1. In your opinion, what was the purpose of this blogging activity? (Why did I choose to do blogging instead of more traditional writing activities?)
I think that the purpose of doing blogging instead of more traditional writing activities was to expand our writing mind to the rest of the world. If we publish our writing excerpts on the internet anyone in the world can see them. This also gives us an opportunity to get feedback from anyperson, and not just from either Ms.Rumford or other children in our class and/or grade. I learned that this can cause positive feedback and increase your self-esteem. An example of this would be if someone links you to their blog or website. This could mean that they like what you have wrote or they agree with you. Also if someone makes positive comments on your blog stating that they agree or dissagree. That is not always the same case though. Just say if you write something that a particular person strongly dissagrees with or their religion and/or beliefs go against what you wrote, they might write some rude comments and harm you in a mental way. I also think you wanted us to blog because it allows the students to write about anything that they want to write about. This is kind of different than normal writing assignments because on other assignments there is a topic that we have to write about or make a story with some specific guidelines and/or rules. All in all I think that the blogging was one of the most fun parts about the year. I liked it more than the Wikispaces because it was public and had more people connected to your blog than other writing assignments. I really would hope to do this again in High School.
2. What have you accomplished during your blogging?
During my blogging experience I have learned how to showcase my writing to a specific type of audience. I learned that I can get comments from people around the world who share the same intrests as me. I know there are more than acouple people out in the world who like to do things that I like doing. In this case, it is playing videogames. One thing that I accomplished was to write with my unique type of voice. In most writing assignments I usually don’t show much voice. I think I show voice in blogging because I like videogames and they have been a passion of mine since I was about 5 years old. I right with voice while writing about videogames because I know the topic really well and have seen good videogames and bad videogames. I know which game is worth your money. I think that this is the first time I have ever come out in my writing like I do in my blogs. My blogging was really fun and I think I’ll do some more blogs over the years.
3. What key concepts have you learned while blogging? (This can be about writing, research or technology etc.)
Some key concepts that I have learned over my blogging experience is not to plagiarize. This is a bad thing and can cause many severe actions to be held against you. I also found out that when I do not plagiarize, I get more fun out of doing writing assignments such as the blog. I also learned that research is a very key thing when writing a formal document or in this case a blog. No matter how well you know there game, there is probably a little bit of information on your topic that you do not know. No one in the world knows everything. Research may take a little time to complete, but once you get it your writing will go a whole lot faster and you will write more confidently. Researching can also give you extra ideas which can show other people how much you know the game, influencing them to think about purchasing it or watch some trailers on Youtube.
4. Based on the skills you learned while blogging, how will this benefit you in the future? This maybe inside or outside of school.
I think that blogging has helped me open up to many different types of writing. This can help me in the future by preparing me for other writing assignments that may be presented to me in the following years of High School. Writing something by yourself without any teacher supervision could be a hard thing to do in the future without any practice. But, with help from your teacher it can be really easy and fun to to complete. I think that blogging was the most fun writing assignment we did all year. The skills that we receive will always be judged by a critic if you post your writing excerpts online. This is always a plus to you because you will always gain helpful information which can better your assignment and get you a higher grade.
The game Bioshock is about a plane crash survivor out in the middle of the Ocean. You crash and you can see your plane being sucked down into the water and you can also see burning jet fuel on the water. When you think your going to die your wrong. You suddenly see a lighthouse standing in the middle of the ocean. You try to swim fast because your health is being drained by the second. Once you reach the lighthouse you are able to get inside. This is a scary part because you can hear the burning plane and the massive door you just opened screaching. Also the room is pitch black dark with only a small light about the size of a pin directly in front of you. You go to the pin and you find out its a button. You press it and a large door opens near you and reveals a biosphere. A biosphere is a spherical object that allows passengers to go down into the depths of water. Once you enter the biosphere there is nothing to do but press the on button. The bioshphere starts to submurge and a movie starts playing. An old scientist is talking about a creation he made in the 1950s. It was an underground city that was supposed to be a utopia for people incase anything would happen that harms the Earth. This city was called Rupture. Even though nothing happened that would harm the Earth many people came to rupture to begin life all over. Rupture had full electricity and working utilities. Rupture was succesful for about 5 years. After 5 years drugs and violence started to take over Rupture. There was also a high ammount of greed which transformed the inhabitants of Rupture into blood thirsty mutated monster. Its your job to survive living in Rupture and make your way out alive. When you start playing there are many things that you can do. One thing is a so called, “Magic.” This magic allows you to stab yourself with a syringe and allows you to take control of mechanical object, or maybe even launch a swarm of bees at your opponent. This is one of the most powerful ways to take down enemies. The only bad thing about magic syringes are that they are really rare and if you find one, it will probably be hidden in the dark or where you least expect it. You can also hack mechanical objects. This allows you to get cheaper prices of upgrades for your weapons or allows you to see what a security camera sees. This is really helpful but it hard to master. There is a 5 step process in which you must complete to succesfuly hack the mechanical device. This game is extremely gorey. There is also no button which allows you to turn off the gore. The added suspense is that at some points you can hear your heart beating, hear yourself breathing rapidly or hard, and hear the screams of people getting killed or monsters screeching suggesting they are coming at you. This game was one of the freakiest games I have ever played. It is also one of the most fun games I have ever played. It is extremely unrealistic but it makes up for the unreal factor by adding great graphics and sound. In total I think this game deserves a 9/10 because it does not have a graphic effects button for those more squemish than others.
Grand Theft Auta IV (GTA 4) has come a long way since the first GTA. The graphics have increased by so much. In the first GTA there were also many glitches, such as; being able to walk on water, being able to walk through buildings, getting into a car and the car would not move. Those are just the smaller ones. In GTA 4 all these glitches are gone and they have added a whole new storyline which keeps the player on his/her toes. One thing that has not changed is the mindless violence. You are able to walk up to anyone on the street and start beating them up. If you have a gun you can aim at them and kill them. You can basically do whatever you want in this game. But beware, there are police that roam the city in cop cars, motorcycles and on the sidewalk. If they see you, they will come and arrest you. If you try to resist arrest, they will take out their guns and start to shoot you. If you shoot back and kill them (which is really easy) you will gain a star. The game uses a star system to show how much the police want you at the moment. The stars range from one to six stars. One star means just one or two cops are after you. Two stars mean about 5 cop cars are chasing you. Three stars mean that about 10 cops are after you. Four stars mean that about 25 cop cars are after you and also are vans with swat members in it. Five stars mean that around 50 cop cars are after you, about 20 vans and 1 helicopter with machine guns are after you. Finally six stars mean 100 cop cars are after you, 50 swat vans, 10 helicopters, and 5 tanks are after you. It is extremely hard to get 6 stars because of the number of people after you. You have to do some really bad stuff to get 6 stars. It took me a total of 4 hours on the roof of a building with a rocket launcher destroying the helicopters to get 6 stars. I chose a rooftop because the police wont be able to get you and only the swat snipers would be able to. The storyline is really hard because of the trial and error process. In most quests you will be facing a high risk situation such as a drug deal or a assasination contract. One screw up on these will make the gangsters or bodyguards start shooting you. If you think that 2 body guards is not a lot, wait until they call backup. You will be facing around 50 bodyguards with pistols. Your only chance is to use your machine gun and grenades on them. Killing them will also cause police to come and kill you. So this is a really hard game to beat and play. A cool thing is, if you need to assasinate people. You are able to go into buildings and go into a random persons hotel room or apartment and either kill them or tie them up. A hotel window if chosen correctly is a good way on how to snipe someone without anyone noticing you. This requires a lot of pre planning so you are able to get the angle of attack correct without missing one shot. All in all I think that this game deserves a 10/10 for the long storyline, being able to do anything you want, and the graphics of the game.
Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer
You have to watch both of them!
Viewer discression is advised
Call of Duty 4 or COD4 is a game which came out to the public in December of 08′. It was a major hit with the players who already liked COD 1-3. COD4 goes to the Modern Battlefront of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. It is a fight against terrorists and their plot to launch a nuke at the United States of America. Your job is to get in to the heart of Iraq with your team. Your team consists of 3 people not including yourself. Your team is specially assigned to help you through those hard times. Your team consists of a sniper, demolitions expert, and a fast tactical shooter. Your team helps you throughout 50 percent of the game. In the other 50% you go back in time to when you first joined the army. While back in time you do major missions which grew your bonds with captains, and generals. One mission which I found extremely hard to win was where you were on a double mission with your general. He is a sniper and so are you. You are wearing a almost undetectable camouflage cape which is made out of leaves and dirt. This mission is basically a grass mission so you are able to crawl through the ground without getting undetected by enemy forces. In total this mission took me around 5 hours of trial and error to complete. It is one of the hardest missions because all you have is a sniper rifle while your enemies have tanks, machine guns, pistols, and sniper rifles. The odds are against you, but you have the element of surprise which makes the odds better for you. In the storyline you play as both a US Marine and a S.A.S British soldier fighting through the heart of the terrorists to save your country. COD4 requires a lot of trial and error to win because the enemies which are artificial intelligence (AI) can predict your moves if they spot you. So as an example if you are aiming at one of them and they see you, they are able to jump out the way or shoot back and cause more enemies to hear or see it and come help them kill you. You need to also have tactics and not just run into a place and start shooting. Without tactics you will be unorganized and probably get killed by a grenade launcher or a rocket launcher. The terrorists are hidden on streets and on the roofs of buildings. The ones on building roofs usually have snipers or rocket launchers and are extremely hard to spot. If not spotted you will probably get shot in the head and die instantly on harder levels. On COD4 you can always have fun after defeating the game for there are 4 different types of difficulties you may choose from. The difficulties are; easy, medium, and hard. Once you beat the game on hard difficulty a new difficulty opens up called legendary. This is extremely hard to beat. At this moment I am only on the 6th level of legendary out of about 20 levels. If you think that playing with a friend might make it easier you are wrong. The more people play with, the harder your enemies become. All in all I think that this game deserves a 8/10.
Fallout 3 is a fairly new videogame that came out Fall 2008. The game shows a variety of new techniques such as VATS which brings a new type of gun fighting to the game. VATS allows you to pause the game and target the enemy you want to shoot. It then allows you to locate or specify and part of the body you would like to shoot on. You may also shoot multiple targets at the same time. Once you have selected body parts you are enabled to shoot up to a maximum of 4 shots at your target. While shooting the shots the game gets slowed down and gets a nice close up of either your enemy or you and your gun. When you use VATS there is a lot of gore in the process but it brings up a really good picture and is a lot of fun. The story line is really fun and can be played for days on in while other games can be finished in less than 10 hours. In the storyline you are able to explore and go anywhere in the game that you choose to go to. This is called a free experience game. In some games you are not permitted to go to one place unless there is business for you to take of there. When you go exploring you will meet beggers, scavengers, bounty hunters, and mutated people. The bounty hunters and mutated people will kill you once they see you. If you read the guide book you find out that the bounty hunters are usually in groups of 2-5 and carry big weapons such as rocket launchers, flame throwers, heavy machine guns and snipers while the mutated people travel in groups of 30+ but only use either fists or pistols. If your unlucky you may come across acouple of mutants with light machine guns. When you move along the map you can choose to become either good or bad throughout your actions. This process is called “Karma.” One example of karma is when you enter a refugee city called “Megaton.” In Megaton there is an unexploded bomb in the center of the city. No one in the city knows how ot defuse the bomb except you. If you click the bomb you get two choices you may choose from. Either blow it up or defuse it. If you become Evil or Good there are perks for each side. If you become good you are able to persuade people to give you items. People are nice to you and follow you around offering help and giving presents. If you are evil bounty hunters will follow you and try to kill you to gain ransom. People also start to hate you and they may randomly attack you if you get on their nerves. I think the thing that gets most players mad about Fallout is the death system. If you die you have to restart the game from the beginning. If you do not save regularly you will surely not be happy if you die. Most players forget to save thinking it would be like all other games where you die and come to life in the same area. In Fallout 3 there are new weapons that are introduced called “Plasma Weapons.” They are items such as the plasma rifle, plasma launcher, plasma gun and plasma pistol. These are futuristic weapons that cause harmful beams of energy to come out and damage your target. All in all I think Fallout 3 has awesome graphics and a great storyline with a lot of details to keep the player on his/her toes.
Gears of War 2 is based 6 months after the first Gears of War. This game came out November 7, 2008. Gears of War 2 was a long awaited sequel to the first game which was a massive hit selling tens of millions of copies all around the world. With new leadership for the Locust which are evil mutated people they are able to sink entire colonies and cities from the depths of the Earth. The Locust have already sunk about seventy five percent of all COG colonies and outposts. The COG are the final defense the Earth has. They are a group of highly trained and technologically advanced military fighters. In the game you play Marcus Fenix the leader of your squad. Your squad consists of 3 other people. Their names are Cole Train who is a heavy demolition expert, Marcus Fenix your best friend and field fighter, and Santiago one of the most experienced snipers in the military. Santiago later gets captured about half way into the game and one of your missions is to go into the bowels of the Earth where the Locust rome free and find him. You later find him on in one of the Locust torture camps. You see him cut up and bloody. You free him and tell him everything will be ok. You then pass him a shotgun and turn around. You suddenly hear a gunshot go off and you find out that Santiago has killed himself. Gears of War 2 is one of the goriest game that I own on my Xbox 360. I have never seen a game where you can actually cut a person in half with a chainsaw attached to your machine gun. Gears of War 2 creators thought that some people may be squemish so they added a “violence button.” This button allows you to turn off the gore and blood from the game. Gears of War 2 has great online options. Now you can make a match with bots which are game controlled npc (non player characters) and you can train up your skill before you go online and face other players from around the world. Gears of War 2 have also made a new type of online game called capture the flag. In capture the flag you must try to get the flag which is a man in the center of the field with a pistol. You must bring him to your base to score the point. In capture the flag mode it is not unusual for the flag to have the most kills. He has an upgraded pistol with extra damage that can easily kill you in acouple shots. He is also immune to all gunfire so the only way to get him is to grab him and drag him back to your base.
Halo 3 in my eyes is one of the best games ever created. Ive been a fan of Halo since the beggining of Halo back in 2003. The Halo trilogy is about these Halos “Like Angel Halos” in space. This is in the future where you are the best fighter in the space army. Your name is Master Chief and you were trained since the age of 10 to be the best you could ever be. Your skills and a highly technological and space advanced piece of armor called the Mark 6 is what makes you so hard to beat. There is also a race of aliens in the Halo trilogy. The alien race in Halo is pretty confusing because throughout the three games your partnership with a special group of aliens ran by the Arbiter increases from hostile to friendly. The Halos in space are first found my the aliens who plan to use them as massive bombs to destroy all of the human race so they may take over the universe with no one to stop them. You manage to stop the aliens from using the Halos as a bomb in the first game all by yourself. In the second Halo a new experience was added to the game where you are able to use alien weapons and are able to play the role of the Arbiter in his first ranks before he becomes a leader. In the second game you also succeed to stop the aliens. In the third Halo you become allies with the Arbiter and his small army of rebels who do not want to blow up the Earth. In the third Halo you fight side by side with the Arbiter and you try to take out the leader of the Aliens only known as the Prophet. What Im trying to say is that Halo 3 is nothing like all the other Halos with the storyline except the act where you have to stop the aliens from blowing up Earth. The graphics of Halo 3 have greatly improved since Halo 1 which was 5 years ago. Halo 3 was awarded the best graphics in 2008 for a short period of time. Halo 3 also introduces new items called “equipment” which are items you may use to enhance your survival or help you kill harder enemies. One of my favorite equipment pieces is called the bubble shield. It blocks out all bullets and grenades for a short time but it does not block out enemies. Enemies would have to walk into the bubble area to try to kill you. When they walk in all you need to do is shoot them in the head with either a shotgun or a heavy weapon such as the sniper or a mauler. There has been a lot of new items added to the Halo 3 game that Halo 2 didn’t have. First there is a one handed shotgun which is not as powerful as the 2 handed shotgun but you are able to have two of them out at the same time. The other is the needler. This gun fires purple needles at your enemy causing damage when they get stuck in him and then they explode. Halo 2 had this weapon but you were able to have 2 of them out at once. They did a lot less damage in Halo 2 than 3. In Halo 3 you can have only 1 but it is one of the most powerful weapons in the game if you know how to use it. Halo 3 added a new heavy long range vehicle weapon called the Spartan Laser. This weapon is extremely heavy and it causes you to move slower. It takes 5 seconds of loading before you are able to shoot it but if you hit a vehicle it is automatically destroys it and kills anyone in a 5 meter range. So basically I think Halo 3 has changed a lot in 5 years and I think its better now than ever. I would give this game a 10/10. This is a sure buy if you like shooter games.
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