By playing only half of season one I can honestly say The Walking Dead video game is almost the definition of the term”emergent narrative”. It’s a choose your own adventure type game that some what follows ideas from the comic. Just by playing the first half of season one for free, it left me in great suspense many times and had some very emotional tying story moments. Because of this I made it my choice for my favorite game that uses emergent narrative for a strong story.

There are so many games out there that have beautiful stories and narratives that will have a great impact on your experience of the games. Out of the plethora of games out there with great stories, I still have at least a dozen that I’ve wanted to play. To name a few; Mass Effect, Bioshock, Fallout, among a hand full of others. Because I haven’t played The Walking Dead I won’t use it as my example. Because it was the game that impacted my childhood like crazy and at the time made me realize what people could beautifully create potentially through video games. The Halo series. When I was younger and first started playing the campaign, it was the first time I had played through the story of a first person shooter.

The first thing I truly remember was the music that I instantly fell in love with. The theme music of Halo is a masterpiece that helped make the game famous. Besides the music, at the time, the game was a gorgeous experience that took it’s aesthetics to it’s own level, in my opinion. This in turn gave the game an opportunity to create an experience that was able to give me chills. The most vivid experience that came about me was when you first encounter the flood. The screeching sounds make for a high anxiety moment in surviving a force created to destroy entire populations of planets. Because I have played through all but one of the Halo games of the series (Halo 4), I chose it for my best story narrative experience.

Thinking back to all the games that I have focused on the most in my life, one stands out beyond the rest. That one game is Pokemon Crystal. Definitely towering over any other games I’ve played. I strongly believe that I have used up about 20-30 whole days of my life towards the Pokemon series. For me, I could honestly say that Pokemon hits so many of LeBlanc’s levels of fun. When you’re beginning the game and finding new Pokemon, that falls into the discovery category. When you’re a kid, the story seems to catch you right by the dreams and drag you along for the ride. Being a kid that rises up from nothing to catch every species of Pokemon and leveling them up, feeling like they are a part of you with nicknames and personally customized attacks. It falls into what i feel are the categories of Fantasy, Sensation, Narrative, and Challenge along with the previously stated Discovery kinds of fun. Over all I think this game hits so many of LeBlanc’s eight kinds of fun, and because of that it has become a HUGE part of my gaming life.

I know I spent so much space talking about one game, but that was because I truly feel that Pokemon has become a great piece of my childhood. Anyways, now let’s talk about some other games that I have spent time on playing. For the second game on my list, I know for a fact it is Battlefield 3. Going onto the Battlelog website for statistics I found that I have recorded a total of 311 hours and 40 minutes towards pure first person run and gun action. For me, I found the game to fall into the categories of Sensation (Letting off steam by unloading a 200 drum magazine from a M60 E4 on the opposing team) and Fellowship (Working as a team to plant bombs and take objectives)

You can see my Battle Log profile at:

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/soldier/B1G%20TUNA%2025/stats/354216149/xbox360/

Since these games haven’t impacted my life nearly as much as these other two, I wont spend as much time on them. The third game I am going to pick is Fifa 14. I don’t know exactly how much I’ve played of this game, but I know recently I have been almost addicted…no matter how terrible I am online versus other players.  The categories of fun this fell into, for me, would definitely be Challenge and Fellowship. The online community is so good that once you get your team to a certain rank, it’s nearly impossible to find someone that will be an easy match.

Now for games four and five, there is a tie of how long I’ve played. (According to Steam) Number four is Garry’s Mod and five Mafia II, both accounting for 29 hours each. Garry’s Mod, again in my opinion, falls under Discovery, Fellowship, and Expression. Being an open world online map creator simulation spin-off, it leaves room for endless discovery and creativity. As for Mafia II, an open world game like Grand Theft Auto, gives it a great story with TONS of discovery.

The next game includes a close number six in Civilization V, racking up 26 hours in my Steam library. Definitely a skill based game with much challenge and discovery, I can spend hours at a time just playing half of a “quick game.” Number seven for me is State of Decay. With an open world survival game layout, State of Decay uses it’s fantasy, discovery, and AI fellowship in game to let me have loads of fun slaughtering hoards of zombies. My number eight right now would have to be the whole Grand Theft Auto series. From Vice City to GTA V, these open world free for all type games catch me loosing track of time every time I play. Number nine includes Kerbal Space Program. I absolutely love this game, it’s easily already in my top five games of all time but I haven’t had it for long enough to really put it up here towards the top of my list. It is the most mind crushing game, having to know rocket physics and astronomical calculations to fuel gauges and telemetry…It’s just so frustratingly fun! Just merely flying by the moon is a challenge enough, I don’t want to even imagine going to Mars…

Last but not least is NBA 2K13/2K14. Whenever me and my friends are together, these are our “go-to” game. Sensation and Fellowship are the main fun aspects of the game due to the pleasure of beating down your friends or beating one of them with a last minute dagger of a buzzer beater.

When thinking of online gaming, what comes to my mind is the straight up competitiveness involved. But that’s what drives gamers, right? Conquering the opposing team and achieving victory, building up stats to be the best in the game. I agree the majority of players take many of these online games very seriously. However this isn’t the case for everyone who plays. There are a number of people who are just annoying, pestering attention seekers who are looking to ruin a good game or a serious moment. These kinds of people are what the gaming community calls Trolls.

Now I will admit, there has been PLENTY of times in Battlefield 3 where I have taken a jeep, drove at my own team mates, and jumped out at the last second so they just die just for kicks. And I may have possibly racked up (with a friend) a total of 50-60 betrayals in one game of Halo Reach’s Infection mode. Oh, and that time in Gary’s Mod where my group of friends were working on some fort base and I spawned near invulnerable aliens all around them to kill them at spawn. Okay, you got me…I’m a troll and I admit the title proudly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUB1KRedXAQ

Now don’t get me wrong, I can get so into games where things will break if I loose or things don’t go my way. (Ask my 2 smashed controllers and headset…R.I.P.) And I most certainly have been on the receiving end of people toying around and being an annoyance in the pregame lobbies. I’m not annoying every time I play games. It’s only at certain times where I get in this mood where everything needs to be messed with, or someone needs a good  teasing here and there.

With that all being said, I really can’t find a time where I’ve had a bad social experience in a game. A couple of family feuds over rules, or cheating here and there, but nothing where it ruined the fun of it. And this one time my friends and I have teamed up on and verbally destroyed some COD trash talkers who were picking on a kid for some reason. I felt bad for the kid and thought that they took some of their insults a little too far, so needless to say, we held nothing back.

As for changing mechanics in games to limit…I believe that no matter what online game you play, there is going to be some people that aren’t going to take it seriously. Yes the guys at Geek Nights and Extra Credits make GREAT arguments and hey, they may be 100% correct about fixing the situation. With games involving face to face interactions, compared to over online interactions, you are going to most likely have different outcomes no matter what you do to the mechanics. My opinion is that, with online gaming, you cant control and restrict every “Troll” in every lobby and game that goes on.

So as for myself changing the mechanics of the games where I am the instigator, or person trolling. I wouldn’t. Maybe a heavier monitor over games with people that include racism or sexual harassment in their time online. This is a problem that a lot of gamers don’t consider to take as serious as they need to.

As one of the first sandbox zombie survival games to come out for game consoles, State of Decay quickly became quite popular around the gaming community. As a regular YouTube surfer, I tend to watch gaming channels and popular YouTubers test and sample games. Though I watch a wide variety of videos, I find myself going back to the games within the free world/sandbox category. I especially enjoy the open world survival MMOs.

Among the PC gaming community, I found that these games were very popular with DayZ ranking an obvious choice as the most popular of the bunch. DayZ is a game modification originated off of the army simulation Arma2. Every time I would watch these games, I would feel the excitement of the players while they encountered other groups of survivors with gun-blazing shootouts. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “What makes that so exciting compared to other shooter games?” Well in DayZ, once you die, you lose everything. That’s right, EVERYTHING. Your character drops all the items you collected through out your journey and you end up having to create another character in a second life slot out of the four total you can have for 24 hours.

Where I am getting with this is that, with this game, you feel like you are surviving as a real human being. Collecting food and water and clothing to escape from dying from exposure. Fending off flesh eating monsters and raiders that hunt you for your findings. I have always wanted to play these games for the PC but unfortunately I haven’t had that opportunity yet.

Around the time of me getting into the zombie survival game mode, I saw advertisements for a new console game coming out that would fulfill my “craving”. The game’s title is State of Decay. It is a zombie survival that isn’t as freely played because of the story line, but that’s what helps get you “lost” when playing the game. Your choices determine each outcome. Who survives, how it all ends, all depends on your decisions and actions which makes it so diverse and suspenseful. Not only do you feel the emotion, but you feel like it’s you inside of the game. Helping with this experience is the day/night cycle and fatigue you go through.

Another feature of State of Decay is the dynamic progression. The game world continues acting whether or not the game is being played. If the game is not being played, friendly survivors within the home can still use and gather supplies, and possibly be injured. Some characters may take weapons and ammo from the supply cache and may level up their abilities. Cars the players’ survivors own can be repaired, and weapons can be repaired. NPCs can become injured or fatigued with the player absent. With there being so much more detail within the game play, I wont go into a complete review and I’ll wrap this up here.

This game has so much to do, so many different side missions to go with the main story line that it is so easy to lose track of time. Just like many open world games, including Skyrim and the Grand Theft Auto series, this game has so much more to it then you could even imagine. I played State of Decay all of the way through and spent hours upon hours working towards the ending because of the great amount of endogenous value added by the developers.

If you watch YouTubers play games on their channels regularly, like me, you most likely have heard of a game by the name of Slender. Around the summer of 2012 is when it first was released and was an instant hit that spread like a wild fire across the internet. The original Slender game (Slender: The Eight Pages) was a very simple, cheaply designed game that still was able to ensue fear in the player’s mind. Developed with an earlier version of the Unity game design engine, Slender’s graphics were simple. The object of the game was to retrieve 8 pieces of paper tacked on to various landmarks in a dark wooded map area. The game officially starts when you find the first page, which is followed by a distant pounding of drums. This initiates a faceless, long-armed man in a suit to stalk you around while you race to collect the rest of the pages. Knowing he may be anywhere lurking in the darkness, this almost gut-wrenching experience makes you play on the edge of your seat the entire time and will surly make you jump once he catches you.

A little less than a year after the release of the original, Slender: The Arrival came out for Windows and X OS. Unlike Slender: The Eight Pages, the newer game goes more in depth in regards to the story and has a completely remastered graphic design to it. Compared to the original game, you are still rendered defenseless; only armed with a flashlight while in search for key items in the game. The game sequencing, in terms of where you start, is randomly generated leading to the more important locations that are fixed every time you play. The game is broken up into 5 “Chapters” that each have different maps and key items that need to be found in sequence to one another.

Chapter one starts with you parking at the end of your friend’s driveway. You proceed to walk towards the house and realize that the door is left wide open, giving you the instant sense that something has gone horribly wrong. You walk inside and after searching for a good amount of time, you find that no one is home. Although once you enter your friend’s room, you hear a terrifying scream from the window towards the back woods. All this happens while you find numerous pages with eerie writing on them saying things like, “Can you see it?” and “Go to the woods.” After seeing the back gate open up outside, you leave the house and proceed through the gate taking you into the next Chapter. This then begins the horrific and jump scare-filled journey you take throughout the game until you finally reach the surprising ending. While the initial conclusion of the game is quite an experience, there are also several various difficulties you can chose from, each with a different ending.

The point I am trying to get across is that, Slender: The Arrival, is a game that uses all of its elements in an amazingly harmonious way. Starting with the terrifying ambiance and the beauty of the environment, Slender: The Arrival stimulates the player’s senses, giving an almost real world experience. With the aesthetics working alongside the plot-line and the mechanics, this game pushes to utterly horrify the player and make them feel the sense that they are actually experiencing what the main character is in the game. Considering the somewhat inexpensive engine used by Blue Isle Studios, this game has become a great experience for any horror gamer, and ranks as one of my top PC thriller games to date.