Week 17: Game Engines

What is a game engine? Well I'm not entirely sure seeing as I'm just a game art student. I usually try not to think too much about whats actually going on inside the games I'm playing from a technical standpoint. But anyway I suppose it is necessary for me to at least have some kind of understanding of how these things work if I'm going to be using them in my future job as a game artist.

As I understand the game engine allows programmers to construct the game world and everthing in it by entering code. The game engine is the core software component that provides all of the underlying technologies necessary for creating a video game and therefore simplifies the process of game development. The game engine has the ability to render 2d and 3d objects and also gives functionality for collision detection, sound, artificial intellgence, animation, scripting, physics, networking and a scene graph.




There are different types of game engines, each having their own strenghts and weaknesses. The Unreal Engine 3 seems to be an effective engine to use when developing games for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. It has a number of advanced tools used for realistic lighting and impressive character models demonstrated recently in Gears Of War, which in my opinion looked ridiculously good, so good that the graphics were actually kind of distracting. It also has support from major publishers such as Sony, Electronic Arts and Square Enix.

Usually developers will use an existing game engine, but it is up to the developer to decide what type of game engine would work best for the game that they are developing. However they may decide to build their own game engine in-house, this could be because there may not be an existing engine that meets the technical requirements of the game they are developing. This is an expensve option though and many developers will decide to use existing 'proprietary' game engines because of time and money constraints.

Shadow Of The Colossus

Can't think of anything else to post about so I thought I might write a little bit about what was probably my favouite game of last year, Shadow Of The Colossus.

One of my main reasons for playing games is that they allow you to forget about the outside world and take you to to a place where anything is possible and you do things and go places that you could only dream about doing in the real world, this game does exactly that. It is probably the most beautiful game I have ever played.




Confronting a colossus is an amazing experience. I dont think any other form of media can let you experience anything quite like this. The size of the colossi is obviously their most noteable characteristic, they are massive... but we've seen huge bosses in games before. It's the design that makes them so striking, they are absolutely beautiful to look at. If I could choose a game where my name would appear in the closing credits this would be it. Working as an artist on this game would be perfect for me.

The key to this games brilliance is also in its simplicity; there are no items to collect, no skills to learn, all you have to worry about is finding the colossi and defeating them, and thats all you want to do. The only problem I had with this game was the final colossus encounter. It was horrible; the collossus looked evil rather than beautiful, it was just ugly, the arena was dark, it was raining, all in all it was a pretty miserable (and bloody frustrating) experience.

I personally think the developers should have gone in the opposite direction to this for the final colossus encounter. Throughout the game you have been destroying these magnificent creatures for the sake of one girl, and at the end of the game it would have been far more interesting if you were confronted by somehting so beatiful, and so passive that you feel guilty for destroying it just to save the life of a girl who you as a player have no emotional connection with at all. I wouls have liked a long treck up a mountain to get to it, and once you get to the peak you see a beatiful valley below where the snow has melted and there is grass and trees. The colossus itself would be huge of course, and look a bit like a mammoth perhaps, all furry and white with a big trunk and it would run as soon as you came near it.

Week 16: Gaming Cultures

From a personal standpoint my experience with video game culture never used to extend far beyond actually playing the games themselves, I read the odd games magazine, visit games websites, but I've never been to an exhibition or launch party, or even playing online.

I don't think games occupy as much of my life as they used to. As I'm getting older I feel I'mm playing games less, perhaps due to having more work to do and socialising more. When I was 13 I spent hours everyday playing with friends and trading games, and saving my pocket money ready for when the next game on my list came out. At the moment I just have one games console in my flat that I play only a few times a week; usually when my friends comes round. I am increasingly buying games through impulse rather than buying games the day they are released, nowadays I find my self spending more time reading about games and the industry than I do actually playing them.

Video game culture is growing and merging with other cultures such as the film industry. Personally I don't see how there can ever be a film based on a game that is any good because you are only taking the story which isn't the strongest part of most games. It is hard for a film to capture the emotional side of playing a video game that comes from actually interacting with. The Resident Evil films, for example, took all of the emotions like fear, suspense lonliness away the only part of the game that remained in the film was the very base of the storyline, it was essentially just a low buget action film with the Resident Evil name put on it to get people to watch it.

Although it is a bad idea for films and games to merge in this way, it seems their cultures are becoming increasingly similar. As games become more like films because of the amount of time and money spent on them, the more seriously they appear to be taken, and now there are an increasing number of games festivals, exhibitions, conferences, not to mention award ceremonys. Award ceremonys are a brilliant idea because they are a good way for developers to get the recognition they deserve for making quality games, and could also motivate other developers to follow suit. However the way some of these ceremonies are presented are laughable to anyone with a knowledge of video games (the VGA's) and are often just embarassing to watch. They really don't help video games to be taken more seriously at all, and a performance by my favourite band at last years VGA's was just uncomfortable to watch with the guitarist shaking his head disappointedly when the audience of gamers failed to move an inch when they reached the most powerful part of the song. Video games and alternative music clearly don't mix well. Video games should be classed as a separate and unique form of media rather than mix in with hollywood films and pop music.

Wii Can Do Anything

Nintendo's goal of getting the whole family to play video games sounded a little over ambitious to me at first. I really couldn't imagine my mum, dad or sister ever taking video games seriously. However, over the christmas holiday I actually found myself playing Wii sports with all 3 of them - my mum, my dad and my 22 year old sister. The thing is I didn't have to persuade them to play, I didn't even ask them if they wanted a go on wii bowling, they asked ME! repeatedly!

This wasn't the only time either, on boxing day I was playing wii bowling with my auntie, my mum and my 9 year old cousin. Frustratingly my mum won after a string of strikes - I was mortified. Since then I've also been playing wii sports fairly regularly with friends from my halls, mainly girls.

I can't see any of them trawling through games like Zelda any time soon but as long as Nintendo can keep providing simple, easy to play family games I really think the Wii can help Nintendo reclaim their place as the industry leader.






Well done Nintendo, I'm sorry I doubted you, it won't happen again.

Week 15: An Introducton To The Game Industry

At the moment the video games industry is in a state where modern games need to increase in size and quality in order to match what the system can achieve and to meet expectations by consumers. This means that games that would have costed around 1 million dollars to make in the last generation can now cost developers up to 4 million. The increase in game content means that more staff need to be hired and each given specific parts of the game to work on, and as a result developers end up paying more wages.

One way of overcoming this is to out source whereby qualified game designers from overseas can be hired to create certain assets within the game for a much lower wage than staff in the UK. So the increase in game content doesnt necessarily mean more jobs for game artists in the UK. This also means that artists that would once be creating and designing large areas within a game may now only be given the task of creating just one small set of objects like ammo boxes, trees, so their jobs become less satisfying. Also artists are now required to work much longer hours because of the increasing amount of work needed to be done before the deadline.

For someone like myself who hopes to become a game artist the prospect of working long hours making boring assets for a low wage is off-putting. But hopefully having enough experience can lead to more rewarding jobs further down the line such as art director. and anyway having a job in what i would describe as one of the most exciting industries would be rewarding enough for me, even if the job itself isnt quite as exciting.

Twilight Princess

Probably the best Zelda game so far, well... based on the other four Zelda games I've played. It's not perfect though, there were perhaps a few too many dungeons and not enough side quests, I'd like to have spent more time doing missons around Hyrule rather than just going from dungeon to dungeon. But apart from that it was bloody brilliant, good storyline, very satisfying combat and the last hour of the game will probably be one of my most memorable video gaming experiences.



It also has one of my favoutite video game characters ever- Midna; an impudent little imp-like girl who accompanies you throughout the game. I spent the first part of the game convinced she was up to no good, but I still felt sad when I had to carry her debilitated body to princess Zelda after Zant messed her up after the third dungeon. A nice example of the significance of establishing emotional bonds with NPC's that I talked about in a previous post.