Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1064https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3979GAMEPLAY After getting a lot further in the game, I had control over dozens of cities. This slowed down each turn considerably. During each turn you receive messages from each city, for example, if the city is in civil disorder, or if the city completed what it was working on. If you have 20-30 cities then this part of the turn can take a while. You get the same affect with a dozen or more automated workers. DESIGN One cool element in the game is your group of advisors. You get an adivsor for the different main sections of your government; they help with finances, diplomatic relations, science, culture, and other things. The diplomatic advisor deals with all foreign relations. From there you can view which county is war with who, as well as who has certain pacts with other countries. The advisor also lets you communicate with the other nations to declare war, set up trade agreements, set up mutual protection pacts, and open borders. Another important advisor is the science/technology advisor. From that screen you can view what you want to research, how many turns it will take, and what each technology allows you to do. You can also automate the process in order to research everything up to a certain tech. The board of advisors, in addition to everything else in the game, allows you to control almost every aspect of your civilization. This provides for an extremely interactive game.Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:24:19 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3979&iddiary=7449https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3979SUMMARY The goal in Civilization is to create a civilization from scratch that is better than all of the opposing nations. A victory can be granted based on several different conditions: complete the space race, eliminate all other nations, control a certain percentage of the population or land, or by gaining a large amount of culture (culture determines the influence a particular city has on its surroundings). It is a turn-based strategy game and each turn you decide what to research, what to build, and what your workers and combat units do. GAMEPLAY Civilization isn't like an ordinary game. There is no plot or story, no main characters, and no quests or missions. Basically, you are just trying to build an empire that is better than all of the others. The feedback structure of the game is fairly good. You are sometimes awarded gold for taking over enemy cities. Researching new technology unlocks new abilities , buildings, and units. If you lose a city, then you lose the resources that city brought in, as well as any effects caused by Wonders (special buildings) in that city. Another important form of feedback is your people's happiness. Happier citizens will produce more and it will prevent civil disorder.Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:03:38 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3979&iddiary=7436https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3967GAMEPLAY During the second session I obtained my first couple of items, including a sword and shield. Before I had these items I was just running and jumping around and it got boring quickly. Anyway, this added several different ways to defeat enemies at the Great Deku Tree. I could either slash them or use my shield to reflect the bullets back at them. DESIGN The game's timeline is advanced by completing quests, and the quests so far also contain sub-quests: before you can complete the first objective, you must obtain a sword and shield. Each quests also contains different elements. While navigating inside of the Great Deku tree you have to defeat the enemies there as well as complete puzzles. The first puzzles invoved sliding blocks around to get to new areas. Overall, the quest structure is good and the different elements keep your attention longer. There were two really frustrating aspects to this game: the seemingly-endless dialog, and the camera angle. In the beginning you have to go through countless lines of dialog. It's not that bad but you can't control the speed or skip any of it. Everytime you find a new area there are several people you have to talk to and it gets pretty boring not being able to speed through the dialog. The automatic camera angle is also kind of bad. If you just let the game decide where the camera faces, then when you change directions you have to wait for the camera to change so you can see where you are going. The movement controls are also relative to the camera direction, so when the camera moves it changes which directions the analog stick moves you. This hurts even more during battle, but the Z targeting system does help.Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:39:54 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3967&iddiary=7414https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3967SUMMARY The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is an action-adventure game. You control a character named Link who has just received a fairy named Navi. The first quest is to collect a sword and shield so you can see the Great Deku Tree. The goals in the game are to defeat enemies, collect items and money, and beat quests. GAMEPLAY The game starts out really slow. I've never played this game before so I just wanted to get into the action. Instead, I was treated with a lot of slow moving text that could not be skipped. The controls are ok but it is annoying not being able to control the camera freely. Other than that, the movement is really simple and easy to pick up. The story seems pretty immersive and the characters are well developed. After playing for a little while, I know that my character has only just now gotten a fairy, whereas most other people already have one. My character is also given a chance to see The Greate Deku Tree which the other characters say is very rare.Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:59:41 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3967&iddiary=7412https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3941GAMEPLAY During the second session I was able to learn a couple more moves to use against the enemy. These new elements couple with what I already knew changed the gameplay a little and made it more interesting. Apart from that I didn't notice any other gameplay elements. DESIGN After playing for a few hours the game seemed very repetitive. There are some other features designed to keep interest (changing the weather and other match settings), but each match was essentially the same; the only thing that changed was my skill level and the difficulty of the opponents I played. The game does have a good reward system in place though. While not playing a match you can view your team's standings, and winning a game is needed to advance. There is also separate award system in the match. If you tackle an oppoenent from behind you could get ejected and have to play with less people. During one match my goalie tackled an opponent and was promptly kicked from the game which forced me to replace him with a less skilled goalie. In addition to that, making good passes and scoring goals helps you win and advance to the next game. There were short cutscenes throughout each match. These involved short celebrations or outbursts of anger, and they would occur before penalty kicks or after goals were scored. They helped build each team member's background and character, but they don't really affect much and I usually skipped all of them.Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:33:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3941&iddiary=7373https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3941SUMMARY In the season mode in FIFA, you start by picking a Country, League, and team to play as. You then play through the season against other competing teams. During the actual game, you control one player on the team at a time; you can manually switch between team members, or you can let the game engine switch control to the player nearest to the ball. The objectives are the same as in association football. GAMEPLAY The actual gameplay was decent for a top-down sports game; however, EA has been involved in the FIFA series for over 10 years, so I expected it to be better. In the season that I started, I got to pick one of my favorite teams, West Ham, which was nice. I haven't played a FIFA game since 2004, so I was pretty rusty at the controls, but even after practicing it was difficult to do a lot of things in the game. There is a system built in that changes who you control based on where the action is happening on the field. The system is pretty good, but there were times when it was a complete mess. If several players were crowded around the ball, then the control would keep switching to the next player in quick succession. Furthermore, sometimes I would be sprinting in one direction to keep up with my opponent, and it would switch the control to another player effectivly causing me to run in the wrong direction. Passing the ball to different team mates was relatively simple and quite fun. After a little practice it became easy to accurately pass the ball to the player of your choosing. In addition to that you can also make long passes through the middle, a cross. This aspect, although difficult to do accurately, made the game better. Shooting goals, on the other hand, was terrible. There isn't a good aiming system, and the only thing you can control is when to take the shot and how much power to use. Hopefully after more practice the game will be more fun.Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:03:57 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3941&iddiary=7367https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3861GAMEPLAY During this session I went back and played the first castle for the first time. The gameplay in the final castles differs slightly from the rest of the levels because you are on a ship that moves in two dimensions, and there are stationary cannons that shoot at you. After advancing past the first world I invoked the two flutes that I had collected and made it to the final world. The levels in this world are much harder, and there are different enemies added: bombs that follow you and timed jets that you have to dodge. DESIGN The levels in this game vary quite a bit, and each variations have different enemies or obstacles that you have to face. The first world consists mainly of just generic obstacles and enemies. This changes when you come up against the final level where you are fighting on a floating ship. The theme of the second world is the desert. This world introduses a sun that follows you as well as quick sand that you sink into. In other levels you are required to swim most of the time, and the final world includes a string of tanks that you have to navigate through. The cutscenes are quite lacking in this game. The only time you are informed of the story line is upon the completion of a world. Once you beat a world you are presented with a paragraph of dialog that notifies you of your success and tells you what happens next. The dialog can be skipped and I was perfectly content with not knowing what was happening. The game was still fun even though the story was weak enough where it didn't matter if you knew what was happening or not.Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:05:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3861&iddiary=7230https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3861SUMMARY In Super Mario Bros. 3, you play a character named Mario who is trying to end the chaos caused by Bowser in all of the different worlds. It's a plat-former, and you have to navigate through each level collecting power-ups and points to win the game. In each world there are Fortresses (Bosses) and castles that you have to defeat to get to the next world. GAMEPLAY This game can be very frustrating, but hard to put down. I almost completely quit after being stuck on one level for about 30 minutes, but finally got past it and I ended up advancing much farther. While the gameplay is pretty repetitive, the power-ups do help to mix stuff up and make it interesting again. For example, getting the "feather" power-up can completely change how you play a certain level. Aside from the power-ups, the way the worlds were built also adds to the game. The levels in some worlds will have you swimming the entire time, in other levels you are placed in a bottomless area while you jump from platform to platform, and in another world everything is four times its natural size. These different worlds significantly change the gameplay. Throughout the game there are secret rooms, special items, and bonus areas. In one of the first levels if you hit a block right you are shot into the air and land in a bonus stage. Also, in the first world there are two secret areas that contain a flute. Using the flutes, I was able to get to the seventh world in no time. The existance of these special areas keeps you playing over and over again in an attempt to uncover more of the game.Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:12:46 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3861&iddiary=7226https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3832GAMEPLAY During this session I only played the single-player campaign portion of the game. As soon as the game starts the player is already up against countless enemies. Throughout the levels you can find and use different types of weapons which include sniper rifles, machine guns, pistols and rocket launchers; although, during the first few levels you only come across one or two different weapons which can get boring. On the other hand, the campaign remains interesting because every couple of levels you are switched to a different character in a different front of the war. In the beginning you only fight the Japanese, and you are constantly in battle with dozens of enemies. These missions are focussed on sheer manpower to kill all of the threats. Once you get used to taking part in that style of combat, you are switched to a Russian sniper fighting against Germans. During these missions, the goal is to stay hidden and only shoot when the risk is low. This constant change of gameplay can keep you engaged for hours. DESIGN This game only has a couple innovative features due to the many first person shooters already out there. One particularly cool aspect of the game is the cinematics. In most games the gameplay stops during the cutscenes and you cannot do anything. In this game you can still control the character during the cinematics, although your movement is sometimes restricted. Another feature in the game is two-part story mode. In the average game you take control of one character during the length of the story mode. In World at War, you switch between two characters fighting in very different levels. Other than those two aspects, this game is basically just like most other World War II shooters. The main thing that makes the game bad are the endless enemy spawns, also known as clownrooms. Each time you enter a new area you are up against an unlimited supply of enemies, and after you eleminate one wave of enemies the second wave performs the exact same moves as the first wave. For example, you shoot one enemy and another will appear and do the exact same things that that enemy just did. This cycle only ends when you move forward or die. By placing these clownrooms everywhere certain strategies are eleminated. Holding back while you stealthily snipe all of the enemies will never work as you will easily run out of ammo. This becomes even more of a problem on the harder difficulties because the unlimited enemies also throw unlimited grenades which gets frustrating very fast. If I could change something about this game it would be the unlimited enemies. Designing the game this way just seems like an easy way of increasing the difficulty; the design team should have taken more time to improve the enemies intelligence instead. Having smarter enemies rather than more enemies would greatly improve the campaign mode. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:17:45.)Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:17:09 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3832&iddiary=7194https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3832SUMMARY Call of Duty: World at war is a first person shooter that takes place during World War II. There are three different modes in the game: campaign, multi-player, and a mode called Nazi Zombies. The goal of the campaign mode is to win the war in both the Eastern and Pacific theaters against the Germans and Japanese. The multi-player mode occurs over Xbox Live, and you are pitted against other people playing the game online; the objective is it defeat your opponent. In the third mode, Nazi Zombies, you and up to three others face an endless number of "Nazi Zombies" which are former Nazi soldiers who arose from the dead. GAMEPLAY The mode I focussed during playing was the multi-player part over Xbox Live. Similar to most games in this genre, the experience is quite suspenseful. While playing if you get several kills without dying you are awarded the ability to perform special tasks that give you an advantage. Knowing this this can be a lot of tension right as you are about to achieve a new ability. These special abilities add another layer to game which can provide a less monotonous experience. There were some drawbacks, however. In the multi-player mode, winning is not required to level-up in the game; killing other enemies is the main method of moving forward. This eliminates the need for teamwork and strategy. While there is little need for teamwork, there is still a large social element to the game as you are playing against friends and possible trying to kill them. So far the multi-player mode is not very interesting; the graphics are impressive, but World War II first person shooters have been done many times in the past, and this game does not really add anything major to the genre.Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:12:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3832&iddiary=7179