid new ways to snuff out your unfortunate marks. Like Blood Money before it, your targets here can be executed in a host of ever-so-slightly sickeningly different ways"

These reviews influence me a bit because of the rating the game got and goes on about how it compare stop other games out now and tells you a bit about the story of the game and tell you a bit about the leaked dlc which is coming out soon.

Of all 3 factors the advertisement has influenced me more because it is a visual and shows game play and tells you a bit about the story and it keeps the viewers anticipated and specially me.

Uses and gratifications
This is opposite range to the effects theory. which means they see the audience as a active consumer instead of a passive consumer.
During 1960s people started to make choices about how and why they consumed media text. Rather than being a passive mass. The audiences are made up of individuals who consume media text for different reasons.

Diversion- Escape from everyday problems and routines.
Personal relationship- Using media for emotional and other interactions.
Personal Identity- Constructing their own identity from characters in the media text and learning behaviour and values.
Surveillance- Information gathering e.g educational programmes, weather reports, financial news and holiday bargains.

Information
Finding out relevant events and conditions
Seeking advice
Satisfying curiosity and general interest
Learning
Self education
Confidence through gaining information
Personal identity
Finding reinforcements for personal values
Finding models of behaviour
Identifying with collaboratives
Gaining insight on oneself

Integrations and social interaction
Gaining insight into circumstances of others
Identify with others a sense of belonging
Finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
having a substitute for real life companionship
Helping to carry out social roles
Enabling one to connect with family, friends and society

Entertainment
Escaping or diverting from problems
Relaxing
Getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
Filling time
Emotional release
Sexual arousal

Think of examples of instances where the following have applied to you when playing games.
Diversion- Escape from everyday problems and routines.
Personal relationship- Using media for emotional and other interactions.
Personal Identity- Constructing their own identity from characters in the media text and learning behaviour and values.
Surveillance- Information gathering e.g educational programmes, weather reports, financial news and holiday bargains.

Diversion has occur ed in my life when I'm at home and my mum is on the computer or watching T.V I would go on my PS3 then and escape from ever day things and just play on my PS3 for hours. When someone is watching T.V I would go on the computer for a bit and go on social networks or play games online. I play Hitman Absolution because it help me escape from everyday problems because it is a stealthy game which I like and I have all was been a big fan of the Hitman games.


Personal relationship- I play online with friends and meet new people in a game and I am interacting with them by playing the game. A game I mostly play online is Assassin's Creed 3. I interact with new people and friends by sending them messages or talking to them over a microphone.


Personal identity- When I was younger I all ways wanted to be Spiderman from the films and animated series.

Surveillance- I look for holiday bargains with my mates for a lads holiday.

Reception Theory

While uses and gratifications research is concerned with why people use media, the approach often referred to as ‘reception theory’ focuses on what people see in the media, on the meanings they produce when they interpret media texts.

The nationwide study

In 1980, David Morley conducted a very detailed audience study, observing how many different social groups read the same media text. He discovered that there are three main types of reading for any media text:

Dominant (or hegemonic) reading – the reader shares the programmes code (it’s meaning system of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions) and accepts the preferred reading.

Negotiated reading – the reader partly shares the programmes code but modifies it in a way which reflects their position and interests.

Oppositional (counter hegemonic) reading – The reader does not share the programmes code and rejects the preferred reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of interpretation (e.g. A feminist reading of a ‘lads’ magazine).

Think of at least one example where your reading of a game has been in line with the Dominant (or hegemonic) reading.

 I agree with the video game The Saboteur because it based on a true story and nearly everything in it is what really happen.

Think of at least one example where your reading of a game has been a Negotiated reading .

I do agree with bits of the story for Medal of Honour Warfighter because you play as the good guys but it is a bit one sided because you don't get to see the side of the bad guys story which would be a good take for a game.

Think of at least one example where your reading of a game has been an Oppositional (counter hegemonic) reading .

A game I disagree with is Call of Duty Black Ops 2 because it is set in the future where all the soldiers have futuristic weapons and there are zombies in it which aren't real. The story is too far fetch and very unbelievable because there are bits in the game which just wouldn't happen.


Understanding genre
What kind of games are GTA games?
Free roam, sandbox, RPG, action and adventure. Games are developing into more than just one type of genre.

We classify things by comparing them to cultural norms.
We can classify people, objects or media text.  We classify people by what they wear and what music they listen to. All so by what games they play.



The process of classification is never easy but we engage with it all the time. It is a way of helping us make sense, meaning and order out of what would otherwise be a world of chaos.




We apply the same logic to media texts, we classify them by thinking of their similarities, we label games as action/adventure or survival horror. We do the same when listing to music or watching films.



Objective - to develop your understanding of identification of generic types and to apply this to examples.
What to do -
Pick between 3 -5 games.
For each game think through the narrative
structure, how you control your avatar and how
the game ‘handles’.
Then work out how it fits into
different genre ‘boxes’ by thinking about the key reference
points of time, location, iconography and how you actually
play the game. Use your notes on classification and genre to
help you do this.

Games I have chosen are:

Far Cry 3

Darksiders 2

Hitman Absolution

Call of Duty Modern Warfare

The story of Far Cry 3 is Jason Brody is on vacation with a group of friends on a tropical island in the Pacific when they decide to take a skydiving trip. But they all land in different parts of a pirate-infested island, and are taken prisoner by a pirate lord named Vaas. Vaas plans to extort ransom money from their parents, then sell them into slavery. With the help of his older brother Grant, Jason breaks out of captivity, but Grant is killed in the escape. Jason is rescued by a man named Dennis, who is part of the Rakyat, the island natives who suffer under the boot of the pirates.

Far Cry 3 is a variety of genres like FPS, action, adventure, free roaming, stealth, co-op and multiplayer. The location is a tropical island in the Pacific and it is set in 2012. You can upgrade the main characters abilities by doing mission ans side quest and for hunting and killing enemies. The player can hunt a variety of animals on the island and then cut open the animal and take its lungs and skin which can be used for upgrading loot bags, weapon bags and ammunition bags. The player has to take back outpost which are been controlled by pirates. When the player liberates the outpost they are rewarded with xp which will help the player level up. Far Cry 3 is similar to the film Beach.


Darksiders 2 is hack and slash, action/adventure, action role playing game.
Darksiders 2 II takes place parallel to the previous game. In the prologue, it is revealed that the Four Horsemen are the last of the Nephilim, fusions of angels and demons who waged a bloody war on the rest of creation. In order to preserve the balance of the Universe, the Four, who had grown tired of the conquest, received incredible powers from the Charred Council in exchange for slaughtering the rest of the Nephilim. The Horseman Death trapped the souls of his fallen brethren in an amulet, earning the title of Kinslayer among others.
While War is charged with his crimes, the horseman Death, sure that his brother is innocent, sets out on a personal mission to erase his brother's 'crime' and resurrect humanity. He first travels to the Icy Veila dimension between the three kingdoms of Heaven, Hell, and Earthto seek the Keeper of Secrets for proof of War's innocence and the way to restore Earth.


Hitman Absolution is a action/adventure and stealth game. In the aftermath of Hitman: Blood Money, Diana Burnwood, Agent 47's handler with the International Contract Agency, suddenly goes rogue, carrying out a catastrophic sabotage that includes publicly exposing the Agency. The Agency reforms under agent Benjamin Travis; Travis contracts a kill order on Diana, assigning 47 to make the hit and bring Victoria, a teenage girl in her care, to the Agency. Shooting and wounding Diana in her home, 47 hesitates before killing her, and she asks 47 to take a letter she wrote and keep Victoria from the Agency.



Call of Duty Moder warfare is a First Person Shooter (FPS).  In 2011, a civil war has broken out in Russia between its government and ultranationalists who seek to restore Russia to its Soviet-era glamour. Meanwhile, a separatist group lead by Khaled Al-Asad seizes power in a "small but oil-rich" country in the Middle East through a coup d'état. Al-Asad is ruthless and has extreme anti-Western views. Afterwards, the United States invades the country. In the afternoon of the second day of invasion, a platoon of USMC 1st Force Recon is sent to capture Al-Asad. The platoon attacks a TV station in which Al-Asad was thought to be broadcasting live and then engages in urban combat in an unnamed city south of the capital. In the meantime, the British Special Air Service conducts two important operations, one on a ship in the Bering Strait and one in Russia. Intelligence gathered from the two missions indicates that Al-Asad may be in possession of a Russian nuclear device.