Black Hawk Down

Before it broke, i found the film visually stunning the way they portrayed modern warfare from all views of the battlefield. The acting in the film was top notch as it combined the comedy of the banter between the soldiers with the seriousness of death in the field. The director used the locations way to show how wars are fought in enclosed areas and the troubles soldiers face. This combined with the views from helicopters and the view from the command centre allowed the viewer to see all the different things that were occuring around the city. The visual effects including the explosions and the graphic scenes of dying men really made me feel close to the action and allowed me to feel what the soldiers were feeling when they saw their dying comrades. all together 8/10

German Impressionism

Expressionism was a form of art that rejected earlier artforms and searched to display the deeper meanings in the subjects they painted rather than focusing on the external appearance.

Under Nazi ragime expressionism was regarded as decadent and in 1937 it was outlawed. Thousands of artworks were seized and many of the artists that tried to save their work were persucted with imprisonment and/or death.

The artworks that were saved now form the german expressionism exhibit that is shown around many museums around the world. They consist of many variaties of artwork from simple monotonal prints to large scale paintings of soldiers of the World Wars.

Blitz

The presentation showed gave me inspiration and bulked my confidence a little. Especially with the....Pink Fox thingy...(shudder). It has shown me however, that I am definitely not at a high enough level to be a professional game artist just yet. I found that his way of taking a photo of every detail of the world around him was a very effective way to get reference for his projects. As a result i have started to do this a lot more than just when doing projects. It also made me feel a lot better about the industry as he described the way they set mini fun projects for them just to exercise their imaginations and design muscles. From the presentation I have taken the inspiration to take photos of EVERYTHING and also to research more deeply into the subject I am designing for. This will allow me to gather as much reference as possible and basically emerge myself into the chosen subject. However, i neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedddd to start doing as much work as possible to improve my drawing and get an idea of the workloads i am going to be facing if and when i enter the industry.

Writing about games

Game reviewers who give an objective report of a game are under constant pressure from the readers as well as the creators of the games. The readers of the magazines that publish these reviews want an accurate layout of the game that shows the pro’s and con’s of the game as well as giving a well argued opinion. The creators of the games need good reviews of the games they make in order to get readers to buy the game. This puts the reviewer under pressure from both the readers and the creators to give an accurate review of the game. This pressure is increased due to the fact that the reviewer had very little time to do any research on the game or get a real good account of playing the game before the review has to be published. This is because a modern day magazine is put together in 19 working days so the reviewer has barely any time to get their review done before they have to start on the next one. And there is no way of cutting corners or extending their deadline as it is the companies they work for that pay their wages and if they can’t get the job done in the time the company will fire the reviewer and find someone who can.

However, I feel that the objective way of reviewing games gives the gamer a more fixed rating of the game than NGJ. I feel that the reviews given in magazines are very opinion based, but the people who play and review have obviously played many games in their time and reviewed many games so that makes their opinion a little more relevant than a normal reader. I feel that this is the case due to it being their job instead of their hobby and so it is their job to know what makes a great game. I also feel that the objective way of reviewing games is a little more straight to the point and the way magazine reviews are put together i believe provides the reader with more information on the game.

NGJ is a load of rubbish in my opinion and the way it is written seems unproffesional and does not give a good account or review about the game. I much prefer reading an objective report in a magazine as it gives me a better quality of report and tells me what i want to know about the game.