Recently in DDA, we've been learning about UVW mapping and texturing on 3D objects. So far we've learned that it's a difficult, tedious, and hard process, and a lot can go wrong with it. The amount of content we had to learn to texture a single can is hard to believe- it took me about a week of straight work, and then some, to make this: They're not even all that good. The process is cool in concept, where you slice a mesh along a series of vertices to apply a seamless texture, but if you try to work with anything more complicated than a box, it gets so difficult and tedious that it's barely even worth it. All in all, it's probably a skill we need to have in this class, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't like it.
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I am a big fan of video games. I like the immediate response to my actions, I like the lore and stories of them, I like the test of my skills and thinking abilities. Games test my reflexes and puzzle-solving skills. But there's still one thing that may never be possible for games to do- adapt.
You see, many games are considered open-ended, and make many playstyles possible. But with nearly every game that I've played, millions of other people have experienced the same story and experience that I have. My playthrough is not unique. In an MMO, you're the hero- among the hundreds of other people right next to you. Games are not unique from person to person- until you consider something like D&D. D&D is a lot of fun. It's called the Google Stadia, but let's be real here.
On March 19th, 2019, at the Game Developers (And Google) Conference, history was made. Something that would shake the very foundations of gaming was unveiled, something earth-shatteringly amazing- The Google Stadia. Or, as I like to call it, the Ouya 2. Running at an astounding 60 fps (I actually checked, I honestly thought it would be 30 or less), the Google Stadia streams your games instead of, y'know, running them like a normal console. This allows you to play your games anywhere, anytime, they said. Sounds familiar, but okay. The console itself is going to have a massive library, heresofar consisting of 3 games- Doom Eternal, a highly anticipated FPS, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a stupidly generic and mediocre game (In other words, an Assassin's Creed game), and, at this time, an unannounced game being made by Q-Games, the makers of... Pixeljunk Monsters? Yay? Before I mock it any more, they did do one thing right. They brought in an experienced game developer to head their projects, much like Amazon did with their studio (A 9 year old studio that has yet to release anything). The developer in question is Jade Raymond, who has worked on a few Ubisoft games, namely Assassin's Creed I and II, and a few Tom Clancy games. I mean, it could be worse. Now, I know what you're thinking; "I hate my PS4 and Xbox and PC running my games at 60fps 1080p! I want something with some lag, and low-quality video! Well, here's the Stadia for you. On recent quality tests, it's shown to have a whole 40 frames of input lag! Amazing! On another note, I really can't believe that it's 1080p. The pixels are so big that they anti-alias themselves. The bushes in Odyssey (Not the Mario one) look like someone took the brush tool from Photoshop and scribbled all over the screen. It's not good. I really hope that it succeeds, even if it's just because somebody's gonna get fired if it doesn't. I recently bought Dark Souls 3 for $25 on a Steam Weekend Sale, and I've been playing it a lot. Over the course of my playthrough, which I still haven't completed, I've realized something. The Dark Souls series is known for its intense, brutalizing difficulty, for youtubers screaming into the mic after they die to a horde of undead. However, after spending quite a while playing the game, I saw that Dark Souls is not difficult- Or at least Dark Souls 3, which I have heard is objectively the easiest of the trilogy. But regardless, I don't find myself believing it's a terribly difficult game. I've died countless times, lost hundreds of thousands of souls, but I've always pushed through after a few more tries. I have also realized why the Souls series is considered so hard- You die so much. But to me, death is not difficulty. It's just learning.
Difficulty to me is looking at a sprawling, complex level, seeing it as a whole, looking at it thinking "How am I supposed to do this? It's so intricate, so complicated." But then you try it again and again, and realize that the level is made up of little pieces that you know how to do easily, and then you do it. Once you see the level not as the sum of its parts, but its parts themselves, when that realization hits you that you know how to do it, you might fail a few more times, based on your skill, but you still beat the level. The point of this is that part of what makes a game difficult is that you can't push through a game through brute force and button mashing alone- A hard game requires deep, complex thought and strategy. Dead Cells to me is hard, because you can't memorize the levels. You die quickly, but so do your enemies. You die and die hundreds of times, but eventually, something clicks. You instinctively see recognizable parts from previous playthroughs, (If you don't know, Dead Cells is a roguelike- It generates its levels randomly) and it makes the level feel more familiar, but you also realize yet another thing. You also get an instinctive sense of enemy behaviors and patterns, and it helps you get better and better, learning something new from your deaths. Difficulty to me implies serious, complex planning, paired with the need for instinctive knowledge and memorization of mechanics and enemy behaviors. Death is not just a setback in difficult games. It is valuable, in fact, and it should be almost required. You should gain something from each death- knowledge. You cannot brute force your way through a difficult game by specing into a particularly strong build. No, each playstyle that the game supports is equal in it's difficulty. Difficulty requires you to engage in nearly all, if not every one of the game's mechanics. If it's a game focused on combat, the player is forced (In a good way) into a dance with the enemy. The player treats every single enemy like a major threat, which they are. They regard the enemy as equals, having been bested so many times. The two engage, and the player enters the zone- dodging and weaving through enemy attacks, yes, but still taking a few hits themselves. The player emerges victorious, feeling a sense of accomplishment, as if this common enemy was the final boss because it had killed them so many times. They emerged battered, yes- but victorious nonetheless. Difficult games do not require mastery- In fact, mastery of a difficult game is nigh on impossible. Instead, difficult games simply require proficiency. Yes, Dark Souls 3 is a hard game- Close to difficulty, but it falls just short, for one reason alone. Yes, it requires planning, and critical thinking. Memorization of enemy patterns is intrinsic to beating the game. But for one reason, and one reason only, I do not consider it a difficult game. You can simply brute force your way through. On my first playthrough, I was terrified of fighting this infamously hard boss- The Dancer of the Boreal Valley- and when the time came to fight it, I was surprised. I nearly beat it on my first try. I succeeded easily on my second. No guide, nothing. I just held up my shield, and rolled through like, one attack. I believe that I succeeded where others failed because of my build. I had a ton of health and strength, which allowed me to tank through hits while still dealing moderate damage myself. Now I can see how a light armored, low-health mage, a popular build in the Dark Souls games, could have struggled. That's where I don't see Dark Souls as a hard game. It all depends on your playstyle. Difficult games should be difficult throughout- I'm sure that I struggled where others succeeded. But really, it's all objective. For a guy like me, who enjoys really digging into all a game has to offer, while not becoming to emotionally attached to losing or dying, Souls games and Dead Cells (That's what I consider a difficult game) can be downright relaxing at times. For other, more serious involved people, it's just a frustratingly addictive game, which has a lot of struggles for a relatively small payoff. While some scream into the mic after lose 20,000 souls, I barely let out a sigh when I did. Thanks for reading; sorry for the long post. PC gaming is known for being the best of the best- almost every game being made has a PC version. The graphics and customization options are far better than those of consoles like Xbox and the PS4. And with the newest hardware and software at an all time high, It's never been more approachable. I myself have been looking to try it myself, so about a year ago, I put together a list of parts that I planned to buy and assemble into a high-end gaming PC. The final price was somewhere around 1.5k.
I instead decided to try another build. I found PCPartPicker, a free tool to create a PC build, and used that to choose my parts. I went for a mid-tier build this time, and put myself to work. I built it around a AMD Ryzen 3 2200G CPU with Vega 9 Graphics, which cost around $99. I would have otherwise opted for something far better if not for a 2kliksphilip video (Found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLZ9b5DfOYk) reviewing the CPU. He described it as "a miracle product." You get a CPU worth around $99, but also get a GPU also worth about $99. I recommend you watch the video- He really goes in-depth about it, and even benchmarks some games, which I intend to do when I actually get some games. Anways, I've been saving money for about one and a half years when Christmas rolled around. I had made ~$387 by that time (the full build was around $500). However, by the end of that day, I had all the parts (I didn't get much else of course). I quickly assembled the PC, and after I got back week and a half trip, I had it working. From the few Free-to-Play games (Unturned, Story about My Uncle, Warframe, etc.) I've played, it works wonderfully. I'll try benchmarking it later, and maybe share my results. Until then, I'll have to work on actually getting some games on it. |
AuthorHi! I'm Thomas MacDougall, a sophomore at DSA. Here you can check out my thoughts and recent activities. Please note that the views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
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