A History of Video Game Development Essay -- the last of us, Neil Druc

Video games are an ever-growing franchise that is constantly undergoing change. Ever since the dawn of video games, new consoles, games, developers, and teams have come together, fallen apart, triumphed, and failed. What is it that has allowed some to thrive where others failed? Several different factors have changed and influenced the world of gaming, including the history that is continuously being written, the people who have built the games behind the scenes, and, of course, the actual video games themselves. Numerous video games have been more successful than others, but identifying what components set the successful apart from the unsuccessful is something definitely worth observing. To find an answer to this statement, one must first delve back into the roots of where video games began. In 1996, Ralph Baer, an employee of Sanders Associates, envisioned the idea of a television gaming apparatus. Ideally, the contraption could be hooked up to a television and would be complete with a chase game and a visual tennis game. By 1970, Ralph’s idea became a reality as the very first home video game system, which he dubbed, the Odyssey. Though the Odyssey, by modern day standards, might be considered boring, at the time it was made it was an enjoyable and satisfying system. Although, as with all originals, it could easily be improved upon, fixed, and made more entertaining altogether. From 1972 and on, several establishments, corporations, and teams formed in an attempt to improve upon the foundation that Ralph Baer had laid out before them. Although, most of these organizations ended up falling apart due to not being able to make enough money or due to losi ng out to another group. Some of the less fortunate institutio... ...is not needed, a person can successfully construct an exceptional video game. Works Cited Caoili, E. (2013). The Last of Us wins an armful of E3 Game Critics Awards. Gamasutra. Retrieved from www.gamasutra.com/view/news/173052/ Karmali, L. (2013). The Last of Us Sells 3.4 Million Copies in Three Weeks. IGN. Retrieved from www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/09/the-last-of-us-sells-34-million-copies-in-three-weeks Miller, M. (2005, April 1). A History of Home Video Game Consoles. Informit.com/articles. Retrieved November 11, 2013, from http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=378141 Smith, E. (2013a). The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann and Less Being More. International Business Times. Retrieve from www.ibtimes.co.uk Smith, E. (2013b). The Last of Us Review [VIDEO]. International Business Times. Review of The Last of Us. Retrieved from www.ibtimes.co.uk

Navajo Code Talkers: the Unspoken Heroes of World War II

It’s a normal day in June 1944 and we were located on the Pacific Island of Saipan. As were walking through the lush, tangled wilderness with dense sugar-cane, steep ravines and jagged volcanic mountains, there was no such thing as a battle line for us soldiers. Danger was everywhere. The unseen enemy could be hidden by the thick tropical vegetation and the pitch black darkness of the new mooned night. Our eyes where constantly looking from the left to the right as we crossed by the walls of caves looking at the trees sprouting out of them for barrels pointing back. When we would stop for the night, we cherished the passing day, for we know tomorrow could be our last. One morning as we woke up from our uncomfortable beds, the ground, we noticed a silence along the enemy front. Carefully we scouted the terrain. They were gone. The Japanese had abandoned the area and retreated to new ground. As we inspected the area where they once occupied, suddenly artillery shells exploded all around us. I jumped to the ground as shrapnel exploded and flew overhead striking the tree that was behind me. We were being attacked. Not by the Japanese, but from our own guns. The radioman started shouting, â€Å"We are Americans! Stop The Artillery! † Nothing stopped, for the artillery commanders faced a known problem. The Japanese were far more fluent in English then we were in Japanese and have been known to send out faulty reports in perfect English. They thought it was just an enemy trick. â€Å"Stop Firing! We are Americans! † was echoed through the radio, each one more desperate then the last. Finally, a message was sent back, â€Å"Do you have a Navajo? † I was rushed forward, almost swept off my feet. Handing over my rifle to the radioman and started talking code. Within seconds the artillery stopped (Bruchac 2005, 135-7). This was a reenactment of an incident involving the United States marines during World War II. Sixteen-year-old Ned Begay, a Native American Navajo from Arizona, was at this fire fight on Bougainville, an area of Saipan, where U. S. troops fired on their own solders, not knowing that they were not the enemy. If it wasn’t for the Navajo code talker, more men would have died that day. This paper will cover many topics about the Navajo code talkers, including how they were formed, how the code was used to save American lives throughout the war. Finally, I will talk about what happened to the after the war. By providing this information, I how that it will strike a new incite of what the unspoken heroes of World War II went through. During the beginning of World War II, the Japanese was able to break every code that the United States created. The Japanese had more solders that were fluent in English, making it easy to crack the codes and create false orders that would sent our solders to their death. While the U. S. military was struggling with a way to find an unbeatable code, a civilian came up with the answer. Philip Johnston, a civil engineer for the city of Los Angles, came across a news article stating that the military had an armored division in Louisiana that was using Native American languages for secret communications. Philip Johnston, son of William and Margaret Johnston, was a Protestant missionary to the Navajo for many years. Philip had spent his childhood with the Navajo and was one of the few outsiders to be fluent in the Navajo language. At an early age, he served as a translator for his parents and for other outsiders and by the age of nine, Philip traveled to Washington D.  C. to translate for a Navajo delegation that asked President Theodore Roosevelt to look into the governments treatment of the Navajos and their neighbors (AAaseng 1992, 18). Philip knew that the Navajo language was virtually impossible for an adult to master. Every syllable in the Navajo language had to pronounce correctly. Of one was to change the tone of the syllables, the word could have a completely different meaning, causing the sentence to misunderstood. This was due to the Navajo uses of four different tones, low, high, rising, and falling (AAaseng 1992, 18). Johnston had learned how secret codes where essential for military operation while enlisted with the French during World War I. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that it would work. In February of 1942, Johnston met with Lieutenant Colonel James Jones, a signal officer, and was greeted with uncertainty and misbelieves. Johnston pointed out that knowledge of other Native American languages would be of no use to the enemy in understanding the Navajo language. Navajos where so isolated from the world that the language was as foreign to other tribes as it was to outsiders. In addition to this, the Navajo language was a spoken language and had no alphabet and there for couldn’t be reduced to a written format that can be studied afar. After many hours of arguments and demonstrations, in March 1942, he was able to present a demonstration to an audience that included Major General Vogel and Colonel Wethered Woodward from the marine headquarters in Washington D. C. Johnston was able to gain the cooperation of four Navajos living in the Las Angeles area and a Navajo who was enlisted with the marines (AAaseng 1992, 21). He divided the four Navajos into two groups and had the sent messages back and forth, while the Navajo marine was attempting to translate the messages. After the demonstration, the Navajo Marine was unable to translate a signal word. General Vogel was so impressed that in February 1942, just two months after the booming of Pear Harbor, Philip Johnston was asked to prepare a proposal for organizing and using the Navajo code Talkers. In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. They were known as the â€Å"first 29. † At Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the Navajo code. They developed an elaborate dictionary and hundreds of words for military terms [ (Navajo Code Talkers: World War II Fact Sheet n. d. ) ]. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized during training for the Navajos where not allowed to write down any of of the code. Furthermore, while enlisted, they were not allowed to write to their families for fear that the letters would be used to try to break the code. Once the Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit who was deployed in the Pacific. The code talkers' primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers, and performed general Marine duties. While in combat, it was rumered that for each code talker, there was an officer assigned to protect him from cabture. If for any reason that the officer felt that the code would fall into enamy hands, the officer was ordered to kill the code talker to protect the code. One of the great triumphs for the Navajo code talkers was the battle at Iwo Jima in February of 1945. The island was so small that on most maps you couldn’t see the island at all. Although small, this island was of great importance. The new boomers that the United States were using, the B-29, was flying a 3000-mile round-trip when booming Japan. Due to the length of this trip many pilots where getting shot down. Iwo Jima was the answer. Iwo Jima would be able to be used as an emergency landing field to assist the pilot’s chances. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, had six Navajo Code Talkers [ (Bingaman n. d. ) ]. The Major estimated that it would only take ten days, at the max, to win the battle. A month later, in March, was the island declared secure. By the end of the battle, the Navajo code talkers send and received over 800 messages, all without error, 6,800 U. S. soldiers died and nearly 20,000 more where wounded. Major Connor declared, â€Å"Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima† [ (AAaseng 1992, 88-97) ]. September 2, 1945 aboard the battleship A. S. S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the surrender from the Japanese was signed and World War II was officially over. The Navajo code was unable to be broken throughout the war. Because of this the code was classified as Top Secret and would remain so for over twenty years after the end of the war. It wasn’t until 1968 that the code was declassified and the Navajo code talkers would be able to tell their story. In 1982, the code talkers were given a Certificate of Recognition by U. S. President Ronald Reagan, who also named August 14, 1982 â€Å"Navajo Code Talkers Day† [ (Jr. n. d. ) ]. On December 21, 2000, Bill Clinton signed Public Law 106-554, 114 Statute 2763, which awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to twenty-nine World War II Navajo code talkers. In July 2001, U.  S. President George W. Bush personally presented the Medal to four surviving code talkers at a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC. Gold medals were presented to the families of the 24 code talkers that where no longer with us [ (Gray 2001) ]. For many the Navajo code talkers played an important role in World War II. From when Johnston realized how the Navajo language would benefit America, the formation of the code, and how long it would take for the Navajo to be recognized for their part in the war, the Navajo where truly the unspoken heroes of World War II.

Fast Food Nation - 2536 Words

Dialectical Journal – Fast Food Nation 1. â€Å"Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every day without giving it much thought, unaware of the subtle and not so subtle ramifications of their purchases. They rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them. They just grab their tray off the counter, find a table, take a seat, unwrap the paper, and dig in† (Schlosser 10). In this passage from the introduction, Eric Schlosser directly states the problem. Meanwhile, he hints at the dire consequences that the consumption of fast food might have by describing how the consumers have no idea where their food comes from or how it was made. He tries to scare readers from eating fast food by†¦show more content†¦He also seems to be criticizing the fast food industry for exploiting young workers. This tells readers that the fast food industry is only hiring young workers because of their inexperience and that something must be wrong with the industry if they are targeting workers that are easy to control. Clearly, this logical appeal is effective because no teenagers would want to work for a company after reading that they are targeted for negative reasons. 6. As more and more kids work to get their own wheels, fewer participate in after-school sports and activities. They stay at their jobs late into the night, neglect their homework, and come to school exhausted. In Colorado, kids can drop out of school at the age of sixteen. Dropping out often seems tempting to sophomores who are working in the real world, earning money, being eagerly recruited by local fast food chains, retail chains, and telemarketers (Schlosser 79-80). Here, Schlosser attacks the fast food industry for encouraging students to drop out of school and work in its stores. This appeals emotionally to the parents since no parents would want their children to miss out on education. His use of quotations around â€Å"real world† show how the author considers the fast food industry as a pathetic place to be called the real world, never mind something that students should be dropping out of school for. He also criticizesShow MoreRelatedFast Food Nation1487 Words   |   6 PagesThe Changing of the Food Industry â€Å"In many respects, the fast food industry embodies the best and worst of American capitalism at the start of the twenty-first century – its constant stream of new products and innovations, its widening gulf between gulf between rich and poor† (Schlosser 6). In 2001 Eric Schlosser published â€Å"Fast Food Nation.† Eric Schlosser’s early 21st century muckraking text, â€Å"Fast Food Nation,† attempts to shed light on the consequences of the fast food industry on AmericanRead MoreFast Food Nation1271 Words   |  6 PagesIntro  to  Political  Science 5/12/2013 Fast  Food  Nation The  investigative  journalist,  Eric  Schlosser,  has  written  a  book  to  illuminate  an  epidemic  that started  in  America  and  is  now  becoming  one  of  the  world’s  largest  problems.  In  Fast  Food  Nation, Schlosser  frames  today’s  Fast  Food  giants  in  history,American  entrepreneurialism,  and  over consumption  in  respect  to  consumer  and  employee  wellbeing.  The  power  of  all  modern  Fast  Food giants  combined  have  eclipsed  the  power  of  any  one  government.  Marketing  has  become  a  keyRead MoreFast Food Nation1133 Words   |  5 PagesFast Food Nation Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, is a stark and unrelenting look into the fast food industry that has ingrained itself in not only American culture, but in culture around the world. 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It is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism that looks deep into the industries that have profited from the American agriculture business, while engaging in labor practices that are often shameful. In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser goes beyond the factsRead MoreEric Schlossers Fast Food Nation And The Jungle1698 Words   |  7 PagesFast food restaurants exude bright colors, distribute meals with toys, and create a sense of happiness, but what truly goes on behind the scenes of this magical industry? In Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the authors use similar rhetorical strategies to reveal the motives and unconventional practices of the food industry. Schlosser conveys his purpose through the utilization of pathos, ethos, anecdotes and imagery as compared to Sinclair who uses historical referencesRead MoreFast Food Nation Essay804 Words   |  4 Pagesstudy called â€Å"Fast Food Nation 2008. The panel consisted of 1,000 respondents of ages 16-65 who provided their inputs with an online survey which was conducted between March 13 through 2008. Which was based on results on fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King , and Wendy’s are gaining popularity even through the economic hardship and recession. Marketing strategy has become more of influence on kids and young American’s. As population grows and the demand increases of fast food restaurantsRead MoreFast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser1678 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"Congress should ban advertising that preys upon children, it should stop subsidizing dead-end jobs, it should pass tougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power (Schlosser). People must wonder how is it that a fast food company has so much customers. Advertising is the answer. The power advertisers have to be able to influence so many people s decisions and affect people’s lives especially the livesRead MoreFast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser Essay1928 Words   |  8 Pagesthe most shocking books of the generation is Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Natio n. The novel includes two sections, The American Way and Meat and Potatoes,† that aid him in describing the history and people who have helped shape up the basics of the â€Å"McWorld.† Fast Food Nation jumps into action at the beginning of the novel with a discussion of Carl N. Karcher and the McDonald’s brothers. He explores their roles as â€Å"Gods† of the fast-food industry. Schlosser then visits Colorado Springs and investigates