Greetings fellow crab-people. This month marks my second month at Full Sail University, one of the top schools in video game design and development. It has been my dream since the days of the Super Nintendo to create video games. Of course, back then I assumed we’d still be playing the Super Nintendo to this day. While the technology has changed, my dreams and ambitions have not.

Many people tell me that it is futile to go into the industry as only 8-20% of video games are ever profitable. To them I say: so what? So what if my game isn’t bought by the thousands? So what if I don’t make a dime because of pirates? So what if you think my game doesn’t deserve its price? People are still guaranteed to pick it up and enjoy what it has to offer; and to me, it feels better knowing that the game I helped to create is being labeled as “fun” by those that picked it up and gave it a shot. Yet still, I hear those that call themselves my friends tell me the horror stories of life after graduation. “I have friends that graduated from there a year ago and they still don’t have a job in the industry,” or “Have fun being poor since you’ll never be hired.” These attempts at shattering my life goal are futile, for nothing can stop me as I won’t let it. Hell, I’ve even suffered the same attacks from my own father, as he asked me at 14 years-old, “Son, tell me what you wanna do when you grow up, and don’t say any of that ‘I wanna make video games’ crap.” To these people that have tried to hinder my dreams of plugging in code and testing for bugs, I say “FUCK YOU!”

Now that I am finally at the only school I feel I belong, life just seems to make sense. Before venturing four states away to what I now call “home,” I felt like an outcast. Sure my friends and my younger family enjoyed video games, but I could never talk to anybody about what I think should be changed about them. Never before could I tell someone about why this particular game had this particular art direction, nor could I speak about why the developers wanted to craft their levels in this particular way. I find it really strange that out of all my friends that would play various types of video games, the only one that I could have such a conversation with was my just-getting-into-video games girlfriend, who understood more about why I was so passionate about the medium than everyone else I knew. I thank her every day for her support and for listening to my ravings and rants about nothing and everything I could say about video games.

I believe that when I found Gamer Blag! Giant Enemy Blog, I found the first real place I could discuss ideas about video games and not get lost looks or comments from my peers. You guys read all these articles written by different users and give them your feedback; striking up discussions about various topics in the video game world. Then I came to this school, and I found that every person in my class shares the same amount of geekiness and nerdiness that I do. If I hadn’t met people like you guys and my classmates, I’d feel like the only person that really gave a damn about the ideas and concepts that went into video games. Now that I know, through you and my school, that I am not alone, I can live happier being the nerd I’ve always been.

So if that was a little tl;dr for you, just know that I thank you for letting me know that I am not alone.

Now, on to the good stuff. As previously stated I am in my second month at Full Sail University. The school is structured very differently from your typical college. Instead of taking the same classes every day for one semester, you take a class that’s virtually 8 hours long for two days a week every month. While some might think that this approach is highly unappealing, know that it leaves no time for forgetting the material learned in class. Case and point, in my first month I had to take Pre-Cal (I had failed the math entrance exam, as did about all my class). In high school, I quit Pre-Cal because it was so hard and boring; but the Pre-Cal teacher at Full Sail made the learning fun. He was upbeat and funny, always cracking jokes with us. Every quiz we took I never made below an 80 due to the proximity of the days we had class and the learning environment.

The good thing about the course is that the class is relatively small. Since new students come to the school every month, the class sizes stay around the 20-30 people mark. This is a great advantage as we stick with the same people throughout the whole program, which runs about 21 months. Getting to know your classmates is important, as it is in any situation, since you will be seeing them for the rest of your life at Full Sail. It is recommended that you don’t make any enemies, as you will not enjoy your time if you are forced to work with them. However, everyone here is very friendly is most likely the same kind of person as you, so it should be relatively easy to make friends with your peers.

My second month means I start my first real game development class, which is Design Fundamentals. In this class, we come up with the ideas for games and how we will pitch them to companies, as well as learning what to research for the games, learning who we’re marketing to, and describing how the game is going to play. On my first day, we were divide into groups to come up with an idea for a game based on objects we received in a bag and a genre we were given. I wasn’t sure how this would play out as I’ve never really discussed what an awesome game would be with anyone. The brainstorming between the five of us in the group was amazing. Our objects: a toy shark, some weird ring toy that grew when pulled and shrank when pushed, and some white gloves. Our genre: action/adventure. Almost immediately we came up with our main character: a man who for some reason has shark attributes. After thinking over what the other two objects could be we came up with the following, ring: teleportation (based on the shape and the animation of the ring when pulled apart and pushed together); white gloves: a terrorist organization known as the White Hand. We all enjoyed our decisions and continued to brainstorm about what the story of the game would be. We came up with this,

A Navy SEAL gets involved in teleportaion experiments, but something goes wrong. He’s teleported to the middle of the ocean, but when he appears, a shark gets in his way. Because this is a molecular-based teleporter, his DNA gets spliced with the shark, which slowly makes him evolve. The man goes into a coma, and wakes up in a hospital later. Through news reports he finds out that a terrorist group known as the White Hand are in control of the teleportation device and have advanced the technology to benefit themselves in frightening ways. It is up to you, a super-powered freak of nature, to eliminate the White Hand and save the world from their diabolical scheme. Also, the final boss is a bear-man.

We decided that the tagline for the game would be “JAWS meets Rambo in an intense bloodbath action title.” Our characters catchphrase would be “Fuck you, I’m a shark!” God damn, if that doesn’t make you wanna play the game then what the hell are you doing playing video games?

That was just the first day of the real classes. In later classes we will learn programming via C++ and C#, and hopefully we’ll be able to develop this wicked awesome sounding game about a shark-man who saves the world. Already this program is looking to be more fun than any other kind of normal college class I would be taking just to get a degree in Computer Science. If you ever had the ambition to become a game designer or a game programmer, I say don’t let anyone stop you. The field has vast room for growth, and who knows, maybe you will develop the next revolutionary idea in gaming. The program is worth the money already, so give it a shot and you will not be disappointed.

If you have made it this far into the article, I thank you very much for bearing with me. I look forward to hearing your feedback about the games I will one day help to make.

The Game and Watch Collection contains three G&W games:

• Oil Panic
• Donkey Kong
• Green House

Oil Panic

In Oil Panic, oil drops from the pipes on the top screen, and you must catch them in a bucket. After the bucket is full (you can only have three drops) you go to the sides of the building and spill the drops to the man with the other bucket below. One drop equals one point, two drops equals two points, and three equals bonus points.

If you miss a drop on the top screen you earn a miss. The same goes for the bottom screen except if you spill the bucket while the other man is not below you earn a miss.

Oil Panic isn’t the best game in this collection, but it still is very fun.

Donkey Kong

This one plays a lot like the original Donkey Kong except the gameplay is changed in that you are limited in your movement, and the objective is different. With that said this is one addicting LCD game. Donkey Kong requires strategic moves and a watchful eye. The player must navigate through the construction site while dodging barrels thrown by Donkey Kong, much like the original. However the main objective is to activate the crane by throwing a switch, then hopping up onto the hook of the crane and collect a key at the top. Once all four keys are collected the platform drops and Donkey Kong is defeated. The game restarts after that, and it gets faster which makes it harder.

This one is personally my second favorite in this collection, because it is semi frantic and requires a bit of skill. This leads me to the final and my personal favorite game:

Green House

Green House is frantic, exciting and just plain fun. The objective for this one is to exterminate all the bugs before they get to your plants. For example, the inchworms at the top are after the flowers, and the spiders are after the flowers at the bottom screen. You earn a miss when a bug gets to a flower. With that said, this game can go on for quite a while if you keep an eye out. Miss icons are cleared when you reach the 300, 1300, 2300 and 3300 point marks. A fever mode is induced when you go for a while without making any mistakes.

My personal high score on Green House is about 800 points, and that’s after playing for ten minutes. Needless to say, I was addicted.

Overall

This game is probably the best obscure game for DS out right now. Probably the best part about it is the sounds. It has the retro beeps and boops that the G&W handhelds had, and they surprisingly do not get annoying. The only problem is it is such a hassle to get, requiring roughly 400 dollars of Nintendo games. If you are able to do this, please do yourself and get this game. You will not be disappointed.

Okay, I discovered this by accident. It’s how to play the full Banjo game from the trial.

Step 1: Get into Spiral Mountain
Step 2: Go to the giant Ape and make him hit all 3 orange tiles. Make sure the one furtherest away from the tree stub with the monkey is hit LAST. DON’T GET THIS JIGGY YET.
Step 3: Get the orange from Ape’s tree, and give it to the monkey on the tree stub. GET THIS JIGGY.
Step 4: Go to the mole hill above the tree stump, learn how to egg attack, and beat the Ape. A Jiggy will fall.
Step 5: If done correctly, the 2 Jiggys will be right next to each other. Jump right in the middle of them. You should collect 2 Jiggys at the same time, extending the trial.

TRY IT OUT. The only thing you can’t do is save.

First, Fallout 3 has dark humor in it, you can find it as soon as you escape the tutorial part of the game, but to the level of Fallouts 1 and 2? Maybe not but you can’t deny that Fallout 3 doesn’t bring at least some of it to the table. Second, Fallout 3 lacks on the dynamic endings, sure there are some variations depending on the path you take but ultimately it ends the same. So in some perspectives you can say Fallout 3 has changed from the originals.

Does that make Fallout 3 a bad game? You best be joking. If this game was released as a different name people would eat it up like no tomorrow. Of course I might be writing with a bit bias at the moment, let’s check out the key features so you can decide for yourself.

The game looks wonderful, and the colour scheme for the game matches it perfectly. No longer do you have brown and gray without a reason! The character models and the monster models are well-detailed, though there are graphical issues, as with all releases. With such an immense world you can expect to see people walking awkwardly on certain surfaces (feet floating in mid-air) and everyone’s favourite: clipping issues, along with stiff NPCs that lack expression in body language. However, you probably won’t notice them all the time with all there is to do in the world of the Capital Wasteland.

As lovely as a wasteland can be.

Gameplay – Here’s the part where you expect to see “OBLIVION WITH GUNS”. Yes it does seem like Oblivion, now drop it you troll. Fallout 3 may be similar to Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but it feels like more of an independent game than a mod for Oblivion.

With that out of the way, let’s move on to some gameplay mechanics, namely combat. Standard combat (first person shooter style) is clunky, but Fallout 3 brings a new style of combat to the table, the V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) which is essentially a system where you pause combat and select where you’d like to strike an enemy. After you pick your locations you engage in a mini cut scene where you see yourself in the third person shooting at your target from different angles with slow motion. It’s quite awesome.

Getting headshots has never been easier

The V.A.T. System works really nicely in Fallout 3 but makes the game a bit easy if you aren’t playing on a hard difficulty, especially because it’s more than possible to be rich and have all the guns and artillery to kill anyone in sight by level 5.

The story isn’t anything you’ll love to bits but its entertaining enough that you’ll play along with it, the main thing going for Fallout 3 is its environment. There are over 30 locations to explore over an immense map, each offering its own little value into Fallout 3’s overall appeal. Exploring alone will take you 30 hours, the story will add about 6 hours to your time.

The RPG (roleplaying game) elements of Fallout remain top tier, the leveling system is standard but fair and along with each level comes a perk. There are numerous perks with its own advantage and its own application. None of the skills are left out in gameplay so you won’t get screwed over by picking the wrong skills. In addition to skills you also have a set of statistics that you decide in the very beginning of the game called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (Strength, Perception, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) points that allow you to choose how you want to play. One thing Bethesda might have gone wrong with was a 20 level cap, that’s right, after you hit 20, you’re maxed out unless you use the PC in-game console to reset your level.

Everyone is S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

Music in Fallout 3 is also very well done, you can listen to a radio in game at all times, even though the range of stations is very limited, you’ll fall in love with the music being played. I had to find the soundtrack for Fallout 3 because the sounds were so catchy, I would hum them and sing them during my daily routines. 50’s music is the bomb.

Last but definitely not least, the vast amount of replayability. Having 4 distinct endings ensures 4 playthroughs, but there are also different moral choices in the game that can have a varying effect on how NPCs treat you, so you’ll want to play again to make different choices. You’ll also want to play again to try out different play styles. Say you were a gun-toting bad boy the first game who didn’t take no bull from other people, the next game you can be a hand-to-hand expert with a heart of gold, or a thief that steals from the rich and gives to the poor (Robin Hood with a Laser Rifle anyone?). The possibilities are vast.

Then when you’re done with everything in-game, you can expect to see mods being released that will give you extra quests, extra content, more locations, more radio stations, and probably fix the game for the better in general.

One last note (down here because it’s a problem that can be fixed), Fallout 3 has the tendency to crash on PCs. I’m not 100% sure on consoles but I’ve heard that its the same story, I’ll only include this until a patch of some kind can be implemented to fix these issues.

The Pros:

• Very immersible
• Amazing music
• Creative and entertain Combat System via V.A.T.S.
• Well-implemented RPG elements
• Wide world with loads to do
• Lovely Environment
• Realistic to what it aspires to be
• Great level of customization
• Great level of replayability
• Modifiable with mods to add more to the game

The Cons:

• A bit on the easy side
• NPC interaction feels stiff
• Graphic glitches here and there
• The ending is less than satisfactory
• 20 Level cap
• Tendency to crash

Ahaha, eat lead.

A whiner’s post is easy to differentiate from other posts. First of all, it will say there is a very big problem in the game. Not just a tiny annoyance, but something that destroys the complete game as we know it, and if we leave it untouched, the poster will stop playing and so will everybody he knows. Of course, this is a hyperbole; there is not only a low chance that the poster will actually stop playing the game, but there is a low chance that his friends agree with his problems.

That brings us to the next point. A whiner’s post is incredibly biased. It is usually very clear from the post in question what class, race or weapons the whiner uses. Usually, they are underpowered, and all classes are too strong. To put it in simpler terms, “I play Scissors, Rock is overpowered, Paper is fine”. This means that most of  the whiners don’t agree with each other for the simple reason that they play in another way. While one whiner may be saying that the warrior class is terribly overpowered, and how it completely dominates another class, another whiner may be saying that his warrior always loses to said class, and that warriors need a big buff.

A last way to determine whether a post is simply whining, is to check the arguments that poster is using. Most of the time, it will be about his own experiences. This is of course not a crime by itself, but if you read between the lines, there is a high chance that the whiner is simply a bad player and, well yeah, if you’re a bad player, you lose. Another technique whiners like to use is to propose a hypothetical situation, in which everything is in favor of the enemy, and the player loses of course. These situations are created to show how overpowered or underpowered something is, so these are of course tainted by bias. Without this bias, you’ll probably come across a perfectly normal, balanced situation.

So why should you care? Well, these whiners love to open their mouth. Everywhere. On unofficial forums, but also on official ones. If the developers keep in touch with their community and actually read suggestions and complaints, there is a chance that they will take these whiners seriously and that is when you should start to worry.

If a developer listens to such a whiner, the game will start to become unbalanced. Maybe it was already unbalanced to begin with, but it will become more unbalanced. The problem is that most games only need minor tweaking to become balanced. But oh no, that is not enough for a whiner. A whiner wants a weapon to deal double the damage. A whiner wants to double the hit percentage of an attack. A whiner wants to make an armor set basically free.

Of course, these kinds of drastic changes are bad for a game. Sadly, there is nothing to do about this problem. The only thing you can do is to try and ignore the thread as big threads draw the attention of developers, who probably have little time to spend on reading complaints. What if it grows to become a big discussion? Let’s say I hope that you’re renowned enough in the game or on the forums that people will believe you when you say that the OP is just wrong.