In our modern world, there is no telling when our video game technology will reach its peak. Technology is advancing at a faster rate every year with very rich competition within the market, especially around this time of year. The Christmas holiday season is probably the biggest turnout for our market today with people giving an arm and a leg for the year's hottest items. It is of no surprise that even in today's economy, people are still rushing to their nearest game store to buy the most popular games. The gaming industry has evolved in so many ways over the last 30 years (probably closer to 40 years) that its hard to keep up with the latest software finding itself in children's homes. So as we reach the year 2010, what have we learned about video games? That there's always something new to learn.

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During the down-time I've had this week following exams, I found myself replaying one of my most favorite video games: the original Half-Life. Originally released in 1998 by then-unknown Valve software, Half-Life went on to receive immense critical praise, and set a standard for first-person action games that has yet to be surpassed. Certainly, with the advent of more modern games, we've had games that have never looked better, but do they truly -play- better? I personally don't think so.

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In the final part of my blog series about video games, I want to bring up a point that we haven't really talked about iand it applies not only to video games, but every medium of narrative that we've discussed throughout the semester. That point is, drum roll please...:

Video Games sell like hotcakes.

Whenever people see a sequel to their favorite game series, they all go out and buy it. Take for example, Halo 3. It had $170 million in profits the first day alone, and more than $300 million in the first week. At the time, it held the record for the most selling IP on the day of release EVER. Now for a recent example, take Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It now holds the record that Halo 3 once had, with $550 million in sales in only five days, $310 of which was from the first day alone.

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Where did the days go when kids would get excited about playing tetris, solitare, or a simple racing game on the computer? Those games have been all but forgotten in this new age, and as I was comparing the difference in the old and new games I noticed one major difference. The new games actually speak to you in some form. Whether it be text flashing across the bottom of the screen, or an actual voice, video games these days actually SPEAK to you. As shown in Facade, the characters are humans. This is the case in many games such as Grand Theft Auto, The Sims, and many other modern games. The interaction between computer and player is what keeps kids hooked to keep playing. Almost as if it would be difficult to just hang up in the middle of a phone conversation, children have a very hard time signing off in the middle of their games because the game has actually communicated with them and gotten them to a certain point or level. This is why we see this sad generation of children sucked into their computers and television screens for days at a time, waiting for the next thing to happen. Just like in a relationship with a real person, you gain trust, confidence and friendship.

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Previous blogs have pointed out that when playing a video game, the narrative of the game (if it is even there in the first place) is often times unrelated to your enjoyment of it. I would like to elaborate on that by suggesting that video games are the only form of narrative where the medium of the story can still be entertaining even though the person playing the game has completely disregarded the narrative that the medium presents.

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In this sequel to my first blog, "Video Games, the new white meat?" I would like to talk about why I personally think that video games are one of the better methods of telling a story. Without further ado, that reason is immersion.

What immersion is in terms of narratology and story-telling is how into the story the recipient becomes, such that they really get sucked into the story. At least, that's the way I see it. To show how video games are more immersive than other mediums, I'll talk about how they do it first. A book shows the reader words on a page, leaving the reader to imagine what happens themselves on their own levels of personal detail. Movies show exactly what happens in the story (or happened/will happen given the usage of ana-/prolepsis) as it happens and leaves nothing to the imagination. Comics have a similar take on it as movies, albiet there is no sound and the method is somewhat different given the seriality of most comics. In video games, the player literally controls what happens, and most things aren't set in stone.

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Today in class we spent a few minutes talking about the appearance of long, developed cinematics into video games. Though the majority of the class seemed not to like the idea of weaving video sequences into video games, i think that the idea is great. A video game is more often than not a story in itself, i believe that the introduction of movie sequences will only help further that story more. Cinematics are also useful because they allow the player to see portions of the game which the gamer can't play them self. In games like "The Darkness," cinematics replace the loading screens, this helps you get to know the characters much more and also gives you something to pay attention to while the next portion of the game is loading. Getting to know the characters more intimately also, in my opinion, makes the game much more fun to play because it draws you that much more into the plot of the game as well as into the character that you are playing as or socialize with in the game.

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