Games Britannia 2/3

Part 2: Monopolies and Mergers.

This episode in part talked about one of the mot famous board games of all time Monopoly. The games core mechanics were taken from a old English game by the name brer fox and brer rabbit. The game was created as a critique of the tendency to buy up land in order to turn a prophet. Though the game monopoly is so famous there is much to be said that the game is not very well designed. The game is largely unplayed by board games enthusiasts.

Another game that was shown was the controversial war on terror the board game. The game was a satirical look at the concept of  the war on terror invented by the US government under George Bush. The game received much criticism because games are often not considered reasonable mediums for such criticism.

Part 3 : Joystick Generation

Part 3 of Games Britannia focused mainly on video games and their progress.

The game Elite was shown. Elite is a old space-faring trade game in which the player controls a ship and tries to reach elite status through trade and combat. What I found most interesting in the game was how i recognized many of the ideas and mechanics from more modern and still popular video games. I am surprised that these modern games have their basis in some of the earliest 3D games.

Lara croft was said in the documentary to revolutionize game characters in that she was one of the first to have character and a back-story. There was however opposition to Lara's portrayal. Lara is shown as having a supermodels body and was described in the documentary as 'Pamela Anderson solving problems'. but others disagree saying that although she started out as a caricature she evolved past that.

The episode discussed moral choices in games using the examples of 'Black and White' and 'Grand Theft Auto'. With Black and White the player is a god within the games world and can choose between help or hurting the populace of the world. The game tries to give the player not only a sense of power but a sense of responsibility. GTA however takes a different path. It allows the player to do basically whatever they want moral or not and whether something should be done or whether it is moral is entirely down to the player.