Twilight+Princess+(Leigh)

//(4 points)// A brief description of the game. You may include images or even video clips to help give readers a better idea of the game. The game that I played was the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. In the hour that I played it I don’t understand where the Twilight Princess comes into play but a lot of the basic things that I remember from Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time are still evident. There is a little background story from a guy (I’m still not sure who he was) before the game actually begins. Once the intro is over, you start out in your village with basically no supplies but with the guidance of the village people you figure out what you need to do to gain skill and resources. I was able to purchase a slingshot and was given a sword and learned how to use both of those properly within the first 30 minutes of the game.

//(5 points)// The kinds of learning involved (i.e. What specifically did you learn from playing the game?). Think about the game tasks, objectives, terminology, etc. What skills did you need to learn to be successful at the game? This game allows for you to make decisions. At times it will ask you whether you want to participate in something and you can either accept or decline. If you decline you usually can’t proceed any further in the game. However, the other decision aspect of it is that at the bottom it will give you prompts: “select A to pick up” if there is an object in front of you. The game does not make you do any particular thing but only tells you that you have an option of doing so. There is also a lot of exploring that can be done: just wandering around the village talking to the different citizens. Generally they need something and prompt you to do a task: I had to rescue a baby Crib in order to get a fishing pole and then that fishing pole allowed me to catch a fish which helped me to return a missing cat back to its home which allowed me to buy the slingshot because the shop lady was happy. The game didn’t tell me that I had to do any of those things, but the conversations with the villagers and my basic reasoning skills helped me put two and two together.

//(5 points)// The kinds of teaching involved (i.e. How did the game teach you?). Think about the kinds of feedback, rewards, guidance, and information the game gave you, and how it paced and structured your learning. Which Principles of Learning did the game utilize? The game guided me through each scenario that I needed to accomplish. I played on the Wii and I was using two controllers. The game would tell me what I needed to do (i.e. stab with the sword) and then tell me what to do with the controllers in order to accomplish that. This was probably the most challenging part of the game because I’m not so good with the coordination, but the game allowed me to practice as many times as I needed in order to be successful (something that we should practice more in our classrooms). There weren’t too many rewards to speak of, at least as far as I got, except to just to be able to go farther. There were times when I got frustrated because the pacing is at the players control, however, I couldn’t figure out what or where to go next and it would slow down my progress. At one point I had to call my siser in to help direct me because I got so frustrated.

//(3 points)// A brief description of the kinds (and quantity) of online sites, forums, wikis, etc. devoted to the game. What game activities (e.g. walk-throughs/guides, databases, cheats, theory crafting, modding, etc.) are most-commonly discussed? What I found when I was looking at the online sites was that they didn’t have just Twilight Princess but they had all the Legend of Zelda games for all the game systems. I actually found that there is a glitch for the Ocarina of Time for the N64 in which you can do a speed run of around 23 minutes. However, because gaming is not my forte I feel like I didn’t understand a lot of what is talked about. My sister pointed me to this website: zeldadungeon.net. This site is dedicated to Legend of Zelda in pop culture like the R&B trio SWV who is showing their appreciation for The Legend of Zelda with their new track “I Missed Us” from their upcoming album of the same name. The Legend of Zelda has quite a following which I was not aware of. On zeldawiki.org there is a ton of information about Zelda. Through this website, I was able to find out that Link has been left handed in all the games except for the one on the Wii.

//(3 points)// Your overall reflections on playing the game. As my sisters watched me play this game, they both said “wow, you really aren’t a gamer.” I tend to yell, swear, and throw things when I can’t figure them out on a video game. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess did not really generate these results this time. For the most part I was able to figure things out on my own; it took a lot of time and concentration though. Gaming is not really my thing and I don’t necessarily do it for fun unless I get to play a multiplayer game. However, for a one person adventure game, this Zelda game was pretty good, but not the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game.