Thursday 26 November 2009

Diary of a videogame character.

Princess Peach's Diary

13th September 1985.

Today has been the longest day ever. Seriously. Never before has a day dragged on so long, not since Toadsworth's last birthday dinner (He's very old now so I'm sure I won't have to sit through many more.)

Back on topic. Today started off just like any other, had a wild party last night so I was literally hanging when I woke up in me quarters today. And guess who was in my bed? That lanky italian bloke I was grinding with last night, the one who likes green. Yeah so he sorta stumbled out of bed grabbed a couple of mushrooms and left! All he could do was stutter and look horrified. Charming.

So after scoffing about twenty turnips for breakfast (Growing Princess needs her food!) I was just lying on the grass outside watching about twenty Toads running round after a misbehaving chain chomp when I felt extremely tired. I just blacked out.

Next thing I knew I was in some random dungeon chained to a grimy wall in a room that smelt like P**s.

Turns out some random horny giant turtle (horny in both ways) had took me straight from the castle grounds right in front of the panicking Toads! Useless tw*ts.

So I was left in this stinky ass dungeon for hours and hours listening to the turtle upstairs laughing to himself.

Turns out the castle cameras had caught the whole kidnapping on CCTV and it was all over the Mushroom Kingdom News! (any publicity is good publicity).

Now I have no idea why this turtle wanted me, he just kept coming downstairs and staring at me with his big red eyes, he did at one point give me a ring but I thought he was just teasing, I doubt he seriously thought I would marry him! Either way, when I refused it seemed to P*ss him off slightly.

I kept dozing off throughout the day, sometimes woken up by this ugly little sh*t that looked like a walking spud. Seriously. He just kept humping my leg. I thought I heard him say "goomba" a couple of times too but I was slightly delirious at this point.

So just as I was losing all hope and had ate all my 1-up mushrooms (nom nom nom) I started to hear lots and lots of bangs, screams, roars and jumping sounds.

It was quite exciting I must admit. I was dragged to another room by a smaller turtle (I don't like turtles) and told to wait there. I could just see throught the door a man in overalls similar to the bloke I had that one night stand last night! My heart literally dropped and I can just remember thinking "please just go away, anywhere but here."

The big horny turtle ( probably not quite as horny then eh?) stormed in and started shooting big fireballs at the stalker man ! I didn't know whether to be pleased or not!

I remember thinking the man in overalls seemed to have put on quite a bit of weight since I saw him this morning and was quite shorter! He ran quite quickly for his size and did the most spectacular jumps, I was quite impressed. The man in overalls dodged the giant turtles attacks, pushed this big ominous button that come to think of it I could have done hours ago and took the turtle out as the bridge they were on fell followed by the big turtle.

The moustached man in overalls just stood there staring at me panting and huffing looking rather delirious. It was then I realised he wasn't the same bloke from last night. He preferred the red colour scheme and had a more manly moustache!

He introduced himself as Mario, and he told me that his brother Luigi was running here playing catch-up! I was absolutely stunned, they were brothers. I had two italian brothers tying to impress me with daring rescues. Sh*t.

Mario asked me what his prize was and gave me a nod and I wink. I just said "Next time you save me I promise I'll bake you a cake" and I left.

Walked all the way home through 8 bloody worlds looking worse than I had last night. Gone straight to bed and that's where I am now. None of the Toads have seen me yet so I take it they still think I'm dead or some horny turtles sex toy. Either way, I couldn't care less.

Going to sleep now. Don't wanna see any italians in overalls, green or red ever again. Come to think of it, the giant turtle wasn't too bad though.

Wednesday 25 November 2009

Jingle Bells!

Only three weeks before we break up for Christmas!

I can't believe how fast it's come and how fast our first term on the gaming course has gone.

Christmas is most definitely my favourite time of the year, what with all the lights, the music, the parties and yes the presents!
There're a lot of games that I would like Santa Claus to bring me this year so I'm sure I'll have no shortage of things to do in the holiday.

Any particular games your wanting the fat man in red to bring you this year?

Monday 23 November 2009

What gaming's all about...

What have I been up to lately?

well...

I have saved princesses from terrifying beasts, travelled through space and time, survived zombie apocalypses, saved the world on the brink of war, mastered the magics, found the american dream in Liberty City, defended the planet from alien invasions, assassinated famous historical figures, discovered underwater utopias, conquered hidden temples and saved the universe in my lunch break. I'm a gamer. What have you done lately?

Sometimes I just can't understand why people don't like gaming. Everyone loves to watch a good movie, games allow us to play that movie! To become a part of the experience and control the outcome. There's so many experiences out there in the for of videogames it's clear that anything is possible.

We all know it's not likely that a princess will be calling our names for help any time soon. or that we'll be sent to a mining ship infested with multi limbed monsters. Exciting stuff like that just doesn't happen. Video games gives us these experiences to play and live through. For the time we are playing we become Niko Bellic, Chris Redfield, Mario, Lara Croft and so on.

A lot of people say "It's not healthy to live your life through video games, you shouldn't be playing on them as much.". Fair enough. But what would we be doing if we weren't playing video games? Reading? Watching a whole lot of television? The truth is we wouldn't be any more better off without video games. They allow us to live these experiences and learn life lessons for ourselves, we discover the answers to escape from the temples., we solve the riddlers riddles in Arkham.

For me that's a whole lot more exciting than watching a movie, and I really don't think there is any problems to playing video games.

So, the point I'm trying to make was inspired by the lecture today and that point is: Is video game addiction really all that bad?

Rant over.

Signing off.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Theres more to come!

You'll notice that I have alot of ideas whether it's for new games, movies, comic storylines and such, thats because I have such an active imagination and I always loved to write stories when I was younger.

I thought of doing another (lengthy) blog similar to my 2 parter about new game directions for older titles as most people seemed to have read them and although they may have not agreed with my ideas they still appreciated and commented on their thoughts. There are many paths I would like to take into this industry and although I can only really take one I would like to get a bit of practice in all. One of these paths is games journalism so you can see why I like writing articles on my blog!

So...

I'll be working on a games to movies article over the weekend, possibly earlier if I get the chance. I'll be writing about how I would make a couple of popular videogames into movies so general storyline, casting, certain sequences and so on.
If you actually are interested in what I write then just drop us a comment about any topics or ideas you'd like to be written about in the future and I'll have a crack at a couple!

It gets me practise, provides you with something to read when your bored and I actually enjoy it ^_^

So I'll be blogging my latest article later on in the week.

See you all on thursday!

Thursday 5 November 2009

Now that's better!

I have no idea why I find myself blogging whilst sitting in bed all snuggled up but hey ho (you really didn't need to know that either).

I thought today's presentations were really good so well done everyone who did their's! You've set the bar rather high I must say, and I felt quite happy when Kelly came in our HTML class just to tell us that the presentations in the morning were better than GS93's >:) Only joking of course! But made me chuckle nonetheless.

Last time we had an assignment deadline things went rather bad for me (see one of my very early posts). I didn't quite understand why Kelly was angry at me for something I couldn't control (work not being converted properly on friday morning; deadline). It was only until about a week after that I realised she was right in that if I had been more organised and tested the conversion process beforehand instead of leaving it last minute I wouldn't have been in that situation and had to check Kelly's "Bovvered" pocket.

This time I was more on the ball!

I tested the conversion process (recently got Microsoft Office for Mac) earlier this week to find no problemos and sorted out arrangements to have the projector ready to be played from my mac as I had a problem with the videos.

I've handed in my work with 0 problems and 0 stress and I'm really looking forward to presenting next week!

Now I've finished this assignment I'm getting straight started on the next which is the Videogame Industries with posters one (can't remember the actual name) and starting that on Sunday.

No longer shall I leave work to complete on the last week.

I'm a recovering procrastinator and need to make sure I don't leave work late again like the Mario project.

That is all.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Confession time.

Hi everyone.

My name is Cameron Foster.

And I'm a procrastinator.

It's like a session at alcoholics anonymous only about an addiction to putting work off till the last minute. I always manage to do it, I leave work to instead play games, read shit, go out and whatever instead of actually cracking down. It may sound stupid but I never miss a deadline.

Never.

I always get the work done, on time and to the best of my ability but I always put it off until a week or so before the deadline. I did it at school and I did it with the Mario project.

Now it's not got me in trouble yet because I'm always so determined to get work in on time and I always do it's just a habit that makes things harder for me as I usually end up with a mahoosive pile of work to do in the space of a few days.

I've got 1 whole digital communication to do tomorrow for thursdays presentation and I'm proud to say I've set the alarm for 10.00AM and I'll be getting straight up, getting ready then cracking on with the work instead of getting distracted by GTA 4.

On a higher note I'm very glad to be at Confetti, my tutorial with Kelly went very well and I appreciate how much she tries to make the experience better for us all!

Tomorrows plans: Finish Presentation, phone Chimera (comic shop) to see if I have the job, go to Nottingham, get photo taken, Our House musical rehearsal.

Overall busy day!

See you all on thursday and if I don't get chance to say it before, good luck with your presentations!