JamesG

Website: N/A

Program of study: Simulation and Digital entertainment

Favorite video game: My favorite video game, I would probably have to say, is Team Fortress 2. Anyone who knows me can attest I spend a good portion of my weekly hours on the game, hanging around my favorite servers and playing with friends and clanmates. As to the influence its had on me? Well, I really took a shining to the game because it was an FPS that really REALLY encouraged teamwork. Up until then my main FPS experience were games that tended to have random spawns, weapons that kill almost instantly, and were filled to the brim with campers hiding in obscure places with sniper rifles. Oh sure, there were goals like capture the flag, or king of the hill. But it more or less boiled down to 'everyone rush over in that general direction'

The art style was beautiful, the bright colors and distinct shapes of each class let you very clearly see the enemy and what they were. I had gotten so frustrated in many games by snipers in ghille suits hiding in tall grass and other unseen enemies that made me paranoid to set one foot outside the safety of a 4 walled building. But camping was never much fun for me, so it tended to be either repeated frustrating deaths at the hands of enemies you never see coming; or camp in a corner with your back to a wall and wait for them to come to you.

TF2 was the first multiplayer FPS where I felt that it wasn't 'everyone for themselves.' A couple coordinated players could completely dominate the enemy team just by working together to time invulnerabilies, making good use of mixed tactics and weapons, and maps with fixed spawn points so you ended up more or less going together rather than sticking you somewhere in the map with a random chance of running into allies. It was such a drastic change from Quake and Unreal tournament, every class had very clear strengths, weaknesses and roles to play in the defeat of the other team. Not balancing the right kinds of classes for that section of the map spelled defeat.

And as much as the game encouraged teamwork, the lone wolf could also be as disruptive to a team as a coordinated offense was devastating. I've seen many powerful offensive charges ruined by a well placed sniper picking off the heavy damage inflicting units before they get a chance to deploy. Or crafty spies making the teams waste minutes chasing their own tails as the countdown timer whittled away the short time they had left to make the capture; only to emerge and stab critical players the moment they round the corner push into the kill zones. It really inspired me to think that you could make an FPS that wasn't just a game of 'who pulls the trigger first' like call of duty, or 'everyone camp and wait for someone to approach' like Counter strike. It very effectively balanced camping tactics; fast moving, twitchy finger types, coordinated team play, and lone wolf players into a cohesive team.

Career Goals:

As far as career goals, I suppose I'd really like to work on design more than anything else. I'm a reasonable programmer, and an alright artist, but it was always the breaking games apart and trying to figure out what things made it FUN that I enjoyed. I tend to write in my spare time, and read even more. I often like to go back to games I've played and break them down to examine individual mechanics, determining what I liked and didnt like about them, and what could be done differently. I can create stuff reasonably well, but I always tended to enjoy drawing up the blueprints to an idea more than making it.

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