Stardust Speedway 057 - Sonic has cleared Act 2 (DISSERTATION IS COMPLETE)

Well; it has taken me 10 months to sort out and after a lot of hard work; sweat; three looks of Dissertation notebooks and a new copy of No More Heroes; my Dissertation is finally complete.

It ended up being just under the 8,000 word mark and it just needs proofreading; but it is complete and will be going to be printed tomorrow morning before I go into my Lecture. Now within the last post of the Blog; it is always a tradition to summarise the project and create a list of changes that they would like to make to the project if you had more time or did the entire project again, so I think we should stick wit this formula.

Project Summery

I feel that the project has gone extreamly well and the way that the project stemmed from Sonic the Hedgehog only to Communism/We Love Katamari and beyond; it just shows how one idea can be changed into another by the drop of a hat or by simply adding more research into the project. Also If I knew that I would be re-writing half of the project's content by the end of the second draft; I would have halted everything to make sure that the work would go a bit more smoother. Also one thing I would have changed is the content of the document and possible revert back to only one Social System instead of Three because in some of the research, I have only skated over the subject and it would have been good to go in more depth into each section.

The Final Note

It has been a very detailed journey from the start of the project to the end and I have learned more about Capitalism, Communism and Post-modernism within the last year than any other point of my life. Now it has given me a greater vision of how the world is run, under each individual system. It has not given me a clear favourite of which one I would choose, but it has given me an additional Incite into how Games are developed under each systems rules and the restrictions each one brings into the medium.

I hope everybody who has been following the blog has enjoyed what I have been trying to do; even though a few people have disagreed with what I am doing; it has been a wild ride and I might even do this again one day just for fun and to refine my knowledge of the industry once again.

Stardust Speedway 056 - Draft 2.0 is now under way

Well; after tackling both Post Modernism and more research for this paper; Draft Two of Stardust Speedway is now under-way and today I have refined the introduction ready for the re-working of chapter one.

One major difference already is the layout of the document which I have tried to make it more pleasing to the eye by breaking up the chapter with a chapter cover page instead a simple title at the top of the page, hopefully this will make the text and the sometimes difficult subject matter to be absorbed a bit more easily. Also the spell checker of my version of MS work has been reset and is now picking up more mistakes with the spell checker which is always a good thing.

Well; I am pleased on the changes to far but now the best thing to do is go back and keep working away until 2.0 is ready for distribution.

Stardust Speedway 055 - A Trio for the Reading List (Post Modernism Books)

Over the last week; I have been researching Post Modernism for inclusion in my project and I have found some useful texts/journals to add to the pile. Now apart from buying the same book twice by accident, the research I have found is very good and I think it will add to my project.

Also as a Side note to this post, I have finished my read through of the first draft and I have a large list of changes at this point, but it is a good thing as spelling mistakes and wrong formatting could have damaged my grades so I am glad I have a few weeks to change my paper for the better.

I will upload them into my research side bar once I have finished reading them through (so Mondayish I Think)

Stardust Speedway 054 - Stardust Speedway Rejoice......Sonic 4 is here

Well at the beggining of this project; I never thought I would be writing about the following subject matter, but the impossible has happened and Sega are back in my good books; Sonic 4 is going to be released. Now there have been a smorgasbord of Sonic Games released Since Sonic 3 in 1993/94 which have lead to the series staleness in many gamers opinions, so I am glad that Sega are going back to their roots with a direct numerical sequel and more impotently Side Scrolling. But the best thing about this is that the game is going to be released in Episodes which only means one thing, A Sonic game which cannot be completed within the Timeframe of 1-8 Hours which can only be a good thing.

Now mentioning this within my Project could boost the First Chapter when talking about the evolution of the Series and also I get to put aside time to research this title at more length that I have previously, so when I have found enough Information, it could become a worthy inclusion within Chapter One. Also this game has been featured to include Metal Sonic once again who was last seen within Sonic CD and The Movie, so another race along the Stardust Speedway with Sonic's robotic twin will altogether equal A Fanboys Dream

Stardust Speedway 053 - Feedback from my Tutor from my Draft

Well; I met up with my Dissertation tutor Tamara yesterday and I have had a lot of feedback from her about my Draft. She said that I have created a solid first Draft of my project but just needs changing slightly to make it read better and my research to come through a lot clearly.

Also she pointed out that instead of the inclusion of Individualism within the Third chapter could be tied in with Post Modernism which until now avoided me but I think that It would be a worthy inclusion within my Project, which brings one good question. Instead of being a social system of sorts, Post Modernism is more of course the events post the popularity of Modernism which in turn means Modern Thought, so to include this within my project would give it a slight twist in my opinion.

The final deadline for this project is within the next five weeks; so the final thing will be finished within the next three weeks; so keep here for updates of how the second and final drafts are coming.

Stardust Speedway 052 - First Draft (Personal Reflections)

Well; the last meeting for my Dissertation is coming up very quickly; I thought I would reflect about the project at the moment and what I thought of my First Draft now I have had time to read through it.

The first thing which automatically comes to mind is how my project has evolved since the beggining of the entire thing. When I went back to looking at the first post on the blog; I wanted to look exclusively at both Sonic The Hedgehog within the Social System of Capitalism after I examined the basic gameplay elements of Sonic for a few weeks. But after the first wave of research; it came to me that there should be an secondary viewpoint to compare and contrast Capitalism and this would end up being communism; and the same thing again a few weeks ago with the inclusion of Individualism.

New topics brought new games to the project; in the form of two of my favourite games (No More Heroes and We Love Katamari/Katamari Damacy); it might have been biased to write about two of my favourite games, but as I knew a lot about the products playing them both to destruction; it was a good choice. I did the same with my Research Paper about Resident Evil within the Survival Horror Genre; and I had chance to play some great games once again (CODE: Veronica being one of the better examples).

All these changes lead to the final Essay layout and that in turn gave the First Draft. Now after having chance to read through it; I already have a list of changes which I want to do ranging from Spelling Mistake and Grammar to re-writing a small section of the paper all together; but I am proud of my work and for a First Attempt at this; I think I did well.

I am looking forward to seeing what my tutor thinks of it; but also scarred at the same time because I think there might be something obvious in there which I have missed; but we shall see.

Stardust Speedway 051 - First Draft is HERE (Work in Progress)

Well it has been a long time coming; but I have finally got it finished. My first draft of my Dissertation; Owning The Stardust Speedway.

Now upon reading the comments on my Blog; by an individual who I do not want to name on this post as I do not want to stoop down to his level; but I would like the feedback on my first draft to see what people think.

The paper can be found at:-

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dnyzwdjodfw/Stardust Speedway - Draft (FINAL PDF)_v1.0.pdf

Now it is a current work in progress; so it is not perfect but I would like to hear from people and see what they think and I would like to thank Jack Porter for the feedback and I hope I can hear from his soon; I am sorry for the late replys as I have been ill and not been able to get to my computer.

Stardust Speedway 050 - 5,800 words and counting

Well; this week has been a good start to the new year and the dissertation is going very well. I am currently on Chapter Three of my Dissertation which is talking about Individualism within Video Games and the game I have chose for this section to focus on is No More Heroes for the Wii.

Now the essay plan did not go as well as I hoped; I originally wanted to aim for the 6,000 word end of the word count as I wanted to have space to change and add any additional text if I wanted to, but it has ended up going over that very easily. Also within each section; I have only had enough words to cover one game which is slightly dissapointing, but it will focus on these titles within more depth.

The final three games I have chose to focus on within this project are of course Sonic The Hedgehog; We Love Katamari and No More Heroes; all titles also have a small ammount of research to go with them.

It should be finished by tonight which gives me a day to prepare my bibliography and final readthrough; so I will report back tomorrow with an update of how its going.