UVic Study for Video Game Assessment

AC2: Brotherhood

Wow... That's all i can say. I thought that when they did AC3 they would skip into the future again like they did from AC1 - AC2. But no, AC3 starts off right after AC2 ends, and it looks like he doesn't get a break! Please, look at the video link i posted above, and then if that doesn't interest you take a look at the AC: YouTube channel.
Guess what? Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is Multi-Player if you want it to be, and they executed it amazingly!

There is allot more i could say but i don't want to spoil it for you! Take a look and fall in love yourself!

Apparently, UK counselor and therapist Steve Pope in the Lancashire Evening Post has declared in the Lancashire Evening Post that playing 2 hours of video games is the equivalent of doing a rail of cocaine...Yeah... I first read this at the following link,
(Click me!), and was quite surprised the Mr. Pope to be making that kind of statement. Due to most people who work as councellors, I doubt he would know much in regards to what either the effects of both cocaine or video games are like. I'm not saying that his opinion is invalid or that he may not have personal experience in such things, its just that when people make assumptions without any hands on insight that makes me frustrated. Considering that a thing like that is posted in a newspaper that could be viewed by thousands of adults, there's bound to be some parents taking his words and not giving a second thought as to what actual effects it can have on their kids or themselves. Is it not fair to say that most action movies are exactly the same? Not all video games are the same as the more action intensive ones and who is to say that it can warp the minds of perfectly healthy kids? Now I can definitely say that there is such thing as video game addiction,( I think myself to be an example of such an affliction) but giving a statement like that like its an absolute is potentially damaging to a viable source of entertainment and possible skill development. Its unfortunate there are more and more things about video games that are posted that are negative and less that are more positive.

When you hear MMO, whats the first thing that comes to mind? Addiction? A 2nd job? Most people who dont play an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) may think it to be a huge waste of time and an even larger waste of money. Unbeknownst to them, however, is the potential for so much learning and socialization.

One of the blessings of the internet is that we can communicate with eachother from long distances and wont have to worry about certain limitations. With the creation of MMORPG's came a way for people to socialize and play with eachother unlike any other game of its kind.
Through this massive collection of people develops online communities and builds friendships that are easy to maintain and grow on. But thats not the only thing that they can lead to. Below I have 2 examples of MMO's that I have played and find the most rewarding, EVE Online and World of Warcraft.Through these mediums I have made more friends than I have ever made in my life and I have been able to relate to them better than most people I know. Lets get started

World of Warcraft
- Many goals can only be completed through teamwork and cooperation with friends. Raids can take up to 25 people having to comunicate and respond to different ways depending on their roles. Through these experiences they get to know and work better together.
- Individual players have to work with a multitude of different interfaces and must know particular abilities that are more useful than others to get something done efficiently.
-In the PVP (Player Versus Player) portion of the game, you have to be able to read other players and their abilities based on character class to plan tactics and beat them.
-Through creating and maintaining a Guild, you develop skills related to actual management related jobs. This task can be so complicated that masters of it have written books to help those getting started with their own guilds.

EVE Online
-EVE bolsters a massive online community with an economic system of trade and retail of ingame items quite unlike any other game of its kind. The system is quite comparable to the stock market.
- PVP makes a large portion of the game. When I say that, I mean that over 2000 people can be in one fleet at a time. Massive battles of massive scale happen all the time and it takes incredible amounts of teamwork and skill to win battles like those.
- A little over 50,000 of around 300,000 people subscribed can be hosted on EVE at one time. There is only one server, and as such this helps make the game more balanced in its economy and inter-player relations.
-EVE Online takes group ideas like guilds and explosively expand on them. For instance, there are groups of people that make Corporations, groups of Corporations that make Alliances and groups of alliances that make Coallitions. This makes up an amazing connection of people to learn from and converse with in a fashion unlike any other game.
- War is commonplace in EVE. Massive Alliances battle eachother all the time for player owned space, to make money and to have fun. The relations between alliances are not always hostile though. Corporations/Alliances/Coalitions are made and broken all the time.
-Nothing compares to the brutal loss you can experience in EVE however. Due to the mechanics and design of the game, you can half-heartedly gamble with everything you have and lose EVERYTHING. Its similar to life in that way.

MMO's can be powerful in their lessons, you just need to find them because they tend to be buried under misconceptions.

I couldn't come up with a review yet, but I'll get it up by the latest on Wednesday. Cheers.