Rethinking Video Game Reviews

I have been watching several video game reviews for the PS3 system, and I have to admit I do not particularly like the criteria the people like GT, IGN, and gamespot use to assess whether or not a game is good.
Most of these criteria are purely subjective and in most cases will direct me towards a wrong conclusion or opinion on the game. I have come to realize that the basis of their review is in most cases on the reviewer’s values and technical aspects of the game.
Now that would be nice if I had the same values as those of the reviewers or if technical complexities or prowess affected overall value of the game. On technical stuff......well the most popular games in the world are the least technically superior e.g. monopoly and in video games tetris. So clearly that just does not count. On values well....most of the reviewers are young white males living in countries with abundance and wealth. I am a young African male living in a country with much less, so our value systems will differ if not clash. More on this later.
So I have created my own criteria which granted may have a hint of subjectivity but will provide a better assessment of whether or not a game is worth buying.
I call it the E_IV Interactive Entertainment Criterion. The pillars of this criterion include:
1. Entertainment
2. Engagement
3. Exploration
4. Education

1. Entertainment
Let’s face it, the main reason we buy games is for entertainment. A game must have a certain jazz factor for you to buy it. It must make one feel all nice inside while playing it. We do not need another serious thing to do over the weekend....life is full of too many serious things already.
2. Engagement
The game should trigger some sort of emotional reaction or attachment. I like games that make feel something when playing whether its a sense of calmness or excitement or fun or whatever. There must some sort of emotional investment in the game that will drive my need to want to keep playing the game.
3. Exploration
I like games that take to a place that I have never been. Whether the place is abstract or real or a bit of both it doesn’t matter. I immensely enjoy discovery, and the thrill of finding something or meeting someone new is something I always look forward to. There is nothing as boring and as unprogressive as constants. A lot of the new games coming out are coming out which are meant to be open ended and have received a lot of critical acclaim are the games that allow one to explore New York. Come on guys....how many games based on New York can we have? Where is the thrill in exploring the same city over and over again.
4. Education
I value learning. And there is much about the world that I am yet to learn. Games cost a lot, and a lot of time is spent playing them for those with that luxury. If I’ll spend money and time on something, that something should contribute to my development in one way or the other. Now games can educate in many ways and in many things; for instance one can learn more about certain events in history, and what it was like to live in those days, one can learn more about a certain topic e.g. nanotechnology in MGS series or at least trigger interest in that topic. One could also learn certain characteristics and skills while playing a game like the ability to delay gratification in pursuit of a goal, and problem solving skills and linear thinking or thinking in abstract.

With these fundamentals in place, I can say whether a game is good or not. And on top of these I can add other things like artistic expression and creativity. These are things that alot of the popular games seem to lack.

Yo

Who posted that piano music?

Africa's Nos 1 Problem

Hi guys,

I was wondering what your thoughts were on several things. The key being is why do our folks have such high regard for education and the educated remain wallowing in poverty?

What are the mistakes our for fathers made that you think we can learn from and not repeat for the sake of our future?

Just drop a comment.....and let me know your thoughts.

Cheers.

Time for entrepreneurs?

Hi all its been a while since I blogged just wanna say a big thanks to all of you who joined and follow the gift & the guarantee.

A lot has been happening in the world since. We've all seen the dramatic effects of the recession in the world. Only the other day our company announced they were going to cut over 2000 jobs. My area was only saved after we all agreed to take a pay-cut. After reading rK's blog it got me thinking I don't have a backup plan! If I was fired today I would have nothing to fall back on. The idea that a safe secure job for life has truly faded away as we have seen this by the massive job losses around the world, just in the last 6 months alone. At one stage it was 500,000 job lost a month just in the US.

Perhaps its time for us to take a leap in a different direction. The idea of chasing a safe secure job for the rest of your life may have worked in our parents time but the world has changed. Maybe its time to stop living for the weekend and think seriously about our future. One alternative that has always been around is the entrepreneurial route. While it might not be wise to quit your job and start a business today, you could have something going on the side that could take off as a business in the future.

One thing that we all have in common is that we are young and we have ideas. We were all born with unique gifts and its certain that if we can use ours gifts together it is guaranteed that it will pay off in a big way. Its time we got together and talk about how we can convert ideas into profitable enterprise...

rK

I've just endured the hardest month of my professional career, and for what? Most definitely not the paycheck, its woefully inadequate, all I can say is that the experience has fundamentally altered the way I look at life. 

The firm I work for took over the management of a failed company. The employees hadn't been paid since Dec. We laid off 127 people and it didn't make the news, we're not as sexy as Zain, no press conference, no hype, just cold hard termination letters oozing complex legal terms designed to shield us from liability. We retained a few senior managers and here they are working every day putting in the crazy hours companies in that industry demand. 

I wondered why they even bothered, until I realised they truly love what they do. The fact that they are in a less than ideal situation, no pay, industry veterans in their fifties suddenly answerable to some fresh-faced 25 year old from a little known company and yet, they're OK, they come in to work , every day, to an office they used to rule , sit down and get to work, huddle up around the water cooler at 10 and trade war stories, "remember when the GM did..." , " remember the time the auctioneers took the Deputy GMs S-Class", they laugh off a situation which I cannot imagine happening to me, a situation that has happened to people around me.

I know people who have lost their Jobs for no clear reason, or for reasons they couldn't control, and each time I think "What if it was me?" and I start making a plan B.

A week later I'm back to my bad old habits, depleting my savings at an alarming rate as I enjoy my youth. I guess what I'm trying to say is we all need to have a plan B, we need to allow our minds to consider the bad as well as the good things we expect from the future. While we plan our MBAs, moving out of mums house, our push to get that promotion, start that company, buy that car, marry that girl, we should also consider the possibility that things may not go as planned, and make contingencies with the same urgency we reserve for the good things we want in life

rK out.

mad memories

so...after being confused by the great soaring falcon n his extravagant use of words that the normal man (read me) cannot for lack of a better word, comprehend what the man is trying to say...also seeing the photos from outside ducci's appartment in the states...got me thinking...we've all moved in different directions, but in a way, were all still connencted, the boys as a group can never be killed by distance or time. knowing that there is a group of people who i will always be close to is jus amazing...and were close for all the silly situations that weve been in...like the sodom n gomorrah nite at red tape when guys were looking at me n papsy like we were mad...or the nite when we got high at whoevers place n it was like 1 in the am n we were walking making noise in westi near A7...infact, jus at A7 itself the shit that went down...guys getting kicked out by 911 cos of noise...the mad gaming days...skiving the crib to go drink then getting home high at 4am...good times, good times...now its taken me so long to type this thing that ive forgotten the point of it all...nyway, people, lets keep this blog alive.

What?

Trying this blog thing for the first time and realizing how pathetic i am at communicating, it may be along time when get on it again. Eitha case, Mr. grande what the hell are on about? It appears that the Dootch has followed suit on your madness!

ORIGINS AND LONGEVITY

Gentlemen, and ravishing ladies (this would simply not be normal if the "Shorees" weren't represented adequately).

I trust that the Consortium has complete, unabashed, unequivocal and utterly undeniable access to the thoughts that shall be expressed here with unprecedented ease. Indeed, you may ask, what does the Gift and the Guarantee mean to mine person?

First off the Gift: At the risk at being overly sentimental to the extent that I would be nigh comparable to a very very old (circa. 1950s) movie-star immortalized and epitomized by grainy black and white consistency, the gift is the simple fact that I have gotten to know such people as yourselves. Indeed, you all have been a live-action learning experience that I believe has been invaluable towards shaping the uncut diamond that is lil' ol' me.

The Guarantee: I am absolutely certain that the present status quo in which we are all still close and comrades-in-arms will never be compromised as we have been through many a tribulation together. If I were to state that we would still be reminiscing well into past-octogenarian years (if such a thing can be arrived at easily) we WILL still be reminiscing over the good old days with as much glee and fervor as we make them today.

So, let us ponder the origins from which we all stemmed prior to "finding each other"?? for lack of a better term as well as contemplating on the longevity that we shall certainly attain because true BOYZ-n-GALZ THAT ARE PART OF THE BOYZ will always remain true despite such small things as spats, dis-n-dat, financial crises, nuclear fallout, hurricanes, typhoons...

You get the picture.

The Sizzler aka The Soaring Falcon, has arrived.

Going kuku: starting a poultry farm

Yo so it occurred to me just how popular chicken is to practically everyone even religious fanatics still have time to munch down on a leg of some finger liking chicken! So the plan is to open a chicken farm. Crazy some would say, but if you aren't ruffling any feathers why not take the dip and you could be flapping your wings to riches!!

Poultry farming is the practice of raising poultry, such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese, as a subcategory of animal husbandry, for the purpose of farming meat or eggs for food. The vast majority of poultry are raised using modern farming techniques.

Free range:
Free range poultry farming consists of poultry permitted to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner.

Modern farming:
There are basically two types of chicken farms. Those that produce eggs and those that produce chicken for meat. In Egg producing farms, birds are typically housed in rows of cages, called batteries. Environmental conditions are automatically controlled, including light duration, which mimics summer daylength. This stimulates the birds to continue to lay year round. Meat chickens, commonly called broilers, are floor-raised on litter such as wood shavings or rice hulls. They are raised indoors in climate-controlled housing.

Free range

Advantages
Free range poultry production requires that the poultry have access to the outside. In some cases this means the poultry are raised on pasture of enabling the poultry to move around, foraging for their natural diet and living in cleaner conditions than in batteries. In some farms, the manure from free range poultry can be used to benefit crops.

Disadvantages
The practical construction of a free range poultry farm can present more problems than the battery alternative. Finding suitable land with adequate drainage to minimise worms and coocidial oocysts, suitable protection from prevailing winds, good ventilation, access and protection from predators can be difficult. Excess heat, cold or damp can have a harmful effect on the animals and their productivity.Unlike battery farms, free range farmers have little control over the food their animals come across which can lead to unreliable productivity.


Modern farming

Advantages
In egg producing farms, cages allow for more birds per unit area, and this allows for greater productivity and lower space and food costs, with more efforts put into egg laying. Modern poultry farming is very efficient and allows meat and eggs to be available to the consumer in all seasons at a much lower cost than free range production. The poultry have no exposure to predators and disease risk is significantly reduced.

Disadvantages
The practical construction of a free range poultry farm can present more problems than the battery alternative. Finding suitable land with adequate drainage to minimise worms and coocidial oocysts, suitable protection from prevailing winds, good ventilation, access and protection from predators can be difficult. Excess heat, cold or damp can have a harmful effect on the animals and their productivity. Unlike battery farms, free range farmers have little control over the food their animals come across which can lead to unreliable productivity.

Arashi no Yoru Ni : One Stormy Night

I just stumbled across this classic anime movie, definitely a disney beater in every way! Highly recommend this for watching!
get it here http://www.animesuki.com/series.php/873.html

Speaking of the cold

When shall we see the sun again? I took this pic outside my apartment the other day.

The cold..

So i begin this new yr wit thinkin about the cold!the dreaded cold! By the gods why is it so cold?? So i came up wit a lil song

Woke up this morning feeling old
I know its sumthin i been told
Oh that thing on the wall its mould
Missing the warm rays of gold!
Oh oh oh I feel cold..

More lyrical inspiration to follow..

The Dawn

The dawn of a new era!
The gift and the guarantee!

It has began..

hear thee hear thee

A screaming comes across the sky.