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Mar 6th, 2008 at 01:33:35 - Dead Rising (360) |
Gameplay:
This second hour though the game ran much more smoothly, I had started the game over for one last final time and I was level 7. The slow start was non-existent, I learned the movement and timing of the zombie attacks so it became much more easy to dodge attacks and get up close to kill them. The best part of this run through was that I had more special abilities to use on the zombies. Although none were extremely powerful attacks they tended to be much more practical because they aided the player in dodging huge masses of zombies and allowed the zombie threat to be minimal.
I had the opportunity to explore more areas, rescue more humans fight a boss and unlock more stats. I had more fun this play through because I finally got the chance to get involved with the story. The boss battle, which had some evil trigger-happy human shooting at me non-stop, was very frustrating because he always seemed to have perfect aim. Once I had run out of bullets I jumped to the second story where this boss was shooting and I just took out a powerful item and beat him with it. This proved really successful and even though I took a lot of damage I finished him off quickly. With the end of the boss battle I saved and finished the gameplay for this write up.
Design:
The design of Dead Rising has really good parts but also horrible parts. I really like the open mall where the player is allowed to do whatever he wants and go wherever he wants. The stat increasing system is generic but it does the job although a little slowly. I enjoy the gameplay, it is full of non-stop zombie executing and blood. Saving people is really emphasized, the player is rewarded with a large amount of experience points; however. The Artificial Intelligence is horrible, the humans that the player is trying to save tend to be more stupid then the zombies they are running away from. They will run into a pack of zombies and although they could have run around they start fighting or just die.
One huge game design flaw was the lack of rewards players received. The player would kill literally hundreds of zombies and never gain a level but after rescuing a human, one would receive a ridiculous amount. A player also only receives a single stat enhancement at a time meaning it takes a long while to have an upgraded character. The game does certainly have major flaws that can turn players off, but it if someone can overlook the problems they may have a great experience with this game. The game boasts customization and it does that well, virtually every clothing store allows players to change his clothes and it certainly is a nice touch. In addition when blood is flying everywhere from massive zombie killing, bloodstains will appear on the players character. Although this game can be fun in short bursts it tends to have a limited save spaces really hindering the possibility of short gaming. I’m actually really surprised with how bad this zombie game is coming from Capcom, they really should have refined the game more.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Mar 6th, 2008 at 17:47:23.
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Mar 6th, 2008 at 00:53:37 - Dead Rising (360) |
Gamelog Entry #5
Summary:
Dead Rising is a zombie survival game where you, the player must stay alive for three days in a mall. The player can use virtually anything as a weapon to fight for their struggle of survival.
Gameplay:
Dead Rising started really slow and despite my personal love for zombie games it took a long time for me to into the “magic circle.” I thought that the character is a pretty cool one, but it strikes me as weird that he is a photojournalist, yet he is an amazing fighter. Right off the bat there are no special moves to perform on zombies and one must resort to just killing hoards of undead with few weapons. There seems to be really ineffective objects to pick at the start and as a result I died a lot. As frustrating as that may be, Dead Rising has a very interesting retry option, the player is asked the question if he would like to load from a previous save state or if he would like to start the game over with his stats saved.
After dying a few times but still gaining a few levels (which consisted of increased health, special moves and slots to hold items), I started over again with my stats saved. I quickly found a really easy way to gain experience. I zipped through the game’s intro and saved this elderly couple gaining a significant amount of experience points then died and repeated the act. It made the game much more playable with increased stats.
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Feb 21st, 2008 at 00:23:14 - Gradius 3 (SNES) |
GAMELOG ENTRY 4 (Part 2)
GAMEPLAY
This play through was amazing compared to my last; I finished two and a half levels on my last run. The changes I made consisted of plugging an Xbox controller into my laptop to play and editing my ships power ups. I found that the standard configurations for the ships weren’t great for my style of play. I also tried using different power ups and was amazed at how important the speed up ability was.
The more I played through the less frustrated I got because I became more comfortable with the style of play. I was able to predict the movements of enemies and bosses quite quickly. Although the new control and power ups helped me advance, I am not saying the game became easier to me at all, it hadn’t, but because of the repetition and the more comfortable I got with my custom ship I was able to advance. There is definitely a groove effect to this game; the longer the player goes without getting hit the more powerful he becomes and opportunities of death present themselves less often and on a smaller magnitude.
DESIGN
I have been waiting for quite a while to discuss the design section of this game. The design of Gradius III is stellar, the levels are extremely fun and consistently present challenge to the players. The enemies are very interesting and the variety keeps the player constantly on his toes to destroy them.
The best design aspect to this game is the option to edit your space ship with the power ups that you want. There are example power up schemes a player can use or make their own. I made a custom ship every time for my second play through and did much better than the first run through with pre-chosen power ups.
The system of power ups is genius; I haven’t seen any shmups like it to date. Certain enemies drop power up capsules after they are destroyed for the player to pick up. The player can use them right away by pressing a button; the key is for the player to hold onto them and accumulate them because the more received, the better the skill is when initialized; however, if the player dies while retaining power up capsules, they are lost. So it’s up to the player to manage his abilities conservatively.
Gradius III will present a challenge to all players, it is known for making many people frustrated and I would be included to this crowd if it had not been designed so beautifully. The challenge presented is easily tolerable when using power ups at the right time.
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Feb 21st, 2008 at 00:08:41 - Gradius 3 (SNES) |
GAMELOG ENTRY 4 (Part 1)
SUMMARY
Gradius III is a horizontal space shmup where the player(s) control a space ship through multiple environments. The players must progress through each level and complete it by defeating a powerful boss.
GAMEPLAY
After playing a lot of current generation games, it took me a while to get use to the difficulty old video games use to have. After my first couple tries of Gradius III I was swearing in frustration. A player has a few tries to beat the game, but after three continues they’re sent all the back to the beginning. There are many enemies coming at high speeds, bullets flying from every direction and it’s an instant death if a ship touches anything, even the ground.
With this said, it has been 45 minutes and I cannot even get to the first level’s boss. I consider myself a very good shump player and for some reason I am having a hard time getting into the groove of this game even though I have beaten the game years before. For my next 45 minutes of play I am going to make a few adjustment to not only my ship’s power ups but to my control scheme also. With that said, let the frustration begin once again.
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Ita1ian has been with GameLog for 16 years, 3 months, and 8 days |
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