Mortal Kombat 9

Here is the first video I saw of the new Mortal Koombat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_MqZn7E-mk&feature=player_embedded


I found it on one Bulgarian Gamers Forum and because it was "leaked" and there was no official information about this project, no1 of us could say if it was a movie or a game. A few days later, on E3, the game was announced.


This vid is the first trailer of the game

http://kotaku.com/5560010/the-new-mortal-kombat-trailer-is-pure-brutality

and here is a really INSANE GAMEPLAY demo with one of the Dev's explaining about the game on the background

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRS3TbwTaus


I was about to write, how this game is returning MK ot it's original 2d Roots, how the game is pretty much made with nostalgia of the old school MK games in the 90s, but the Dev ( in the last video) explains it quite good :))

Despite of "tons of the good old stuff", there are a few new things like "the X-Ray moves", which show how your hit/attack deals internal damage in the body of the enemy ( crushing bones etc. etc. ) ...

Just watch it!

One thing I'll say is that THIS WILL be the game that will put MK back on the stage of fighting games with SF and Tekken !

Oh I almost forgot ... this will be "M" rated game ...

Cheers,
Methody

Racism in Virtual Worlds

The reading for today's class got me thinking about racism in game communities more. We've already mentioned the racism against Koreans due to gold farming behaviors, but I don't know if many people know much about the attitudes towards Brazilians in many mmorpgs.

Brazilians are frequently depicted as stupid beggars with a pack mentality, and that despite their perceived stupidity, I have heard or read a lot of anecdotes about how they've cunningly cheated other players out of items or in-game money, etc..

Here's a comic that floats around the internet a lot with a lot of the depictions that show up frequently. ("BR?" standing for "Brazilian?" and "huehuehue" is considered to be a distinctively Brazilian way of writing laughing; ie: "hahaha" though I've never actually seen it used myself)



What do you think of in-game racism? Have you encountered it? What do you think the logic of it is? I think it's very interesting that real-world prejudices can carry over to situations that are in theory unrelated, as in "Bow, nigger," and I am also fascinated that new prejudices can be created based solely on in-game behavior, as with gold farmers and Brazilians.

Portal 2 @ E3

Portal 2 @ E3

Game's Influence to Mind

In the last class we have talked about how it's not true that game makes people violent. But it is undeniable that game does influence our mind, especially to young gamers.

Humans are vulnerable to influences. Where, when, how long, and with whom you spend time with are the factors that shape you. It is a common knowledge that kids are faster learners, therefore, the easiest ones to be influenced.

Now, this game may influence you to be violent, or develop a hero worship for Amaterasu and make you worship deities in the end.

When I was young, I really like to play games and watch anime. People said that I was not a good girl--selfish, insensitive, etc--and they are right. And as I get older, I finally realized why I was not good.

Some characters from the games are badass characters and of course, they do badass things to prove that. As a kid, I knew those things are bad, but after a while, I begin to think that it is okay to do those bad things. Why? Because those characters do it, and it makes them look cool! And it's worse when those badass characters are the main character! As a kid, I just innocently tried to follow their example, and found out in a hard way that reality doesn't work that way.

Years later, I took a look again at those games and animes. I was surprised that some things are not the same as I remembered. Those characters that looked super cool before are just another human with bad and good qualities (some times just too plain bad and good). Strip them away from their, for example, super power and you'll find another human, that you may like or not like.

The point is, that children have limited ability to understand things completely because of lack of knowledge and experience. Violent games like Counter Strike, Call of Duty, etc don't make people violent right away, but they're not making good influences to children, assuming that they do play it for a long time.

image source: http://somoswii.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/mejores-juegos-de-wii-del-2008-segun-wiifanboy/

E3 in six hours!

Okay gamers. E3 will be streaming their live show at 6 am this morning if you are so inclined.

[Yao]Dragging games into next level of "Interaction"

Talking about the wave of WEB 3.0, what is most popular amongst all new innovations ? The answer will probably be: Open Platform.

Nowadays, companies provide all sorts of Open Platform allowing designers to integrate their own vision with the corporation, such as Facebook Developers, Google API, Google Appengine, and even MIXI considered as the most conservative SNS, launched APIs. In the cellphone industry, there is iPhone SDK, Google Android SDK and so on.

So how about games ? What can we customize right now in games ? By far, there are only "illegal MODs" such as those in

Counter Strike(Source Game Engine),

Warcraft(Blizzard),

Unreal Tournament.

Etc

....

And there are few Open Source games which allows programmers to create their own games,

Open Arena (Quake III Engine)

Super TuxCart

Glest

Etc

..

There has been nothing like an API sort of stuff ever launched in games, well technically, there has been things like Map Creator Pack in Starcraft and Warcraft and also in other games. But there has BY FAR, never been any Map Editor or things like that allowing users to customize features inside the game engine itself (Legally, meaning without risking the stability of the program itself by Hacking or Monkey Patching or Reverse Engineering the Complied Program).

However, in a few months, there will be such thing coming soon, which is the Starcraft 2 and its almost "all mighty" map editor. The map editor is so powerful, so that you can even create FPS, or Car Racing Games with the map editor itself.

To See for yourself, Please Click here.

So, what really did the Galaxy Editor do ?

It liberated almost everyone from the original game plot, and offered us freedom to create our own game, which is absolutely evolutional for normal users, though this is nothing too fancy within the community of Power Users and Super Users, for Open Source Games have been years in the community.

What I really think is that did the Galaxy Editor REALLY gave freedom to users ?

What is the difference between the Galaxy Editor and Open Source Games.

And at last, I think someone will probably mention Spore in the discussions. I personally think it is sort of a failure towards the "openness" of the game, but still a nice try.

Source: The Power of the Galaxy Editor:http://online.cloudyama.com/blog?id=3&lang=en