Social Gamers

OK, This post is concerning a friend of mine that has no life. Well, thats being a bit too cruel. He has almost as much of a social life as me. That may be a bit too cruel too, but I'm already stretching the honesty barrier a bit.
I observed my friend Andy play a video game called Halo 3 on his Xbox 360. His living room is set up with chairs cluttering every space available, each one poised and ready to be sat in by an observer or player of the game in progress. Beer cans and pizza boxes litter the floor. The only time the gameplay breaks is to obtain another beer from the fridge. I'm sure if they could move it, the fridge would be in the middle of their living room. Andy and his roommates are gamers down to the very atom.
Halo 3 is a unique game because it allows one to play online against people all over the world. The game is a first person shooter that requires a lot of concentration and skill to survive, let alone win a game as a team. Andy's roommates are all a team fighting people online as a group. One of Andy's roommates named Sonic (short for Sonnenberg) has a headset that allows players to vocally communicate throughout the game. The majority of the time, the headset is not used because the only communication happening is a litany of cuss words and insults and certain comments about someone's mother's late-night activity. Although fun to listen to, it is much less fun to sit and observe rather than play the game. (I'm terrible at it)
After a few hours of gameplay, Andy's roommates lumbered off to bed (ROTC makes them wake up early) so Andy and I wander down to the local pub to continue drinking into the night. I pulled out my notebook and started the interview.
When asked about the social practices happening in the game, he responded by telling me that there are a few things that are taboo in Halo 3. the first is team-killing, which is when a player accidentally or intentionally kills a member of their own team. You can get banned from games for doing that. The second is 'nade spamming. This is when a player camps next to a gernade spawn area and chucks hand-gernades constantly at a major intersection of the map. This causes the players immense frustration and irritation as they can't get anywhere without getting blown up. It makes the game dull and boring. The third taboo is camping. Camping is not neccissarily illegal or taboo, only when used in excess. Camping is where a person sits with a one-hit-kill weapon around a blind corner on the other team's path. They wait for an opposing player to pass them and then kill them from behind. It is essentially a sucker-punch cheap-shot. It is looked down upon as unskillful and lame, but it is not a bannable offence.
When asked about any other social interactions the game requires, Andy responded with a series of verbal insults that I am not going to post on my blog. He described the insults as being their main form of communication. The game is usually silent when the team is doing well, but when they are doing poorly, the neighbors across the street could be woken up by the epic vulgarity of the room. As a whole the game allows for some interaction and bonding between individuals (even though Andy doesn't think so) and the game attempts to get the room to work as a team. This rarely happens and then the shouting continues. All in all, the game is a good social venue not only for the people in the room, but the people across the globe with their headsets. A general respect of the game is adhered to through the written and unwritten laws of gaming. Andy plays that game for several hours a week so it must be doing something good.

-TheStevo

The Elderly Strike Back

Here are a group of images that come up when you search Google for pictures of the elderly. They are not what I would call flattering. But I think this video clip can make up for a bit because its funny.



This assignment is for October 4th.

-TheStevo

Red vs. Blue. Black and White?

Hello readers, one and all. Today's post is for the assignment on September 27th. Today I'm going to talk about the poststructural language analysis from Chapter 4. The text We will be looking at is a clip from a popular internet show Red vs. Blue. The premise of the series takes its setting and characters from the Xbox game Halo. The show gives the soldiers fighting in the pointless shoot-em-up game genre their own personal voices and allows them to interact socially.
This clip is from the very first episode of the series. It takes place on the map Bloodgulch which is a completely boxed-in canyon with two bases on either side. One base belongs to the Blue Team and the other to the Red Team. Instead of mindlessly attacking the other team (as it takes place in the game) the soldiers philosophize about why they are there to begin with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1cDTFmpcRI

This clip is an example of two characters discussing the binary difference between the two forces. They are baffeled at the black and white circumstance that they are in. In our language today, we have good vs. bad and right vs. wrong, but many of us haven't got a clue as to what those words mean in applicable circumstances in every day life. They are just words relevant to the circumstance they are placed in. The two soldiers in the clip understand the absurdity of totally opposing lables and have a think about it. For them good and evil are embodied in red or blue. The majority of the time, one immediately sees the striking differences between two things and judges them based upon those differences, like tall and short or fat and thin. What our youth needs to understand is that gray part in the middle that may not be shown in an opposing fashion. They should have conversations like the ones happening in the clip. Asking quewstions is never a bad thing and it never hurts to read in between the lines every now and again.

-TheStevo

Army Strong

Ok, I haven't been blogging for a while due to my apparent inability to read the syllabus, but The Stevo is back! and better than ever. Today's blog is for September 20th, concerning an analysis of an ad or commercial. Well, I found an ad that I'm sure you all see every time you turn on the TV. This is an army recruitment ad that made a tear swell up in my eye in memory of my time in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.



There is definitely a purpose to this ad and it does not take much to discover it.

"JOIN THE ARMY-YOU WILL BE STRONG!"

The message is gotten across in a few ways: 1) The ad interjects portions of text in a bold yellow color against a black background defining and redefining the word "strong". 2) The portions of the video that are not text-based are clips of soldiers or recruits doing the fun kind of stuff people do when training to be a soldier. Jumping out of planes, riding in tanks, building bridges, and looking genuinely hard-core in those smart-looking uniforms. 3) The music playing in the background is highly reminiscent of film soundtracks that play at the hero's triumphant success or conquering moment near the end of the movie when everyone else is getting up to leave to beat the traffic. The music really draws on that media-ism and uses it to place the would-be recruit in the heroic position.

The editing in this clip is not complex at all. There are several action shots that depict people doing things that a recruit would find fun or challenging. Between those action shots, text is injected to boost morale and tell you how strong you will be once you are enlisted. Combined with the epic soundtrack, this ad stands a fairly good chance at nabbing a few recruits from couch-potato America. Its just a simple ad with a simple message and simple editing techniques. Be Army Strong.

-The Stevo