Omega 2's blog

This blog marks the end of the VideoGame Canon Seminar with Dr. Zach Whalen.  Looking back on what I personally have gathered from this class I realize that it has helped me to not just look at videogames in a new light but it has also helped me with my classes as well. 

This class has had me looking at videogames like a text, in depth and analytical.  Now when I play videogames I don't just notice how good or bad it is I also notice things like: oh this guy made the game so that if you die you have to start al over from the very beginning to represent death in the real world in a videogame.  I'll then be able to draw from that to find the overall meaning of a videogame being something like how the game was made to mirror real life.

While taking this class I discovered that when an English Professor teaches a seminar class then it will contain tons of writing.  Other than complaining about how the class should be writing intensive, this class actually helped me with my actual writing intensive class.

I will continue to post blogs on the VGC website after this semester.  I will post a wide variety of things to the website much like I do now, from videogame analysis to interesting news about videogames or videogame related elements like my previous post Do Re Mi Fa So La Bleep Bloop. 

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Mario, Nintendo's famed mascot, wasused to advertise Nintendo products and to this day still is but in 1998 Mario recieved some help advertising the Nintendo logo from Link, the protagonist of the games in the Legend of Zelda Series.  Since 1998 the Link from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was featured alongside Mario in Nintendo ads and has risen to iconic hights and viewed close to Nintendo's largest character, Mario.

Some may ask, "Why is Link so iconic that he gets to appear next to Mario?" The answer is simple, well maybe not so simple.  You have to look at not just Ocarina of Time but the whole Legend of Zelda Series.  The series has set the record as the longest running action adventure game of all time.

The Legend of Zelda is the longest running action adventure series of all time. The first game was releases in 1986 on the NES. Guiness World Records Gamer's Edition

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time game has won the award for the highest rating video game of all time.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the highest rated game of all time at 97.7% according to website gamerankings.com. Guiness World Records Gamer's Edition

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The idea of a video game being banned comes as no surprise to people especially with the Grand Theft Auto stuff going around and making certain groups of people get together and form protests against it.  However, the point being when people hear about a video game being banned they start to think "Oh yeah, I can see why _____ is banned" but in the country of Saudi Arabia Pokemon, of any sort, is banned. 

Why would a video game series, and show and card game and any related perafenalia, be banned from an entire contry?

...in 2001 Pokémon and all its associated spin-off games were the subject of a fatwa in Saudi Arabia, which said the games featured the Star of David, which Saudis associate with Israel and international Zionism. It was suggested the games had "possessed the minds" of Saudi children. -GamesRadar US

So Saudi Arabia will ban Pokemon but not Tomb Raider?  Tomb Raider depicts just as many religious symbols as Pokemon does, if not more.  If a game like Pokemon what about games like Assassin's Creed it hasn't been banned yet and with as many religious references as this game has I'm actually surprised Saudi Arabia hasn't banned it yet.  Pokemon's religious content got it banned in Saudi Arabia and only caused uproar in other countries like Mexico and Britian.

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Often times people buy games bases on the quality of the graphics or the gameplay lately though it has also been on the music in the game.  We have seen video games evolve in graphics, gameplay, content, and music, they have also made their way into culture, politics and the music industry.  I started thinking about the impact games have on the music industry after I read this article in Time magazine about a jazz CD that came out on August 20th, 2009 called Kind of Bloop, the whole CD is done with old 8-Bit sound affects.  Games have evolved far from 8-Bit sounds to a full symphony orchestra performing live but Andy Baio, the man behind Kind of Bloop, took video game music back to its roots and use those sounds to re-make an entire jazz CD using those 8-Bit sounds.  Baio bought the rights to the original album, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, and hired a group of 8-Bit(Chiptune) musicians to use old computers and computer-programming codes to make certain songs.  It doesn't say what type of old computers they used so it could have been an Apple II or even an Atari. 

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