An Analysis of Interactive Blogging Features and Language in Fostering Characterization and Community Building

June 22nd, 2008

You may have noticed that I made some slight modifications to the regular articles, adding in a new feature called Journals. I’ll be sure to document these changes later in a follow up. If you have had any experience with tertiary education then this may already be familiar to you. Journals are academic pieces of writing which account for research articles within their field. At University, I basically write one of these per subject in my linguistics stream as a major piece. While most of these are irrelevant to the Gamer Blog, after completing one of my courses (concluding with this piece) I feel empowered to write more articles of this nature. In saying this I don’t think that the article below is greatly worthwhile. Still it is something that I would like to try my hand at in the future, covering issues of video games, technology, language and culture.
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Analyzing the Problematic Hysteria Regarding MGS4

June 19th, 2008

Yes, I am aware of how my Metal Gear ramblings are probably off the charts by now. Cut me some slack though, I mean how often am I ever at the fore front of gaming conversation? So let me bathe in the sun for a little while longer.

In order to find my footing to write the last piece, I read a number of recent reviews of Metal Gear Solid 4. What I found to be quite surprising is that there appears to be a bit of a backlash regarding the mixed opinions of this title. Of course, this is another great example of the lack of acceptance and maturity among a proportion of the enthusiast crowd. I’m not particularly interested in what they have to say myself instead I feel that the pillars supporting this debarkle are much more interesting (and highly relevant to another issue that I wish to poke at later on).

Rather than summarizing the situation and picking out the tasty bits I want to work backwards this time so that I can highlight the cause of the problem. This way I can concentrate my efforts on a resolution. Read the rest of this entry »

Metal Gear Solid 4 – Complete Impressions

June 15th, 2008

metal gear solid 4 crotch grab

Over the past few days Metal Gear Solid 4 has been a completely immersive and unreal experience for me personally, one that I never would have imagined possible, at least at this stage of life in video games. This title, is a landmark title; significant to the Playstation 3, more so to evolution of the industry. MGS4 concludes the long running franchise in the perfectly problematic way the series is known for yet in the process it represents the first foot into a new wave of interactive entertainment. Make no marks about it, Metal Gear Solid 4 is all of the photo realistic graphics, apt gameplay and mind sprawling story telling that the Playstation 3 was hyped to be. Looks like the console has finally found its feet, welcome home.

There is just so much for me to say about this game so I am going to attempt to condense it down as much as possible. On this final edit I’m at roughly 4500 words, don’t let that scare you away (..no please come back!). Everything is under neat, little headings and is as well written as I can possible write. So please, read on. This is also a spoiler free zone so feel free to read all the way through without any worries.
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Tags: metal gear solid 4

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