You can't just observe a hop, you got to hop up and do it.
--KRS One

Party People, it's the final week of video games for a while. Not that it's been fun, but, we've got to move on. We have to learn much more. Life is life, not video games.

We're going to keep things light this week. Short paragraphs and videos videos videos.

We have been talking about interactivity. Games are developed and gamers interact with them. Simple. Press A to shoot, B to jump. Use the left joystick to maneuver and the right to move the camera. L1 to block. . .

With video games, we have many levels of interactivity. Above, it's the interactivity between the gamer and the game. In essence, it's also the interactivity between the gamer and developer. The artist and the art appreciator and collector.

Here's a video about game development. Uncharted was a game developed by Naughty Dog, released in 2007 around the debut of the Playstation 3. It won the best game of the year award. If when you watch movies on DVD you take a look at the making of, then you'd probably enjoy this. If you don't really care, no problem, move on. I'm covering a lot of ground in this one. . .



Another level of interactivity: culture with culture. The video game culture is fairly young, born in the 1970's. It's twin brother: Hip Hop. We see these two cultures emerging in America at about the same time and a whole new generation of youth. However, they have existed without colliding until recently. Now, when football and boxing games are released, you hear Hip Hop beats and MC's rocking the microphone while people are tackled and knocked out.

Closer than just the soundtrack, Hip Hop is actually looked at as inspiration for video games. Check out this legitimate portrayal of the Graffiti element of Hip Hop culture through Marc Ecko's Getting Up.




Hip Hop and Video Game Culture collide even more, at 2008's E3 Expo, attendees had the privilege of witnessing one of the best freestyle MC's in Hip Hop.

Just a little bit about MC'ing and all: MC means Master of Ceremonies. In Hip Hop culture, it also relates to the MC's main objective: Move the Crowd. Freestyle, well, you'll see the definition in the video. The main thing to realize here is that this is all improvised, the MC, Supernatural, is reacting to whatever these people are giving him:



The main aspect of this cultural collision is that both Hip Hop and Video Game culture are INCLUSIVE cultures. Anyone who has the skill to participate, is unique, can and must participate. This is the only way that these cultures (and any other culture based on art) survive. You cannot just be a spectator or consumer as in capitalistic culture, or any cultures based on economy or business.

Gamers must commune and work together. Ideas for great games often come from us just sitting around and emailing one another and emailing developers. Often times, gamers just sitting around shooting ideas off of one another can lead to developing games. Just take a look at the recent rise of independent developers.

The internet has provided a great platform for sharing creative games that have no way else of gaining exposure. These independent developers are SUPER SMART. They make great games. However, they don't have the money or connections to conventionally market their creations.

A very cool element of Microsoft's XBox Live, essentially an online community for XBox 360 owners, is the avenue for independent developers to publish, share and make money off of the games that they create. Check out Number None, The Behemoth, and Little Boy Games to name a few.

Hmmm. . . Let's end this thing with a bang.

The Real Fight For The Presidency!



Peace be with you all and God Bless.