One form of literacy and language that stands out to me is how storytelling in video games can be one of the clearest forms of art, as most forms of entertainment go I consider video games to be one of the best at being able to tell a compelling and fun story, as you get to experience them first hand being able to see the events play out all around you to me help you become more invested in what’s going on as you help the story progress and how in some cases can even have effects on how the story can play out. The first time I got introduced to the stories in games was when I was around thirteen, and one day I was browsing through YouTube and I stumbled upon this channel called the acting man.The first video I ever clicked on was a review called “Black Ops 3”, a game that I was playing at the time, and how the story mode failed in how its narrative as he goes on to talk about how horrible the pacing was as you jump around different settings in a futuristic world, and it made me realize just how bad it was, now given I did think it was pretty confusing I never took the tie to break it down and observe the events piece by piece, as he further explains how bad the story was he turns to the characters and how bland they turn out to be, there repetitive and give off a lot of meaningless banter about the situation and through the story you meet what is a faction that’s supposed to be the enemy aside from attacking you they fail to show what their motives are or what they even gain from being there aside from being a generic terrorist organization. And as I watched him call out all these mistakes and poor choices they made I realized that the

story itself was played out. The concept it was centered around was interesting, it’s right but was executed in how it was presented. This was the first video I ever saw from this channel but I could see the heart and soul he puts into his reviews and that’s something I enjoyed seeing while he wasn’t the one who wrote the stories he took the time and effort to understand what the story and overall message of those stories he even talks about the pacing can affect of these stories helps to contribute and commends them for how well they did. I recall this the most because I aspire to one day be a game designer and hearing his criticisms of games I’ve played helped me understand just how detrimental the story and the pacing have to be for a game to work.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqo5a39gd_A&t=2264s 2:50But moving away from his more negative reviews. He helped me find the best story-driven game I’ve played called “bio shock” a game centered around a man named jack whose plane crashed into the water and discovered an underwater utopia, where the residents have gone mad on this drug that makes them superhuman and they try hunting you down as a reward for walking in uninvited. Now that’s just a quick summaryof the events but the reason I ended up buying the game was because of what he had tosay about the game, he starts with how captivating the into is it starts with ourprotagonist wandering into an ominous light tower after your plane crashes and you walkinto this pod that begins descending into the water and then you’re presented with ashort presentation as you descended here is where we meet the man and founder of theunderwater city Andrew Ryan as he gives a speech on how social structure is something

he doesn’t want to live, and how his underwater utopia is his own, and then you’reshown this beautiful city from the outside, however, once you enter your greeted with aman getting cornered and murdered in front of you and in the process the pod your ongets damaged so you have no other option but to explore the underwater city, beforethat you find a radio and a stranger begins to guide you out as you arrive, as you venturedeeper into the city your quickie introduce to the residence of the decades city there asone tries to kill you but is scared away as the stranger who at this point calls himselfAtlas, uses a drone defence to help protect you as you make your way through theatlantic city learning more about the life before it collapsed through audio logs you findscattered holding information to help world building as it gives you sense of what wasgoing on before you arrived, it gives off the idea that the world doesn’t revolve aroundyou you just wandered into it, something I really enjoyed was the attention to detail asthey go out of there way to clarify why things exist, for example the abilities you get arepresented to you in ads to show how they would have been used commercially whichalso fit with the time period, another thing is how they meditation feathers you can do ingame such as hacking and why there’s robot defences in some areas as they knowpeople are looting and tampering with the places goods. And the thing is I really wouldn’t be able to see all of this or this game in general if I hadn’t found “the act man”as I can see how much effort into his videos and that made me really wanna see what he was talking about and I enjoyed the video he praised it even calling it a masterpiece as it’s an amazing story and how differently you can play ever time as he states “at some

point, someone else is gonna make a different a choice whether that’s in perks or being good or bad”, and to be honest his review made me wanna play this game even getting invest in the lore as he breaks it down and makes it easier for me to understand and that’s something I’ll never forget, as I always wanted to make a game like bio maybe not as serious or dark but fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDFCVOB-RLU&t=1409s 4:29As of now the only game that really had me thinking as of lately is one calledNieR Automata and just how interesting the overall message was of how life without a god was perceived and presented, in the game you an android fighting for the sake of humanity as aliens took over most of the earth with there army of machines, because of this the remaining humans fled to moon, though as you progress you discover that some machines have become sentient and have chosen to stop fighting in hopes of self-preservation as you go one you see most of them trying to find a purpose in living after giving up there main objective of fighting, some you can find trying to protect their kind king that has been perceived in the body that resembles a baby, some found joy impacted activists people do like be a circus and some convince themself that once they did

they’ll become gods in a cult-like manner, and as you go on the androids themselves also become lenient towards their own desires and you form a deeper connection with the people you see throughout the story. And this has really made me think about theidea as the more I played the more invested I became as to what happened to thesecharters to the world around them and towards the end they all do met there unfortunate

faites of death and the people around them as you see charters you’ve met all go one byone, and I think there deaths was important to the overall message of how you shouldlive your life, now the idea itself is based on the real aftermath of us evolving to questionreligion and whether we should put our faith in something that’s begging to seem lessgrounded in reality, but with that also brings up the thought of what do live for if your lifeis in a sense meaningless, a reason to keep living, throughout the game you get to seethat thought playout, as some seek a peaceful life, some devote themselves tosafeguard something they see as precise in where that be a person or object, and what’sa great way to further show this, tragedy as a logic virus breaks out among the androidsand machines that makes them lose all their senses and be reduced to nothing butkilling maciences, this leads to you having to watch the people you’ve met lose theirsense of morality and some even thanking you for giving there life meaning and as youwatch your character parish, after that you take over as your companion and see as heslowly becomes unstable as he lost what was most precious to him in a similar situationanother side character you meet also loses his people who wanted nothing but peace soas his people are wiped out the remaining survivors hid away as you help fend off thehord you return and unfortunately the survivors end up talking their own lives as theyfeared the worst was soon to come, and with this thee leader had one request for you tosimply kill him as what he worked so hard to keep safe was now gone and to him thepain was too in bearable and even if you denied he’d just do it himself. Now to me, I’d like the parallels they made to losing as they show you, someone, you’re to find some

form of hope to move on and for those who can’t rather take the easy way out. And at the very end, your charters don’t find peace but he died trying to avenge the one thing he cared for. And this ending left me wanting more as it was finally over and I was left wondering if this is really how life can be when you lose so much. Now aside from the dramatic ending that hit me after how much time I put into it, overall I enjoyed remembering all of this. Hopefully, I will find something that’ll make me think like this again.