Tom’s First Blog Post!!!!
With many years of experience with video games I have a good understanding about the different game mode within a specific game and how these game modes can affect and benefit an involved player. For example, the video game “Call of Duty”, There are nine different versions of this game dating back to 2003. Call of Duty is video game that simulates many different small arms combat in different wars and situations. Within these games they’re different game modes you can play such as: Story mode, Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Capture the Flag, Search and Rescue, Uplink, Hardpoint and Search and Destroy.
Story Mode is the one game mode where you’re not playing against other “living people” around the world you are playing as if you’re in the military while completing levels to reach an end goal. I believe that the “story mode” helps give game players a perspective on how the war and military operates now and how it did in the past. The other game modes have different objectives within a set time limit to gain points and therefor win the game. “Most game players also know that the game will come to an end, often within an already fixed time limit” (Simons, 2007). These game modes all have different set time limits, which can lead to more or less points earned in a given game. I believe that every game player wants to win and reach new levels within these games that’s why these time limits play a big factor on what games modes they choose to play. By designing many different game modes within a game, it can help game players feel more in control because they understand the objective. “The trick of the trade of game design is indeed to make the player believe she is in control” (Simons, 2007).
Another video game I would like to mention is NHL17. This game also has many different game modes which also help give game players different perspectives. These Games modes are: Be a Pro, Be a General manager, Draft Champions and Ultimate team. The involved players can experience different perspectives within these different game modes and even learn more about the business side of hockey.
All of these game modes you get to play the game but in different ways, in be a pro mode you get to play as a character that you design. While playing as “yourself” within this game you get to see what it’s could be like to get drafted and even traded to a different team at some point. My personal favorite is General Manager mode, in this game mode you get to see how a GM deals with the salary cap and gain an understanding of how much a professional player is paid while also making trades and making sure the environment outside of the game is being handled. I believe that with these videogames younger kids gain a better understanding about professional sports and athletes as well by seeing what they could go through within a video game setting. The last game mode I would like to mention is the Ultimate team mode. This game mode is a self-sustained market where you can buy and sell players to build the best team you can and play different “living” people online. This is looked at as the most popular game mode in the game. “whereas in roleplaying games the implicit goal is to acquire sufficient “stats” to reach a new level” (Klastrup, 2003). I can believe that Ultimate team is the most popular game mode because the game player has a set goal to achieve the best stats so they can acquire the best players to reach new levels. All in all, I believe that video games can help people of all ages gain a better perspective of how things are in real life by just playing different game modes.
References
Klastrup, Lisbeth (2003). ‘A poetics of virtual worlds’. MelbourneDAC 2003, http://hyprtext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Klastrup.pdf.
Simons, J. (2007). Narrative, Games, and Theory. Game Studies, 7(1). Retrieved September 18, 2017, from http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons
