I’ve never been a really huge Halo player, but I do enjoy the game. I have a couple of friends who are really into it and we’ve managed to get a 16 player system link going off of four TV’s. I will admit that even though I’m not huge on Halo, those have been some of the more fun times in my multiplayer experience of videogames.

I believe one of the charms of this game is that it gives you so many options to do different things with the game, as seen with my example of having up to 16 players in the same room as you. It is similar to the extent of what we had viewed in class today also. An interview done within a game world is just another option that can be done with the game, or even a comedy as seen with Red vs. Blue.

The game creates this own virtual world that people can live in, it’s a world within a world. Everyone comes up with different ways to utilize the world that allows them to seek some sort of enjoyment or relief. This is similar to what the interview was saying about locking on with a gun and being able to shoot. The same could be said for all the different variations that can be made within the game. Such as all the different game modes, or warthog jumping, or even people coming up with their own multiplayer games. Much like the real world, everyone adjusts and does different things within this world to bring a sense of enjoyment.

The options within Halo seem to be endless and will most likely be expanded upon when Halo 3 comes out. As for one more example of the world of Halo being changed, I’ll leave with this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eZIwb_PpF8

It ties in Zelda and Halo in an entertaining way.

An interesting game that I have played as of late is called Hotel Dusk: Room 215. It is a game made for the Nintendo DS. The interesting thing about the game is that it is referred to as an “interactive novel.” It actually says that on the game case.

I had originally picked this game up because it pays homage to the older point and click PC games. The type of games where you can click on an item and see if it does anything or you can hold on to it for later. In a way it is in the same vein as Myst where you point and click at items in hopes to make some use of it.

However, back to the interesting part, it attempts to combine the genres of a book and a videogame. As most people know, the Nintendo DS has two screens. For this particular game you hold the DS sideways, as if it was a book (As shown in the picture to the right). You play the game while you hold it like a book. As you point and click your way further with the stylus, lot’s of dialogue unfolds the story, almost making it like a choose your own adventure book.

All of these aspects that I have mentioned makes the game a rather interesting blend of what attempts to be a book and videogame combined. However, due to the combination, neither one truly feels like on or the other. By combining the two I would say that it seems to create its own genre. Neither one particularly stands out more than the other, that’s why I couldn’t even completely call it a videogame on its own (or maybe it could be classified as a new genre within a videogame). I think this is another interesting example of a genre transcending its medium in a different way.

An interesting idea that I had been thinking about with this week’s recent talks about the adventure/puzzle genre, is how the fans of the genre can shape and change a certain game. In particular I noticed this with the game my group had covered this week: Zelda. However, instances of this can also be seen with Okami that was shown today.

As I had mentioned in our presentation, in Zelda II it had drastically changed appearance from an overhead view to a side scrolling more action based type of game. The said reason for this change? Mario’s popularity. Interestingly enough, people enjoyed the original Zelda game for what it was and they reverted back to the classic style when the Super Nintendo version came out. Once again, another example of the fans of the genre changing how the game is made. This could also be said for the change from Wind Waker to Twilight Princess. Everyone enjoyed the artistic style that Ocarina of Time had laid out that Wind Waker end up causing a huge controversy with its new art direction. However, many people started growing fond of this new art direction Wind Waker had laid out, that its art style is going to return in a new Nintendo DS game as show to the right.

Even in Okami we see the game using Japanese mythology trying to appeal to the Otaku subculture that had been referred to in class. Unfortunately for Okami, that culture in the US doesn’t have the kind of strength it does in Japan. It’s so strong in Japan I’ve read about buildings solely dedicated to Pokemon. Where fans of Pokemon can just hang out and play the game against others who share their interest (while being exposed to other Pokemon merchandise of course). It would be hard to imagine anything like that here in the US.

This is just an example though of how strong the influence of the audience can be towards a text. It can change future iterations of the text and even cause it to transcend its medium in different ways.