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Making Sense Of Those Confusing Online Xbox 360 Reviews

Posted by lapantz4less on May 26, 2008

Xbox 360 Reviews are not hard to come by, but can be hard to understand and difficult to maneuver through if you are not familiar with technical jargon. While most Xbox 360 reviewers are self-professed “tech geeks,” many gamers merely want to play a game and know what console to buy.

For this reason, I’d like to outline the basics of the Xbox 360 reviews for those of us that lack the technological knowledge we need to decipher the coding in most of the articles found online.

Price: The price of the console is something that is highly debated throughout Xbox 360 reviews found online. While some state that the price is reasonable, others disagree and say the console is actually overpriced. The explanation is simple. You get what you pay for, and shouldn’t pay for more than you need. Xbox 360 has many features that don’t all involve gaming. Owners can use this console to download music and movies, search the internet, or watch Blu-ray videos. If you intend to do all of these things, the around five-hundred dollar price tag is reasonable enough. Xbox 360 Reviewers that reviewed the product merely for its gaming capabilities found that the price tag was a little much to spend on a machine to play video games with.

Appearance: The size of the console is not as bulky as the original Xbox 360, but not as thin or “flimsy” looking as the Playstation 2. Xbox 360 reviewers brag that it fits perfectly into nearly any entertainment stand and the color of the console gives it a “cool” appearance without clashing with any home decor. The buttons on the console are also easy to find and the machine powers up effortlessly.

Controllers: Many Xbox 360 reviewers cited Microsoft’s faulty planning of the original Xbox controller as cause for concern before they tried the product, but were pleasantly surprised. It seems Microsoft has managed to repent for their prior sins by creating a controller that is easy to hold onto with easily reached buttons with good reaction timing.

Online Features: This console boasts the best of the best in online gaming, many Xbox 360 viewers claim with their numerous levels of online gaming packages that can be purchased on the Xbox home site or through the console itself. Xbox 360 reviewers agree that the online gaming is a huge selling point of this console.

All in all, the Xbox 360 seems to be worth the money to more advanced gamers, but probably not a good fit for young kids or newcomers into the video game world. But one thing’s for sure- all Xbox 360 reviews agree it is a big step up from the previous model.

For more information about the Xbox 360 Console visit: Xbox 360 For Sale

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Posted in Gaming | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Game Design Tips For First Person Shooter Games

Posted by lapantz4less on May 24, 2008

First person shooters (FPS) are one of the standard computer game genres. After the phenomenal success of Doom, many companies made attempts at this type of game. Today there are single player FPS games, multi-player combative FPS games, multi-player cooperative FPS games and all of the above come in both plot driven and straight combat forms. Some of the first person shooters are about problem solving, some are about stealth and some are about getting the BFG-9000 to create the highest body count possible.

The tasks of a game designer in this type of game are to figure out the direction the game will take, create the setting and increasingly create the tools to let players mod the game, adding their own content or even replacing everything but the game engine with an entirely different look and feel.

The game designer must wrestle with realism. This comes in two flavors. One is the type seen in America’s Army, where the goal is to replicate reality well enough to serve as a recruiting and training tool. You can’t carry a zillion weapons nor can you run across an open field at a hundred enemy soldiers and kill them with impunity. The other is basically an attempt to do the slasher genre of the movies, only more so. Blood and flesh fly from bodies with each impact, leaving stains on the walls and floors. Bullet holes are stitched into the walls and drums explode when hit. It is the latter form of realism that gets the most complaints.

There are critics that attempt to link FPS games with murder, and just about any very violent action will be examined for a computer game link. Dealing with those sorts of challenges is for lawyers and scientists, rather than game designers. The game design end of the issue is to know why you are designing to serve a specific market. If the game is intended to appeal to adults who like black comedy about gruesome death, blood and flesh is likely to be needed. If you are producing a game about hunting cartoon creatures, it would be wrong.

The game designer must determine the goals of the game. Some are puzzles, where the player attempts to learn enough to solve some mystery. Some are tactical games in which battledrills are selected, practiced and used as needed. Others are about obtaining some MacGuffin.

A growing feature in FPS games in interactivity. The classic examples of the genre featured a single player who would do everything, with computer-controlled foes. Later games provided multiplayer modes where the humans fought against each other. Then it became possible to cooperate in team play, and still later reasonable computer controlled allies were available for a player to lead and influence. Now it is normal for a first person shooter to be built around online play in at least some form, with many games providing support for both single humans to play with the computer and multiplayer online games.

In many ways the FPG game designer faces one of the more difficult challenges. That’s because they need to be able to take a genre with so many stereotypes and so much public opposition, and create something unique that stands out and gets noticed in the marketplace.

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Posted in Gaming | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »