Learning Outcomes
Unit Aims The aim of unit 4 is to develop your critical and analytical awareness. You will have the opportunity to analyse critical perspectives and develop techniques to critique work to a high standard. Scenario You are have been employed by an upcoming games company to advise and guide their junior staff on their work. You will also advise on the context in which their work will be perceived by the audience. Assessment Guidance Your work will be recorded via reports and images, you will have to develop your analytical skills to ensure that you can provide effective feedback upon critiquing work. You will also have to provide research into critical perspectives and how they influence game content. Research will have to be done to develop your contextual awareness of the games industry and the products that they put out. This unit will be graded as either Refer or Pass. The assessment criteria for each unit are detailed in this document for information and guidance purposes. In order to achieve a pass grade, students must complete all of the assessment criteria listed within this document. If you do not achieve a pass grade, you will be given one further opportunity to resubmit your work to achieve a pass. The re submission time allocated will be two weeks from the date of feedback. In order to complete this unit, you will need to work individually to research, design, create and evaluate a minimum of three media products. |
Compare a range of critical perspectives that influence the analysis of creative media production activities.
3 x Game review analysis’
Response to game reviews
‘what you think’ about the reviews
3 x Artstation critiques
11th October 2019.
Apply knowledge of critical perspectives to the analysis of a range of creative media production activities.
Create a 3D model for a specific target audience considering how the audience impacts your decisions.
18th November 2019.
Apply knowledge and understanding of critical perspectives to support own practice.
Report on how your models fits the needs of the critical perspective which it is aimed at (1000 words)
18th November 2019.
Critically compare a range of contexts within which creative media technology and production are situated.
Report on the impact of culture affects the game development process/content. Consider how the following impact the content…
Apply an understanding of a range of contextual parameters to support own creative development.
Poster aimed at a specific culture.
Research on culture + popular trends.
5th December 2019.
3 x Game review analysis’
Response to game reviews
‘what you think’ about the reviews
3 x Artstation critiques
11th October 2019.
Apply knowledge of critical perspectives to the analysis of a range of creative media production activities.
Create a 3D model for a specific target audience considering how the audience impacts your decisions.
18th November 2019.
Apply knowledge and understanding of critical perspectives to support own practice.
Report on how your models fits the needs of the critical perspective which it is aimed at (1000 words)
18th November 2019.
Critically compare a range of contexts within which creative media technology and production are situated.
Report on the impact of culture affects the game development process/content. Consider how the following impact the content…
- Culture
- Target Audience
- Ethics
- Equality & Diversity
Apply an understanding of a range of contextual parameters to support own creative development.
Poster aimed at a specific culture.
Research on culture + popular trends.
5th December 2019.
Unit 4 - Task 1
Compare a range of critical perspectives that influence the analysis of creative media production activities.
IGN Celeste Game Review
About the review – This review is a very positive about the game and covers very detailed almost everything that the offers, at the introduction he talks a little bit on how hard it is to get used to precise timing jumps and mechanics of the character, right after that the reviewer talks about the style of the game and how surprise he was seeing that is actually very different from normal 2D pixel games, also in the same paragraph the writer tells about how relevant the emotional story is, what is remarkable is that the story isn’t told in the background very briefly.
Right after that, the reviewer writes about the overflowing charm of Celeste is and carries on praising about almost everything, such as how smartly the dialog is written, how the characters are delightful and expressive, the world full of small details, how the developers gave each character a distinct personality of their own, and another things that make the game feel alive and dynamic. The writer carries on talking very positively about the game and when he gets to the mountain dashing section he talks about how simple the controls are and how they are, what you can do in the game in regards to control and what is good about it, and how he felt like it was skills that he could master, even if it looked hard from an outsider perspective. Also talks about how fair it fees each success and failure during the gameplay, about how the game tracks how many times you’ve died, how it encourages you on improving and how the checkpoints are smartly placed. The writer carries on talking about each other topic such as “Soundtrack”, “2B-side Myself”, “The B-Sides are where the real challenge lies”,” Celeste Screenshots”, “A fighting game without combat”, “Jumping simulator” and “Celeste blends its story beautifully into the arcade-y game that houses it, making me feel for its characters without ever forcing me to”, are topics that the writer talks very positively about, almost as if there are no mistakes made in the game. What I think about this review – This review only talks about how amazing the writer thinks about this game, almost making the game look like its a masterpiece without any mistakes been made. Which is truly impossible for any game in the whole world. Even though the game is really good, I don’t think it deserved this amount of complements and a 10 out of 10 score, the game is too repetitive sometimes and there are way better games that are scored as a 6 or a 5, but for the genre even comparing to all of the 2D games in history, Celeste wouldn’t be a 10 out of 10. IGN Review Topics – Title and subtitle While playing Mountain Dashing Soundtrack B-side Myself The B-Sides are where the real challenge lies Celeste Screenshots A fighting game without combat Video about the first 9 minutes Jumping simulator Celeste blends its story beautifully into the arcade-y game that houses it, making me feel for its characters without ever forcing me to. Verdict https://uk.ign.com/articles/2018/01/25/celeste-review |
GrumpyGreen Black Desert Online Game Review
About the review – The review starts by the title and a “Wikipedia” definition telling briefly about the game, what is the game about, what type of game is it, where is it from, who is the developer, and also is a bit critical about it, all that in no more than 6 little lines of text.
On the game checklist the reviewer says that the game has zero tab targeting during combat, complexity and fine detail, gleeful exclamation over your empire’s vast holdings workers and territories, hidden numbers, treasures, and mysterious hints during gameplay. On the same section he says that Black Desert Online will change your mind if you prefer games with simplicity, they putted so much detail in the game that simpler games will make you bored, which is a very positive thing to say in a review about a game. After the game checklist the reviewer covered the gameplay pros and cons, starting with the pros he didn’t go too much into detail, he just said it briefly using bullet points what’s good about combat, character creation, complex and open gameplay. In the cons he talked about gender locked classes, weight limits, inventory limits which is normal for a MMORPG to have, gear durability, no teleports(which makes it more realistic in my opinion), slow leveling after level 56, cash shop prices, not much party play outside of guild pvp events(which I prefer), too many quests and level locked quests, some mis-translations(that might have been fixed since the game is 4 years old and Korean), pets are too expensive, gambling RNG(upgrading weapons system which is based on luck). The reviewer follows on talking about the immersive gameplay via action combat, key combos challenges, AOE gameplay and galore and gameplay grinding, the reviewer seems to enjoy talking about this topics, since you can almost see his smile by just reading what he wrote, being very positive about most of the aspects of the game, making it appealing saying BDO is a gamer’s delight, on the AOE gameplay galore the writer writes as he is almost promoting the game with quotes such as “Are you looking for a game that offers Area of Effect mayhem? Who doesn’t enjoy gameplay that offers total annihilation of enemy packs… with few deadly AOE attacks?” On the grinding part of talks about killing mobs and how hard it is to get to higher levels, the reviewer on the same section of the review introduces a little bit of comedy making me feel like I’m his friend with the quotation “There are few group friendly PVE zones like dungeons or raids found in most MMOs, and no, you aren’t safe there from PVP players. You aren’t safe anywhere. Run! 🙂 Just teasing. This game can make you paranoid, to be honest.” Even uses a smiley face. “Gameplay with unmatched graphics”, the heading explains itself, good graphics require good computer specs, without a good computer it will be almost impossible to enjoy 100% of the game, fighting world bosses and guild pvp is almost impossible even in the lowest quality with a bad computer. What I think about this review – this review was very positive in most of the aspects, since the site is about the game, made by the players for players and future players, this game talks briefly about almost everything that there is, the game is really complex, and it would be almost impossible to talk about everything that this game has to offer such as taming horses, horse levels, cooking, fishing, navigating, alchemy, having workers, how much skill you need for certain classes, about classes and what each one is and good at and many other stuff that this game can offer, it’s a MMORPG, without an end. GrumpyGreen Review Topics – Title and what is the game about Gameplay checklist Pros and cons – combat, character creation, complex and open gameplay Gameplay cons Gameplay with immersive action combat Key combo challenges(with video) AOE gameplay glore Grind grind grind grind grind Gameplay with unmatched graphics Final review Gampleplay videos by other players https://grumpygreen.cricket/bdo-gameplay/ |
RockPaperShotgun For Honor Game Review
About the review – The title is very self-explanatory, “Everything wrong with For Honor” right after the title the reviewer writes a little positive things such as “For Honor does a lot of things very well”, that being said, we can understand that the writer know that the game has good things about it but he will only talk about the cons in this review.
The reviewer has 8 main points about what is wrong with this game, which doesn’t mean that the game is complete rubbish, them being: Match making queues; “You cannot join this session because it is full”; Press T to chat but also to maybe not chat; Can you win fights just by looking angry?; Peer to peer not working; “There are no longer enough players”; Ok. “Let’s fight an Elimination match instead; Well, I suppose I’ll just quit to main menu when this happens.” And all of them have a kind of satire and again we what we feel when reading the review is that the writer is talking to a friend about all the negative aspects about the game. This review is a very short review, and the writer is quick-forward, you get what you came looking for, if you are searching the negatives aspects about the game, this is a really good review, doesn’t use fancy words and most of the things that the reviewer says will not be understandable for an outside person. What I think about this review – This is a review that is focusing on the bad things about the game, as the writer said at the beginning of the review, he acknowledges that the game has very good and strong points which he even addresses a link to another review about what the game does that is really good, which makes me think that this review is a pretty honest review as a person that bought the game and really enjoyed it with everything wrong in it, and I kind of feel the same way as the writer in some parts, such as the quitting button part and other stuff. RockPaperShotgun Review Topics – Title a little about the game Match making queues “You cannot join this session because it is full” Press T to chat but also to maybe not chat Can you win fights just by looking angry? Peer to peer not working “There are no longer enough players” Ok. Let’s fight an Elimination match instead Well, I suppose I’ll just quit to main menu when this happens https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/02/21/everything-wrong-with-for-honor/ |
Yang Tao – Judo
A very nice concept art, brings up the live feel of two judo practitioners fighting in a sparing match, a very accurate positioning from both practitioners, it almost looks like the artist has experience in judo.
Pros The artist uses a blurry type of lighting to represent the motion between the two characters, without even noticing you can imagine what’s about to happen, and how they got into this positioning, in your head you can revert time and see how the character in blue kimono ended up being pounded on the floor, even if in the image he isn’t yet on the floor or on the beginning of it. The amount of details putted into the clothing shadows Cons Starting with the character wearing the blue kimono, from the top to the bottom we can clearly see that his foot is really badly made, it’s almost the size of his shin, his belt shouldn’t be that much up, even if their bodies are still in motion just like his kimono is already falling because of gravity his belt isn’t, what is he holding to with his right hand? The face expression is too strange, for the second character his foot is too strange, his hand left hand it looks like it was made from another artist, doesn’t even look like a hand, it doesn’t match the style of this art. Background: There is no background |
Thuan Nguyen Minh Duong - Idol of Rose Talis
The amount of time, hard work, detail and colouring implemented in this 3D Model art work is absurd, without a doubt this is one of the best works I’ve ever seen, one of the most jaw dropping models ever.
Pros Very detailed, high quality looking, able to add other stuff like glasses and weapons how each part is assembled together, metallic look, colour matching, realistic vibe, transparency in wings, looks like something totally possible to exist in the future. Very nicely done poses and postures, everything is able to be moved around and played with. Cons Too much details can be a double edge sword, can cause problems in a actual game engine, since this is a 3D model for Unity, the way the artist decided to put them in the engine, made it look not as good as the 3D Model in screenshots, there is just too much things moving when in the engine, such as the cables and antennas |
Lilim : TYPE-A
A really cute artwork/3D model, a very creative and common Japanese type of character style, anime-ish character, looking like an idol that is in a band and enjoys listening to music, has to fight crime or something using a futuristic type of gun.
Pros Attracts a certain type of fan-base which enjoys this type of character style such as anime/japanese cartoon, background looks very realistic, great lighting, bunny ears headphones(never seen it before), a futuristic gun. Makes you believe and think about the world that the character lives in. Cons The background is too realistic for the 3D model, it almost looks like plastic in some parts which are coloured, the positioning of the character could be done better. There are so many cool poses that the author could use this character but he decided to just put it in a normal pose looking pretty normal, just like almost all other 3D models in the site. |