March 2012
2 posts
L4D2: 2) Backstage
Remember how I was talking about Goffman’s notion of frontstage and backstage? Well, I want to bring that up again as that I got that specific feeling when playing zombie in L4D2 versus mode. You are somehow playing the game on a metalevel compared to normal co-op mode. When you play survivor, the environment is very much hostile and scary, and you never know what’s lurking around...
L4D2: 1) Co-op
I’ve been playing L4D2 in co-op mode quite a bit. I have two friends in the UK that I keeps in touch with solely based on our bi-monthly L4D2 sessions. As you have completed the maps a few times on normal, the novelty of the game resides, and it becomes more of a trivial activity to perform while conversing. However, it does serve nicely as an icebreaker and a way to start a conversation,...
February 2012
9 posts
Minecraft 2: Didacticism and Architecture
So. Today I spent 4 hours Minecrafting, and I am massively annoyed. However, I have learnt stuff about organisation and architecture.
As I started building today with no overarching plan of what I wanted to build, I have made a cavernous, factory-looking monstrosity of a house and I don’t like it one bit. I used the wrong materials. I didn’t account for poor lighting in huge...
“A game’s value proposition is how it makes its players think and feel....”
– Nicole Lazzarro
Minecraft 1: Aporia and goal-setting
Actually, I was supposed to minecraft this weekend before stuff turned up that needed my attention. I was going to minecraft with three friends, and the Minecraft sessions we do usually work out like this:
1) Acquire vasts amounts of alchohol 2) Acquire vasts amounts of Red Bull 3) Order (family size) pizza 4) Mentally prepare for the weird-ass time warp that occurs during playing Minecraft and...
“Caillois argues that we may understand the complexity of games by referring to...”
– Wikipedia
Portal: 2) Gender
Ok, so next step on the road to discovering why I enjoy Portal more than other top-notch single player games, might be partially due to the protagonist being female and the game generally gender neutral. This is one of the few cases where I get, as a woman, to identify fully with the avatar in the game, which might be a subtle feature in a first-person game, but still, I think, of paramount...
Oppositional play assignment: CS party
Ok, so for today’s assignment where we had to play a game in an oppositional fashion, I came to think of an experience I once had playing Counter Strike (1.6).
For no apparent reason all the terrorists in the map Dust decided for no apparent reason to stay at the spawn site and dance around ( as far as the gameplays allows for actual dance), people would spray festive tags and people...
Portal: 1) spatiality
Ok, so I started a bit late on the blogging. Unfortunately, if things are not noted in my calendar, I will not remember them, and I forgot to write this down : /
Ok, so here goes. I am a gamer positioned somewhere a casual gamer and an average gamer. I do not obsess with games as many gamers do - in fact I am very picky about the games I really enjoy to play. Usually, these are multiplayer,...
