Life Changing or Career Building?

This is a good question of how we percieve higher education. Some beleive like myself that it readys you and gives you a better understanding of the caeer you are heading toward. My friend on the other hand does not agree with wasting time on going to uni. His reasons for this are that if you are passionate and talented enough then you should get the job anyway.
I would love to have his confidence but I only think that he is that confident because he is actually really tallented in art and computers.
So when we consider the views of some of the companies as it says here:
"Some game companies want highly trained graduate artists and programmers. Some claim they really prefer creative individuals with a good Liberal Arts background."
This quote shows companies with both views, but to have a whole selection of one without the other we would be in big trouble. The simple way to even this out is to have a pick of both highly trained graduate artists and programmers with that of the creative individuals with a good liberal arts background. Doesnt take a genious to realise you just need a mix of both.
The companys must realise that there are alot of up and coming artists and programmers that have never taken higher education, but instead have taken other career paths but have decided to follow their dreams. These people must be taken as seriously as any graduate student with a degree or I may as well tell my friend that he may as well give up hope.
With this open minded look at employee's games companys must watch out for those who may sneak in and not actually be of any use. But dont think I mean the people without the degree as those with may not work well in real life situations. There is risk with both and that is why it is better to get a mix of each.
In conclusion I come to beleive that the adverts you see are there as a line for the academic standard of which that company expects. But I also think that say someone with that level of work but no actual education to show should be able to send pieces of their work as application for an interview into a job with that particular games company.
So if we look at it that way we see that it is possible for it to be both a life changing experience and be beneficial to take higher education for career building purposes, making them highly qualified for the companys in question.
Another point of which I would put on the students is as what has happened to our second year students they were not just sticking to work on games art when they were in their firtst year.
I chose this course as I had not heard of such specifiically based subject such as this that envolved games. This gives in my oppinion all on our course a much higher standing than that of a student on a more varied course.
The question is do companys see it that way or do they want someone of an all round stature.
I think it would be too dificult to give an exact answer to this but from the points I have looked at you can see that their must be some form of balance between both sides.

Game Sounds,Tunes and Melodys.

Game sounds have been around as long as games themselves. As in the first games it was mostly just miny explosion sounds or little tunes playing in the background, usually as a way of keeping you entertained. If I was to play a game and have no sound or music I would most deffinately not play it.
It is for this reason many composers have pick up on and know as the games industry has expanded so has its music. Now their is an assigned job for composers in games and in my oppinion an important one two.
As a gamer and safe in the knowledge that I know other gamers feel the same way. You can depict what game other people are playing just by listening to the music or just as simply hearing their phone go off and the ringtone be a theme of some sort or important line or verse.
While we are on the subject of game themes, I cant seem to stop humming the theme to LOTR. Something needs to be done about that game cause it is taking over the lab and now im humming it!Anyway sound in games are used in so many ways. They create the theme music, sounds of the environment, right down to the voice of the characters. It gives a feeling and emotes an emotional reaction. Wether that reaction be positive or negative. I think that due to advances in games and the level of detail that goes in is much higher mre has been expected of the sound and music of games. For example, in games now their are pieces of music that is significant to just one character. As simple as that may sound that can get, a player to respond emotionally toward that character. If you were to create a Bad guy, you would give them evil music. If they were good then maybe heroic sounding music would be played. But also when you want a comic element to a game, occassionally characters are made to be humorous, they are given clumzy sounding music or fair ground type music.
So know when we think about sound in games we have to consider all different aspects of what that covers in a game.
HaHaHa 'Good Times' It's good but over used.
My mum's a big soul fan and so I knew straight away it was Chic. Not sure why it was so big but deffinately well known. Found this quote from a tribute website about Nile Rogers/Bernard Edwards.
"Members of the Dance Music Hall of Fame !
THE most successful writer/producer team of the DISCO era. By some people compared to the famous partnerships of Lennon/McCartney and Richards/Jagger."
In my oppinion I dont really like The Beatles so seems pretty acurate to me. If you wanna check out the website go to: http://www.disco-disco.com/tributes/chic.shtml
I think possibly most of the yonger generation will remember the song because of 'Spank the Monkey', a silly flash game where you .... yeah you guessed it spank the monkey and see who did it fastest.
To round up this task I will say that I think that the one sound in games that really gets me going is 'One Winged Angel', which is the final battle music of Final Fantasy 7 where you face off against the awesome Sephiroth. Which of course we have the great Nobuo Uematsu to thank for composing it.
Well till next time cya.

Game Engines

A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. Or so says me research.
This is actually the first question I have been left completely stuck for what to say.
What are the key engine technologies? I really wish I knew but I dont even know what to look for, maybe I just dont understand the question. I think I will try and rite what I know about game engines and work from their.
The new engines such as the Fear engine or the newest engine the Unreal engine. But the engine we use for the Game art course is the Unreal engine because in order to learn what is required to be in the industry, we have to have the latest hardware and components. This will allow us to leave the course at the same standard as is expected of someone in the industry.
The dissadvantage into buying proprietary technologies is that what you buy may not actually be very good and may be bought at a loss because the technologies may not become a success.
The main problem in my oppinion on next-gen engines is that they are forever expected to render more and more graphics per second. If they keep making them more powerful I expect they will become more obsessed with graphics and forget about story and other components. As in past posts I have mentioned how they will have to eventually find other ways of making games better.
Well if now you read it and it made no sense to you what so ever then join the club becuase I have this weks task the hardest yet. If anyone has any comment on how hard they found this weeks task then please do feel free to leave one.
till next time cya.