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Jul 30th, 2010 at 16:37:50 - Madworld (Wii) |
This game looks absolutely incredible. The only way I can describe it is Sin City. But without the noir. So it's lighter (more white?), but equally stylized. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this makes it really hard for me to tell what's going on at times which might actually be a good thing.
I've still trying to figure out the meaning (for me) of the violence in the game. I can't say that I've really enjoyed playing it so far, but in terms of the representation I find that it's so over-the-top as to be almost comical. The problem is that it's ALMOST, which leaves me in a rather gray area which, as mentioned, I'm still trying to figure out. Does it glorify violence? How much of it is gratuitous? How do I think of it when compared to the also ultra-violent Manhunt? The experience of playing them is quite different...
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Jul 30th, 2010 at 16:33:20 - Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe (PSP) |
I've been playing this in (sort-of) opposition to Plants vs Zombies. Both tower defense games, both on handheld (ipad perhaps less so) devices and both being played on (semi) alternate days. It's kind of unusual to find that the things that annoy me about one game are not present in the other, and vice versa. What is perhaps more interesting is that both games (exemplars in their class, according to review scores in any case, metascore of 86 and 88 for PMD and PvZ respectively) represent very different schools of thought regarding game design.
PvZ is incredibly polished, has incredible personality, humor, and identity and is also entertaining to watch. Playing the game isn't terribly challenging and you mostly react to onscreen cues. Click here when coin appears, click there when sunshine appears. Most of the decisions you make while playing are easy and, barring the occasional mistake, the toughest choice you have is what selection of plants you want to have available during a game.
PMD is less polished, has a strong identity and is also well-designed. However, rather than focus on easing the execution of your actions (call it interface polish if you will), it worries with providing tense in-game decision making moments through a combination of different incentives and risks. It is also a much harder game (I've barely made it into the "Medium" difficulty levels.
Here's what I mean:
(a) As usual, you need to build towers. However, their effectiveness varies a lot based on their placement and each level has a different geography that makes placement decisions a lot harder.
(b) Enemies arrive quickly and for the most part move quickly as well. You don't have a lot of time to think.
(c) You control a little guy who must go where you want to build a tower. So, traversing the map is important. You can waste a lot of valuable time simply going back and forth.
(d) You can upgrade towers by spending gems. You only get gems by collecting them from dead guys. If your guy runs into an enemy, he gets knocked down (losing coins and gems). Not only is it quite risky to collect gems, but they also disappear fast as well!
(e) Coins are dropped in the same way, but you spend them to build towers.
(f) You can also upgrade your towers by standing still on them and "dancing". THIS creates a lot of tension since the impulse is to go out and collect the coins/gems. Towers can also level up by doing damage, so it is often the case that you need to pick the ideal moment to dance on a tower so that it levels, without losing coin collecting opportunities.
(g) At the end of each wave, you get a bonus amount of coins that is a percentage of the coins you currently have banked. Another interesting point of tension! If you wait too long to build a tower, it wont' get built in time, but you can get the bonus coins. On the other hand...
(h) You can also spend gems to unlock (for that level only!) special towers. These are pretty much essential during the levels. So, there's a lot of tension involved in deciding when to lose time heading back to your home (where you can unlock the special towers) or if it's better to simply use the gems to upgrade.
Almost none of these tensions exist in PvZ even though, especially if you look at someone playing, both games SEEM very frantic and tense. Honestly, PMD is the real contender for the mental anguish prize.
It also doesn't help that it's taken me a while to figure the game out. For example, I assumed that all upgrades to a tower were essentially the same: do more damage. It turns out that (there are little icons, but they weren't explained anywhere), different towers upgrade differently. Some upgrades increase range, some damage, and they can vary even for the same tower. So, Lev1 to Lev2 might increase range but Lev2 to Lev3 might increase the damage.
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Jul 28th, 2010 at 12:56:06 - Plants vs Zombies HD (iPd) |
I guess I shouldn't play too many tower defense games at the same time. I've been alternating between this one and Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe. They're quite different, but strangely neither seems to hit the sweet spot for me.
At this point I've finished the campaign as well as all the minigames and have decided to start working on the different achievements. The campaign was largely uninteresting for me because it was simply too easy. I never lost. The minigames, on the other hand, while still mostly easy (I only had to replay 3 of them, out of about 12?) were at least different. My favorite is perhaps the Bejeweled clone in which you have to shift your plants around (all of which are active and fighting zombies) in order to get sunshine points you can use to either upgrade or replace your plants. Sadly, the goal is to make a certain number of "matches". Then you win. What I enjoyed most about this minigame (I think it's called Beghouled...) is the tension between making matches and choosing NOT to make them because they'll screw up the defensive layout. It's also harder to make matches due to all of the action on the screen.
I guess someone who has never played a tower defense game would find the main mode interesting, but for me it's been the mini-games that make things interesting (even if it's still too easy!). I'm hoping there is an ultra-hard endurance-mode level I can unlock somehow. We'll see.
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Jul 27th, 2010 at 13:05:21 - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Essentials (PSP) |
I'm frustrated by my experience with this game. I'm frustrated enough that I decided to move on to something else because I feel that otherwise I may never get around to playing a Splinter Cell game (and I've heard so many good things about the series in general). My frustration is not so much with the game, but rather with all the elements surrounding the actual gameplay combined with what I would my "play context". Essentially, I'm playing this game on a portable device (obviously, it's for PSP) while I commute to and from work.
So, why the frustration?
(1) Playing on the train means that lighting conditions are usually less than ideal (i.e., I'm not playing in a dark room), so, game levels that are dark or require special attention to minute or subtle visual cues tend to be problematic.
(2) A saving system that is multi-layered and lengthy is annoying when gameplay sessions aren't that long. In particular, you have to go through multiple levels of a menu and, not only wait for the save to happen, but also wait for the level to load back up again. I would be exaggerating if I said that the menus have their own loading screens, but it definitely feels that way.
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