The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Text adventure

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a text-based adventure game based on the popular novel “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. Released in 1984, published by the company Infocom (the makers of Zork games) and had become a huge success and won multiple game of the year awards and sold over 350,000 copies. It was released on the Commodore 64, DOS and the Atari ST. the game was written by Douglas Adams and programmed by Steve Meretzky.

The game was notoriously known for being difficult and not giving out instructions to the players to help them and making them kill their character and start from the beginning. The original game interface was just a simple black background, with text waiting for input from the player as the game did not give out any help to the player. In one level of the game there was an item you had to collect called the “babel fish” which required the use of several in-game items, in which the player had use them in a certain order to collect it and many players had to restart to get them in the correct order.

The game has been updated over the thirty years of it release by the BBC who have added HD art, music and built social features.

The visual style of the game is very 2D does not really show us any detail on the background we have to rely more on our imagination than visuals. The game is annoyingly difficult at times as there are hardly any hints for the player and this is what i think made this game very addicting for players knowing that they have accomplished something difficult without the aid of visual clues.

I think what made this game unique is because it is a text adventure that gives a lot to the players but also very little at the same time which back in 1984 was common practice for video games to do that, but in 2014 it doesn’t happen at all games give us all the facts and hold our hands  through the game, I think this is what makes this game unique.

Screenshot comparison:

Fable 2 game reivew

fable 2 is the sequel to the highly successful Fantasy/Adventure game fable for the original Xbox, in which it is set almost 100 years after the fist game.

plot:

The main story of Fable 2 sees you take control of the character the Hero of Bowerstone and from there you meet your sister Rose and the mysterious Lord Lucian who invites you and your sister up into his castle. Where you discover that you are a hero threatened by this, Lucian kills your sister but nearly kill the Hero where s/he is found by Theresa a “seer” from there she heals your wounds and watches you grow up, when you come of age she let’s your character go out in to the world to either get revenge on Lucian or save the world.

my opinion of Fable 2 is that it is a fun game that has given me a lot of hours of gameplay and a definition of what is good and evil in video games but the morality in the game is very black and white it tells whether you’re doing a good deed or bad deed, the game should let the player find out what has happened within the game at a later date overall this game did not live up to its predcessor in some ways, but exceeds it in some other ways including the combat system, the voice acting and the overall story.

 

 

Drama genre question

Drama is a very powerful genre as we can gain an attachment to a certain character or group of characters, in which we the audience relate to in their various struggles and emotions. Most of the time it is the plot of the film that most people connect with as it is the events within the film that people can associate with as it may remind of a real life event that has happend to them in their lives.

Drama is a very different genre sometimes as it may show a different side of events or people and it has made them look differently at events or people we thought we knew the whole story behind

an example of this would the film anonymous as it showed events that has happend but it also presented us with a “What if?” question to make us think and question what is going on throughout the film.

Blade Runner review

plot:

Blade Runner is a sci-fi thriller, set in the not to distant future where humanity has created robots called Replicants, to do the hard work that humans cannot do and not long after that the Replicants rebel killing their oppressive human masters and escaping, on earth the corporations and the police form the Blade Runners who track down destroy these replicants before they kill anyone else. This is where the main character Deckard comes in, he is a retired Blade Runner who is reinstated as a blade runner and he is tasked to track down a group of Replicants before they cause damage.

My Opinion:

My opion of the is film is that it was an amazing film for it’s time with nice visuals, the cyberpunk look and costumes used, but now it’s more of a nostalgic film for the sci-fi lover and a film you have to see if you are studying media or thinking about going for a job within the media industry. But with the long and heavy plot to it, most people now would be put off sitting down for nearly 2 hours with a plot that can easily confuse the watcher.

But i love the film, one day i would love to see it remade as many sci-fi franchieses have been in recent years.

 

anti-hero genre question

A anti-hero differs from a normal hero as they usually are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons, in a film the anti-hero might take money for being a hero or it turns out that the villian was the hero throughout the film.

an example of a anti-hero would be V from V for vendetta  as the character was branded a dangerous terrorist by the government, he fights for what is right but he ultimately puts other people’s lives at risk and only protecting the people when it suits his needs.

submarine review

Submarine review

Plot- Submarine is the story of a 15-year old boy named Oliver who believes he is widely loved by classmates, but the reality is that he is annoying and socially rejected, he falls in love with Jordana, a straight talking but prank loving misfit and Oliver goes as far as bullying an overweight classmate to impress Jordana. While this is all happening Oliver becomes ever more worried about his parent’s relationship, and with the arrival his mother’s old boyfriend arrives and complicates things, but Oliver then complicates things with Jordana and breaks up with her which he regrets doing and he tries to save his parents’ marriage.

 

My opinion- this film itself may have not appealed to me but it but it had a certain attraction that would appeal to others of my age that are into these types of films. I found that the use of colours to represent the different characters in the film, I found quite useful in some way as I used them to identify the characters in the film, I found the most the of the characters well developed, but I wish we could get to know Oliver’s father a bit better as it would’ve shone some more light on the story</p

game crontrollers

Video game controller’s blog

Xbox 360:

–           D-pad

–          Joysticks

–          Start and black buttons

–          Left and right triggers

–           Left and right shoulder buttons

–          Directory button

–          Infrared sensor

An updated version of the original Xbox controller, the 360 controller was a complete remodel and redesign which went through many different designs before the final design was chosen

Strengths: very comfortable to use, will continue to work after long periods of time, it can alert the user if the controllers charge is running low.

Weaknesses: uses up a large amount of batteries if you do not have a rechargeable battery pack, may mis-connect if another console is nearby and some buttons may stop working after a period of time

experiences with the Xbox controller has always been good, but after gaming seesion i sometimes find myself needing new batteries or my hands are stuck in the way i was holding it.

Nintendo DS:

-D-pad

-start, select buttons

-power button

-touch screen

-A, B, X, Y buttons

Strengths: very easy to use, all buttons are not too far away,

Weaknesses: the controller itself is not very portable as it is attached to console itself, may fail to work after a period of time, the touchscreen may get scratched or damaged and might not work in certain places

my experience in using the Nintendo DS controlsis that it works very very well it was never uncomfortable to use the only problem was that it required extensive cleaning on both the touchscreen and the buttons but overall a very nice controller

Keyboard:

–          num-pad

–          Directional keys

–          F1-F12 keys

–          Start menu key

–          Lettered and numbered keys

Strengths: easy to use, all the buttons are reachable, very comfortable to use,

Weaknesses: may only last a short amount of time if it is used constantly, certain keyboards may be expensive to buy, and keys may become jammed after long periods of time, not portable

my experience in using keyboards as controllers is that sometimes more useful than controllers for the Xbox or the DS, it may not be as portable or cheap, but most modern keyboards allow the user to create a Macro (instructions) within games to help with ease of use

tweleve angry men

Twelve angry men

A twelve man jury is set to begin their decision on an 18-year old boy being accused of first-degree, where a guilty verdict means an automatic death sentence, the case appears to be pretty straight forward. The defend has not got a good alibi, he claims to have lost a knife which turns up at the scene of the crime and several witnesses either saw the murder happen or the boy running away, some others heard screaming, all but one of the jurors vote the boy guilty, juror number 8 votes not guilty, first of all his reason for voting not guilty is more for the sake of conversation as all the jurors must have reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, as the story unfolds, it quickly becomes a study of the jurors different personalities, their preconceptions, backgrounds and interactions, which provides the backdrop to Mr. Davis’ convincing the other jurors

 

 

For a film made in the fifties its was quite enjoyable figuring out if the person was guilty or not suspecting one of the other characters of being guilty and one of the characters that kept saying he was guilty kept holding a picture of his son which makes me think that something happened to his son, this all gets my brain thinking and start discussing plot twists and theories about the other character which made hugely enjoyable, I like dramas that have alot of action but more about thinking if a certain person did it.