Thursday 14 January 2016

Film Analysis - Appleseed Alpha

Appleseed Alpha

Theme – Based around two mercenaries in a post war destroyed New York that are trying to survive.

Characters and motivations

Duenan – The human female of the two of the mercenaries trying to survive, she’s more affectionate and forgiving than her other half.



Briareos – A cyborg mercenary trying to survive post war, more hard done by and non-trusting to people he doesn’t know.



Two Horns – A greedy kingpin type character that controls New York, seems to be extremely selfish.



Matthews – Is a skittish mechanic that works for Two Horns, he seems to obey whatever Two Horns says.


Olson – A cyborg although more man than machine, he is focused on his mission but is willing to help one another.


Iris - A young girl that's quiet at first and very wary around strangers, focused on the mission and willing to do what it takes to complete it.


Talos – An evil commando type character that seeks to recreate the world to 
his own image, greedy and driven.



Nyx – Talos’ right hand, she obeys whatever he says and is extremely professional.



Story 

Beginning - 

At the start of the film the two main characters Duenan and Briareos are on a mission to retrieve a vaccine for Two Horns to repay a debt, the mission ends up going wrong and the vaccine is destroyed but the pair think Two Horns ambushed them. 


The two spoke about what they wanted to do next and Briareos wanted to do what he could to survive and would work with whatever happened next but Duenan wanted to find a place called Olympus, a safe haven for survivors that was believed to be a myth.

Later on they return to Two Horns and tell him they were not going to work for him anymore and were going to find work elsewhere, but Briareos was injured during the previous mission and was in need of vital repairs so Two horns offered them another mission in return of the repairs Briareos needed. The mission was to destroy nearby drones on a crossroads that no longer recognized friendlies and attacked anyone that came near.

They were sent to Matthew who was in the war. Matthew did not repair Briareos properly but they didn't know at the time and set out on the mission. 

Middle -

The two were on a hill near the crossroads where the drones hid, when they noticed a truck that had Olson and Iris held captive and they knew that they would be instantly killed by the drones. Duenan and Briareos helped the two survive the drone attack, Olson being grateful to the two for saving them, helped Briareos troubleshoot the problems he was having with his malfunctions, while doing this Olson told Duenan and Briarios that his and Iris' mission was to clear up post war hostiles.

When leaving the scene the four had to hide from a ship that landed, the shipped contained Talos and Nyx who were looking for Olson and Iris. After the ship left Olson revealed that Talos was after him and Iris and had to avoid him at all costs. 

Before Talos left Nyx investigated the area and saw that Olso and Iris were with two others, they left for Two Horns' base and interrogated him about the where abouts of the girl, Two Horns denied all accusations and Nyx attempted to kill Two Horns by blowing up his base. Two Horns survived the attempt on his life and changed his mind and said his real target is Talos. 

Briareos flipped the car and the group were on their way. A bit later on the truck ran out of gas so Briareos and Olson got out to refuel and talk. After being question by Briareos, Olson revealed their real mission is classified and he wanted to tell Briareos but couldn't, he also told him that himself and Iris were from the notorious Olympus. Meanwhile Duenan spoke to Iris and confirmed that Briareos and herself were friendly.

After the truck was refueled the group were on their way. Later on they stopped to rest in a nearby ruined town where they set up a fire and Briareos told Duenan that the other two were from Olympus which gave her hope.

Briareos and Olson took first watch and Duenan question Iris about Olympus. Iris told her that Olson shouldn't of said anything and went to sleep.

Briareos saw a tank heading towards the town and told Duenan, he and Olson ran to the girls and he told Olson to hide with Iris, they battled the tank and out of nowhere Iris jumped on top of the tank dropping a grenade in the hatch and running away. After the group destroyed the tank they split off to look for ammo and suddenly Talos and Nyx show up and kidnap Iris and Olson. 

In the ship Talos is interrogating Iris and Olson and because they refuse to talk Talos retrieves the information directly from Olsons head, electrocuting him in the process, he then opens the back of the ship and shoots Olsen several times and watches him drop to ground.



End - 

Duenan and Briareos are tracking the chip in Olsons brain and they find his lifeless body in the middle of nowhere, and Olsen is holding a data chip in his hand that contains the mission objective. From this Briareos tracks where Talos 
has taken Iris, to a weapon of mass destruction that was made to destroy the enemies of the war and then to self destruct if the land was taken. 

Two Horns is still not dead and he gathers his henchman and they pursue Talos, eventually Duenan and Briareos track Talos to a warehouse with a secret base beneath it and head underground to fight Talos' men. They release drones to kill Briareos and Duenan when Two Horns drives underground with an RPG and takes out the drones. From here on out Braireos and Duenan team up with Two Horns to take down Talos.

Two Horns brought a mec-suit for Duenan that she uses to chase Talos. Talos gets in the weapon with Iris and they get away but Nyx stays to fight Briareos resulting in her death. 


Duenan gets in a truck with Two Horns to chase Talos while Briareos steals Talos' ship, Two Horns hits a ramp and Duenan lands on the weapon to take down it's defenses. 

After she gains access to the control room she shoots Talos several times. While Briareos is heading toward the weapon ready to shoot it's core , Talos crawls and grabs Duenan, quickly Iris close a door onto Talos and crushes him but locking herself in to keep the defenses down. 

Briareos has to take the shot and the weapon is finally destroyed killing Iris along with it.






Wednesday 13 January 2016

My top 10 favorite story lines in games.

My top 10 favorite story lines in games.

In this post i will be telling you about some of my favorite games with story lines, some games without story lines and   
1. The Assassins Creed Series

Assassins Creed is one of my favorite games and a big reason for that is the story in each installment. 

To some the story up, it's based on an ancient rivalry between 'The Templar Knights' and 'The Assassins Order', throughout history they've been at war with each other over ''Pieces of Eden'', precursor artifacts that have unique powers such as mind control or the ability to look through another persons eyes. 

Both factions have the same target which is world peace although they approach these targets very differently. The Templars wish to order society by force, this means pressuring innocents into working for them or doing as they say which comes as an easy task as most Templar's are in high positions of the government or society in general. 

The Assassins on the other hand wish to bring freedom to the people, by fighting all kinds of oppression, this is why the Assassins and Templar'[s clash.

All though all of this happened hundreds of years ago, the game itself is based in 2012, when the modern day Templar Order kidnapped a normal man called Desmond Miles, they hook Desmond up to a machine they call the Animus which gives them access to certain memories lived by his ancestors which were Assassins. 

All of this is to find out where the Pieces of Eden are, so they can finally get what they wished for, power over civilization. 

2. Red Dead Redemption 




Red Dead Redemption has one of the best story lines i have seen in a game, it's about an ex-outlaw by the name of John Marston. He was taken away from his family by the Bureau of Investigation and given the task to bring the members of his old gang to justice, if he does this then his crimes will be forgiven and will be returned to his family.

After the struggle of confronting his past and fighting off other outlaws Marston is finally returned to his family and just as he is getting back into the swing of the normal life of a free man he is visited by the lawmen that first arrested him and in one final stand John Marston is shot several times and killed. 

This for me was a brilliant ending, the story builds a sort of bond between Marston and the player and as sad as it is that the protagonist died at the end of the game, it fitted perfectly. 

3. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 


The Grand Theft Auto Series has many great story lines but everyone likes or loves San Andreas. 

San Andreas was the first GTA game to have a black protagonist and introduced Los Santos, a Los Angeles look alike.

The story is about a man named Carl Johnson (CJ) who was previously a member of a gang (The Grove Street Families) that is lead by his older brother Sean Johnson (Sweet)

Carl moved away from the gang life to Liberty City and after five years he received a phone call from his older brother and was informed that his mother was killed in a gang shooting.

Carl returns home and is instantly arrested by a corrupted police officer by the name of Officer Tenpenny. Carl is then blackmailed by Tenpenny to do his dirty work. The longer Carl is home the more he wants to help out around the neighborhood and again become a part of The Grove Street Families and the more he gets pulled into a world of crime and chaos. 

4. Fallout 4



Fallout 4 is based in a post apocalyptic wasteland that has been ravaged by war and radiation, and now is infested with mutated creatures and desperate survivors.

The player takes control of a custom protagonist that is now a discharged war veteran and is living life normally until all hell breaks loose when the nuclear war breaks out. Due to the protagonists previous service in the war his/her family are given a place in the local Vault, an underground bomb shelter. 

The family head down to a room in the vault and are frozen in a hyper sleep and awake 210 years later to watch their other half be killed and their son Shaun be taken away, the protagonist then has to work their way through the wasteland survive and look for their son.

5. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland 


Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is about a teenage skateboarder that moves from "the country" to Hollywood, where all the pro skateboarders are in hopes of getting sponsored.

He meets a girl called Mindy, who helps the player fit in around Hollywood. The player is later sitting with Mindy when he see's some of her drawings, she tells him that they were for her skating magazine 'American Wasteland' and shows him a picture of a place she calls "the Skate Ranch" and agrees to take him there.

Upon arrival at the Skate Ranch, the land owner Iggy, (who is not a fan of 'outsiders') agrees that if the player takes his dog Sanchez to get some ply wood for his half-pipe, he can stay at the Skate Ranch. 

The player, Mindy, Iggy and residents of the Skate Ranch Boone, Dave and Murphy are on a mission to repair the Skate Ranch and create the American Wasteland.

6. Grand Theft Auto V 




GTA V is based around three protagonists, Micheal, Franklin and Trevor. Micheal and Trevor are old time best friends that used perform armed robberies in a town called North Yankton with friend Brad, but on their last heist, a train crashed into their car and they were forced to go on foot where Micheal and Brad were shot, Trevor however gets away. 

Brad died and Micheal was offered a chance to go free if he went into witness protection and as he has a family and two young kids, he took the offer.

Nine years later, a man called Franklin Clinton, an African American from the ghetto part of Los Santos worked for a car dealership where he repossessed cars illegally as they were performing a tax fraud. 

Franklin repossessed a boy called Jimmy's car, Jimmy happened to be Micheal's son. 

Micheal and Franklin eventually meet after the ordeal and become friends, but one day Micheal gets into some trouble and owes a Mexican mob boss a large amount of money so he has to perform a heist with Franklin.

This becomes a problem and many people get involved causing chaos for all involved.

Games with no stories.

1. Tetris 



Tetris is a classic example of a game without a story, it is a game played to get the highest score. The aim of the game is to catch falling geometric shapes that are composed of four square blocks each, if a caught total of 10 blocks are touching they will be destroyed giving the player points. The highest score wins.

2. Pac-Man Original 


As other Pac-Man games may have some sort of story, the original Pac-Man game does not. The aim of the game is to collect all pac-dots to advance to the next level, Pac-Man is chased by four ghosts and if caught he will lose a life, if all lives are lost it's game over. To destroy a ghost Pac-Man must collect a power pellet, when collected the four ghosts will run from Pac-Man and if killed they will run back to the center of the arena and respawn.

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Music, FX and legal consideration. (Unit 73)

Music, FX and legal consideration.

In this post i will be listing sources for obtaining music/FXfor games you have created, listing three of my favorite and explaining the use of the music within those games and talking about things you need to consider when obtaining music and SFX.

How to get music/SFX 


This website allows you to download a variety of royalty free SFX and Music, it ranges from the sounds of doors opening to war and weapons, there is also a soundtrack for nearly all scenarios.

Produce your own

If you have any experience with creating music pieces or even with Foley, you could record your own sounds and music to implement into your game.

Copyrighted Pieces

A core way to get publicity for music producers is to post their music on the internet, this means they will most definitely copyright it. In this case you have to have permission to download and use their music or it may result in a lawsuit. 

They could ask for either credit or payment in return for you to use their piece, a smart thing to do in this situation is to write up a contract or get proof that you have the producers permission.

My favorite game soundtracks

Here are 3 of my favorite soundtracks within video games.

1. Assassins Creed 

The soundtrack is used in the games cinematic trailer and important cutscenes. It starts out calm with instruments such as flutes and violins, and as somethings about to happen the track will stop and when the action starts again the music louder and faster to create an exciting feel.


2. PAYDAY 2 

The soundtrack in PAYDAY 2 varies on what mission the player is on, but they all have one thing in common and that's that they start off stealthy, quiet and edgy and when the players "go loud" so does the soundtrack, it gets much louder and faster to get the player excited, and it works.


                                     

3. Grand Theft Auto V 

GTA V has two soundtracks, background music created by Rockstar Games and music from various artists, suit the game well.

During missions that contain a lot of action the soundtrack is faster and tends to have a jazz type feel to it, as stealthier missions have a more quiet mellow soundtrack but keeps the player on edge.

For example this is played throughout a high speed police chase:

                                     

Legal Considerations.

Most music on the internet is copyrighted, anything created by another producer is copyrighted which means if you want to use it for yourself then you are required to get permission from the original content creator this may result in paying a small fee to them or giving them credit within the game you're creating.

A smart thing to do while acquiring the rights to use the track is to have solid proof that you have permission to do so, writing up a contract is almost essential and protects you from any lawsuits that could be made.

Using a copyrighted piece of music without consent is a crime and you can be fined up to £150,000 and have to pay court costs for everyone involved.

A company called PRS for music protects users with copyrighted music and helps deal with lawsuits etc.

If creating a piece of music a producer should document when they created the piece to prove that they are the original creator, a few good ways to do this are:
  • Uploading it to YouTube as it sets the date of the upload.
  • Emailing the piece to yourself.
  • Creating a physical copy and mailing it to yourself.




Tuesday 5 January 2016

Sound used in video games.

Shay Wragg
Extended diploma in Games Design L3
Unit 73: Sound for computer games
Lecturer: Josh Rai

Sound used in video games.

In this post i will be telling you about different soundtracks and sound FX used in video games.

I first listened and analyzed five sounds like the soundtrack, sound FX etc, used in different games and listed why the developer used them.


1. Assassins Creed 2 Ezio's Family OST

This soundtrack is extremely well suited to the game, it uses instruments such as the violin, piano, electric guitar and an acoustic guitar.

The soundtrack is calming and represents sadness and vengeance which gives it full sync with the game. It's called ''Ezio's Family'' because Ezio (Protagonist) loses his father and two brothers at the beginning of the game and the main story line is to seek revenge on those responsible.

In the track it begins with what sounds like a young girl singing then accompanied by a violin and the rest of the instruments, the volume gradually increases and the song gets faster and it really does suit the game and you can clearly see why the developers have used this piece.

The song is used in the main menu as well as major cutscenes within the game.



2. Super Mario - Coin Effect

Many people will recognize this sound effect as near enough everyone has played Super Mario.


It is a very simple sound that was created years ago and does its job well, the sound is triggered when the player picks up a coin and therefor is rewarded a point.

3. Minecraft - Steve ''Hurt Sound''

This sound was used to indicate the player taking damage and is the only dialogue used in the game. 

When the player is hit by an enemy or generally takes damage the player will let out an ''OOHHH'' sound.

A damage sound effect is pretty essential in any video game.


4. Slender - Following and death sound FX.

These sounds were created to have the player on edge and that's exactly what it does, it creates a uneasy feeling for the player and then if Slender Man catches up to you the loud sound of static is startling and makes them game much scarier. 

Following and Death Sound FX - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QUkvrYwjNI 

5. Destiny - Exotic Drop





In Destiny the weapons are classed in different tiers and an ''Exotic'' is the highest, this is the specific sound when the player finds an Exotic.

The developers have added this because it's a distinct sound that a seasoned player will recognize.

Why is sound FX and Music important in video games?

Sound is a major aspect of video games, it's part of the entertainment experience. 

It creates a more 'real' experience for the player, when they shoot a gun or find an object it adds feeling to the game. 

A game can be playable without sound or minimal sound, but in my opinion and many other player opinions it would make the game extremely dull.

A game i recently played called "Lost Planet" for example, the game itself isn't bad but it's an exploration game, but you'd find yourself walking through a desert alone with nothing but a low volume boring soundtrack playing in the background and it honestly felt like a waste of time.

But playing an exploration game like Tomb Raider gives the player a more loud interesting soundtrack and it really hooks the player. 

This is why a soundtrack is needed, to hook the player not bore them.

Waveform

Waveform is a set graph that represents an audio signal or recording that shows the changes in amplitude over a period of time. Waveform is recorded using the X and Y axis.


Foley

Foley is the reproduction of everyday sounds that are added to film in post production. The purpose of Foley is to create sound FX such as a punch or footsteps. 

There are many ways to recreate a noise such as hitting a slab of meat with a bat to sound like a punch or two Foley artists stamping on a marble slab to represent footsteps.

These sound effects tend to be mixed and played with before being put into use.


Timbre

Timbre is the sound or quality of a musical note, sound or tone that distinguishes different sounds such as vocals and musical instuments.

The physical characteristics that determine the perception of Timbre include spectrum and envelope.


Psychology of sound.

Here are three games that use sound to convey information.

1. Thomas was alone.

In Thomas was alone the entire game is voice narrated. The narrator tells the story and tells us how the characters are feeling etc.


2. Slender 

Slender is a horror game that places the player alone in a dark woods and tasks them with finding eight pages. Every time a page is picked up the soundtrack of the game gets slightly faster and louder, which makes the player feel uneasier as they progress. 

An eerie soundtrack along with avoiding a 7ft monster with no face and tentacles, allows for a pretty scary game.


3. Pneuma breath of life

Pneuma is a puzzle game that is narrated by unknown protagonist, throughout the game the protagonist thinks he's God as he's essentially spawned in a world alone and can customize the world to his liking. 

Towards the end of the game Pneuma does an amazing job of breaking the fourth wall as the protagonist realizes he is in fact being controlled by someone beyond which is obviously you, the player.