The Blog Results

The three most valuable things I've learned from blogging seems to focus more about making it appealing to both the gamer and non gamer crowd. I knew not everyone in my class would be an avid gamer like I was, so I had that mindset in my mind. I tried to tackle certain topics that might seemed intriguing when it comes to first person shooters and their design traits like my blog post where I talked about why '90s first person shooters still hold up really well in today's time. The final thing I learned was to basically have fun with it. It's really a place where you can do whatever you want and there isn't any sort of rule you have to follow. Sometimes, people want to throw a little bit of personality in their writing than like writing an article for the newspaper or a review of a film.

I think I improved my writing by just having a sense of freedom. It's always good to not worry about certain rules that you might have to follow like writing a history paper where you can't write it in first person, but at the same time, you do have to explain a interpretation of an event. I think this sense of freedom just makes writing not so much of a nuisance it can be at times when there are rules you have to follow. I also believed I wrote everything in AP format, so this blog was good practice for me get to familiar with the format because I never written anything in that format until last quarter.

Right now in this situation, I have fairly little interest in continue. It's fun, but I also enjoy doing my Youtube stuff and it's also similar to what I did with blog stuff. I also spent a lot of money on equipment for Youtube, so there's a much higher incentive for me to do that. Youtube also allows me to do more than that too because I just simply enjoyed uploading videos and it's been an entertaining ride since 2009. I also just feel like there might not be enough gamers that enjoy reading blogs compared to watching Youtube videos.

 Youtube is such an amazing place for gamers. Video games have always been more of a visual experience and Youtube is basically that. You can watch gameplay videos of a game you're interested in and see if it might be the game for you. There's also a lot of successful Youtubers who make a living by uploading various video game content. Not only that, gaming as a whole seems really big on Youtube as there's a section dedicated to gaming.

With that said, it's difficult for me to stay in the blogosphere, but I do believe it was a fun experience to be a part of it. It isn't something that I get to experience on a daily basis too compared to doing projects or writing up papers. I might miss making posts on my blog because I didn't really find them too annoying to do although and I also put a lot of passion in my posts too. It might be something I might look back on and be proud about it.

Are FPS Games Dangerous?

Chainsaw your foe for a personal kill.

On April 20th, 1999, there was a historic, but terrifying moment called Columbine High School massacre. Never did Americans believed a tragedy like this would happen and it eventually caused other events like the Virginia Tech shooting or Sandy Hook shooting. Columbine made us realized schools might not be the place where we can feel entirely safe, but it also allowed us to look for certain influences that can occur to these events. One of these influences were violence in video games.

Before Eric and Dylan pulled off this tragedy, they were avid Doom players. They loved the game. It was violent, rebellious, and edgy. They enjoyed the game so much to a point they started making their own maps as a hobby. There were also rumors around the time that Eric intended to make a map based on their high school as a fantasizing experience.

Eric and Dylan wasn't the only twisted minded psychopaths that enjoyed violent video games.  Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, did too. He was a fan of first person shooters like Call of Duty and Combat Arms. He actually had over 400 hours played on Combat Arms. However, he was a big fan of violent video games in general.

There are many examples I can mention a terrifying event where it is arguable that video games might have somewhat an impact to to these types of events. I find it scary that on November 13th, 2015 there was a terrorist attack in Paris. I find it scarier that in Battlefield 3's campaign, you play as a Russian terrorist and you're attacking on November 13th, 2014.

But no matter what the media tries to convey the video game influences, it is a sense of entertainment. Yes, first person shooters are violent and the fact the word "shooter" is in it; it's obvious there's going to be killing involved. However, it's fun to kill in video games.

Soldier of Fortune allows you to "decorate" your enemies.

The things you do in a video game should all be based on entertainment. I like killing my opponents in online games because it feels good when you're able to outplay your enemy whether you had the better aim or strategy. Obviously, I wouldn't want to do something like that in reality.

It is true video games can give psychopaths an idea of what they want to do before they end their life just like Eric and Dylan, but at the same time, psychopaths are crazy to begin with. How can you stop someone who's has reached their insanity to a point they cannot become sane anymore? Psychopaths are extremely difficult to cope, and I personally believe there might never be a resolution to rectify them.

Even if video games aren't around, I'm sure they'll still go out and do preposterous activities. I can see something like a school shooting or a terrorist attack still happening even if we might not have violent video games or movies in our world. I don't find all forms of entertainment to be vexatious in our society.

They can all be expressed in a dark way, but people might find them entertaining. I like the constant killing in first person shooters because I think killing feels amazing from a video game standpoint. Some people might enjoy listening to rap music with violent lyrical content in the likes of Eminem or DMX. They might find it a therapeutic experience when it comes to relieving anger or personal problems.

Ethnic Cleansing: You shoot those who aren't white!

Yes, there are ways where we can use our form of entertainment to bring people down. I remember listening to some old KKK records. I don't remember why or how I managed to listen to them, but I'm aware sometimes we can take entertainment and push it to a level where we can use it as a weapon. A weapon to target to a certain demographic and make them feel down about it. However, I believe there's a fine line of what is good entertainment value and what is bad.


No, FPS games aren't dangerous. No forms of entertainment are.

Two More Months

It's big and scary. You know what that means? Kill it!

In two more months, Doom (2016) will be released. I personally can't wait because this game has been my most anticipated for many years. However, I had to wait for around eight years when it was officially announced back in Quakecon 2008. Quakecon is basically a yearly event where id talks about their upcoming games and it's a LAN party for gamers to play. id Software was busy with RAGE while they had another team working on Doom. Until 2016, there were so many issues the game was going. Id Software stated many times the next Quakecon would announce more information about Doom, but they always fail to keep their promise until Quakecon 2014.

Eventually, around 2013, there were news the game's original direction wasn't up to par and there were many inner struggles which led the team delaying for any public information to be revealed. This brought up a lot of concerns to fans and gamers alike. Now fast forward to 2016, the game's about to come out in two more months and there's a decent amount of public information where people can read them to get a taste of the game if they feel like it. It's just crazy how the situation is drastically different today versus back in the previous years when id was always constantly hiding Doom information from the public.

As a fan, it's obvious I'm looking forward to it. This game had a big impact on my life as it was really my first video game I played while growing up. I played a lot of educational games before Doom, but I won't count that as real video games. I never thought playing the original Doom would give me an idea of what I would want to do with my life once I gotten older. I'm sure my life would've been very different if I didn't play this game.

Super Shotgun is a fan favorite.

There were so many things that struck me. I loved the action, pacing, levels, monsters, weapons, and the list just goes on. It was really something I wouldn't ever believe to witness because I was around five or six years old when I played this game. This game made me realize how video games can just be an awesome and complex source of entertainment.

It's crazy how I started so young with the original Doom. I probably started with Doom II around nine to 10 years old. I eventually played Doom III at 12 years old. Now I'm 24 and I'm about to play the new Doom game in a couple of months. Man, it's been way too long since the last Doom game.

I have a lot of interests in playing the campaign because I always believe Doom strives well when it comes to the single player aspect. I did play the exclusive alpha of the multiplayer and it was really fun. There will be another one coming out soon which I cannot wait to try it out again. The game will have a public beta too and I hope that will come out soon because both the alpha and beta are really the closest thing that gamers can play.

There's an interesting feature called Snap Map where players can actually create their own maps and game modes. Apparently, it's a very complex tool where players will never run out of imagination as long they play around with the tools. I'm interested to see how the community is going to handle this type of tool because I generally don't really like doing theses type of things. I'm all about playing the "finished" content rather than making my own content when it comes to buying video games and playing them.

I hope you're not squeamish!

Technology advances.

These next two months are gonna be a slow one for sure, but I'm sure I'll keep myself distracted fairly well because I had to wait for eight years for this game to come out. Two months should be nothing. I believe if you are a gamer (especially a big shooter fan) and you're looking for some fun on May 13th, you should check out Doom. I think there is something that will appeal to you once you play it. I know for sure I'm going to play this game a lot on May 13th. I hope it will be a solid follow up to the older games because these games are definitely nostalgic to many gamers and some people may feel it won't live up to the standards of those games.

Everyone has their own opinions and I won't judge for them that. I am just pleased by everything I've been seeing and reading. I personally think this might be the best game that id will release in a long time. It's always great to see my favorite developer is making the right moves to be relevant in the gaming scene just like they once were years ago.