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Apr 13th, 2009 at 03:09:05 - Street Fighter 4 (360) |
Playing a second session of Street Fighter 4 furthers my opinion that it is a really good fighting game. In this session, I was able to play via XBox Live with a friend. We both chose our characters and began the match. We began in normal fashion by running at each other to see what would happen and progressed forward from there. Even though I lost the match, I was able to see that the fluidity of the combat system and overall design of the game (from the backgrounds of the level to the clothes that each character was wearing) was really detailed and thus led to a better game experience. As mentioned
in my last log entry, the multiplayer matches are the most fun without a doubt and this was no exception.
Creating your own unique fighting style and combos using your favorite character (EL Fuerte in my case) is always really enjoyable. I tried to pay close attention to the fighting system while also trying to win. I saw that each attack could be chained into another attack easily and fluidly, meaning that there was not "lag" or frame jumping in between each input on the controller. I think the fluidity of the fighting system alone makes this game really enjoyable, but as an added bonus, you get really detailed character models and backgrounds. As mentioned before the super and ultra combo system also adds a level of excitement to the game, especially when you are playing a human opponent who is unpredictable.
In conclusion, I will restate my previous opinion that Street Fighter 4 is a very well developed fighting game and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys playing games of the fighter genre. Hopefully Capcom will continue to develop great Street Fighter games in the future.
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Apr 13th, 2009 at 02:57:06 - Street Fighter 4 (360) |
Street Fighter 4 is a very nostalgic fighting game that contains new features, giving it the look and feel of a new game with the play of a classic. The game is a 2D fighter that uses 3D rendered models, making it look different than any other game in the genre. This graphic layout makes it seem that you are fighting in 3D. The gameplay, unlike the earlier installations of the series, is very fast paced and is sometimes difficult to keep up with. The fast paced gameplay makes this game extremely fun, especially playing against a human opponent. Playing against a human opponent gives the best experience, since you may talk to your opponent while you are fighting against them. The multiplayer has always been a good feature of the Street Fighter series, and Street Fighter 4 is no exception.
The game features all of the now famous characters from the original Street Fighter game. Characters like Ryu, Ken, Sagat,Blanka, E. Honda, etc... are all controllable from the beginning. Street Fighter 4 features a slew of new characters to choose from as well, such as Abel, El Fuerte, C. Viper, and others.
Besides having the default controls that fans of the series are used to, i.e... 3 punches and 3 kicks along with the same inputs for most special moves, the game adds the super combo, ultra combo, and EX/Focus moves to keep the player intrigued. The super combo works as a bonus for doing well. When you fill your super bar, you can execute this combo (whose input is varied for each character) to deal extra damage to your opponent. The ultra combo is a "last ditch" desperation combo that you can execute after taking a certain amount of damage from your opponent. If this combo connects, the opponent receives a great amount of damage. However, if you miss this combo, you are vulnerable for a few seconds. EX moves can be executed when you have partially filled your super combo bar. Upon executing an EX move, part of your super combo bar is depleted so you have to decide if you would like to keep filling the bar to execute the super combo, or use part of it to deal a little extra damage to your opponent. The game also features focus moves, which if executed properly, cancels the opponent's attack and refills your health bar slightly. These new innovations make for a very interesting game, and also increase the replay value of the game since you can come up with your own strategies and combos.
Story mode, or arcade mode, is also very fun to play. Each character has their own individual story that you can progress through. All of the stories are presented as anime cinematics, some cheesier than others. Upon completing the story with certain characters, you obtain unlockable characters. In addition, completing story mode via various requirements (2 perfect wins, 3 ultra combo finishes, and no continues for example) allow you to fight one of the two secret characters: Akuma and Gouken. These characters may also be unlocked but their requirements are a little more difficult than just completing story mode with a character. This reward structure is very good because it gives you even more options for gameplay after you unlock a character. The game also features a training mode for practice, and a "trials" mode so that you can perfect your skills with a character.
The only complaint that I could make about Street Fighter 4 is the AI difficulty. At times, it seems that the computer controlled opponent knows exactly what you are going to do and thus seems very cheap. This is not as bad as the difficulty of the final boss, Seth, however. I think that Seth is quite possibly the cheapest boss I have ever faced in a fighting game. At times, he is practically unbeatable no matter how well you are fighting, making the story mode frustrating at times.
Overall I would recommend Street Fighter 4 to any fan of fighting games. It is a very good game with great replay value. The most rewarding game play is that against a human opponent, but if none are available, there are many other play options that keep the player having fun. Capcom delivered a hit with their latest installation in the Street Fighter series.
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Mar 3rd, 2009 at 23:36:30 - XKCD The Game (PC) |
xkcd the game: session 1
When the game first loaded, I was impressed with the story and how it mimicked the actual xkcd.com cartoons. It was a lighthearted and humorous way to open a game. The game levels and characters were drawn to mimick the actual xkcd cartoons as well, which was appealing to me. The game itself was split up into 4 mini-games that the player must play through to beat the game.
After the initial loading and story, the game starts with a level that requires the player to shoot down 10 targets and answer a question correctly after shooting down the targets. I quickly realized that playing this on a laptop with a mousepad was a very bad idea. The targetting reticule was a little too unresponsive when playing on a mousepad. I also found that there was some delay from the time you pressed the left mouse button down to the time that the event actually registers. I also noticed that you had to be in the exact middle of the target for it to register as a hit. This may have been a design choice though. These factors made it somewhat frustrating to try to play this stage. After failing a few times due to playing on a mouse pad and the unresponsive targetting reticule, I was finally able to finish this stage. After figuring out how to use the mouse pad to play the game, it was a pretty fun level overall.
The next stage required the player to race the main enemy on "Tronbikes." This stage was somewhat fun at first and the controls were a little more responsive. This minigame had multiple races that the player must win before moving on to the next minigame. After winning the first race, I was still having fun. However, after this, I became very frustrated. When starting the second race, my tronbike somehow got stuck in between a spider that slows you down and the grass that slows you down. So after trying to unposition my bike for 5 minutes, I was forced to reset the game. This
made me somewhat upset because I really didn't want to go back through the first minigame to get back to where I was. However, I swallowed my pride and moved forward and restarted the game. When I reached the racing stage for the second time, I realized that no matter how bad you were losing, you actually couldn't lose (unless you managed to get stuck in between the spider and the grass like I did). However, if you managed to not get stuck between the grass and spiders, this stage was also really fun to play.
The third stage was a lot different from the previous 2 stages. It was a 2D side scrolling action stage where the player must swordfight with various enemies. This stage was pretty humorous to say the least. From having to fight guys on bikes to velociraptors, and using only a sword to do so made it pretty funny. Also, I never thought I'd say this, but this stage was straightforward and very easy and I praise it for that after playing the 2 previous stages. The controls were simple and the objective was simple: make it to the end of the stage. Overall, it was my favorite stage so far.
The final stage of the game was a tower defense game, which are always fun and this was no exception. As before, the enemies (spiders, sporks, and raptors) made it fun to play and very humorous. It followed the same controls as any other tower defense game, just drag and drop your objects in the paths, so they were intuitive. I really enjoyed playing this level as much as the swordfighting level.
Overall, this was a pretty fun game, but it had its frustrating moments. However, I enjoyed playing through it and would recommend it to anyone wanting a quick laugh and fun short game. The only thing I would change about the game are the responsiveness of the controls of the first level as mentioned before as well as taking out the ability to get lodged between the spider and the grass and having to reset the game. The parallels between the xkcd comic and the game were a nice touch to help keep the player involved in the story. The cut scene comics were also a good addition that
kept me interested in the game.
xkcd the game: session 2
Once again, the game is a lighthearted, fun, short game and remained this way for the second time playing it. On this playing session, I tried to examine some other elements of the game and ignore the elements that I found frustrating during the previous session.
The game was innovative in that it took 4 minigames and tied them all together with the central story. I also noticed that the game used the cutscenes in an attempt to create some sort of conflict to keep the player interested. I found that the cutscenes added to the humor and made it more interesting, which I think was the point. At times, the game got sort of repetative, but that wasn't a serious problem since it is meant to be a one or two playing session game.
There were only a couple of things that I would change about the game. The first being to tweak the responsiveness of the targetting reticule in the first stage so that you could hit more accurately. The second thing that I would change would be to remove the glitch in the second stage that I mentioned in the previous gamelog (getting stuck between the spider and grass). Also, I would allow the player to lose on the second stage. The third and fourth stages could have been some what longer, but they were still really fun. Even with the glitches in the first and second stages, they were fun as well.
In conclusion, I think this was a pretty good game that was put together really well. As I have previously stated, I would reccomend this game to anyone who was looking to kill a few minutes and would like to have a quick laugh while doing so.
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Jan 18th, 2009 at 19:26:49 - Fact or Crap (Other) |
Fact or Crap (Second game played Friday, January 16, 2009)
In my first entry , I described the setup, rules, and gameplay, so I will not go into those details again. Rather, this log will detail a second experience we had when playing Fact or Crap.
--Summary of Second Game--
Having already played this game, my friends and I found that the fun feelings from having a new game dissipated very quickly. We started the game accordingly, but quickly found ourselves just looking for Rush Hour cards which never came soon enough. About 30 minutes into the game, it seemed that everyone was just going through the motions of playing the game instead of trying to have fun.
The player that was using the odds strategy ended up winning the game this time. Along the way, we ditched the timer because we liked the rush hour card aspect so much that we wanted to be able to play it as much as possible before going back to the routine of slamming answer cards down on the table.
In this game, we set an initial score cap so the game would end before five hours had passed. Once the score limit was reached, we all sat back and reflected on this game experience.
--Innovations of the Game--
I found the rush hour cards to be a neat concept for this game. The reader more than likely will choose the player with the least tokens, since they would more than likely get the reader the most tokens, thus pitting one player against another. It ended up making the game fun at times. I think the developers should have placed more rush hour cards in the deck. The game may have ended faster if they did so.
--Game Frustrations--
The game questions seemed to be irrelevant to any particular topic except for obscure and much outdated trivia. A friend and I purchased this game to play because we thought that maybe it would test your knowledge across a broad array
of topics. However, Fact or Crap ended up testing your patience more than your knowledge.
As previously mentioned, the win conditions for the game were almost impossible to meet. I feel that there should have just been a score limit to reach instead of eliminating everyone else or getting rid of all of those dreadful tokens in the middle.
Also, as I mentioned in my first game log about this game, any player who chooses to play the 50/50 odds of getting a question right usually does better than those players who actually try to answer the questions due to the fact that most people playing this game will not know anything about any of the questions that are asked. In fact, the player that was using this strategy ended up winning the second game and came in second place in the first game.
The game was the same from start to finish, which made it rather bland and boring. After playing the first game, no one seemed to be interested in the game anymore and we were all just hoping it would end soon. Once you had played for five minutes, you had pretty much experienced everything the game had to offer (unless you didn't get a rush hour card in that time). If you happened to answer a question correctly by chance, all you received was a token and truthfully, I was hoping I would run out so the game would be that much closer to being over. I think that if there were some amendments to the rules so that you received more than just a token for answering questions correctly, i.e..you got a rush hour card whenever you answered x number of questions, the game would be much more enjoyable.
Lastly, anyone who has a great memory will be able to dominate this game after playing long enough to go through the card deck a couple of times, thus greatly decreasing the replay value of Fact or Crap.
--Fact or Crap: Beyond the Card Deck--
Fact or Crap really doesn't offer much in the way of social interaction during gameplay. Unless you consider being able to call someone out when they get a question wrong, which backfires on you on the next turn when you get it wrong because the odds didn't go in your favor.
Could we see an instance of Fact or Crap on consoles or PC in the future? Perhaps, but I would have to lean toward the negative. Trivial Pursuit, Scene It, and numerous other types of this game have been ported to the console/PC. I just don't think that Fact or Crap would make it in the digital sense. Video games must have some sort of attractiveness and re-playability to them, and Fact or Crap simply does not.
--One Final Thought on Fact or Crap--
After playing two sessions of this game, I had more than enough of my fill. I will say that this game is fun to play once with friends, but after that you will want your money back. I know I did. Fact or Crap suffered in its simplicity. More features or more interactivity with other players would have made this game much more fun. Overall, Fact or Crap is a one time game that will keep you entertained for a short period of time. In other words, Fact: after one round of play, this game is Crap.
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