Gamecity......

Didnt enjoy it.

Im pissed off even more by the fact that not once was I asked to see my wrist band, which I payed £20 for, just because I didnt get an NUS card.

So it goes like this-

I either didnt see any info on the site with regards to where to go to get your band, or what time it starts, or whats on? It probably was there but I looked and couldnt find.

We go to an info spot and he tells us to go to the market square. Wa hoo, we find banners and a not so ready gamecity, okay, fine they are still setting up.

We then get a prgramme which actualy te;lls us whats going on today.

When we got out band we headed upstairs in this club to see what was happaning. This bit really annoys me.

A woman introduces somone, who, has made a mod of CS called blockh. A game about irish politics.

NI has a lot of problems and conflict, and everyone knows that. First, the woman went into the politics and how certain areas of NI have murals painted on houses arguing for and against sides etc, and how the mod has these murals in one spot. Nice. She also went on about how war is sanitized through gaming, and how games make war fair. Thats the biggest pile of poo ive ever heard. war is happening, innocent people do die, and humans, kill and are getting killed, by eachother. When people say games are just games, sure they are, but this stuff is actualy happening.

She then talked about war and 'terrorists' and said a little about middle eastern war games. But, she mocked them. The US army's official game was american army I think, anyway the video had a little of thats gameplay, and how 'good' it was, and it was self advertising, yes, GLORYFYING WAR ANDD KILLING *eh hem* (id say okay for an onliner, gfx wise) then gameplayed a game from middle east. Fair enough, the graphics were poor, aswel as the animation, but once it was finished, and everyone done laughing, she said 'thats our games compared to theirs). SO FUNNY, that one game about killing others is better than another. It isnt. To me.

A game is out that updates with scenarios that are/have actualy happened, that you can play through. Good Idea, but the whole 'lets carry on killing' business has really started to bug me recently. I was sat there thinking this is really horrible.

So anyway she eventualy reaches the end of the presentation, and asks for questions. One guy asks 'dont you think blockh will fuel the debate'

She said, no it is meant for players to take out their frustration online instead of in real life.

But at the end of the day, nothing will beat the real thing, and problems wont get solved through playing a game. And what if a nationalist gets auto-placed on the loyalists side? har har?

I love games like socom and halo, but ive always, literaly, felt sorry for the characters when they get popped. In my head 'they are just acting'. Once again people tell me its just a game, I know but................

Im just sick of this war advertisement, and how people go on about killing others will bring peace. >?<


We then found some of our 3rd years *waves* and played some indipendantly made games. There were som really sweet ones. But we didnt stay there for more that 15mins and 10mins of that was spent chattying bout the course, which I enjoyed, as i havent bumped into any 2nd or 3rds yet :)

Seeing as we had to walk from building to building to find stuff, each time we went through the square, we saw pleeeeeeeenty of passers by, without wristbands, soaking up the action.

the most productive part of the day was the gamemaker workshop, where i sat through the hour painting a dragon on one of their laptops, (As Mark didnt do anything with gamemaker and messed with flash instead LOL XD) whilst going though the game maker program and making a mini game. I must admit i did like the program and think im going to attempt a mini game.

We went to subway after then went home.

I might complain and ask for my money back.