Everything in our lives, every happening, every experience can taught us something if you are willingly enough. Games may not teach us advanced calculus, or transport phenomenoms, but they can undoubtedly teach us somehitng.

Patience and perseverance

You are now fighting for the tenth time one boss, and you refuse to stop playing until you defeat it. I know a bunch of people that have experienced that a few hundred times. Dark souls is a game that really taught me patience and perseverance. For the patience bit, it’s kind of obvious. Do not rush on things. When I was fighting this huge goat boss ( THE GODDAM GOAT) for a a hour or so, I started to get really pissed off. But rushing things of Dark Souls is never a good thing, and somethings, when trying to be fast, I didn’t even mannage to get to the boss, dying before. On the boss fights you have to be patient. You got to wait the right moment to attack, to defend and to heal yourself. For the perseverance part, well, I just told I was trying to defeat the goat devil for more than 1 hour, you just can’t give up.

Patience is one of the things that most lack in people nowadays. They want everything fast, and can’t wait the right momment for things. This have a lot of implications, ranging from your personal and profissional life. Perseverance is also something quite scarce in our society. People can’t focus on one thing, giving up as soon as they see it is something hard. It’s easy to see people jumping from job to job, trying to find something easy and well paid. Of course that like everything else in the world, you need know when it is enough. You also have to know when to give up.

Management

Who in his sane mind is leting a crazy little boy manage a entire city? Well, in real life no one (At least a realy hope so) but in games the story is diferent. I can say with some certantiy that people’s first experience with management are games. Companies don’t want to give chances to unexperienced people in their business. When money is in play, things get serious. So games are the main source of management experience. Of course I’m not saying that running a company is the same as playing a game. If this was the case, lot’s of amuzement parks would have people flying on roler coasters (thanks roller coaster tycoon) and we would have aliens and robots attacking our city constantly. What I’m saying is that in strategy games, and even in RPGs or many other types,, you got to manage your resources.. They may not give us a direct experience with real life, but it’s what we get, and it’s good enough.

English

Here I must say that english is not my first language (Probably you could figure that out by some mistakes here in this text, that I have no idea that exists). I have been playing RPG games since I was a little kid. I know it’s weird, because I understood only a few words (Attack, defend, items, magic), and a kept skiping the dialogues. I don’t know why I loved them so much, but the fact reamains that I did. My constant contact with the english language eventually made me learn it. Of course I had some lessons, but I can definently say that the main reason I learned english was games.

Never underestimate a media potential

I was in my grandmas house where I was reading Scott pilgrim comics. My uncle entered the room and said something like “Wow, someone as serious as you reading a comic book?” And that really bugged me. I mean, not only comic books, but you can’t underestimate a media potential. In my experience, one of the most amazing story’s I have seen were in vídeo games. Final fantasy series, Bioshock, Dragon age, are exemples of superb story, storytelling, and world creation. I expanded this tought to basically any type of media. I mean movies, books, games, comic books everything can tell a good story. Good storys will always find their way.

Cooperation and teamplay

I’m a dota player. But this Works for any competitive team based multiplayer. I forgot the times where my team were beeing massacrated, and then we said “ Ok guys, let us breath deeply, and start to play this in a coordinated way” and it actually worked out. Of course this mostly works when you are with friends, because multiplayer games are probably a black hole for idiots, and this actually is a new lesson. You got to learn how to deal with assholes.

The relation of this with real life is also obvious. When you get your first job, you’ll probably know what I mean, if you haven’t experienced it yet.

Beauty in simplicity

The credits for this ix not only from vídeo games, but also music and movies (In my experience). Super Mario world. It’s a simple game, and also a masterpiece. You are this plumber, and you got to jump on turtle guys, and try to save the princess. So why is it so good? Because it’s simple. Everyone can play mario. A child and a adult, and they will probably both enjoy it.

A lot of things in the world and beautifull because they are simple. And most people are blinded by the complexity, that they fail to see the beauty it in everyday’s simplicity.

I’m not trying to explain my love for vídeo games by saying that they actually teaches me something. But if you pay attention to it, you’ll see that it’s true. As I said before, everything in life can teach you something if you are willingly enough.

What else have games taught you? Any interesting story? Do you agree that they can actually teach something? Coments below.

If I ask you what is the best looking game you have ever seen, you would probably answer me right away, best story, best gameplay, best characters, you probably have an answer for all of that. But if I ask you, which one has the best sound? Not sound effects , voice acting or soundtrack, but everything regardind the audio.

Audio is often one of the most ignored aspects of games, but it has a great importance which is often forgot.

If the audio is good or bad, it would probably go unnoticed. But if it’s terrible or great, it begins to gain some attention. Quicky now, whistle the theme song from super mario world. Easy right? That’s because it is simply a masterpiece. Now the game audio can become so terrible, that it also begins to be noticed, like Ride to Hell lack of it.

Some games use the audio to immerse the player in the game world. I advise you to play a horror game on mute. It is not that scary at all. The sound plays a big part in them.

Imagine throwing a punch in a game and it goes “muuuuu”. If you’re not punching a cow, it would be weird, so sound effects are important. I first realized how awesome sound effects were in Assassin’s Creed, where I was climbing a building and I started to listen the metal clunk sound. I was really amazed, because I never payed any attention to it, and now that I was listening to it, I finally realized how some details makes something unique. A shot beeing fired, an explosion, the song of a car tire in a high speed turn, take all of this out from a game, and you’ll see how bland they are.

Now soundtrack is something less etheral . There is the classic example of super mario themes, or a bunch of 8 or 16 bits songs, but the one that really got into me thinking about, was Shadow of the Colossus one. God , it was breathtaking. When you were traversing the world you had sillence. Yes there were argo’s trot, but you really felt the sillence. It was immersive. You really felt alone in that world. When you found the giants, that’s where the shit got real. You were this tiny little guy, trying to kill this giant with a bow and a sword, which for the giant was probably just a needle. But when you started to climb the colossus, the music starts. You begin to fell a like a hero, something amazing, you really believe you can climb that motherfu*** and shove that sword in his head (or any other weakspot).

In Dark Souls I made a really nice experience. I was fighting a boss (Queelag to be more specific) for the third or fourth time, and I was really tense ( If you played Dark Souls you know how this is). So a decided to turn of the sound. It was good, because I was more relaxed and mannaged to kill it, but it felt I lost something of the gameplay.

Final fantasy series is a good exemple of good soundrack. When the initial screen appears and the theme starts to play, you know it’s a FF game. The battle theme, boss themes, and I need to quote “To zanarkand” from FF 10, absolutely lovely.

Last but not least, Last of Us. I don't even need to say much about it, just go to youtube and listen it for yourself.

A good soundtrack may inspire you, or make you feel desperate. It can enter your mind, and years later you will still remember it. It’s not just a detail about the game. It’s not something to be ignored.

A good voice acting is also something that somepeople only notice when they are expetionally good. Like Vaas in Far Cry 3, or Troy baker in basically anything he does. Giving a character a compatible voice is something rather important. A fully grown man with a lady’s voice (No offence Japan), it’s just something unnacetable, unless that’s really the intent. Feeling the character angry in his voice, or happiness, makes it more appealing, and only contribute to character development.

Basically the sound in games is something mostly ignored by people, and if you pay attention to it, you’ll understand when I say that it is an aspect of great importance. People tend to care only about the graphics, wich is the looks of the game. But the sound, the sound my dear, is often the soul.

So have you payed attention to the sound of your latest games? Wich one do you think have one that should be honored? Can you whistle super mario’s theme? Any other comments?

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Next time you play a game, I would like to invite you to pay attention to his audio. Put a good headphone and just enjoy it. Tell us your experience.

I was in my teenage year when I i first played Prince of Persia The Sands of Time. Needless to say I was amazed by the game. People would ask me if the game was good and I would reply “Dude, is a game where you freaking walk in the walls like a ninja, go back in time, and suck these sand zombies soldiers in a dagger, it’s awesome”. The warrior within and The Two Thrones came, I enjoyed both of them and I had to know who made this awesome games.

That’s how I first met ubisoft.

When I saw the trailer for the first Assassin’s Creed game I was completly amazed. For what I understood, that amazing company which made one of my favourite action adventure series was going to make a game about assassins. I couldn’t wait to play it.

It took me some time to finally be able to run it in my wagon (Or computer if you will), and I finally got to play it. The game was amazing, you got to blend in society, parkour into stuffs, kill some bastards, run like a maniac, and you had to stealth, otherwise you would be dead. Here I must say I am a type of player that if the mission or collectible is shown in the map, I HAVE to do or pick it up. After a few hours I got bored from the repetitive structure. For reasons I don’t remeber now, I removed it from my computer.

A few months later I tried another go on the game, but again, I got bored and it was removed from the PC. I gave it a third try, I had a better computer, so the game was even more beautifull, and I was engaged, because Assassin’s Creed II was just realeased, and the critic was awesome, so I had to finish the first one in order to play the second. This time I finally finished it and was mindblowed for the ending.

The first Assassin’s Creed game is wonderfull, I think it’s the only game in the serie where it achieved what ubisoft had planned for the game. You had to blend, to stealth, and plan your strategie for the assassinations. The game wasn’t exactly hard, but fighting 10 soldier, instead of just 1 was something to consider. The problem with it is that it is repetitive. So I advised my friends to only play the main story.

Assassin’s creed 2 was my target now. I finished it in my first try, was amazed by how beautifull everything in the game was, the city, the clothes, the parkour, the characters. But one thing was annoying me. The game was really easy, and the stealth was only necessary for the missions where you got to be desynchronized from being spotted, because fighting a couple of soldiers, and twenty of them, didn’t make any difference. When I finished it I was telling my friends about how good the game was, how everything felt in place, and all the things a fanboy say. After some time, I started to think “was this game that awesome?”. It was beautifull, but that’s basically one of the only good things I had to say about it. The game was easy, it felt the open approach you had for the missions, were stupid, because you could just storm on the gates, blazing your sword and killing everyone. So I started to doubt my affection for the series.

Brotherhood came and it was garbage. I hated that game. There is no story. If you ask what happened in it i couldn’t answer. There was simply no substance. Everything seemed like it was made only to sell. Multiplayer. None character development. Nothing. One good thing I can say about it was the 100% synchronization, where I was forced (Because I had that gaming obligation) to try some different approaches. It was nice, if you wanted you could go for the 100%, if not “TO THE SWORDS”.

Now I must say I was expecting more garbage coming with Revelations, but I was surprised with it. It was great. The story, ezio development. The full synchronization was back. Yes it was easy, and had some other flaws, but I really enjoyed the game.

For the third game I was again hoping for something good. The trailers were awesome. For the first time you got to climb on trees. There was snow on the trailers, blood, and an american indian main character, and the ending for Desmond’s tale. You see, Assassin’s Creed for me was all about Desmond, if his story was finished, so would be Assassin’s Creed’s. My first problem with the game was the main character name. Ezio means eagle, and Altair means bird, or eagle in some interpretations. I was hoping for “Hawk”, because it was american. But Connor...Ok, not a big deal. They remade the parkour, wich was something good, because pressing two buttons to run on the controller wasn’t comfortable. The combat system also changed. Here I think their ideia was good, probably drawing inspiration from the Batman Arkham series, but the executions was poor, the combat was as bad as ever. The story is boring, Connor is a joke compared to Ezio and Altair. Half of the mechanics were half baked, gliches, bugs. The ending for Desmond, my god the ending... It was terrible. To sumarize, the game was bad. Like really bad. Like when you eat a expired chocolate, and after some hours yours stomach is punishing you.

So I thought the Assassin’s Creed series was done and buried. How wrong I was. When they announced Black Flag I was skeptical. I played it only because I wanted to test my new gaming notebook. The game wasn’t bad, it was actually good. All the other problems with the serie were there, but you were a goddam pirate. Edward’s story was quite enjoyable, but the prophet abstergo stuff was really just to sell more. If the game was called “Pirate simulator” I would have been more happy.

When Unity was reviwed I was more than happy to see the bad reviews. At this time I was a ubisoft “hateboy”, but eventually I got it installed in my machine. I played it a little bit, and was surprised when I found out that it was actually nice. Some new kinds of missions, some of them hard (Probably because I played them alone where it was supposed to be multiplayer), and most of them interesting. The game is bugged as amazon forest, it was crashing constantly so I removed it from my PC.

The other games in the series I didn’t even touch.

So Assassin’s Creed is a serie that gave what it had to give. It should have ended at the third installment, but some of the games are enjoyable. If they were focused in doing a few things, and making them good, like stealth and combat, the series would be a lot better, but the greed for money made them a medíocre series.

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Have you enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed series? What other compliments or complains do you have? Do you agree with me? Comment bellow.

A few days ago I got my hands on the Dragon Age Inquisition game, and I’m a REAL Dragon Age fanboy (I am such a fan, that if they where a rock band, I would definitely throw my underpants on them). When i instaled it, I was like “WOW, I’m DEFINITELY going to explode my fingers with this one, goodbye my dear vacations”. But when I played it I felt a little “meeeh”.

Nowadays we are experiencing an “actionization” of games. Games series we love are going towards action, and some of them are even losing their legacy. But is this “actionization” that bad?

Like most of the things in the world, if done properly, making a game more action oriented is actually something interesting. Like residente evil 4, wich is a lovely game, and made a huge turn compared to the other games in the series that far. When I played the others Resident Evil games I was nothing but a little kid, shitting my pants for some pixelated zombies, so I’m not exactly a reference regarding this games, but I can say for sure, that Resident evil 4 is a blast. Other games also went that way, like The Witcher, going from a clunky RPG like combat, to something brutal and awesome in the second entry (Don’t judge me, I love the first game of the entry, but I need to say the combat was clunky).

On the other hand, there are some games that don’t quite knew how to immerse well in the action world. Continuing with the Residente vil series, we got Residente vil 6. I didn’t got to play the whole game to say this with my own oppinion, but the critics weren’t that good, and if Kevin VanOrd gave that game a 4,5, for god sake I believe him. We could see the transformation of the Resdient evil series gradually, from a good action horror survival of the fourth entry, to a basically action shooter on the fifth and what is probably what I do in the toilet after some tacos in the sixth. Dead space also went that same way, gradually becoming an action game, rather than the survival horror experience. Some of those games aren’t exactly bad, it’s just that it’s predecessor claimed something unique, and going for a more action oriented game made them loose that thing wich made the games what they were.

Games aren’t the only places where we experience this kind of thing. More and more we see some shitty films, with a lot of CGI, explosions (Not quoting any especific directors whose movies are about explosions, and robot aliens), and lacking some basics, like a good story, envolving characters and all the things that actually make a good film. If we broaden our view, we could even go to the music universe, where the songs now are just a bunch of noise and terrible lyrics.

So, who are we to blame for all of this?

Lately our society is becoming faster and faster. Information is at the tip of your fingers, and the world is an everchanging mass of technolgy and human behavior. People are becoming bored as fast as sonic is after drinking some energy drinks. They get something, experience it, and after a couple of hours they want something new. Somethings aren’t meant to be tasted in just a few hours. Learning how to play a guitar for exemple need some good years of training and appreciation.

So the Market comes and addapt to it. No I’m not a communist, I don’t saccrifice virgins, neither Im a hippie, I’m just stating what happens.

All of this sounds familiar to you? Short games, where you are not meant to think and appreciate, just play, and most of the times just shoot? Storys where after a couple of days you don’t even remeber the main character names? Lack of masterpieces, like Shadow of the Colossus where you just feel in love with a game because it’s just beautiful?

Luckily for us, who really aprreciate gaming, the world IS everchanging. The revival of things is a constant in our world, and games like Dark Souls are being made. Other independent games, founded with kickstarters like Divinity Original Sin are there for you to experience. Other minor games, where the creators just do what they want are still a reality.

Everything in our world is a reflex of the presente. But as changes as a constant, we do not need to worry, because sooner or later, we will the games we love.

So guys, this is my first post, and I need to say this is my oppinion, I don’t know if I’m right, if I said some bullshit, this is what I believe. What other games you guys thought went trough the “actionization”? What independente games you think is Worth? Do you agree with me? Leave your comment bellow.