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Mar 9th, 2008 at 16:41:46 - Sins of a Solar Empire (PC) |
GAMEPLAY:
During the second 45 min of the game, the fleets got bigger (as certain technologies were researched to allow this), and the battles got tougher. Static defenses started to play a negigible role in planetary defense, and the whole focus of the game shifted into having the fastest ships, able to respond to enemy attacks quickly and also be able to hold their own in battle.
The movement AI is very hard to understand at first, until you remember that the ships are moving in 3D (I don't use a 3D controlled camera very much, preferring to keep it static). However, in 3D, they move very well, even banking and turning realistically, so when you order a fleet to move, they don't just start off, but have to align themselves first, which adds an interesting twist to strategy.
In the game I was playing, I didn't quite manage to get out of my solar system and into others, but I could still interact with the players who lived there. This is the only unrealistic part of the game that I could find; how do two civilizations communicate when they are galaxies apart and don't have technology to traverse that distance yet?
DESIGN:
One of the best design elements I have seen in this game has to be using the scroll-wheel to zoom. This feature makes the game so much easier to play, since the player doesn't have to move the mouse very much to get to where they want to go.
Even though there is really not a lot to do (only a few units, buildings, technologies to deal with, and very little economy), the game I played was packed with action, and that was on the easiest level of AI. On the more difficult levels the player will most likely be glad to only have a few options to deal with as they try to build an army on the fly to meet massive attacks.
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Mar 5th, 2008 at 14:17:00 - Sins of a Solar Empire (PC) |
SUMMARY:
Sins of a Solar Empire is a RTS (Real Time Strategy) set in space. The player controls a fleet of ships to take over galaxies that range from a few planets to multiple solar systems. The game allows all the usual functions of an RTS, such as multiple races, each with a technology tree, different units (The game doesn't really have that many units, but the action is quick enough so that this comes as a blessing at times rather than a curse, since the player doesn't want to worry about what they should build).
GAMEPLAY:
The first 45 minutes of the game were not really that fast for me, but that was because the random map I picked (there are no single player campaigns) was set to giant, and as a result the players were spaced far apart.
“Easy to learn, difficult to master” is the phrase that comes to mind. It took me at least half an hour to master the tech tree, position of buildings and static defense, and ship management. However, once I figured it out, the game was pretty easy to play, if not so easy to win.
The diplomacy within the game was rather odd, in my opinion. The computer AI would give me “missions” such as supplying them with some money, killing so many enemy ships, or destroying certain structures. In the beginning, I began to take these missions, only to realize that the more I completed, and the more the other player trusted me, the harder they became. I quickly realized that I would not be able to satisfy the demands of the potential allies I was trying to recruit. This would also make it very difficult to keep an alliance going, since more and more missions would be required to keep the AI happy with you.
Because of this drawback in the diplomacy, I fell back to my usual strategy when playing an RTS: Use diplomacy as a tool to keep others off your backs until you are ready to deal with them. Dispite the flawed diplomacy, however, the game was very fun to play, once the slight learning curve was mastered.
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Feb 18th, 2008 at 14:49:05 - Super Mario World (SNES) |
GAMEPLAY:
The game pretty much was the same for the next 45 minutes, except that the challenges got slightly harder as I progressed.
I was never quite sure why I was moving through this world, except that this was where the path led me. I'm sure there was more to the story than that, but I missed it somewhere along the way. However, this didn't take much from the enjoyability of the game, since the story doesn't really seem to be an integral part of gameplay.
The characters in the game are all whimsical, cartoon-ish, and would look very out of place in any other game I have every played. Here, however, they were right at home with the settings, which matched them perfectly. Character interaction pretty much (as far as I went in the game at least) consisted of Mario jumping on the heads of enemies, and onto the backs of Yoshi. There was no dialog, but it's a platform game with really no storyline-who needs dialog, anyway?
DESIGN:
One of the best design elements I remember from this game is the very basic inventory, which can hold an extra mushroom, turtle shell, etc, for use later in the game. This allows the player to go through an area with plentiful powerups and not have to leave them all behind. Of course, it also gives the level designers the ability to create more challenging levels, knowing that the player will have an extra chance, as it were, to get through them.
The game creates challenges in many ways. The player is given a certain amount of time to complete each level, so standing still is not an option, and parts of the game world are constantly moving, also requiring quick movement. Then there are the enemies, whom the level designers have placed anywhere the level might get too easy due to a lack of the other two factors.
The tone of the game world is light and happy. This is enhanced by the bouncy music playing in the background and the design of the characters. This tone gives the player the feeling that there is really nothing to be worried about, and can lead to overconfidence. I know it did for me.
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Feb 18th, 2008 at 14:48:51 - Super Mario World (SNES) |
SUMMARY:
Super Mario World is a 2D side-scroller in which the player dodges (and jumps on) obstacles to get through the level and continue on in order to save Princess Toadstool, who has been captured by Bowser (again).
GAMEPLAY:
Despite the fairly simple idea of dodging enemies to get through a level, I died quite a few times at first, just because I had no idea what something would do if I bumped into it (hey, I wonder what that is... oh, oops). After a while, though, I realized that I didn't have to smash every enemy into the ground or bump into every box if I didn't really want to, which sped things up considerably.
After I figured out how to play the game, it became relatively easy to get through the levels... after two or three tries. I was rather annoyed by the fact that I could never seem to see danger coming until it was too late to get out of the way, unless I already knew it was there. As a result, I was losing on average two lives per level until I figured it out and was able to remember where the enemies were, so I could dodge more efficiently.
Even with this setback, though, I found the game to be very entertaining. The levels were challenging, though there was always a way to beat the challenge (even if I couldn't see it at first).
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Bucky24 has been with GameLog for 16 years, 3 months, and 14 days |
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