PodcastProjectFinal

The speaker introduces herself as Kristen O'Brien and discusses her passion for video games and her desire to pursue a career in game design. She talks about her favorite games and how they inspired her. She also mentions the positive experiences and friendships she has made through playing games with others. Kristen mentions specific games like Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, and VRChat that she has enjoyed playing with friends. She expresses her love for the creativity and support found in the gaming community. The speaker emphasizes her desire to create games that provide others with the same positive experiences she has had. She briefly mentions the Ace Combat series as one of the games that influenced her interest in game design. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Welcome, welcome, welcome. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Kristen is Wishing. I'm your lovely host, Kristen O'Brien, at this amazing podcast that we have rolling out right now. This is episode one where I'll be discussing some of my favorite interests, whether it be video games, drawing, little hobbies that I've picked up, anything of the sort. But mainly right now, if you would like to stick around and listen to my endless discussions or my reviews about certain things or literally me just talking about anything, I would truly appreciate you, and I hope we can have some fun. So our main discussion for this session, we're going to be talking about video games, and I might mention some other things that I've been diving into that my friends have introduced me to, whether it be other games or little hobbies that I have grown a little fond of. But the main point that we're going to be discussing with this topic is some of my favorite video games. I've got a long list. Well, not that long, but we've got a list here, and we will discuss each of these games in detail, how much I love them, why I love them, and why people should play them. Okay, let's get started. First of all, I'm going to talk about myself here a little bit and how I actually got into video games and why I'm so passionate about video games and why I want to seek a career in video games and join the industry and make my own craft and all that stuff. Anyway, to be completely honest here, we're probably going to be here for hours if I were to talk about everything that strived me to want to get into this field, but we'll just keep it simple and talk about some of my favorite games that inspired me and wanted me to achieve the dream of seeking education in game design and wanting to spread my creativity to others and really dive into this field that is still incredibly mind-blowing to me. It's still ever-changing every day, and I can't get over it. It's amazing. So, where do I even begin? I've been playing video games for all of my life, and I've racked up a huge inventory of some of the finest releases, and I've dedicated a large, maybe too much of my free time for dedicated playthroughs of these games. Any game you can think of, I have played, and I have probably mastered that game tenfold. I'm a huge, huge competitive gamer, I guess you could say, and I challenge myself and I watch playthroughs of other people, and I'm like, oh my god, that's so cool, let's see if I can do that, and I try my best to mimic them, and sometimes I'll fail dramatically, but that's the fun part, right? We're having fun, we're playing games, we're trying to escape this reality of life and just have a good time, right? But going back to me a little bit, sorry, I got a little off-topic there, when I first began my journey into the world of video games, I was only in my youth, watching my father and one of his good friends, that I consider my older brother, play The Legendary Grandfather San Andreas, if anyone remembers that golden gem of a game. I remember I was sitting there watching them play, trying to put in mods, and they were trying to get more money or a car, and they had put down the controller, trying to read the code on the piece of paper that they printed off. I remember the train that they were driving veering off the track, and I'm like, infatuated by this, because they were literally just controlling this person with a controller five minutes ago. Maybe I should help them and try to not make the character crash, so I grabbed the controller and I started veering the train to the right, and I had no idea what I was doing at the time, because I was like, I don't even know, five, four years old? But I was just blown away how I was able to control this little bitty guy in this virtual world, with the touch of my finger. It infatuated me, and it blew my mind, because I was the outdoors kid. I was always tumbling around in the dirt, jumping on trampolines, instead of being indoors, so I never really understood how technology really worked, or I never understood how kids were so into computer games, or typing away at the computer. It was cool. I thought it was cool. I never thought anybody was weird for doing it. I just was like, not for me, so I'm going to go do this now. But after witnessing my family members play and explore this imaginary world, it was extraordinary, and I couldn't believe it. My youthful mind could not wrap around the concept of a virtual world that you could explore and get lost in. It was incredible, and I absolutely adored it. And pretty much after that day, I drove and crashed that virtual train. I was completely infatuated with experiencing endless adventures in video games. I've managed to get my hands on most of the hottest releases, and experienced a wide variety of genres and stories that impacted my perspective of the creative aspect of character creations and storytelling. Video games have also aided in my ability to overcome real-life challenges, and even establish fundamental friendships with some of the most amazing people who support my dreams of making video games. I've met some of the coolest people playing video games. If I could mention a few games off the top of my head right now that I've been playing with my good friends, online friends. Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, and VRChat. So, I met one of my good friends through playing Destiny. We bonded over the game, we helped each other, we talked about how much we hated the game together. Don't come after me, Bungie, it's a joke, I swear. Basically, we bonded over creating characters, and concepts, and stories, and gathering the lore of the game, and we established a pretty good friendship for seven years now, online friends. If you can consider that an accomplishment, I think it's an accomplishment for being friends for that long, and trusting each other with everything. Going back, this friend introduced me to Genshin. Another game, a whole new game that's totally different than Destiny, right? At first, I was kind of reluctant because I'm so used to first-person shooters, I like the action, you know, Genshin didn't really appeal to me that much because it was more on the sword fighting and the anime vibe to it. I didn't really like it that much because I was into sci-fi and edgy type of stuff. But I gave it a shot, and oh my god, I've spent an immense amount of hours on Genshin because the lore, the story, the characters, the world-building, the artifacts, grinding, the grinding in general for everything is just insane. And I like that, I like that in games, I like that you have to put effort into stuff. So that was something I was really, really, really happy to experience with my friends, plus they helped me, so that was another thing that really motivated me to want to continue to play these games because I was playing with others. And when you play with others, it's more enjoyable and more funny things happen, you can laugh together and enjoy your time together. But going on to the other game, we met some cool people in VRChat, and VRChat is just a little chat area, everyone knows what VRChat is. But basically, we were nervous as heck to talk to people and experience games and whatnot because we've heard all the rumors and whatnot about VRChat. But we gave it a shot, and we met some of the coolest people up there, believe it or not, I mean, you gotta get past all the other stuff, but we met some of the coolest people up there, and they actually wanted to play the same games with us. So it's like a small world, you know, like everyone is enjoying the same thing, and we can all bond together over it, and I just, I love that about video games. What's not to love about that? Like, you're able to express your hobbies with others, you're able to express how much you enjoy getting a certain button with somebody, or you're pulling for a character, and everyone else is like rooting for you and hoping that you get it, you know? That's what it's all about in the end, and I absolutely love that. And that's why I am so inspired to make video games, and to establish a career in this awesome field, because there's so much support, there's so much creativity, and there's so much positivity that everyone deserves to experience. So we're going to get back on topic here. I know we veered off a little bit because I was like preaching and all that stuff. But basically, if I could list some of the games from my collection that have inspired me to want to chase this career and these achievements, I can list a few here. Ace Combat 6, Fires of Liberation. Okay, Ace Combat, oh my goodness. Ace Combat is one of the first games I played, and I was absolutely blown away by the graphics, the gameplay, the story, the music, the sound design, everything about it. When I grew up, I should clarify, but when I was younger, I was just blown away by, oh my god, jets, because I was into aircraft and cars and, you know, Transformers, Hot Wheels, I was into the tomboy era of my youth, so I was like, oh, this is so cool, I get to blow stuff up, I get to be in a F-22 Raptor, and I get to fly at like a thousand miles per hour. This is so cool. As I got older, I started to understand the gameplay mechanics and the overall atmosphere of the game, the storytelling, the characters, I was starting to understand them, I was starting to understand a whole lot more as I got older, and I wanted to know why, why did they do this? And so I dove into the field of game design. I'm like, hmm, this is interesting. So Ace Combat, the Ace Combat series, is what made me really get into the first steps of wanting to be a game designer or a game creator or working in a company to create a game. Their most recent release, Ace Combat Sunrise, and if you've never played it, super good, by the way, is another good example of me diving into a game and wondering, man, this is amazing. How did they get the graphics to look this good, or how did they code this? I was just blown away. And Ace Combat really is one of my favorite games overall. One, because it helped me become inspired to want to join this industry, and secondly, because I freaking love jets. Who doesn't love a cool jet flying around and flying really low to the ground? Okay, next on the list here is Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. I know I talked about Destiny earlier, but I'm going to dive into why I love it so much. I love Destiny, the Destiny series as a whole, especially all the DLCs and other events and whatnot that they've come out with. I can't disrespect Halo, I love Halo 2, but I love Destiny a little bit more because, again, it's the game that introduced me to some of the coolest people on the planet, my online friends, and a game where I can just relax and chill and get on every week and do my thing, just kill a bunch of aliens and then get off and then get back on an hour later and see how cool my character looks at the character creation screen and then get back off and then get back on again because I can't escape it because it's one of my favorite games ever. I've been playing the Destiny series as a whole for about 9 years? Or 8 and a half? Somewhere around there. Ever since Eris Morn came around with the Dark Below DLC, I haven't really played the beta of Destiny 1, but I was around when Destiny 1 first released. I wouldn't call myself an OG OG, but I'm one of the veterans, I believe. I've been there, I've been through each event, almost, and I've witnessed every raid release and I haven't really partaken in each raid, but I try my best. But the reason why Destiny is on this list is because of the multiplayer experience and how I was blown away by how such a vast game can incorporate such diversity and customizing your character or customizing your loadouts, customizing your ships, customizing your little bike thing that you ride around on. All of that infatuated me, and I was like, oh my god, how do they code this? Oh my goodness, how do they work with all this? It's insane! Because it's a multiplayer game, and I know multiplayer games are one of the hardest things to work on in the game industry. But the fact that they're able to keep this game up and running for almost 9 years now is insane to me, and that's why it deserves the second spot on this list, because it is crazy. And another reason why it's second place on this list is because I really, really, really wanted to work for the company that made Destiny and Halo and all these other amazing games. Not only are they famous for making these games, they're also famous for some of the sounds, like the music, which was crazy. I cannot get over how good the music is in the Destiny series, Destiny 2 specifically. If I could pull up some of my favorite soundtracks, I absolutely would, but I would take up too much of the time here. But basically, I love the raid music the most. It makes you feel so immersed, it makes you feel like you're in the fight, your life's on the line, and you gotta get this boss killed immediately. It's so cool. The atmosphere of the game where it feels like you're the only hope left is amazing. The world building? Amazing. The storytelling? Eh, could use a little bit of work. You know, it's hard to keep a 9-year game rolling and keeping people interested, so I'll give them some slack. But, at the end of the day, some of the characters are what really make the game. Like, unfortunately, some of them had to go away in order for the story to progress and continue, but that is fine. We still have some amazing characters like Shaxx, Qrow, Queen Mara, and Ikora Ray, and we'll see how the story progresses with the final shape coming out very soon. I'm super excited for that. I recently just started getting back in the game because they released a little event thing called Into the Light, and I'm super interested in this because they brought back some old weapons that they took away because of, obviously, for saving space in the game. Not that many people understand that there's so much data that they had to get rid of and it irritates the player base, but as a game designer, I understand, so I'm on the fence with it. I like the nostalgic aspect of it. I like it. It's cool. I get to work with other people, killing aliens and whatnot, so I'm happy. It could be a lot worse. That's pretty much it about Destiny. I think we should move on to the next one, Red Dead Redemption 2. Oh my goodness, Red Dead Redemption 2 deserves its own list on its own for being one of the coolest games out there, but it's number three on my list because, again, I cannot describe how much I love open world games, and I love the freedom to walk around and just explore on my own. Red Dead 2, any Assassin's Creed game, we'll get to Assassin's Creed later, but Genshin Impact, if I had to talk about Genshin again, and my friend recently has introduced me to the Zelda series. I've not had the pleasure of playing that, but he has told me that Breath of the Wild is something that I would enjoy or Tears of the Kingdom, I think, but those games are vast, and you would probably get lost playing them, but that's what I enjoy. I love getting immersed. I love just looking around at the landscapes and looking at all the designs that game designers make. I love looking at all the concept art. I love how everything just comes together into this amazing masterpiece of a game like Red Dead Redemption 2. I did not play the first game's story, but I played the multiplayer, which I really, really, really enjoyed because I get to play with one of my cousins that we live far away from each other, and it brought us closer together, riding horses around and doing fun things. Another cool little reason why I love the Red Dead series, and not only that, but I love the Red Dead series because of the story, the characters, the betrayal, the choices that the player had to make in order to become an honorable person or a bad person. I love that conflict in games. I love that ability to where you get to explore different paths and different decisions, determine what happens to other characters. It was so cool. So cool. So sorry. So good. I wanted to say good and cool at the same time, but for some reason my brain snapped thinking about how good this game is. If we can get back on the topic though, Red Dead is just amazing graphical-wise. I don't know how Rockstar continues to make such amazing games, especially with GTA 6 coming out soon, and the realism in that game is just unimaginable. I know they've been milking out GTA 5 for a while now, but I can't imagine how good this next game, Rockstar, is going to be. For a little bit, I kind of wanted to join Rockstar, but I kind of know that they're not entirely fair to some of their pleas. Please don't come after me. But at the end of the day, they're making games, they're having fun, so I would not mind to check them out and dive into the industry and see how they actually make such large games and how the AI systems work. It's amazing to me. Okay, next on the list here is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. The OG Call of Duty's, the original, the early 2000 Call of Duty's, in my opinion, the good ones. But anyways, first up, I'm going to talk about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4. I think I played that one before Modern Warfare 2, and I only played Modern Warfare or Call of Duty 4 for the story. I really, really, really loved playing the stories and getting introduced to different characters and coming up with concepts and making my own characters when I was in middle school or when I was in high school, making character concept designs of anything and everything. But Call of Duty 4 blew me away with how the stories were implemented in games. I got attached to characters, I went through every process of grief when a character was taken away and died. I couldn't understand how they grasped that idea and put it into a minigame. They literally made a movie and put it into a minigame. It was amazing, and my young mind couldn't grasp that I was literally playing a movie. But I was introduced to that with Call of Duty 4, and I absolutely loved some of the missions from that, especially with the callback of the more recent Call of Duty's reboot where you get to play the AC-130 missions. I absolutely loved the AC-130 mission in Call of Duty 4, obviously because I love jets and I love aircrafts and whatnot, so that's another reason why this game's on my list, because I love it. It's good immersion. I felt like I was controlling the aircraft, I felt like I was doing a good job supporting my people on the ground. I felt amazing, and that's what a game's supposed to make you feel like, I guess. But going back to MF2, the OG MF, not the reboot, MF2, I played the story for that one. I got attached to the characters, especially Roach. Roach was the main protagonist that the player plays as, and his death hit me so hard. I'll still cry about it today. It still hurts me. It's amazing. The story was amazing. Ghost, Soap, Captain Price, Vladimir? No, no, no, his name was Alex. I think his CIA name was Vladimir. Anyway, I absolutely grew attached to the characters, and obviously you can't forget about Shepard. Shepard was such a cool villain. I love how they wrote him. It was so cool. And the music for Modern Warfare is to die for. Hans Zimmer delivered. He was so good. I'm just in love with Modern Warfare and how they executed that game. It will always be one of my favorites, although the reboot happened and kind of scrapped that story. I still adore it, and it will never leave my enthusiasm in wanting to create characters and inspiration of how the story partakes. Maybe even inspired some character deaths with my own original characters that I have created. You know, a little bit of trauma helps the story. Anyway, these games, especially Modern Warfare 2, the original, helped me a lot with the multiplayer aspect and talking to others. Having fun experiences online or with anyone in general, the multiplayer for Modern Warfare 2 is like an icon or an era that will never be forgotten. Because you obviously can't forget the trickshotting, you can't forget the weird glitches, you can't forget the little squeakers in each game, or the little kids yelling. But this era of video games in the early 2000s was one of the coolest in my opinion. I was so fortunate and able to experience it, and I one day wish to develop a game in which I can inspire others to also experience such great opportunities. Okay, next on the list here, Battlefield fans are probably going to hate me for putting this one below Call of Duty, but Battlefield 3 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. I played Battlefield Bad Company 2 before Battlefield 3, and I was absolutely blown away by how open the maps were in comparison to Call of Duty games, where you're stuck to one confined area in multiplayer. But in Battlefield, the whole map is literally your playground, and you can do whatever you want, go wherever you want, and it was amazing. It was so cool how they were able to program that and able to develop that in comparison to other titles. But going back to Bad Company 2, Bad Company 2, I love the story. I always say that for each of these games, that's why they're on my list. The story's so good, the music's so good. I loved in Bad Company 2 how a comedy was intertwined with the story. You can laugh at the story, even though terrible things were happening in the story, you still had amazing characters that helped with relief and helped experience this whole setting in a different way. But after I was done, well, I think when Battlefield 3 released, that's when I kind of put Bad Company on the shelf. I still, you know, go back and reminisce a little bit, oh my goodness, Battlefield Bad Company 2 was such a good game, they introduced me to vehicles, and I was able to drive around in a tank, I was able to fly around in a helicopter. But Battlefield 3 is where I really, really appreciated the freedom of these large maps, especially when I can drive around in a tank from one end to the map to the other and get like 20 kills in between because there's so many people in the map and so many opportunities of destruction and chaos as a whole. It was an amazing experience. Battlefield will always be my favorite first person shooter game because of the endless opportunities of craziness and chaos that can happen in comparison to Call of Duty. Call of Duty's iconic for, you know, the funnies and the memes and, you know, it's a quick match that you can just play like two games and be done for the night. But Battlefield 3, some of the games took hours. I can't describe how long some of these games would last because sometimes the minor things would happen and the whole game would be turned upside down, like you could have a sequence where a tower, a huge radio tower would fall down and it would change the map forever. And you would have to think of a new strategy to go and how to get to a different objective. It was amazing. I absolutely adored that. And obviously with the newer Battlefield releases, 2044 I think it's called, they obviously took that same concept and put it into the newer releases, which is amazing. But I'm not a real fan of the new era of Battlefield, so I unfortunately stopped playing and I picked up Call of Duty again, but maybe with another release, if they do a reboot of Battlefield 3 or any of the Battlefield Bad Companies series, I would probably come back to EA and how they develop their games. Alrighty, last on the list here is Assassin's Creed 3. I know we talked about Assassin's Creed earlier and how much I love open world games, but if I had to pick one Assassin's Creed game that I absolutely enjoyed, it would be Assassin's Creed 3. I absolutely love the history and the characters that Ubisoft introduced with each Assassin's Creed game. I played every single one, almost. I played Revelations, I played the one with the pirate ship, I can't remember it off the top of my head, his name is Edward, I played the one with the twins, I played the one where you're a Spartan, I played the one where you are in Egypt, I played all of them pretty much. I absolutely love them and how each character has their own story and how it's connected with the Assassin's Creed lore, the Templars and all that stuff is amazing, but Assassin's Creed 3 and Assassin's Creed Rogue are two of my favorite Assassin's Creed games. Assassin's Creed 3 is my favorite because of the American Revolutionary War and how the Native Americans suffered alongside newly established Americans and all that stuff, which was awesome. I loved Connor Kinway, I loved his father as well, the betrayal and the conflict with them was great, with the world building, absolutely amazing. Assassin's Creed Rogue is another one I really, really enjoyed because of the conflict. You play as a character, his name is Shay Cormac, and he originally was an Assassin in training, but an unfortunate event happens and then he turns into a Templar and he hunts down the Assassins. It's a huge difference in comparison to other games where you play as the Assassin, but now you're playing as the Templar and killing your brothers. I loved that conflict, it was so cool, it was such a different approach and it made me really attached to that series and that game overall. If I could go back and replay it all again, I would. It was an amazing first time experience and if no one has ever played it or heard some bad rumors about it, just put that to the side and experience it for yourself. I absolutely adored it and I can't describe how amazing the music is in these games, I can't describe how good the cinematics are in these games, everything about the Assassin's Creed series is so good and I'm so fortunate to have played each and every single one of them. I think the most recent one that I finished is the one where you play as a Viking. That one was a huge experience because you had the opportunity to get Thor's armor and I love Norse mythology, I love the gods and everything. So it was a huge win-win scenario for me in getting able to play that game and understand the Norse gods and understand how that correlates with Assassin's Creed and how they were able to embed those two stories together and make it work, it was so cool. I just love the Assassin's Creed series. I adore it and how they are able to create these characters and how they are able to code everything is amazing to me. I'll always adore overworld games. I had the absolute pleasure growing up playing these games, each of them holding a special place in my heart. If I could play them all again from beginning to end, I would love to experience all of these games first hand and grow attached to these characters, grow attached to the worlds, grow attached to how the game is made. It would be something else and I would probably sell an arm and a leg to do it again but I kind of need those so I don't know if I can do that. Without a doubt I play these games without prevailing or even tiring. I know I would stay up until like 3 o'clock in the morning playing Ace Combat and trying to get the highest score I can or kill the enemies as quickly as I could in Assassin's Creed 3 trying to be stealthy or in Red Dead Redemption 2 I would go hunting, I would go fishing for hours. It is absolutely amazing what you can do in these games. I truly wanted to absorb myself in their stories and explore how each of them were made in their own unique way. All these games that I've listed have inspired me and wanted me to again dive into this career path. The ability to create these worlds and these characters and work with others who have the same passion is something that I truly truly want to experience and I hope one day I will be able to create my own game and maybe inspire somebody who like myself is playing games. I cannot wait to experience even more games like my friends have been telling me to play all the games that they've enjoyed playing. I would like to continue to explore this industry and dive into even more endless adventures especially with Zelda or Mario or maybe Playstation games that I haven't really had the pleasure of playing myself but I've watched others play. Maybe some horror games that are out now and obviously the more crazy releases coming out like The Final Shape. I'm super super excited to explore more stories and understand how they're made or understand different concepts and how they're brought together. I'm so ready to make my own game. Okie dokie we're about 40 minutes into our session. I think this is a good time to call it an end here. Unfortunately I don't want to go but we have to end it here. I just want to tell everybody that's still listening or whoever's asleep right now to make sure you keep in touch. My Instagram is available for all at notwishing. If you haven't already found me you should probably go follow me. It'll make my whole week. Next week episode we will begin breaking down each game individually and discussing their stories in depth. I'll be talking about how certain coding is implemented or how certain sound cues or how the music sets up the immersion, how the player feels in that certain scenario. And obviously discussing the lore. I cannot tell you how much lore I know about Destiny. We would be sitting here for hours. But get ready to listen and stick around for a longer session next time. Don't forget to subscribe for more content and to like. It helps out a ton. You have no idea. And it makes me feel great. So you should do it right now. I'm joking. You don't have to do it right now but it still helps out a ton. But this is where we're ending. Don't fall. And I'll see you tomorrow. Bye! You