Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=199https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1360As I was playing through several of the levels on Super Mario 64 I found myself getting bored with them fairly quickly. There were some bouts of fun game play, but they are interspersed with long periods of walking, running, and swimming. I realized that this was why many videos of players online show the player jumping frantically around the screen, in addition of it being faster to moving around, they are trying to add some excitement to the game as they move between different dull parts of the game. I was trying to figure out a reason what causes these periods of unexciting game play in games and I came up with the idea of “Null Space.” In my view, Null Space occurs when the player is not being challenged, at any level, by the game or is doing a task repeatedly unsuccessfully. Examples of Null Space would be having Mario cross a large open field, such as in the first level, without encountering any kind of obstacle, scenery change, or variation in movement. An example of the first part of my definition is when Mario is simply walking from one place to another without encountering anything or doing anything. From the players prospective, the avatar in the game has stopped progressing through the game and the game no longer is fun. The second part of the definition stipulates that games such as Shadow of the Colossus, where the player rides for long distances over open plains, are not considered, by my definition, to have Null Space. The reason for this is because the player uses their sword to catch the suns rays to point them towards the Colossi. The player is actually doing something to progress the game forward. In addition, the backgrounds and foregrounds are lush in detail, rocks, cliffs, bushes, and animals populate the open space and provide plenty of changing and interactive things to do, creating a fun environment. Mario fail to provide fun in several places on the game because of Null Space. If the player is unfamiliar with the game, they may start out with a high energy start, as the animations in the game are quite good, but this will quickly dissipate as it is unclear what the player is to do much of the time. They is a lot of run up and down hills looking for tiny red coins and walking to the beginning of a level and encountering absolutely no enemies. If the developers had tightened up the game play a bit more, I think I could have had a lot more fun with this game than I did.Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:36:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1360&iddiary=2895https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1360I vaguely remember playing this game back in the late nineties when it first came out. However, I never really got into the game and do not remember getting very far in the game. After coming back and playing Super Mario 64 again close to 10 years later, I can see why I did not get very far. The game itself is a great set forward from the 2D platformers that came before it, but the controls are just awful, and this contributes to the game not being much fun for me. Firstly, the Analog Nub of the N64 controller has possibly the worst control of any controller I have ever played with. It stands tall and proud from the awkwardly placed middle handle of the N64 controller. This has several consequences for the player experience. In order to play Mario 64 the player must hold the controller by the side and at an angle. I found this uncomfortable to say the least. The analog nub also has little to no control as to how far it it pushed forward. This leads to many delicately timed jumps turning into Mario running full speed off of a cliff. Secondly, if the actual controller was not bad enough, Mario seems to have become much more slippery since last we left him. For example in the first level, the player must jump onto a wood pole and butt-smash it into the ground. Simple, I will just run up to the pole and jump then stop moving forward, just like in every other platformer I have played. Mario arrives at the pole, I stop, and he begins to slip away from where I want him. Meanwhile, goombas are attacking and I am running around in circles trying to get on a wooden pole. This happens to me a lot in the game I find it very frustrating. The final nail in the control coffin is the camera. I realize that this is one of the first games to actually have a camera, but the camera controls are so bad that it affects gameplay. I have found myself falling off ledges because the camera turns unexpectedly, and Mario veers off in a different direction because of the change in his orientation to the world. The developers have tried to alleviate this problem by giving the player control of the camera via the C Buttons. However, the player can only rotate the camera 270 degrees and then they must rotate it back. All together, these three elements of Super Mario 64 make even the simplest moves, such as jumping from moving platforms, intensely difficult. This leads me to say that I could see good players having a fun time with the game, because they are used to the controls, but beginners just picking up the game having a not so fun time.Thu, 22 Feb 2007 20:37:09 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1360&iddiary=2892https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1199I really enjoy the music in this game. It may sound similar to a lot of the other music in games at the time, but to me it seems more polished than the others. The main theme is catchy and energetic making it perfect for a shmup, and every boss has their own battle music that is suited to their fighting style. It really brings the player into the mood of the game. There is not much of a story, but it is quite clear that it is the classic aliens vs. humans save the world plot. The variety of enemies and enemy weapons also make Eliminate Down unique. For example, a weapon that I had never seen before was a cannon firing 1 pixel width homing lasers. Much like the game Snake, which came out in the early seventies, if the player touches any part of the laser they explode. This might sound simple to get around, but in the third stage there are literally five or six cannons shooting at the player, boxing your ship in. I still have not been able to get past this part of the game because of the homing lasers, along with the insane number of enemy ships that are swarming the screen. Another interesting aspect of the game that I forgot to mention last time is the weapons system. The player chooses between a front firing gun, a rear firing laser, or top/bottom firing missiles. This decision, especially in the middle of battle, creates conflict in the player. Knowing which weapon to use in which situation, takes a lot of practice, and memorization of bullet patterns and ship patterns. It took me a little over a half hour to get a full handle on the weapons system. Many enemies come from the left part of the screen and fighting them off along with the ones coming from the right, all while dodging asteroids can be a real task sometimes.Fri, 09 Feb 2007 12:20:48 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1199&iddiary=2627https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1199While the title might suggest that this is a poorly executed remake of Space Invaders, this game is a shining example of an innovative and polished shmup. Eliminate Down takes all of the good aspects of previous shmups such as Gradius, R-Type, and similar titles and does them all one better. Many of the levels are quite reminiscent of the Gradius series, for example, the enemies attacking pattern is almost identical to that of the beginning of Gradius. This occurs in many shmups, probably because it is one of the easiest ways to introduce the games mechanics and controls quickly to the player. In the second stage your craft must navigate through an asteroid belt as enemies attack from all sides. This was the second or third stage of Gradius II but I felt that Eliminate Down executed it much better. One of reasons for this brings me to my next point. The graphics in this game are gorgeous. Eliminate Down takes the idea of the three-dimensional sprites found in the R-Type series and combines it with beautifully parallax scrolling backgrounds. The first taste of these backgrounds comes in the transition from the first part of level one to the second. Your ship begins in the middle of a battle above a planet. There are many ally cruisers shooting enemy fighters and also being shot at and shot down. The background has, at least, 5 different scrolling backgrounds which make it look amazing. Your ship then transitions and starts gliding down through the atmosphere as missiles come from the planets surface. The effect is so convincing at times that you are almost lead to believe that it is actual three-dimensional. The aspect of the game that I feel was most successful is the power-up system. One of the great frustrations of the Gradius series is that once you die once, you lose all of your power-ups, all of them, all the options, missiles, and speed that you spent collecting from the beginning of the game. Gone. The creators of Eliminate Down have fixed this problem by linking power-ups to health and lives. As the player gains a power-up, it takes five [P] tokens, they essentially have that many more lives. When the ship is destroyed, the player only loses a power-up level and not a life, unless they do not have any power-ups to begin with. I feel that this makes the game a lot more enjoyable because it keeps it very difficult without making it don't die or you are totally screwed difficult. It also makes passing bosses after you die once easier and keeps the pace of the game quite fast. In Gradius, it might take a good 1-2 minutes to beat the boss with your dinky little blaster if you were hit by one of the bosses attacks.Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:36:00 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1199&iddiary=2550https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=889It took until the Sun and Moon boss at the end of the fourth world to get to something challenging in this game. It took probably a good 5 minutes to figure out exactly how to defeat this boss. Normally the player simply waits until the boss throws a projectile at Kirby, and suck it up and spit it back at him. This time there are two enemies, the sun and the moon. One is always in the sky and the other is always on the ground charging at you. Ever so often the one in the sky will shoot projectiles, but these are difficult to catch because of the enemy on the ground. Eventually, I got the hang of it and beat them handily. A wonderful aspect of the game is the sprites and background art. HAL Laboratories, the creators of Air Fortress and Super Smash Bros. are quite good at using what is available to make the best of things. Although, it looks eerily like Super Mario Bros. in some places, the castle for instance, and most of the first world, they have done an amazing job at creating clean and interactive levels with the limited palette of the NES they are working with. One of my favorite levels is the air ship level, again looks a lot like Super Mario Bros. which consists of blimps and platforms with propellers on them. The propellers make Kirby's floating ability, and in fact jump at all, difficult to use, thank you, and therefore forces the player to carefully time their jumps as to not be blown off the blimps. The propeller animation is also just cool to watch. The good production value of this game is also evident in the tower level which uses an almost hypnotic parallax effect for the tower. As Kirby moves across the screen he seems to move around the tower, which looks really cool for the NES. Kirby may be only a few pixels across, 16 x 16, which is quite small even for an NES character, but there is a lot of feeling and motion expressed in those few pixels. Finally, an all important aspect: the music. Kirby's Adventure has some great music. Similar, again, to Super Mario Bros. the music is fast paced and catchy. Very catchy. I find myself humming the tunes now and again while not playing the game. This adds to game play by making it exciting to play the game. The fast music encourages the quick completion of the level. Somehow, just carefully walking through the level destroying each enemy is not much fun to do. Speed is what it is all about.Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:33:21 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=889&iddiary=1969https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=889The intro clip of this game really sets the mood for how fun it is to play. “First you draw a great big circle. Then you dot the eyes. Add a great big smile. And presto, its Kirby!” This is the jingle the appears on screen before the slash screen. At first play the game seems far to simple, and much like Super Mario Bros. The fact that Kirby can float indefinitely definitely makes the game too easy for the first few dozen levels. I found myself beating almost the first world entirely by floating over everything. Not a single enemy could touch me. I think it would have been better to have perhaps a limited amount of floating around would have made the game a little more difficult. Despite this, the game is still a lot of fun. First of all the level selection takes place in rooms where the unexplored areas are covered. Once the player has beaten a level, Kirby plants a flag and more of the levels are revealed. The mystery of what portions of the map will be revealed next creates as sense of accomplishment because the players actions have created real change in the world not just opened up the door to another level. In addition to levels, there are also fun mini games such as catching eggs, fighting mini bosses, claw machines, and other interesting things. They may sound a little lame, but they show that the game doesn't take itself too seriously, something that I think makes the relationship between the game world and the player stronger and more palpable. In some respects, the game designers are communicating with the player in usually a fun and humorous way. It adds a human element to a mechanized computer system such as the Nintendo Entertainment System Another fun feature that differentiates Kirby's Adventure from the hundreds of other NES platformers out there, it the powers system. Kirby gobbles up his enemies and, by pressing down, takes their powers. The power system partially makes up for the game so easy. Now the player has a choice about how they are going to go about destroying enemies. Also, some aspects of puzzle games are added and provide additional challenges. For example, there may be an extra life or health behind a series of boxes and only the laser power or bomb power can destroy the boxes. Kirby must find the correct enemy and keep the power, by not receiving damage, and backtrack through the level.Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:32:55 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=889&iddiary=1968https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=730On my second hour of playing, I am starting to get a real grip on the mechanics of the game. I could almost consistently pass the volcano and almost could beat the boss. I adjusted my formula of power-ups a bit, one [?], missile, double, laser, and a speed or two if I could afford it. After another try or two I beat him and its off to the second level. The second level begins almost the same as in the first, empty space followed by the first line of crafts. However this time one of the craft shoots at your ship as it is destroyed. This is the games way of introducing a new enemy, or in this case, a variation of an enemy to the player in a controlled environment. An situation where the enemy is easily defeated. Soon afterwards this momentary lull in action turns into an intensely difficult level, introducing additional environment scaffolding to avoid while also avoiding bullets. The music for Gradius is also another aspect that makes the game so enjoyable. Instead of the customary beep boop music so often found on the NES the music is quite complex for the NES. There are many layers to it and it never really gets old. It must have taken a lot of work to get the music this good. I did however realize a little glitch, it seems that in the first 3-5 seconds as the background music is going there are no sound effects. This is probably one of the limitation of the NES. The sound effects are also well done and do not really distract from the game play at all. The balance between the two is also very well tuned. Neither the music nor the varies lasers and explosions outweigh the others creating a very tight sounding game.Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:00:08 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=730&iddiary=1636https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=730I have played a lot of side scrolling shooters, but had never played Gradius before so I was excited to finally play it. I started off by simply shooting any ships that were in my path. The ship controlled a little slow and I was worried about how this might detract from game play, however I soon realized that this could be fixed by obtaining power-ups from the enemies which could be immediately spent on speed, or could be collected to gain more powerful weapons Missile, Double, Laser, Option, and [?]. However, I couldn't really get very high up the power-ups list because I really couldn't find many power-ups. After a few runs through, I realized that power-ups are not simply dropped by any enemies, and are the dropped randomly. The player is rewarded for destroying chains of enemies and harder enemies, marked with red paint instead of blue. This aspect of the game lends itself well to replayablity. Not only does the player want to beat the level, but they probably also want to beat it with missiles and lasers. That way, beating the boss at the end of the level is much easier, and in respects, more enjoyable because it is not much fun to shoot at something with a dinky blaster for half an hour. While trying to beat the first level boss I was constantly adjusting which power-ups I bought with my tokens, and which amount of speed and firepower was enough to beat the boss. Missing even a single red enemy or a group of enemies could mean that I would not be able to get the [?] which is in fact a shield. The shield is a necessity for beating the first level because of the two invincible volcanoes that come before the boss. Each of the volcanoes projectiles is almost guaranteed to hit your ship and without the shield you die and start a the middle of the level again.Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:41:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=730&iddiary=1632https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=728I recently obtained a good emulator for the NES, RockNESX, and was browsing the list of games. Most of them were terrible and I was rather disappointed at the lack of any good titles. However, I finally stumbled upon Air Fortress, a title developed in 1987 by HAL Laboratories Inc. in Japan and localized by HAL America Inc. for it's 1989 release. HAL Laboratories is probably most famous for their development of the Super Smash Bros series of games for Nintendo. This is a gem of a game not only because of its controls are much tighter than one would expect from other NES titles but also the original take the game has on the played out side scrolling shooter. Air Fortress takes the idea of a side scrolling shooter and combines it with some aspects of an adventure game. As you enter the fortress, you must first fly to the docking bay of the fortress. This section plays out exactly as you would expect. Hal Bailman is on his flying speed bike and can only shoot forward as a selection of enemies attack him. As he makes his way to the docking bay, he collects Energy tokens and Bomb tokens. Collecting as many of these as possible determines how difficult the next section will be. Once inside the fortress, Hal Bailman exits his speed cycle and the player may now navigate through series of room via his jet pack. Now the player may shoot either left and right and the enemies each have a unique way to beat them. This allow the game the incorporate some limited puzzles in the game. The energy also serves as a timer, as Hal Bailman looses energy as he is exposed to an unsealed room. Therefore there is also an added speed element to the game as you will loose health the longer you are in any one room. Ones energy, minus the damage taken by enemies is restored when transitioning from room to room. This combination of shooter adventure and puzzle game is what makes this game so much fun. I think it is the link between the first stage, the “charge stage” and the “battle stage.” With these two stages there is always room for improvement because there are some difficult Energy tokens to get and the more health one reserves for the battle stage the easier it is.Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:39:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=728&iddiary=1629https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=503I continue to find this game very difficult. I still have only beaten the first stage twice and have only gotten to the boss on the second stage once in the two hours that I have been play the game. However, during my last session of game play I payed closer attention to what I believe has made games such as Lumines such popular titles: Design. The visuals in this game are absolutely gorgeous and original. Not only does each stage have its own music, which is a beautiful thing in of itself, but the background and enemy ships have their own unique style in each stage. As the enemies change, so do the mechanics of how to beat the stage. For instance in the first stage is called 'Saturday Night Drive' has many influences of the night life such as neon lights and flashing signs. The enemy ships are glowing triangles and the boss is a series of street lights. The music is also reminiscent of the night. With interesting synth lines and a bouncy and flowing rhythm. The second stage changes dramatically. Named 'Sakura Dreams', this stage has fluttering butterfly like enemies and a flowery, presumably cherry blossoms, background. A cartoon effect, similar to Loco Roco is another aspect of this stage. In this stage, the enemies come in different patterns and are noticeably closer to each other. This changes the range that the bomb and effect and the chains are not as large forcing the player to change their own strategy for beating the game. The boss on this stage are a pair of flowers, which have a different style of attacking than the previous boss. Tri-Mirai used only shooting attacks while the second stage boss uses sweeping attacks. The more I play this game the more drive I have to beat it. It is truly a great game and is a must have for any fan of puzzle and music games.Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:24:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=503&iddiary=1215