User:JessicaBaum

=Freshman Seminar=

Always Wanted To Schedule

 * Topic

Reach Level 40 on the PS3 game Demon's Souls.
 * Research Component

The history of Atlus.
 * week 1

Reach level 13
 * week 2

Reach level 22
 * week 3

Reach level 27, Research past games created by Atlus.
 * week 4

Reach level 30
 * week 5

Reach level 33, Research how Atlus became a company
 * week 6

Reach level 35
 * week 7

Reach level 37
 * week 8

Reach level 40

Midterm Assignment 1: Taste & Aesthetics
My first impressions of all of the statues in the Seattle Olympic Park were around the area of “Okay, that’s a bit weird looking”. None of them were really in my favor, but the one that hit me the strongest with dislike was the “Typewriter Eraser” by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. I felt like it was the most ridiculous sculpture I had seen and I didn’t understand why someone would want to create a statue of an object that is so boring, ugly, and obsolete. When I went home, I did some research on the two artists. I found that they together, pretty much just look around the room and decide “Let’s make that one into art”. As they look around the room, they sketch out ideas of an item to see if it would work, or how it would look. To me, it doesn’t seem like that would take an artist to create.

To this day, I still have not changed my mind on the piece “Typewriter Eraser”, and I still find it very boring and distasteful. The two artists just re size objects that are out in the world, and place them around parks. As I sit here, wondering if I’ll ever become a worthy artist, sometimes I get a little down, but as I view the “Typewriter Eraser”, my spirits rise. I guess it doesn’t take imagination to make yourself big. Maybe I will have to take more trips to the park to understand.

Midterm Assignment 2: Manipulation
 

Midterm Assignment 3: Always Wanted To Progress Report (100 words or so)
Currently, where I stand on my Always Wanted To project, I am behind. On the game Demon's Souls, I am only at level 30, which my goal is to reach level 40 by the end of week 8. I hope that during Thanksgiving break, I will be able to catch up, and reach my level goal. I still have to do some research, and put together my project for my final presentation. Hopefully by week 9, I will have it all put together. My other class's homework gets in the way of me being able to play Demon's Souls.

Final Presentation

 * Topic (10%)

My goal was to reach level 40 on the PS3 game, Demon's Souls.


 * Research (20%)

(Demon's Souls Review)

(Ghosts and Goblins Gameplay)

(Paperboy gameplay)

(Battletoads gameplay)

I researched some history on the first video games and on some of the popular world wide known companies like Nintendo, and what the hardest games of all time are. Top 3 hardest video games; #3 Ghosts and Goblins for the NES, #2 Paperboy for the NES, #1 Battletoads for the NES.

3. Ghosts and Goblins is a game where you play as a knight that is equipped with armor and a sword. If you get hit, your armor flies off, leaving you to a one hit kill. You have to keep an eye out for enemies in all directions, as zombies spawn up from the ground and birds fly around. You have to make it through 4 long stages, fighting an uncountable amount of enemies. When you reach the door to the final boss, if you have not picked up the special shield item, you get sent back to the beginning of stage 4. As you get to the final boss again, and fight and defeat him, it turns out that it was a trap. You are then sent back to stage 1 to go through and beat the game a second time to actually save your girlfriend who was captured at the start.

2. Paperboy is a game where you are playing as a paperboy on a bicycle, trying to deliver customers newspapers over a course of a week as you try to avoid hazardous obstacles and vandalize non subscribers.

1. Battletoads is a game that was developed to rival Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You play as a toad, either Zitz or Rash, trying to save your friend Pimple and the princess from the Dark Queen. The game is easier to play through on single player mode, since friendly fire exists. Each level is harder than the last, and the controls make it hard to progress as well.

Nintendo has been a company since 1889 and originally manufactured Hanafuda cards. Nintendo started to lose money around 1976 when their card sales dropped. Miyamoto then created Donkey Kong, which saved Nintendo from bankruptcy.


 * 1) Internet site: Old-Wizard. Old-Wizard.com, 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. .
 * 2) Book: The Ultimate History of Video Games. Crown Group, 2001. Print.
 * 3) Scholarly Journal:
 * 4) Other (interview, TV show,etc):


 * Your accomplishment (20%)

I went to the first stage, fought my way through the easy monsters, and killed the red eyed knight dozens of times. Though he is hard, sometimes I'd die instead of killing him.


 * Project Review (50%)
 * 1)What went well - Because of the fact that I was just grinding levels instead of playing through stages to get farther into the game, it will be easier for me to actually get through the stages than it was before.
 * 2)What went poorly - Since I have other classes and not a lot of time when I get home from school at night, I didn't have a lot of time to play video games, so it was hard to keep up with Demon's Souls.
 * 3)Future strategies - Maybe pick a different goal, that wasn't not dealing with playing a video game. Possibly something that I could accomplish from anywhere instead of just at home.