I'm sort of writing this in a hurry, so it may not be very long.
For week twelve I wasn't here, and I didn't read anything while I was out, and for week thirteen I read more from my novel project book, 1984. It is SO good so far. I'm very impressed by the story and the way it's written. I'm excited to finish it, but also a little scared of what might happen.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Writing Four - Persuasive Writing - Video Games
Persuasive Writing
Old and New Video Games
By: Deylah McCarty
Since I was a kid, I’ve played video games that are challenging. I really enjoy the harder games because they provide more opportunities to think rather than sitting there and pressing buttons. Games that were made in my childhood were usually challenging and tricky. As I grew older, however, the games did not grow harder. Instead, they grew much easier, which was very disappointing for me.
The newer games that were coming out were getting easier and easier. It was taking me a very short time to beat them, while the older ones had taken me years to finish. In older games, you have one mission at a time; very simple. In the newer games, you always have two or more things to do at once and it became extremely frustrating. An example of this would be: Brave Fencer Musashi versus Kingdom Hearts 2. In Musashi, you have one mission at a time, and you can take as long as you want to finish it. In Kingdom Hearts 2, you have numerous things to do at once and often can get overloaded with missions. In KH2 there are different worlds you can visit, and often it gets frustrating trying to figure out which one to go to first. This also applies to the graphics in the game.
The graphics in newer games are often very confusing. A great example of this is in Kingdom Hearts 2. During battles, you often can barely see what’s happening because of all the fancy attacks that everyone can do. The monster(s), you, and your two allies attacking at once adds up to one giant mass of exploding color and confusion. The only reason I can manage to understand what’s happening is because of my video game experience, but if I were playing it for the first time I would be highly frustrated. In older games, their archaic graphics may be annoying, but to make up for it the gaming quality and plot is very good. In newer games, they flaunt their graphics so much that the storyline is cliché and the gameplay is boring. Because of this, the thinking level required for older games is much higher than that of newer games.
After playing so many new games, I began noticing I was predicting practically everything that was going to happen and how I was going to win. It was disappointing that the plots were all structured the same way and there were rarely any surprises. A good representation of this would be The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. In this game, the graphics are beautiful, but the plot is very predictable and the game was only a little challenging for me. A predictable plot in a video game usually goes something like this: there’s an evil person you have to beat, and in order to get to them you must go through many useless perils to different areas until finally you find them in their evil lair and defeat them. This very unoriginal plot is fairly common and can get very irritating after a while.
In older games, the menu systems used in the game were usually complex, such as in RPG games where you can use magic and items. In Final Fantasy 8, you can use something called ‘junctioning,’ which enables you to junction magic, items, or even guardian creatures to a character to enhance their strength and abilities. There are countless variations to what you can do to one character. In another game, Final Fantasy 10, the menu system is very simple and not confusing in the least. Menu systems are getting progressively easier, until the point where all you have to do is equip a character with a single item to enhance them.
In the gaming world, there is always going to be a period where new games fade into the distance and get replaced with better games. It is inevitable. Because of this, there is always going to be games that are good, and games that are bad, games that are easy, and games that are hard. It is up to you to decide now: which kind would you rather choose?
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Novel Project - First Journal Entry for "1984"
! Mild Spoiler Warning ! This entry may contain some slight spoilers... but nothing too bad. :)
1987 is a very interesting book so far. Nearly every book I read I can predict, but this one is extremely unpredictable for me. I am growing really addicted to it, which is good since I haven’t really been addicted to a book in a long time. I find the character Winston very interesting. He’s seemingly the only one against Big Brother, and he seems to be going a little crazy because of that. Well, I would too if I were him. I think this book is especially appealing to me because I really enjoy books with a slight sense of fear lingering in every page.
When I first began to read it, I knew it was going to be a good book. I was also pretty confused at first because the storyline was confusing and hard to grasp. I love stories that involve a dystopia. As I read 1984 I’m really reminded of the book The Giver and the movie "V for Vendetta," probably because they include dystopias in them as well. Another sort of example is the movie "War of the Worlds," only that doesn’t quite involve a dystopia but more of a ‘human extermination’ kind of theme. Book and movies like those really spark my interest. I’m not exactly sure why, but it must have something to do with the fact that I’m not in a dystopia or a world being attacked by aliens. I suppose if I was, I’d like to read stories about individuals who are free and out of harm’s way.
"Writing for the future," Winston wrote in his diary. What he means is that even though he is forbidden to write in a diary, he is, and it is for the future. Winston states, "How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?" He later states that he is writing to O’Brien. I think that whether or not he’s writing to anyone or not doesn’t quite matter at the moment. Writing seems to be something that keeps him reasonably sane, the only way for him to vent.
In the world of Big Brother, you are allowed to think on your own, you are allowed to do what you want, but at the same time you are restricted from everything. One wrong little move or even the slightest suspicious action could get you killed. Even if you have done nothing, you could be killed, it seems.
In the world of Winston, there is a constant uncomfortable nervousness, a fear that the world around him is blasphemy. He seeks for an impossible answer of truth to what his world could have once been. Was it better before, as he suspected, or was it worse, as Big Brother so often stated?
Questions, questions: Why is Big Brother turning everyone into mindless slaves under his control? Does he want an equal world? Why and how did Big Brother get everyone to follow his leadership? There must be more rebels than just Winston. Perhaps there are more rebels, and they are doing just what Winston is, waiting and watching. Also, how did Big Brother regulate such a brilliant plan as to even get rid of the rebels? How did all great leaders succeed in gaining so many followers? I’ve noticed, however, that all great or terrible leaders of this world have eventually fallen. Doesn’t that mean that eventually Big Brother will fall too? Hitler, all the Presidents of the U.S., even leaders in households eventually fall. The natural order of things, whether that means the leader was killed, impeached, or dead from old age or sickness, always prevails. Always.
On another note… Winston is disturbed, but very clever. He must be the hero of this story because he is, as far as we know, the only one against Big Brother. As for O’Brien, we can only rely on Winston’s suspicious of him as a rebel of Big Brother, but who knows for certain. Also, the black haired girl seems to be an important role in the story, providing a lot of confusion and anger for Winston. I suspect that she is actually on Winston’s side. She seems to be stalking him when he goes off on his own, but perhaps she is actually drawn to him or is trying to tell him something. I know that when I feel drawn to someone I tend to follow them or ‘gravitate’ to them. This is why I have my suspicious about her. At the same time I’m afraid they (Winston and the dark haired girl) will end up being friends or maybe more, because of a cliché I have seen many times in stories. (Boy sees girl, boy likes girl, boy pretends to hate girl, girl likes boy, girl pretends to hate boy too, and then they fall in love and live happily ever after.) So with that being said, I hope they don’t end up that way. However, I have a feeling George Orwell will put everything in place as he often so ingeniously does.
This is the last paragraph, I swear! Finally, I would like to talk about Newspeak. To be simple, I think it is incredibly ingenious. Taking the English language and squishing it together. Why didn’t I think of that? Rather than create some weird, alien language, Mr. Orwell simply uses the English language as the basis of his new language. But back to the point: Newspeak is just so clever to me. There are a few words I found particularly interesting: For starters, unperson. I thought this was a very eerie word to describe those who were ‘vaporized.’ Also, double-think. I still have yet to completely understand this concept, but as far as I know, it requires double-think to understand double-think… I think. The last word I can think of off the top of my head is thoughtcrime, a word which describes simply thinking about committing a crime, being suspected of it, and getting taken away, or even killed.
On a final note, I am really looking forward to how this book is going to turn out.
1987 is a very interesting book so far. Nearly every book I read I can predict, but this one is extremely unpredictable for me. I am growing really addicted to it, which is good since I haven’t really been addicted to a book in a long time. I find the character Winston very interesting. He’s seemingly the only one against Big Brother, and he seems to be going a little crazy because of that. Well, I would too if I were him. I think this book is especially appealing to me because I really enjoy books with a slight sense of fear lingering in every page.
When I first began to read it, I knew it was going to be a good book. I was also pretty confused at first because the storyline was confusing and hard to grasp. I love stories that involve a dystopia. As I read 1984 I’m really reminded of the book The Giver and the movie "V for Vendetta," probably because they include dystopias in them as well. Another sort of example is the movie "War of the Worlds," only that doesn’t quite involve a dystopia but more of a ‘human extermination’ kind of theme. Book and movies like those really spark my interest. I’m not exactly sure why, but it must have something to do with the fact that I’m not in a dystopia or a world being attacked by aliens. I suppose if I was, I’d like to read stories about individuals who are free and out of harm’s way.
"Writing for the future," Winston wrote in his diary. What he means is that even though he is forbidden to write in a diary, he is, and it is for the future. Winston states, "How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?" He later states that he is writing to O’Brien. I think that whether or not he’s writing to anyone or not doesn’t quite matter at the moment. Writing seems to be something that keeps him reasonably sane, the only way for him to vent.
In the world of Big Brother, you are allowed to think on your own, you are allowed to do what you want, but at the same time you are restricted from everything. One wrong little move or even the slightest suspicious action could get you killed. Even if you have done nothing, you could be killed, it seems.
In the world of Winston, there is a constant uncomfortable nervousness, a fear that the world around him is blasphemy. He seeks for an impossible answer of truth to what his world could have once been. Was it better before, as he suspected, or was it worse, as Big Brother so often stated?
Questions, questions: Why is Big Brother turning everyone into mindless slaves under his control? Does he want an equal world? Why and how did Big Brother get everyone to follow his leadership? There must be more rebels than just Winston. Perhaps there are more rebels, and they are doing just what Winston is, waiting and watching. Also, how did Big Brother regulate such a brilliant plan as to even get rid of the rebels? How did all great leaders succeed in gaining so many followers? I’ve noticed, however, that all great or terrible leaders of this world have eventually fallen. Doesn’t that mean that eventually Big Brother will fall too? Hitler, all the Presidents of the U.S., even leaders in households eventually fall. The natural order of things, whether that means the leader was killed, impeached, or dead from old age or sickness, always prevails. Always.
On another note… Winston is disturbed, but very clever. He must be the hero of this story because he is, as far as we know, the only one against Big Brother. As for O’Brien, we can only rely on Winston’s suspicious of him as a rebel of Big Brother, but who knows for certain. Also, the black haired girl seems to be an important role in the story, providing a lot of confusion and anger for Winston. I suspect that she is actually on Winston’s side. She seems to be stalking him when he goes off on his own, but perhaps she is actually drawn to him or is trying to tell him something. I know that when I feel drawn to someone I tend to follow them or ‘gravitate’ to them. This is why I have my suspicious about her. At the same time I’m afraid they (Winston and the dark haired girl) will end up being friends or maybe more, because of a cliché I have seen many times in stories. (Boy sees girl, boy likes girl, boy pretends to hate girl, girl likes boy, girl pretends to hate boy too, and then they fall in love and live happily ever after.) So with that being said, I hope they don’t end up that way. However, I have a feeling George Orwell will put everything in place as he often so ingeniously does.
This is the last paragraph, I swear! Finally, I would like to talk about Newspeak. To be simple, I think it is incredibly ingenious. Taking the English language and squishing it together. Why didn’t I think of that? Rather than create some weird, alien language, Mr. Orwell simply uses the English language as the basis of his new language. But back to the point: Newspeak is just so clever to me. There are a few words I found particularly interesting: For starters, unperson. I thought this was a very eerie word to describe those who were ‘vaporized.’ Also, double-think. I still have yet to completely understand this concept, but as far as I know, it requires double-think to understand double-think… I think. The last word I can think of off the top of my head is thoughtcrime, a word which describes simply thinking about committing a crime, being suspected of it, and getting taken away, or even killed.
On a final note, I am really looking forward to how this book is going to turn out.
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