Socialising through games

When people think about playing video games they think about pale antisocial teenagers that lock themselves away in there rooms playing games all night and day. That is far from the truth; in my personal experience of games this has never been the case. Playing games with a group of people, whether its just one person playing and others watching, playing with multiple players or cooperative play when you team up with another person. Playing with a group of people in the room can be incredibly helpful, they might spot something that you failed to and point it out; such situations could include puzzle solving elements in a game. It is the same principle with cooperative play, but instead of outside help the other players is another character or element within the game to physically help. Some games need a second player to get through certain parts of a level. On the other hand multiplayer can also be a competition between two or more players, this could be anything such as fighting games like Tekken or racing games in a wide range of themes and genres. 

http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/fatal_frame_3_ps2

One game that we decided to play was the horror game Project Zero on the Play Station 2. The player controls a character that is investigating a series of mysterious disappearances in an old Japanese mansion. The mansion is deserted and in bad condition, and there are a lot of stories about horrible and disturbing Shinto rituals that were performed in the house. It is haunted by a whole host of evil spirits linked too these rituals, usually the victims. The game has a very dark atmosphere, which is created by the way the developers have designed the mansion. The lighting, textures, and soundtrack used create a very tense and scary atmosphere, keeping the player constantly on edge through the whole game. It is very rare that you can feel safe and secure in this game. In our case it got to the point where we were terrified because there was a cut scene meaning something not very nice was about to pop up and try to kill you, usually the ghost of a women with her eyes gouged out which we have named ‘the blind lady’ when she appears it is usually followed by a series of screams and shouting “IT’S THE BLIND LADY!” playing the game in a group is incredibly fun seeing each others reactions to the game makes it funny even if the game I terrifying.

Created by Tecmo (c)

I thought it would be interesting to film the game as we played it so that we could hear our reactions back afterwards.


http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=138872422831028

click on link to view.

Other games we played in groups were multiplayer games such as Tekken, Blaz Blue, and Motor Storm, all of which are competitive games where players are put against each other. With the fighting games it is usually just the two fighting against each other, whereas in racing games there is usually some AI players as well to make up the numbers in a race and make it more of a challenge to win.