To start press any key. Where's the any key?

I booted up my xbox 360 the other day, for my daily dose of some NBA2k11 action, when it occurred to me that upon loading, a message pops up "Press START." Kind of made me think, yes on most (if not all?) consoles, there indeed is a start key. What if you were a PC user? Would some people think the windows key is the START key? Since pressing this key triggers your start menu in Windows?

Reminded me of an old article I read during my late high school years in a magazine I am still reading (and subscribed to!), PC PowerPlay. I think this was a time of Playstation 2s and Nintendo Gamecubes, and also for PC gamers in particularly, Console Port ins. These were basically console games which were "ported" over to the PC platform. Popular examples were Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid. Now, the writer of this article (pretty sure it was Timothy C. Best) mentioned that not only were most of these ports released several months and in some cases over a year later, he expressed his frustration that simple touches, such as changing messages such as, "Press X to kick" would not be changed to the appropriate PC control key scheme.

Being in high school with very, very limited income, I couldn't exactly go out and buy these games to see what the fuss was all about. All I knew was, my friends owned playstations and sega saturns, and darnnarnit I wanted one too!

Fast forward a few years, and working part time, I finally saved enough to buy my very own console for the first time. Alas, my partner (now wife), though she doesn't see herself as a gamer (played World of Warcraft with me for a few years, and is a KILLER PRO spider solitaire and freecell player! If there ever was a professional competition for spider solitaire and freecell, OMG she would own those so hard, even professional starcraft players would come to watch her AMAZING APM!), didn't like "violent games" but loved "Mario."... You guessed it, my first console, was a Wii. Nothing against it though, we had loads of fun with it, so many times we couldn't stop laughing, especially when we had friends over, but I couldn't play the so-called "blockbusters." So in the end I had to resort to buying PC versions of these games, which wasn't a big deal, since most of these were FPS (First Person Shooters), which I prefer controlling with the classic keyboard and mouse setup. (Keyboard for movement, mouse for aiming and shooting).

The big thing was NBA2K10. I bought that on steam, for PC, so excited about buying a basketball game for the first time since 1999, I eagerly awaited this download to finish. Once done, I patched it up, and off I went to the loading screen. I played a few games and thought, 'hey, I wanna learn some of the moves' and went into practice mode.' First thing I saw was "To do a stepback, hold the Left trigger and move your left analog stick back." ...... Make a long story short, I now have an xbox360 and 2K11 is NOT on my PC.

Going back to the FPS thing. I also read an article in a recent issue of PC PowerPlay by the tech editor, Matt Wilson (issue 187, Feb 2011 for those who may want to refer to it), about him building a gaming rig for his younger brother and installing steam and Call of Duty for him. To this his brother asked "Can you use a controller on this PC?" and which to this the tech editor was simply flabbergasted, as most PC gamers would agree, 'Why on earth would you opt a controller over the precision of mouse and keyboard?'. Maybe this is just a generation thing? I mean I've tried playing Call of Duty: Black Ops on the xbox a few months back, and I was absolutely hopeless. Yet, look up on Youtube and you will find loads of video replays of players doing some awesome things, things that I would be assuming were done using mouse and keyboard, not a fidgety controller. I've noticed a lot of my younger friends (still in high school), who grew up on consoles, are so good at using these controllers.

It's almost like being left handed or right handed. Of course there are those ambidextrous in this sense and are proficient at both modes of input, but generally people seem to have a preference.

I know this has been a long entry, but one last final interesting note. I was scrounging around teamliquid's website for some starcraft 2 strats, where I stumbled across this article. 
Titled, Bumblebees Guide to Playing with low APM. For those who are not RTS players (real time strategy games), APM stands for (actions per minute), which is simply a measure of how many actions a player makes, generally not a be all end all measure of skill, but an aspect of it. Being a noob at starcraft 2, and thus naturally having very low APM I hastily opened this and had a read. It turns out that this particular player has a medical condition which hinders his ability to have high APM, but he has figured out different ways to work around this obstacle. The article goes really in depth, and even has a section on different types of input devices which people who have similar conditions, could use as alternatives if for the chance that they find the mouse and keyboard setup too uncomfortable.

Just a snippet,

"Replacing the mouse
      The mouse is usually considered the optimal cursor device for most people. I realize there are many, many options and accompanying opinions about what mouse is best so I will only discuss alternatives to the mouse. I'm going to assume for this that you are not so disabled as to require some form of eye or head tracking to control the cursor. If you are, and are playing starcraft, please message me!

Trackball - Trackballs are the common solution for people who have physical difficulties operating a mouse. The main advantages are that a trackball can be operated without arm movement, and the buttons are independent of the tracking device. For general use trackballs are probably the optimal solution for those with physical difficulties. I spent a good amount of time playing SC II and other games with a trackball and I found some problems with trackballs for video game usage."

(from http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163299) 

So next time you load up your favorite game on whatever platform it may be, be it PC, Mac, console, smart phones, tablets, etc, have a think, are there other ways people use controls to use this game? Even simple things as key bindings, think about how you bind your keys on a keyboard/controller/whatever, and think why you have set it up as so.

EDIT: Just realised there's also motion sensor type controls such as via the Wiimote, Playstation Move, and Xbox Kinect. Looks like we're moving towards the whole no physical control scheme of things, but at the same time, I don't think these will completely replace them in the near future either. Reason being, certain games just will not feel right, or will not work well with motion sensor technology. (RTS being a prime example) So until we start seeing gaming platforms completely rewriting the ways we play ALL games, and start innovating some new ways to produce today's and tomorrow's genres, your mouse/keyboard/controller will still be in good shape.

Apologies for the wall of text!

Qualities of a gamer, learner, teacher?

Just as I posted that last one, I hopped over to the macICT blog, and found a very interesting article indeed.
Titled, Top 10 qualities of an innovative teacher. Here are some of the qualities DEVANS17 listed in her top 10,

"....

1. Innovative teachers are problem-solvers. They are never too busy to find answers to problems. So when a problem occurs, they don’t see the problem. They are usually already trying a workaround, and usually searching for a solution at the same time.

2. Innovative teachers are perseverant. If the solution to a problem doesn’t come immediately, they persevere until they find one.
3. Innovative teachers are risk-takers. They usually don’t take ‘no’ for an answer too easily. They are willing to make calculated risks, to break rules and often test untried territories on a regular basis.
4. Innovative teachers are gracious and giving. They usually say ‘yes’ when someone asks for help or needs support. They are never too busy to share their expertise.
5. Innovative teachers are not afraid to fail. They see mistakes, errors and wrong decisions as learning opportunities.
...."


For the full article, you can check that out here.

Also check out this video

It's called Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world



If the video doesn't play properly, or if you'd rather see it directly through YouTube, you can do that through this link.


So after reading through the article and watching the video, as a gamer, do you share of these qualities mentioned? How about as a learner? How about as a teacher? Personally, I found it interesting that I share most of these qualities as a gamer, more or less the same amount as a learner, but not that many as a teacher... As a preservice teacher this is something I now know I must work on harder to achieve!

Weclome fellow N.zoids!

Hello people of the world wide web! (or perhaps just a few friends, family and loved ones as this was created 5 minutes ago...)

First off, I just want to say (or write), that I absolutely love video games! Whether it is playing it, watching friends play, watching the professionals play, reading about it online, through magazines, listening to podcasts (and more recently videocasts - vidcasts??) and so on and so forth. However, I always seemed to hit a brick wall in terms of "skill" in most, if not all, of the video games that I have picked up and played in the past. No matter how much I played, or practised, or read up strategy guides and such, I just plain sucked.

As many ex-noobs may imagine, this lead to many a times where the rage monster (like the cookie monster, but way, way, WAY uglier. Not to mention the mess it leaves behind!) would be unleashed and its wrath would know no end and it'd be chaos in my computer/bed room... Or at least until my ma or pa came in and gave me the ol' LOOK. (You know what I mean. That expression on my father's face when he first saw me 'speaking' to my computer at 4 in the morning on a ventrilo server - oh boy... but that is for another time)

But I digress. Back to the point. What was it? Ah yes. I suck at games. Question is "Why?" (No trolls allowed. I know, I'm kind of feeding them) I mean, I look up strategies, video guides, pro game replays, etc, and of course practise when I can. Yet it only seems to take me so far?

So I thought I'd start this blog, mainly as a therapeutic exercise, to keep the woosah and the RM (see rage monster) within, but also wanted to sort of explore the different types of resources that are available for gamers today, compared to say, when I was 7 and my pa got me a second or third hand atari. For example, in singleplayer games, if you are 'stuck' on a particular level, all you have to do is simply open up your web browser, load up google and search "[game name] walkthough guide." Back then though, when I had my super high tech atari tuned masterfully onto a random, freed up UHF or VHF or whatever they're called frequency, the only guides or hints you could really get (especially at the age of 7) was from your friends or family or neighbours. I'm not too sure if gaming magazines were around then, which would have been quite amusing actually... "WOAH, check out the graphics on this screenshot man! It's got like TWENTY COLOURS! That's like TEN MORE than the first one!"

Ahem. So going back to my story (again), there was this game on that atari, I think it was called Kung Fu Master or something. Definitely had the word Kung Fu in it. It was a side scrolling beat 'em up, really really ancient stuff. Basically you can move forwards, backwards, crouch, punch and kick, while the "bad guys" came charging at you from both sides. As you could imagine, it wasn't that hard. Until I reached the first BOSS. Oh Em JEE. This guy did like the Chun-Li 100s & 1000s kick and this game didn't even have a BLOCK ability! (Btw, I'm pretty sure this was released before Street Fighter II) So naturally I got beaten to a pulp. Of course I kept going back and trying and trying... and trying and trying... eventually even trying different approaches. Maybe I can crouch and dodge the kicks and punch him in the hurt locker? Nope, I just got beaten while crouched. Maybe if I wait for the kicks to finish I can slip in a quick jab to the face? That's a negative, them kicks go for a looong time. Seeing as most of the kids at school were playing SEGA master system or the Nintendo Entertainment system, I had noone to ask for help! Eventually I just booted up RAMPAGE and ate people and cars and blew up cities, which kind of made me feel better.

This idea of all these resources being put out there, by fellow gamers, both hobbyists and ex-pros (retired due to real life commitments, or to start shoutcasting - which is like commentating for professional game braodcasts) is really exciting, and ever expanding, that I just wanted to write a bit about my thoughts on it from time to time.

Another thing I have been slowly uncovering from the internet and recently even at uni (forgot to mention, I'm studying to be a Primary school teacher), is the link between games and education. I think this could maybe get stretched to hobbies and education, but games moreso as I think this is a prime example of everyday technology being used for problem solving on multiple levels. (individual, collaborative and metacognitive)

Finally weaving in and out of these parts will be my own personal history of gaming, from throwing upright joysticks to throwing xbox360 gamepads, and the occasional mice and keyboards.

To finish off, if you are interested in some of the exciting stuff gaming can and is currently having with education, check out macICT, a department in my uni researching this kind of work, through their website.