Keeping in Shape

Are your parents or friends saying you play to many video games and dont get enough exercise well I have just the sollution for you games like Dance Dance Revolution are always good for that or a lot of wii games like wii sports are good as well, I've heard good things about wii fit although I have never tryed it but its supposed to be quite good for you, I recently got Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 for the wii and I have to say its quite the work out u will be sweating off those pounds in no time at all.

Resource Tools

I havent posted in a bit...... Im not sure if anyone is following this blog yet but oh well lol. I thought I would mention a couple of resources to find other tools to make games with.

www.devmaster.net has a huge list of 3D engines that are available for use. Now they have hundreds of engines listed, a good chunk which are not available to the public such as Unreal Engine 3 or Havok, although if you are looking for no code sollutions then www.ambrosine.com might be a better resource for you. I have not looked at all of the tools listed there but there are some good ones there.

In my first post I mentioned a site www.thegamecreators.com well the game creators have brought out a new software bundle www.darkgamestudio.com which includes 300 dollars worth of software if bought individually it includes tools for level creation, tools for creating enriching scenery, also includes dark basic pro and dark basic... although I don't know why they include both it seems pointless. One of the perks I think is that it includes FPS creator which is a very powerful no code FPS creation system on its own but if you own dark basic pro you can expand it infinitly. Although I wish it came with the new FPS Creator X10 which supports a work load more features such as control over a squad of units, multiplayer lan games and much more. It also includes tools to create realistic mouth movements for talking, shaders and other stuff.

Also for those who own a ds and didnt realize that nintendo has released the new Nintendo DSI nintendo's newest portable handheld (I think its sweet that it has a camera :D). Now for those of you that are jumping in your seats saying "WHY HAVENT I HEARD OF THIS!!!" It's cause its only available in japan (darn japanese get everything first, being japanese must be nice.) it looks pretty sweet.

I thought I would also talk about the new xbox 360 dash board. I havent used it much but its pretty sweet so far, a little buggy but looks way better, the avatar system is very customizable (better than the Wii's Mii's). If you have been wondering whether you should put it on or not. Well here is a good reason for you. You don't have to put it on but then you can't go on Xbox live.

Review: Zelda Twilight Princess

I recently got Zelda Twilight Princess and I got to say that its awesome to say the least. The last Zelda game I played was Majoras mask for the 64. I'm playing this on my Wii but so far the story has been pretty cool although a little darker than previous zelda games. I like how you get to swing your sword and how the combo system works. The controls are decent and easy to use, I like how you can learn more moves by finding the gold wolf. When turned into the wolf its cool how you can track other stuff and dig for buried items. I did run into 1 problem but that could just be my Wii being faulty... I cant use the motion sensor controls for doing stuff like aiming and shooting I have to aim with the analog stick so for that reason alone Im giving it a 9.5 out of 10.

Imagining the Future

I was just thinking today and talking with a friend today and he suggested an awesome idea, what if all the leading gaming companies such as Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft worked together to make one good console. Now the dream is far from any reality but if you think about the perfect console of the future would have the innovative controls of the Wii ,

the raw power of a PS3, and the customobility of a 360. Just imagine with me for a moment what that would be capable of. Since it would be part 360 XNA could be used for anyone to come up with something new and amazing, it would have cool motion sensor controls like the wii but they would be way better since it has massive processing power of the PS3

Where do games come from?

Games... many of us play them, some of us play them with a basic understanding of how they work, others just know it works. Have you ever been the type of person who wondered how do they do this? If you have played a game like gears of war or a lot of shooters often they have used an engine such as Unreal or Havok where as a game like Spore would have its own engine written if an existing engine cant do what the company is looking for. All games have to be written in code and translated into a language the computer understands, 1's and 0's now you wont have to know any of that to make your own game. Now most professionals or university teachers will you that you need to learn C++ or some generalized programming language. This is a good thing to do and can get better results in the long run but I will be completly honest with you, its not the only option and quality games have come from no coding sollutions. Now some of you may be wondering "well you just said that all games have to be put into 1's and 0's?" this is and always will be true until a newer type of computer comes out I will go into how that works some other time. The way a no coding system often works is the program you are using has to be written in code which these no coding sollutions are then often sold to make profit from the non programmer aspiring to make games. But back to the point at hand what the program does can vary on the program. I will take a very basic program called 3D Gamemaker from The Game Creators http://www.thegamecreators.com/. What it does is you basically select a character, an enemy, a boss, a map, a weapon and they recently added a feature so you can design what the level is shaped like and after that is processes the data into a form the computer can understand and is playable. the game creators that I mentione above also have other no coding sollutions as well as full coding software for games, from programs like FPS Creator which can create advanced First Person Shooters with no coding. All of the no code programs work in a similar way but some offer more customability. Now if you decide to go the full code system it can be a bit more complicated depending on the language and system you use. But this will give you total control of how every little part of the game will work. Now earlier I mentioned an engine. An engine does not normally include its own coding language although there are exceptions like torque all an engine does is somebody usually a team of programmers took a system like Ogre3D or some sort of graphics system and a lot of math and they took the effort of figuring out how to set up all the complex things like camera angles, physics, collisions, sound, basically an engine is meant to take out a lot of the work. Two of the most commonly used engines are Havok and Unreal Engine 3. As much as I would like to say I have tryed these... these engines cause like well...... I dont know the prices arent listed I know its in the millions.

Before I end this post I figured I would post a few resources for anyone that I have sparked an interest in games.

Game Maker http://www.yoyogames.com/ A simple easy to use yet powerful 2d game creation system.

Game Editor http://game-editor.com/ I myself have never used this one but have read good things about it. It has a wide cross platform. 2D only.

The Game Creators http://www.thegamecreators.com/ Have a wide variety of products from no code products to products like dark basic which is a full coding game creation system using the popular yet simple language BASIC giving total control yet ease of use compared to others. They also offer graphics creation tools as well as art assets which can be purchased.

Torque http://www.garagegames.com/ Torque offers full engines including everything you need to make a working game with all the features of an engine you will need with no royalties and its affordable starting at $100.00 american

if you have any suggestions for topics for me to post or have any questions e-mail me at gaurdianaq@gmail.com