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Oct 20th, 2009 at 03:55:56 - Need For Speed: Shift (360) |
(10/19/09)
Entry #2:
GAMEPLAY
Once I got into the special events the game got a lot harder. The basic gist of the story is you're some super driver, and you get ferried all over the world to compete with the best drivers from all these different nations. You have to have a different car for each area, since the rules are all different. This is nice because it forces you to spend your money efficiently, rather than blowing it all on one car. It also gives you a variety of cars to play round with, and I found some that I fell in love with that I would have never tried otherwise (Zonda R).
The Variety of modes in the Special Events is also a lot more interesting. There are races that pit certain rival cars against one another. Like the age old Evo 10 vs Evo 9 debate. These are really fun because you get a prebuilt car and you get to take a side in the argument between the car fans, so it's fun when you win. You don't really prove anything but it's entertaining to yell, “YEAH I TOLD YOU SO” at the TV screen.
DESIGN
The game is obviously aimed at people who are already fans of car games, most usually men. The game features several races started by women in skimpy bikinis waving a flag around. The screens in the game also have loads of technical information, that would be lost on me without my roommate translating. On the upshot, I learned what wheel camber is! These both combine to make a game that's fun, but only if you're in the target audience. Women and guys who aren't big into cars can be turned off by the huge amount of information and choice, and women won't particularly enjoy the gaudy, flashy cars with women draped all over them.
The game's levels and design were mostly well thought out, apart from a few notable exceptions, (Looking at you Hamburg Racetrack, miles upon miles of sharp banking curves with ZERO straightaways). The game modes were varied enough to keep you entertained, but still stayed withing the reason limits of a professional race circuit.
It was a driving game and I did enjoy playing it. I'm not sure I'd be ready to plunk 60 bucks down for a glorified simulator, but I wouldn't mind picking it up from a friend and blowing a few hours racing Zondas against Hondas.
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Oct 20th, 2009 at 03:55:39 - Need For Speed: Shift (360) |
So, after losing my flash drive, I can post this all super late:
(10/18/09)
Entry #1:
SUMMARY -
I'm not much of one for Racing Games usually, but I had watched my roommate play this game a bunch and decided to pick it up and try it out. My first impression was that this game was very obsessive with it's graphics. The menu and load screens were very long, and you can tell it spends a long time loading models when you switch cars in the garage. Over all though, the game is very pretty and it makes the driving feel much more realistic, which is part of the intent of the game.
GAMEPLAY -
Well, I got to play on my roommates save game, so i got to hop right in and use the Tier 4 Supercars. This game ranks all the cars in the game on a rank from 1 to 4. The tier 1 cars are the normal, street cars souped up, all the way up to million dollar supercars like the Bugatti Veyron and Zonda R at Tier 4.
My first thought when I got into the Veyron was just "Holy *** this is fast". On of the upsides to the long load screens and high graphics is that when you're playing, it seems super real and it's pretty thrilling. The screen blurs, the wheels squeak, the engine roars. It doesn't hurt the experience that I'm paying this on a 50 inch plasma with 7.1 surround sound.
There isn't much of a story line to speak of, just a series of races with varied events. There are some that are really fun to do (Like the Elimination laps, where you race and each lap the last person is eliminated) to the quite unfun (Drift competitions). The drifting in this game is something that particularly irked me. It's clunky and unintuitive, and the game just doesn't like letting you finesse the car because it's incredibly unforgiving. Lose traction at any point, and you car will spin out, costing you precious points and basically forcing you to start all over.
Overall though, the game is quite fun. Now on to the Special events!
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Oct 5th, 2009 at 23:34:34 - Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) |
So, I decided to sit down and play an old game from my childhood, Super Mario Brothers 3. I used to come home from school and play this game for hours.
SUMMARY
Super Mario Brothers three was a platformer for the NES, and one of the best designed in terms of power ups and their interaction with the environment and monsters, especially for its time. It had a huge variety of enemies and each powerup had distinct advantages and disadvantages against them.
GAMEPLAY
One of my favorite things about this game was how varied your play style can be. You are given several ways to defeat any given level, and what powerups you choose can vastly play how you approach any given challenge. Another thing that I always liked about the game was how free it felt. It wasn't as huge or vast as modern sandbox games, but that was a good thing. In a modern sandbox game, the design of the game basically forces you to explore. It makes you feel like you have to run around and do side quests and explore in order to get the full benefit of the game.
Super Mario was so well designed you could run around and explore and still be consistently working toward you objective. It's like the difference between camping and going out to play in the backyard. They're both a fun activity, but when you go camping, it almost seems like work to go and explore, whereas when you're spending time horsing around in the backyard, it's more free and spontaneous. You don't need to go looking for the variety in SMB3, it comes to you.
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Oct 5th, 2009 at 22:57:55 - Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) |
Note: These are backwards, since I just lost my first entry to a gamelog timeout. the game also should have been SMB3, not 2.
One of the things that always hindered me playing that game, compared to a current one, is the lack of a save feature. I used to have the NES stay on, hidden away in the cupboard so I wouldn't lose my progress. That's still true, as the game doesn't have any kind of save function, but the emulator I played it on does utilize save states that helps deal with the lack of an in-game save.
GAMEPLAY
One of the other things I really liked about this game is how complex the game manages to be, without needed any special gimmicks. It's a good platformer and it focuses on the aspects jumping primarily. It also has a large variety of temporary (until you're hit) buffs that enhance some form of Mario's (or whichever character you choose's) gameplay.
I had a lot of fun playing around with the new powerups in SMB3. My favorite was the Leaf, and I use to spend hours trying to fly around and get as high as I could. After mastering it, i went on with the story line. The story is obviously rather basic, consisting of a rather dreary trudge through several different castles to save, oddly enough, the character I was playing, and keep her from Bowser's clutches. Unfortunately, every time I went to save her though, I was thwarted by intelligence as bad as most of the stuff our military seems to use. Every time you defeat the final boss, and advance to the room to save the princess, instead of saving her, you're informed she isn't there and it's time for ANOTHER castle. It's fun the first time, boring the 7th.
DESIGN
The game itself is fun. Hopping around dodging endless streams of thrown bones are fireballs can provide endless entertainment for an 8 year old. But soon after that age, the fun starts to wear. Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing game, but every time I play, I'm expecting something more. Maybe I'm spoiled by modern games with their twisted plots and in-depth characters, but the game just seems shallow.
Part of this is the game showing its age. It's a very old game, and the technology we use for games today would have made us seem alien in the 80s. But nevertheless, the game seems to lag in story content compared to other games, most notably Zelda. This is all forgiven though, because it isn't the story that drives Mario, it's the playing and level design.
The levels are well thought out, with traps and puzzles that are hard enough to make you work for them, but not frustrating enough to make you quit (*cough* Zelda Water Temple *cough*). This, in the end, is what makes Mario the classic it is today.
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Kimano has been with GameLog for 14 years, 7 months, and 25 days |
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