Cross Platform Developments

X-Men Comics

Marvel Comics, original text of which all other cross platform and ‘secondary’ texts have derived from. Created by Marvel owner and creator ‘Stan Lee’. Aimed primarily at a male audience younger than 15 years old. Print Media based of which now is a dying form, so less popular apart from with ‘collectors’, aged 20+. A changing dynamic, however luckily spanned out into visual moving images to develop the audience and demographic targeted at. Originally created 75 years ago, since then has developed into texts compatible for TV and film, and more recently on cross platforms. The convergence of print media found them mainly in newspapers, however development in popularity created their own comic book companies (Wright, B, W, 2001)

Accessed through creativecommons.org, https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8542/8697182433_0bee240469_z.jpg

Xmen Arcade

‘X-Men Arcade’, a game made for an Arcade environment for the playing of 6 people. Simple 2D graphics, developed in 1992 and produced by Konami. Simple characters with Comic book outfit styling as well as little gore for a younger audience, similar to modern day TV programmes on Disney XD such as ‘Ultimate Spiderman’. Developed from the comic books and styled closely too, produced for many cross platforms with strong links from the original print platform X-Men was produced for; PlayStation 1, Gamecube etc, multiplayer gameplay included and developed for the make the text multi platform and multi player.

Accessed through creativecommons.org, http://www.gamefaqs.com/arcade/575527-x-men-the-arcade-game/images/screen-18

Newer Game Releases

'X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, published by Activision, released in 2009, on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP, aimed at a male audience still, however at a more teenage age range. From developing a text around the ‘back story’ of the main character of X-Men, it creates more interest and insight within the characters and story development. From this still for instance, the colour themes and colour connotations imply dark themes such as violence, danger, death, warning etc. The camera angle of which also implies an imminent fight, supported from the stern face of the dark dressed figure. The hidden identity of the character in the foreground and lighter clothing implies he’s a ‘good’ character with a mysterious past, possibly implying he’s the main character. This still shows the sort of complex back stories which would appeal to older teenage audience. The multiplayer option as mentioned in the Arcade game, is now available on the platform Xbox 360, which has the Xbox Live option which enables gameplay across the world in a large amount of countries, and also releases extra game content for dedicated players.

Accessed through creativecommons.org, http://hdwallpappers.com/wolverine-x-men-origins-of-wolverine-wallpaper-2/