{ THAT O N E MAGAZ I N E
Where to find everything:
My Brain’s Confession America’s Tunnel Vision Problem (Substantial Revision) The Greatest Game To Float The Skies (Genre Change) TV Show’s annoying little cousin (AD Pitch Response) Salem, Oregon spelled backwards.. Kind of (omelas response) We’re just not going to talk about this one (Substantial Revision Response)
My Brain’s Confession
My metacognitive process can be described with three distinct traits; procrastination, convenience, and occasional bursts of creative excitement. When given the warning “this is not something you can do the night before” I think to myself “challenge accepted”. Needless to say, my time management skills could use a little work. For the portfolio assignment I had the choice between my Rhetorical Analysis and my Op-Ed paper because my Ethnography was not something worth revisiting. Now faced with only two papers my choice became much simpler. I chose to use my Bio Sho c k paper for the genre change because I felt that it was my best paper. I liked writing it and talking about something that really interested me. Originally I planned on using the movie The Truman Show for my Rhetorical Analysis paper but while writing the first draft I had that spark of creative
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excitement. I decided to switch over to the newest Bio Sho c k game because I wanted to talk about something more meaningful and thought provoking than the Truman Show. When deciding what new genre I wanted to do for my genre change I thought about what would make most sense to do with a video game. The first thing that came to mind was a video game review, it was similar to the analysis I just did, I had read reviews before, and it was a way for me to continue to talk about all the things I liked about the game. I think that a lot of people have a bad name for video games, they stereotype them thinking that kids will rot their brains and nothing good will come of them. One of the main reasons I wanted to do this review and continue to talk about the aspects of the game was to let people know that video games are an art form and have purpose and meaning just like any other creative work. For the substantial revision part of the portfolio my thought process focused more along the lines of convenience. I was working on the first drafts of the Op-Ed assignment and I wasn’t really fond of the direction it was heading. So what made most sense to me was to completely change my approach to the paper. I wanted this paper
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to be good because I was talking about a television show that I liked a lot. My goal with this paper was to experiment with my writing and look at I from a new angle. Normally when I write I take the first idea that comes into my head and I write with that style. With this assignment, after meeting with you, I gained a new perspective on the assignment. In addition, I think that this new perspective is much better than my original plan. Through the process of this Op-Ed assignment I was able to see the importance of gaining multiple points of view. I believe that my work over the years has definitely improved. However my writing still has a lot of bugs to work out. I seem to have an easy time setting up examples and coming up with multiple conflicts. Where this is faulted is with my ability to expand on those examples and begin to create solid arguments. Not being able to analyze and interpret my examples has become the major problem with my writing. Another thing that I struggle with is my sentence structure. I have received feedback saying that I have good ideas and interesting viewpoints, but my papers lack appropriate ways of expressing those ideas. In conclusion I have good ideas, but need to work on successfully expressing them.
America’s Tunnel Vision Problem
http://thatonemagazine.tumblr.com/post/69850666026/subs
The Greatest Game to Float The Skies A bird? A plane? A floating city! First Person Shooters are one of my favorite video game genres. Successful titles deliver adrenaline pumping action, beautiful scenery with fine-tuned cinematic transitions, and stunning graphics wit1q2dh an equally compelling story that keeps gamers coming back for more. It was no doubt that when I heard about the upcoming release of the next Bio Sho c k title I started marking my calendar for days that I’d be “sick”. If it was going to be anything like the previous titles then it was going to be another breakthrough game. The designers for Infinite had their heads up in the clouds when setting their goals for the game. While they were up there they not only found their new game location, the floating city of Columbia, they also undoubtedly discover the secret to making a damn good game.
Funfactor Without a doubt this is the most fun I’ve ever had in a game. The different difficulty levels tend to every kind of player, the witty banter between DeWitt, Elizabeth, and the Lutece twins adds an element of comic relief, and new ways to move around the city of Columbia compelling gameplay keep the game interesting and fresh. My new favorite addition? The Sky-Line. In previous Bio Sho c k games, the underwater city of Rapture had limited space for combat and as a player I sometimes felt constrained. With the new addition of the Sky-Line, new combat areas are opened up, a faster and more innovative way to get around the map is provided, and it’s all the fun of a roller coaster without the puking feeling at the end; what’s not to like?
Gameplay and Control Nearly flawless. Being a first person shooter the movement is smooth and easy to control. Half the battle of making a successful game is making it so the player can seamlessly control events that are happening on their screen. This title stumbles with its accessibility of the Vigors. Vigors are powers your player wields. Drink up the “Devil’s Kiss vigor and presto! You have been genetically altered to have fire balls shoot out of your hands. They add new strategies to combat as well as peaceful play. Some machines can be possessed to start shooting at enemies instead of you while others can give you discounted prices on ammunition and health packs. There are 8 you can collect in total and this becomes limited when you play this game on a console. Your HUD displays two Vigors available at one time, with hotkeys on your controller to switch between them. In order to access the other 6, the gameplay must be paused
and the Vigors have to be assigned from that separate screen to their respective hotkeys. This causes the game to not be as smooth as it could be and in the heat of battle I often times I found myself settling with the Vigors I already had assigned rather than switching them for the current situation I was in. On PC however there are many more keys at your disposal which means each Vigor can have its own key, so gameplay becomes much smoother. ďƒ‘ Graphics ďƒ‘ Beautiful as can be, but not up with the times. BioShock is notorious for incredibly visually stimulating games. In 2007 when the first game of the franchise came out it was a captivating wonder, a delightful combination between imaginative art design and the most advanced top-shelf graphics technology. Unfortunately not much has changed in the raw graphics department with the new title. Minor but ďƒ‘
noticeable details stick out that slightly take away from the overall experience. Some low quality textures, non- playable characters that lack the same attention in design as, say your partner Elizabeth, and the occasional frame rate hitches are the only other thing this game fails to perfect. Though with ambitions this high, a few minor errors are understandable, especially because so many other aspects of the game make up for it. ďƒ‘ Music to My Ears One of my favorite parts of this game is the sound track. It beautifully ties the gameplay together with the time period it is set in. The developers did a great job when making sure the music would set the scene. Since the game is set in the early 1900’s you often hear a record player playing an old static like tune. The sound echoes through the streets as you play and the music volume is relative to where you are standing in the game as well as the direction you are facing. ďƒ‘
That is one aspect of the game that I really enjoyed. I think it is very important to immerse your audience in the game in order to create a better and more believable gaming experience. So when Elizabeth is trying to toss me some money she found and behind me and to my left, I was pleasantly surprised that I heard her voice coming from that direction in my headset. Put it on Replay So you’ve just beat the game, you mind is melting with confusion because of the phenomenal ending you’ve just experienced, what do you do now? Call it quits and add the game to your list of completed? Hell no. Take a break if you must, but I guarantee you’ll find yourself itching to play through it again and again to continue exploring. Columbia is literally the size of a city, there are multiple ways you can go through a mission and countless things you can discover. With the different
difficulties you can go back and give yourself a real challenge or set the game for a little lighter ride and take time to enjoy the scenery. Throughout the game there is hidden gear you can find to better prepare Booker, and there are lock picks you can find laying around to help you get into those unexplored areas. BioShock creates a game that becomes an alternate world, it can be played over and over again and still be a new experience for you. ďƒ‘ The Final Verdict In conclusion, BioShock Infinite is no doubt an immersive game. The many new features add different levels to exploration and combat. Around midway through the game it can run a little dry, but it soon picks back up with the adrenaline pumping action us gamers crave. The controls and graphics could use a little tweaking but it is nothing worth ďƒ‘
making a fuss over. With a beautiful soundtrack and hours of “replayablility” I rank this BioShock a 9 out of 10. It has been added to the list of all-time favorite games and if you haven’t already picked up a copy and basked in its glory you’re probably in your car on your way to get one.
TV Show’s little annoying cousin ďƒ‘
http://thatonemagazine.tumblr.com/post/69848101292/ad-pitc
Salem, Oregon spelled backwards.. Kind of ďƒ‘
http://thatonemagazine.tumblr.com/post/69848183922/omelas
We’re just not going to talk about this one ďƒ‘
http://thatonemagazine.tumblr.com/post/69848256558/subst