Author: Erik Yan

Erik Yan

Dr. Carrie Hall

 

Horrors of Space

Space is dreadful. The box art for Dead Space portrays that perfectly. The floating debris, from what I assume is the ship your character is set in, shows the hopelessness and lifelessness of space. The floating hand also foreshadows the unfortunate events that have occured on the USG Ishimura. You play as an Engineer named Isaac Clarke, who is accompanied with crew members answering a distress call coming from the USG Ishimura. Isaac Clarke also is in search for his girlfriend, Nicole Brennan, who works as a senior medical officer.

The cover leaves a grim image of what I encountered while I was playing that game. The image of the hand in space reminds me that it is the only “normal” thing in the whole universe of Dead Space. I say the hand is “normal” because everything in the ship is everything but normal. You are fighting monsters called, Necromorphs, which you find out are people that get reanimated by this alien object called the marker. The necromorphs are past the point of having none human features that it is a nightmare for whoever playing Dead Space with a weak stomach for horror and gore. The cover also reminds me of the silence you’ll be hearing inside the ship of the Ishimura. Besides silence, you also hear the unnatural screams of the necromorphs echoing from the silent corridors and hallways of the Ishimura.

The back of the cover show two unsightly creatures that Isaac is combating. This gives the sense that he is fighting other worldly creatures. The most amazing thing about what’s happening in the pictures are that Isaac Clarke is not even trained in combat but he is forced to adapt so that he does not die from the onslaught of necromorphs. The back of the cover also has a small little description that reads “STRATEGICALLY DISMEMBER the Necromorph enemies limbs by bloody limbs”. This leaves a dread feeling to the person picking up the game and reading the back because what type of monster exists where shooting its vital organs does not put the monster down. The game tells and teaches you that you have to remove their limbs which is a strangely new concept to a horror survival game. It truly does not feel right at all when you are being told to kill monsters in a “non traditional” way. By “non traditional” I mean like you would shoot for the head or shoot for the body, but not with necromorphs. They will keep coming after you even if you shoot off their heads and can take multiple hits on the body. This gives the player a sense of dread because it will still try to kill you even if you remove it’s head.

In one of the pictures in the cover, Isaac is fighting a Brute. The brute is a large necromorph that is larger than your normal necromorph and has armor. It is comparable to a gorilla when maneuvering. Imagine going up against an armored creature comparable to a monkey that is trying to rip you to pieces? The picture also shows a little bit of the environment you will be in, which is the USG Ishimura. It is open but also narrow. As GB Burford puts it “Right off the bat, Dead Space creates these places you’re in that are often huge. The sense of scale in the game is breathtaking, yet it’s used to make the player feel claustrophobic. Players feel dwarfed in comparison to the vast spaces and gigantic monsters within. Couple that with limited resources, and players feel particularly small and powerless”. This is a perfect sum up of how the USG Ishimura is, it is narrow and you have barely any breathing room when crossing through hallways but when encountering boss battles; The environment is super spacious. Having the corridors of the ship be so narrow makes me worried because if I get attacked by multiple necromorphs, it would be really hard to try to maneuver away. I would either have to completely turn around and let them attack me while my back is to them or fight them head on. You feel trapped in the tight corridors but you also feel calm and collected before the boss enters into the large open area you are in.

The back of the cover also talks about zero gravity, which are certain areas in the game that do not have gravity at all. This was also an interesting point of the game because not a lot of games had that at that time. I was excited when I saw gameplay in the zero-g environment. It seemed like Isaac was really clunky and was not as maneuverable. This was a little nerve racking because enemies still appear during the zero-g sections of the game, they are a little more maneuverable than you are. Plus when you are outside and just in space, it unnerving. “Space is a frightening place, even without the monsters; a soundless, airless void where nothing can survive. Even in the most well-fortified spaceship, you’re still moments away from death.” (Fahey). The Ishimura was a well fortified ship but as you play as Isaac, you find out how there are no survivors on that ship at all. Certain parts of the ship there are blood splatters, but majority of the ship is just eerily empty. I feel tense when going to the next chapters because I don’t know what I will be facing.

Dead Space should be a game you should try because it has a ton of tense moments that will keep you on your toes and ready for whatever comes next. I don’t think it is that scary because you have something to defend yourself, but even if you don’t find it scary, it does make you on edge about what will jump out at you at any time. This is a game worth the time if you are interested in space and horror. You may also find out why there is a hand on the cover of the game and how terrifying space really is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

• Burford, and GB Burford. “How The Dead Space Saga Lost Its Way.” Kotaku, Kotaku.com, 30 Sept. 2014, kotaku.com/how-the-dead-space-saga-lost-its-way-1640762555.
• Fahey, Mike. “Dead Space Review: True Stories Of Space Horror.” Kotaku, Kotaku.com, 30 Sept. 2014, kotaku.com/5068557/dead-space-review-true-stories-of-space-horror.

Erik Yan

Dr. Carrie Hall

 

What are noobs? Who are noobs? Why are you a noob?

The word “noob” maybe familiar to some but not everyone has heard of it. Noob has many ways of being written. Some of these alternative words are n00b, newbie, nuub, and nub. The word is quite widely used in the gaming community. The word noob is defined as “a person who has recently started a particular activity” (Merriam-Webster).  On Oxford dictionary, it is pretty similar but it is defined as “A person who is inexperienced in a particular sphere or activity, especially computing or the use of the Internet.” (Oxford Dictionary). Both definitions are similar with the basic idea that the word noob means beginner or someone who is inexperienced. I believe that I’ve spent enough time playing games to give a brief idea on how the word came to be and how it is used today.

The word noob came from the word newbie. The word newbie derived from the word newie, which was first used around the 1830s. It was used in the United States and Australia for a word meaning something or someone new (Digital Trends). The word newbie was also used in the military. It was used by United States troops during the Vietnam war to refer to a new person joining the squad. The word newbie started appearing on the internet around the 1980s while the word noob started appearing in the 1990s.

Gamers have been using the word noob as an insult in the gaming community. The word also has other meanings which aren’t in the dictionary, such as someone using a specific weapon or method that is easy to use and super effective which has led to gamers using the word noob as an insult. It is also used on another player when that said player is not doing too well in a game or doing poor, they might get called noob by some other players in or on the other team who may have had more experience in playing that game. Some gamers have kind of used another word with the same basic meaning of noob such as garbage or trash. Even with all the words gamers would use on each other, they all came from the word noob which kind of helped pioneer its way for those other words that gamers have used to insult one another.

The word noob should be changed from gamers using it as an insult to players, to players knowing and assisting beginner players in understanding the game. At one point in time, we have all been new and inexperienced to a certain activity. I don’t think someone should be criticized for not knowing what to do, I think we should help that said person in trying to improve instead of just talking shit to them and edging them away from the game they are trying to play. Noob mostly has a negative connotation and has been used to trash talk others. I remember when I first began playing the game Rainbow Six Siege, I was terrible at it. I did not know the spots of where the objectives are, I did not know any game tactics, I was just…a noob. I would get killed by people on my team or I would get voted out of the game all because of my level. People who looked at my level and saw that it was low, assumed that I was not a good player, which they are probably right, but instead of just trying to help me improve in the game, I don’t get I had to be punished for not knowing much about the game. The only way I learned to become better at the game was by watching Youtube videos and just getting more interested in trying to get good at the game. Even watching videos to try to get good at the game, it still took me like 3 months before I was like genuinely decent at the game. I don’t think every new beginner needs to watch Youtube videos to get better at a game, but I feel like a community can grow more when gamers are helping new gamers get accustomed to how that game is. It also helps build some new friendships and bonds. Instead of using the word noob to talk down about another gamer for being a beginner, we should instead try to help them get out of that “noob” phase in that game so that they can one day do the same to another new gamer getting into that game. There has been a time when I was playing Rainbow Six Siege with my friend Alex. We were playing a casual match and Alex and I had died in the first round. The last person left was a random player that we did not know and he was not doing things that, more experienced players would do, which made us start questioning his or her abilities to win the round. Suddenly, that random player died and we lost the round, Alex got super mad and started yelling “ WHAT THE FUCK BRO, THIS KID IS TRASH, WHAT LEVEL IS HE”. Alex checks his level and he saw that he was level 20 and he yelled “YO THIS KIDS A NOOB BRO, LETS VOTE HIM OUT”.  I replied to Alex “He’s level 20, just let him be, he just trying to get used to the game”. Everyone else voted to kick that player out but I voted no because I thought that the match we were playing would be good experience that would further help the beginning player improve and not become a noob. Gamers should be more accepting of new players because it is one way to help grow the gaming community and also grow the community for that certain game they are trying to get into. If gamers are able to change the way noob is interpreted and used, then we can change the negative connotation that the word noob has when brought up in the gaming community.

I think gamers can call beginner players names is probably because they are behind a screen and a username. This kind of makes it like when we are playing games, we are almost also putting on a persona which is not our true selves. For example, “Even if kids are nice in “real life,” the anonymity that is provided on online gaming platforms emboldens them to be able to act disgustingly. These bullies don’t understand that oftentimes, the harassing messages sent through cyberspace can have the same kind of impact on them as hurtful comments given in real life.” (Aaron). This shows how people probably just forget that there are people behind those players they speak to in games. The gamers calling others noob probably forget that the player they are calling noobs are just humans who are trying to understand the game.

In the day to day life, the friends I talk to all have played video games and know the word noob and what its implications are. The word noob has kind of been used in my everyday diction by me jokingly calling my friends noobs for doing some stupid thing. We use the word noob towards each other to almost indirectly say that they are not experienced enough for whatever the situation that I used the word in. When I use the word noob with friends, it is never taken super seriously because I know them personally and talk to them in person, not online or through a screen. Since online, we don’t get to see who we are playing with, it kind of doesn’t seem like we are offending someone.

Therefore, the we should be easier on noobs whenever we encounter one in our games. Instead of kicking them out of team killing them, as I have once experienced, we should allow them them understand and explore the game while the veteran players should be like a mentor to the beginning players. We need to understand that everyone behind the screen is still a person and that every person was once a noob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

• Aaron, Jesse. “Cyber-Bullying and Video Games.” VentureBeat, VentureBeat, 27 Sept. 2014, venturebeat.com/community/2014/09/26/cyber-bullying-and-video-games/.
• Hill, Simon. “Don’t Be A Noob, Find Out What The Word Really Means.” Digital Trends, Digital Trends, 21 Mar. 2015, digitaltrends.com/gaming/noob-newbie-word-origins/.
• “Newbie.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/newbie.
• “Noob | Definition of Noob in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/noob.