Village Gamer

Format: Wii (also available for Nintendo DS, Mobile, PS2, PS3, PC, X360)
Release Date: November 11, 2008
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch
Official Website: http://www.callofduty.com
ESRB Rating: M – Mature 17+

Introduction

Call of Duty (COD): World at War (WAW) is a very intense, brutal and addicting game that can be played with two players or with friends and strangers via Wi-Fi connection. Although the game is rated M for Mature, WAW does a very good job of not exaggerating the blood, violence, and language; however, I would recommend waiting for the kids to go to bed before playing this one.

Beginning

Picking up the campaign section of the game (if you haven’t played the other COD games) was very simple. The game gives you hints as you go along on how to master the skills needed for the mission you are playing. I used the Wii zapper for this game, which did make it much easier to aim and shoot. The down side of the zapper was it made it harder to quickly throw back grenades and to drop mounted weapons in order to run away from grenades. I took off the zapper for a period of time, and found myself doing much worse – I decided to stick with the zapper for this one.

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Official Website: Puzzlegeddon
Format: PC
Developer: Pieces Interactive
Publisher: Pieces Interactive
Genre: Action
ESRB Rating: E – Everyone

Puzzlegeddon features an inventive mix of puzzle, action and strategy. Select your island of choice and puzzle for resources to defend yourself and to defeat opponents throughout the many galaxies, game modes and challenges which await you in Puzzlegeddon.

When I was asked to review this game I had never heard of it or even seen any screenshots; I wasn’t sure what to expect. So when I read how the game functions, I was quite impressed. The main goal of the game is to defeat your opponents by solving a puzzle of different colors. As you solve the puzzle you will earn different resources to use against your opponents and decrease their health. Along with those resources that do damage to your opponent, there are also resources you can collect to protect yourself.

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Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do
Authors: Lawrence Kutner, Ph.D. and Cheryl Olson, Sc.D.
April 2008

I have mixed feelings about Grand Theft Childhood – it was not what I was expecting in a book whose subtitle offers help to parents who don’t know very much about video games, yet it was in its own way very in-depth and in the end, I can see it being helpful to uninformed non-gaming parents. While the studies and procedures are valid – the authors spend the first four or five chapters quantifying their research and comparing previous studies done by others – I feel that they rely too much on the processes and not enough on the advice they promised, which they don’t get to until Chapter 9.

Throughout the book, the authors show that kids are much smarter than we give them credit for when it comes to reality versus game environment. While there is that small percentage of the population who are effected by extenuating circumstances, that percentage is very small even when the playing of violent video games is added into the equation.

There is also a chapter about the government trend of trying to restrict or ban violent video games, and another on the rating system. As with every generation, there has to be some form of media which is adversely influencing our children, and this generation’s bad boy is video gaming. I was pleased to see that an abundance of feedback from the kids who were studied was included in this book – who better to help parents understand the attraction of video games than the kids who play them?

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The Art of Game Worlds
Dave Morris and Leo Hartas
September 22 2004

While this book has been out for a number of years, its content is very relevant to today’s game design. Authors Dave Morris and Leo Hartas have produced a volume of beautiful game environment artwork accompanied by in-depth interviews revealing the inspiration behind them. From the world as it was to the world as it may become, the artists behind the digital worlds we inhabit share their thoughts on the advances which have been made in game development. The importance of creating fantastical scenes while retaining some level of realistic relationship with the player is but one aspect of game art design covered in The Art of Game Worlds. Also discussed is using art, setting and lighting to elicit emotional responses from the gamer during play, as well as how the artists strive to add that “wow factor” with every new product.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the development processes for environment design. The amount of knowledge shared by industry greats such as Chris Bateman, Ernest W. Adams, Mike Jeffries, Yusuke Naora, Cathy Campos and many more, makes the price of this book well worth the expense.

Official Website: Puzzlegeddon
Format: PC
Developer: Pieces Interactive
Publisher: Pieces Interactive
Genre: Action
ESRB Rating: E – Everyone

Puzzle games are not really my thing, I get bored easily matching shapes or colours or putting numbers in some sequence; so when I was asked to review Puzzlegeddon I was kind of dubious to try it. After setting up my profile I decided to run through the tutorial, usually I regret doing this but not with Puzzlegeddon; the tutorial was informative, concise and you didn’t have to wait forever while some character told you what to do. A quick look at the puzzle board reveals squares of four colours, and placing five or more of them together and right clicking causes them to clear. On top of the puzzle are four meters of matching colours that fill up as you clear tiles from the board.
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Mafiaboy – How I Cracked the Internet & Why It’s Still Broken
Michael Calce with Craig Silverman
2008

Mafiaboy – How I Cracked The Internet & Why It’s Still Broken reads more like a “what I did last summer” essay combined with a school research project than a true authoritative look at the problems inherent with security and the internet. I found Mr. Calce’s tale to be built more on ego and teenage swagger than on remorse. Granted, he did learn some good coding skills in his early career, but I find it hard to believe that an otherwise seemingly well-behaved kid had no foresight into the wrongness of his activities. At times I did wonder who he was trying to convince – himself, his family, or readers – that his foray into piracy, hacking and bot herding was nothing more than an innocent quest for knowledge gone wrong.

While I understand the lure of power and being able to do something no one else (or very few) can do, Mr. Calce broke the law, and he deserved all he got. Although he cautions others against following in his footsteps as the end result is not worth the brief intoxication of power, my respect falls on the side of the RCMP and FBI agents who put an end to Mafiaboy’s thoughtless attacks. I do not feel that his inclusion of very basic internet security information in any way redeems the millions of dollars in damage and lost time he caused.

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On The Way To The Web: The Secret History of the Internet and its Founders
Michael A. Banks
2008

On The Way To The Web is one book which I highly recommend to anyone who wants a definitive history on the internet. The amount of research and time which was obviously spent on compiling and organizing the short but colourful history of this wonder known as the Web is very worthy of recognition.

For those of us who remember the coming of the internet, On The Way To The Web is a journey back in time, revisiting many events, products and ideas which seemed so futuristic and impossible twenty years ago which have now become common place or fallen by the wayside. I personally had forgotten all about ventures such as GameLine – the innovative download service for Atari 2600 games and game updates. While I’m sure that many of today’s gamers think that XBLA, Wii Shop and PlayStation Network were all 21st century inventions, GameLine was here first. Reading about GameLine again, I have to wonder where our games industry would be today if Atari hadn’t experienced the downslide it did right at the time of GameLine’s launch.
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Format: PC
Publisher: Lighthouse Interactive – North America, UK, Benelux, Scandinavia
Publisher: dtp entertainment AG
Developer: Artematica
Genre: Conspiracy Adventure
SRP: $19.99
ESRB Rating: Mature

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: Windows® 2000 / XP / Vista™
CPU: 1 GHz Intel® Pentium® processor or AMD® Athlon™ processor
RAM: 512 MB (1 GB recommended for Windows® Vista™)
Video: 64 MB DirectX® 9.0c compatible or better video card
PC CD-ROM: 4x (or PC DVD-ROM drive)
Sound: DirectX® 9.0c compatible sound card
Available Hard Disk Space: 2 GB
DirectX®: 9.0c
Other: Mouse, Keyboard and Speakers

Belief & Betrayal is a point and click third person adventure puzzle game. While outside of my usual gaming comfort zone, I was intrigued by the premise of the title. As anyone who knows me is aware, I am a research addict, and historic mysteries are one of my favourite research topics.

The storyline opens with our main character, journalist Jonathan Danter preparing for a trip to Florida, where he will be interviewing Cardinal Gregorio, a seemingly questionable representative of the Vatican. While preparing for the trip, Jonathan receives a disturbing call from Scotland Yard. The caller, an Inspector Twining, tells Jonathan that his uncle has been murdered and that he is afraid Jonathan’s life may be in danger. Jonathan argues with the officer, stating that his uncle had died ten years previous, but the Inspector insists that Jonathan come immediately to London. Almost as soon as he arrives in England our young hero is thrust into the secret world of ancient societies and intrigue.

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Spore is the first of its kind for the simulation genre of video games. Playing this game takes you through the journey of being a small little cell fighting for survival slowly evolving into an actual creature that will allow you to create a tribe, civilization, and even as far as outreaching to space. I guess the sky isn’t the limit with this game.

The interface for Spore is very easy to use. A simple drag and drop interface is used for creating creatures and objects of all types. The possibilities are endless! When in a 3D world, normal WASD keys can be used to navigate as well as the mouse. The true test was to see if I could use WASD, Click-Navigation, and Mouse-Navigation — this game passes that test! You can use all 3 traditional navigation methods.

A big part of this game is the artificial intelligence. Your own creature has AI as well as your enemies and allies. One of the cool concepts I love about this game is your ability to make friends or foe. You can approach another creature that knows nothing about you. If you sing to it, you can make friends. If you bite it, it’s going to bite back and be a foe. So what if there’s a creature that you approach that already doesn’t like you? Simple! You can either be mean to it and kill it off or you could be the better creature and make friends with it. How cool is that?

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Originally Written for KillaNet Community Resource in 2007

Creating Games in C++ : A Step-by-Step Guide
By David Conger and Ron Little
Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: New Riders Games
February 2006

Creating Games in C++ : A Step-by-Step Guide has to be the greatest book to use when you want to start learning how to program games for Windows. This book is definitely aimed more towards the users who have not a clue where to begin or even start to learn how to program in C++ to make a game.

As you start reading, David and Ron will begin teaching at the very beginning of everything. Unlike other books, they do not assume you already know how to program fluently in C++. If you don’t know C++, great! This means you will get the full impact of the book. If you know very little C++, great! You can still learn too! By the end of the first few chapters you will feel like a C++ programmer because the book will make you a C++ programmer. Why stop at feeling like a C++ programmer? By the end of the book you will feel like a game developer! Did I mention that by the end of the book you create an actual game? Yeah. It’s true.

I’ve noticed in the book that they explain everything in full detail meaning it does not leave one single line of code unexplained. Also, the book comes with a fully loaded CD-ROM with all the code in the book, all the developing tools, a copy of a game engine that you will learn to use in the book for free, sound editing software, a programming environment, and much more! How can you go wrong there?!

If you take a look at the cover of this book, you see a controller which resembles a fairly popular design. This controller registers in your mind as “Games in 3D” when in fact there is no teaching of 3D game development. Instead they teach you 2D game development which is where you should start. Although the cover of the book is a little misleading, you will still be creating games which are in 2D and they always say you need to build up on top of knowledge and 2D is where you start first.

After you’re done reading the book, don’t get rid of it! There is still a glossary that you can have to always look up a game word that you might not know and need to know. The book also has a full index for reference too.

This book is recommended for people who want to learn C++ game programming and have no idea where to start. Get it. Read it. Make it. Play it. Enjoy it. This book gets a five out of five star rating from me.