Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=246https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1491My second session of gameplay had a bit more action in it; I continued onward as Vaan, a street-urchin boy with surprisingly well-kept hair for all that he's a ragamuffin. Most of the action was pretty basic, running around town to various places for small side-quests and suchlike. I got a bit frustrated with the running-about-town business, mostly because I'm terrible at reading maps and had to consult the large one every two seconds and crane my neck every which way in order to divine whether or not I was heading in the correct direction. This is a personal fault, though, and I will not take issue with the game for my own shortcomings. In any case, I figured out the basic running-around idea well enough and found myself at the Sandsea, where I needed to talk to a fellow named Tomaj in order to be sent on a little side-quest to kill, of all things, a "Rogue Tomato." It's nice to know the developers have a sense of humor. When Tomaj went tutorial-mode on me and delved into the idea of licenses, I'll admit that I was rather confused by the whole idea and decided not to give it much thought until it became absolutely necessary; while I do find involved bits of character advancement via experience points and suchlike interesting, I do not always find them easy to grasp, and this was getting a little more complex than I was really prepared for. In all likelihood it's a lot simpler than it seemed to me at the time, but nonetheless the whole shpiel was a bit off-putting. I decided to put all that confusion aside and run down my Tomato, and did so without too many problems. After fighting some wolves and running around the Estersand a bit, I found him and dispatched him easily enough; I'll grant that he's a much easier first boss than, say, Gohma from Ocarina of Time. I have to go off-track for a moment to say that I love the inclusion of dinosaurs in this game to bits--after kicking the Tomato's weird little butt, I wanted immediately to hare off and pick a fight with the T-Rex nearby, but my friend assured me that this would be a colossally bad idea, so I restrained myself. Dinosaurs earn this game an automatic +1 in everything because I'm biased like that. I ended with a visit to Lowtown to see Dalan about a dog--I mean, about a side-quest. I had a little more trouble with the map and navigating myself around the streets of Lowtown, but again, I think that's more a fault of my own than any problem of the game. I was running low on time in which to play, though, and my friend told me that the Giza Plains side-quest was rather long and involved, so I figured that I'd pick it up again later when I had more time. All in all, I was less impressed with the game as a whole (other than the damn fine graphics) than with a good handful of other games that I've played, but I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it's probably quite a good game if one takes the time to log the necessary hours and really become involved in the gameplay and storyline. An hour-and-a-half session just doesn't cut it in a game that takes straight days to complete, and I get the feeling that I've only just scratched the surface of what's to come.Sat, 24 Feb 2007 05:19:14 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1491&iddiary=3136https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1491At a loss for the next classic game that I should play, I turned to a friend who happens to be more well-versed in the general world of games than I, and since it was on hand she offered to let me play her copy of Final Fantasy XII. I'll admit that I approached the game with some reservation, never having played a game from the Final Fantasy series before and a little uncertain of what I might be getting myself into. I found, though, that although much of my sessions of gameplay ended up being basic tutorial mode and learning how to work the controls (after all, I got an hour and a half into a game on which my friend has logged a cool 86 hours so far), it was surprisingly easy to pick up and figure out without previous experience with any other FF game (or many PlayStation games, for that matter). First off, the graphics are flat-out spectacular. The cutscenes have a beautiful cinematic quality to them, and the landscape and architecture are exquisite--I did find the characters' faces and expressions to be toeing the uncanny valley line slightly, but all in all everything is just beautiful. (As a side-note, the buildings in particular [as well as some of the world's inhabitants, especially the Bangaa] remind me distinctly of the Star Wars prequel movies, although this may simply be because I'm a bit more well-versed with the Star Wars universe than with that of FF.) I still love the rather goofy, blocky graphics of the older games of my N64 and Dreamcast, but I've got to give it to Square Enix; FFXII blows my mind, graphics-wise. Hoo doggy. I did find the unfolding of the story via the opening cinematics and various cutscenes to be a bit long, but it does appear to be quite a complex story that deserves proper attention; I guess I'm just more used to playing games that either require little cursory explanation or tell the story more through the gameplay than through elaborate cutscenes. Of course, I'll admit that since I've only played the bare beginning the game probably gets more involved after the beginning fleshing-out of the various events leading up to one's gameplay, but this seems like the sort of thing that a player of previous FF games would be more willing to sit through than someone new to the series. Most of what actual gameplay I got to participate in for the first chunk of gameplay was in basic tutorial mode, learning how the world works and how to run and fight and use potions--the solid platform upon which the rest of the gameplay will be set. Most of this was pretty easy to grasp, although I found the battle system (which seemed to be an odd mix of realtime and turn-based fighting) a little offputting when compared to previous recent gameplay experiences (as with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which is completely realtime, or with PokeMon Blue, which is completely turn-based). I have a friend who refuses to play any of the FF games simply because of the general turn-based lean of the battle system, and I'll admit that while turn-based fighting works well with games like PokeMon, it was a bit frustrating to be forced to stand there and take damage from opponents while not being able to fight or defend myself from harm. (I also still find the PS2 controllers with their dual joysticks a bit bewildering; give me an N64 controller with one joystick and a good ol' Z-trigger any day. That's just personal bias talking, though.) I wasn't too taken with the story itself at the beginning; unlike OoT or other games I have played, I wasn't immediately interested in the goings-on of the world and the plethora of characters didn't really evoke a great deal of emotion on my part. When somebody got hurt or killed in the cutscenes (or, in the case of Lady Ashe, committed suicide), I didn't really feel involved in their demise or sad that they were gone. This may change as I play the game a bit more, but for a first experience I simply didn't find it as engaging as other games.Sat, 24 Feb 2007 04:58:24 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1491&iddiary=3134https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1294One thing that stood out to me on this session of playing Black & White was the fighting--when the player's Creature encounters the much larger Creature roaming the hills, former Creature to the god Nemesis, the player has to learn how to battle with the Creature. I found the controls for this aspect of the game a little frustrating, because I would do as instructed and the game wouldn't respond as I wanted it to. The battle lasted longer than it should have due to these problems, and I got rather irritated. Other than this little frustration, though, I found the game largely enjoyable once again. There's a lot of work to be done with the village and the player must be careful to balance their attention between the villagers' demands and the need to properly watch over and train the Creature. This challenge makes the gameplay very involved and interesting, and gets me more into it than I otherwise would be. I couldn't believe how proud I was of my Creature when it learned how to cast Food miracles on its own and would fill the granary of its own accord, without the slightest push from me. I know I mentioned it before, but the AI really is quite neat. It makes for a unique gameplay experience for each player and keeps things fresh for a multiple-time player. Oh, another qualm as a player; I had some trouble getting my Creature to learn certain things, like how to use certain miracles. I'm not sure if that was because the Creature simply wasn't meant to be able to learn them at that point or what, but from a design perspective leaving these things uncertain is sort of wearing on the player. It's not that the player needs EVERYTHING spelled out for them (and certainly plenty enough IS spelled out with the signs scattered about the island), but there are certain things that one likes to know, and my impression from the signs was that my creature should have been able to learn those miracles and simply wasn't--despite the fact that I'd done as instructed and by all rights it should have learned. In any case, it was slightly confusing but not detracting enough from the gameplay to turn me off from playing. I'll admit right now that relative to everything I didn't get very far in the game at all--I didn't even get to the second island through Nemesis' vortex. I acquired this game secondhand without the booklet, so I really didn't know what to expect in terms of game length; it was only when I looked it up on Wikipedia that I realized that it was far longer than I would've guessed. The player gets really involved in raising the Creature and taking care of the village, and I had figured that that was the be-all end-all to the game. The idea that it's much longer than what I'd seen is quite a treat to think about, and I'm looking forward to playing through the entire thing when I have the time, no matter how long it may take.Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:36:02 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1294&iddiary=2782https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1294I've played Black & White a few times before--or, rather, I suppose I should say I've STARTED playing Black & White a few times before. I never got very far into the game during my previous attempts to play it; this does not, however, reflect poorly upon the game, but rather upon my attention span. Black & White is a very diverting game, and if I weren't so lazy I would definitely play it more often than I tend to. In any case, I have a tendency to rediscover the disc in my room every few months, remember how much fun I had with the first hour or so of play the last time, and then start over so I don't have to catch up on what I'd been doing when I left off. Anyway, as somebody who's played the beginning of the game a few times over, I can safely say that the first half hour does get old after awhile. Admittedly, this game is probably one that you'd probably only play once or twice and then be done, but from a player's perspective it would be nice if the "tutorial" style angel and devil (representing your good and evil sides as a god) could be turned off and on as required. I'll probably need them again later when I'm out of the area that I've played over a few times, and it's true that for a first-time player the banter between Good and Evil helps one understand the controls, but being able to skip through the dialogue if one knows what one is supposed to do is a good thing sometimes. The game was made in 2001, and although looking at it now the graphics are a little clunky (especially the designs of the villagers the player is lording over--they have club hands!), it's still a pretty nice-looking game on the whole. (The tiger Creature is a little terrifying-looking, but that might just be my personal opinion.) The whole island is quite interesting to explore, visually, and every object is immediately identifiable for what it's supposed to be--so it's not the best (although I admittedly can't off the top of my head think of any other 2001 PC games that I can compare the graphics to), but I still like how it looks. I went through the whole rigamarole of getting to my Creature (nothing too hard, so it was mostly going through the motions), and this time I chose the Cow for my Creature; I've had trouble in the past with the Tiger eating people from the village and reflecting badly upon me as a god, so I figured that the Cow would be less trouble. I really like that the player gets to choose; it makes the scene more interesting as one has to weigh the relative positive and negative aspects of the potential Creatures. Generally, I've found that players who choose to be evil gods choose the Tiger and players who choose to be good gods choose the Cow (the Ape tends to be ignored because it's aesthetically less pleasing and makes annoying noises), but I think the possibilities of a benevolent Tiger or a violent Cow are really intriguing. I'm also quite impressed with the AI of the Creatures, which I read was developed by Richard Evans. The Creatures tend to be willful and selfish in the beginning, and it's a lot of work to hone them into the player's obedient tool that will do what he or she desires without being told directly. This challenge does get frustrating from time to time, when one's Creature eats a villager instead of saving them from the water, but in the end it comes out to be quite rewarding. I played through the Creature-training parts and discovered that the leash is very useful for tracking one's Creature when it wanders off across the hillside; some of the controls are a little hard with a trackpad (especially the little Silver Scroll challenge of throwing a rock to knock over another rock, which frustrated me no end), but by and large many of the controls work well enough with the keyboard keys as well, so it's not a huge problem.Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:14:04 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1294&iddiary=2772https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1083Okay, so my second session of playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time consisted of working my way through the Great Deku Tree toward its boss, Gohma. I was relieved to find that the Deku Tree enemies (like the Deku Baba) didn't terrify me like they did when I was little; I still had to take a few tries to get used to the realtime fighting (I'm more used to turn-based fighting games), but I didn't freak out and turn the game off, either, so I'd consider that an improvement. (Obviously this game wasn't designed to be played by little kids or wussies, of which I was both those years ago. Ah, me. The fighting and varying levels of scary enemies definitely mark this as a game for slightly older children, if not quite so much as Twilight Princess has shown itself to be. In particular, I recall the ReDead and the Wallmasters, and the Shadow Temple as a whole, to have been particularly eerie when my brother played it through the first time. Something I'm quite looking forward to reaching, the Shadow Temple. Ugh.) Anyway, after some practice the Deku Baba are dispatched with easily enough, as are the Skulltula (especially if you can pick them off with the slingshot right away). These fairly simple enemies are good to practice fighting with in order to get more adept with targeting and attacking and blocking with the shield. Other than the enemies, I liked the puzzle-type aspects of several of the rooms in the Deku Tree, where you have to figure out to step on a raised area of the floor or set something on fire with a Deku Stick or shoot the eye with your slingshot. I vaguely recalled some of this from my brother's gameplay experience and thus probably saved myself some time (since I didn't want to give in and use an online walkthrough as the easy way out). It was very rewarding to look at a situation and figure out on my own what I had to do and then get it done in the right way--the designers had a good idea of what was an appropriate middle ground between complete babying of the player with obvious directions and leaving them completely on their own to figure everything out. This makes the game a challenge but not hair-tearingly difficult. I ran around taking care of the various rooms in the Deku Tree, and after some time finally got to the first boss of the game, Gohma (or, if you prefer, Parasitic Armored Arachnid: Queen Gohma). Even with the advice from the Deku Scrubs about her eye as her weak spot, I apparently wasn't on-the-ball enough and ended up dying for the first time. Friends I've discussed this game with seem to agree that Gohma is relatively difficult to fight for a first boss, but until I turn the game back on and find I have to fight her five or six more times I won't call her unreasonably so. For now I consider it all part of the challenge.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:50:07 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1083&iddiary=2341https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1083When told I had to choose another game from the classics list for the third gamelog assignment, one game came to mind immediately--Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. My brother bought the game for our N64 when it first came out and over the course of several weeks or months (the length of time has since faded from my memory) I had the very enjoyable experience of being able to watch him play from start to finish. In those days, I didn't like playing video games too much myself, and when he encouraged me to give OoT a whirl, I got as far as the Deku Tree, freaked out, and refused to play any further. (I was in middle school, what can I say?) It's been quite a while since then, and although our N64 is currently in the possession of one of his friends back home, I managed to acquire my best friend's (at least temporarily) and eagerly sat down to play. I had strong memories of great graphics, amazing music, and truly epic gameplay (from a spectator's point of view), and I wanted to see whether all that still held true several years later. I can truthfully say that OoT is almost as good as I remember. Admittedly, compared to the new Zelda game (and most other games of today) the graphics are a little clunky and rough, but it looks just as good as the other games I have from the same timeperiod and it isn't anything that detracts from the gameplay. The music has held up quite nicely--OoT has one of the best soundtracks of any game I've ever played, and even my mom, who's never picked up a game controller in her life (except to maybe play a few rounds of virtual golf on the Sega Genesis), quite enjoys the orchestral OST I picked up a few years ago to listen to while studying. I know I always keep coming back to music in these gamelogs, but darnit, music is really important to a good game experience and the designers of each game I've played so far understand that. Really great music can make an otherwise average game (which OoT most definitely is not) really stand out, so it is definitely something that takes careful consideration when one decides to design a game. My first session of playing the game was mostly running around the Kokiri village, becoming familiar with the controls and talking to the villagers to understand what my goals were. (I'll admit that I went into all the houses and smashed everyone's pots in order to get the rupees inside. If only this worked in real life.) The controls aren't anything too difficult, but it's good to get familiarized with the lock-and-target technique and practice with the shield and sword you acquire before heading out to the Deku Tree, which is your first real task. (The game designers force you to arm yourself before you are allowed to leave the village by blocking the pathway with the rather annoying leader of the Kokiri people, which is a good way of making sure you don't get caught unawares and unarmed when you first enter the Deku Tree.) Finding the sword was slightly more difficult for me than I remember it being for my brother, but it's interesting that the designers make you figure it out for yourself rather than just handing the weapon over. It adds a small bit of challenge to the tutorial-style setup of the village and makes things interesting. In any case, I ended my first session by heading off to the Deku Tree as planned, hoping that I wouldn't embarrass myself by getting scared this time, so many years later.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:24:29 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1083&iddiary=2324https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=796The second half of the gameplay proceeded similarly to the first; Katamari Damacy is a very easy game to learn how to play, and much of the challenge is strategizing so as to be able to complete the various levels by building an appropriately-sized katamari within the time limit. Both my classmate and I agreed that, for whatever reason, Star 4 was especially hard in this respect; we both had to try to complete the level several times, and in the end she had to play three times straight through to beat it by a narrow margin. As the levels progress, different challenges are presented in building one's katamari; the constellation-building levels are especially interesting in that they may ask you to collect as many as you can of one particular item (such as crabs or swans or twins) or the biggest and best single thing you can find of a particular item (such as a bear or a cow). These challenges keep the gameplay fresh and allow one to choose a different type of difficulty to try if one is getting frustrated with a particular level. The variety of play, along with the strange entertainment of the cutscenes, was enough to keep us engaged for a full three hours (with small breaks), at any rate. One thing I have to agree with that all my friends who had played previously had told me: the music is absolutely great. Each level has a different but equally catchy song playing in the background that it takes a while to tire of; even the music of Star 4, which we tried to beat at least five times, had yet to start annoying me when my classmate finally beat it. Along with the music, too, the sound effects are really amusing--when one's katamari is built up enough that one can start picking up people, some of their screams are extraordinarily funny. It's these small things, along with the sheer weirdness of being able to pick up leaflets, hardhats, and cakes all along the same street, that culminate in a game with a lot of staying power that doesn't fade and get boring after a few hours of play. More than that, the game makes you start to see everything differently; I was walking to class earlier today when I saw a small cluster of sparrows pecking at the ground, and my first thought was to wish that I had a katamari big enough to roll them all up. All in all, the unique gameplay and the absolute bizarrity of it all make playing Katamari Damacy a very memorable experience, and I look forward to playing it frequently in the future. (You know a game is effective when you want to go out and buy the console it runs on just so you can play the game yourself...)Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:13:44 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=796&iddiary=1782https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=796So a classmate brought over Katamari Damacy with the intent that we could both play since it's on the classics list. I had only heard a little bit about it before that point--everybody I know who'd played it seemed to love it without giving any specific reasons why, and I had been curious about what was so wonderful about it. As we started playing, though, I quickly learned what the reason for all the hype was. As a first-time player, I went through the little tutorial that showed what the controls were and allowed one to test them out. Move forward, stop, roll sideways, jump to change position: all fairly easy to remember and get the hang of (other than the weird charge/dash action that requires one to work the analog joysticks back and forth alternately in a way that I haven't managed to master yet). The idea of the game is simple enough, but the enjoyment is far increased by the sheer bizarrity of everything that goes on. The cutscenes are brightly colored and incredibly surreal (especially the opening one), and while some players may find this alienating, I found it quite entertaining. The weird speeches made by the King of All Cosmos and the strange bits of cutscene plot in between the gameplay are intriguing in their oddness ("Oh! I feel it! I feel the cosmos!" echoes through my head even as I type this) and motivated me and my classmate to play straight through for several hours just to see what would happen as a result of making a new star. We would have played two-player mode to compare it with one-player mode in terms of entertainment (we'd both heard that it was inferior in several ways), but unfortunately with only one controller between us we had to be content with alternating the one-player mode in attempts to make new stars and constellations. In any case, the game is very visually appealing with its bright colors and uniquely stylized graphics, and was almost as fun to watch as to actually play. Both players and watcher get involved in the game very quickly, and as we played we found ourselves cheering the other on or yelling animatedly at the screen when something went wrong (like being attacked by the cat and having the katamari break up). This, I think, is one of the marks of a really good game, when it involves one so completely in the play.Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:57:18 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=796&iddiary=1776https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=489I started playing again today with the intention of figuring out how to rescue those five blind Mudokons I'd been struggling last time, but after twenty minutes of getting ground up and wandering around, I simply couldn't figure it out and decided it was time to move on. Oh, well. At least I didn't outright kill them. I got killed a lot in Mine 5 because of the motion sensors setting off the alarms, so I got in the habit of Quicksaving after every step I took, just in case. Disarming the explosives was pretty easy--it's easier to do it by sound than by sight since every three beats is when it's safe to turn them off anyway. After being shot or blown up a couple of times (I liked this mine because it was challenging enough to be intriguing but not so challenging as to make me want to bash my head against the wall), I finally made it to the mine car and got in and started wreaking havoc. At this point, however, I didn't know how to get out of the car--either through neglecting to read the little info scroll or just because I didn't realize--and ended up killing at least three Mudokons accidentally. Oops. I didn't want this to mar my record, so I eventually figured out how to escape the mine car and got myself shot so I went back to my last Quicksave. This time I got farther without killing any Mudokons before quitting to go to dinner. One thing that really stood out to me this time while I was playing was the importance of sound in the game--I noted in my last log how useful the speaking is within the gameplay, but the little things in the background noise (mine noises and whatnot in this level) really add to the atmosphere of the gameplay. The tense moments in the game when Sligs or Slogs are alerted to your presence are accompanied by appropriate music that really heightens the anxiety of the situation; I found myself really getting too much into the game and having to pause and minimize it for a moment so I could distance myself from it. Abe's Exoddus is, if nothing else, really effective at sucking one into the gameplay and making one "be" Abe. The point I stopped at had me a little stumped, because I couldn't figure out a way to kill the Slig and get out of the mine car without killing the Mudokon present, so I'll have to work that out next time. (That, or try and finally interpret one of those internet walkthroughs for myself.)Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:47:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=489&iddiary=1271https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=489Although I've been quite fond of video games all my life, I've never owned very many myself. The family Dreamcast and N64 are both in my brother's eternal possession, along with most of my game choices, and I rarely remember to buy PC or GameBoy games for myself when out and about, so for this assignment I was left with a grand total of three choices: PokeMon Blue for GameBoy, or Black & White or Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus for PC. Having played the first two over the summer, I opted for Oddworld, which I've owned for some years but have never actually played all the way through, despite it being a very entertaining game. (I have the attention span of a salt shaker, so I guess this isn't too surprising.) Upon restarting Oddworld, I was immediately engaged by the story once again; despite having never played the first Oddworld game (of which this is a continuation), I still found the plot easy enough to follow. The opening cinematic scenes are animated very well for a game that's almost ten years old, and I find them just as appealing as I did back when I first bought it. Okay, so the bad guys, the Glukkons, have enslaved the generally good guys, the Mudokons, and are using them to mine old Mudokon burial grounds so they can make SoulStorm Brew with the exhumed bones. GASP SHOCK HORROR. I get to control Abe, the protagonist, and run around rescuing my enslaved bretheren from the clutches of evil and ultimately saving the day. I've always wanted to be a hero. After all of the cutscene exposition business, I got to start playing. The game's set up so the player gets to learn how to work all the controls and make Abe do what is necessary, like running or sneaking or crouching and doing rolls. None of it's very complicated, just Shift+right arrow key or Spacebar or whatnot--I remembered it all pretty well from previous plays, and if I needed to refresh myself for a moment, I could just pause the game and consult the little booklet again. I also got to learn how to make Abe speak. Each number key makes him say something that helps the player to rescue fellow Mudokons, so with some experimentation you learn how to say such things as "hello," "follow me," and "wait." This last one is particularly useful when dealing with blind Mudokons that will heedlessly walk in the direction of Abe's voice (potentially to their doom) unless the player directs them otherwise. It's all very nifty and doesn't take long to grasp. Through my first bout of gameplay I got about as far as I had during previous sessions; by now, though, I've learned to desensitize myself somewhat to game violence, so I didn't flinch anymore when I accidentally got Abe ground up by by a bone drill. You have unlimited lives and time for any given section of the game, so a lot of learning how to play is based on trial-and-error and not being afraid to make mistakes and kill Abe in the process. (Quicksaving is quite useful to this end so the player can restart in the same place over and over until they find a way not to get killed--but beware of closing the game without remembering to save for real.) After a few tries I managed to get down the rhythm of a particularly difficult pair of crossed-path bone drills and passed them by without getting cut into bite-size pieces. A lot of it's really about timing--with the bone drills and with sneaking by Sligs when they aren't looking--so once I got my timing down I started going through mines faster and more efficiently. It's difficult to save all the Mudokon slaves in any given mine because there are (at least, according to any of several game walkthroughs I looked at on the web) a lot of secret ways to find extra slaves and lead them to freedom, which I've never been particularly good at, so I more or less saved the ones that were convenient to get to and figured that was good enough for what's essentially my first run. (I don't really count my previous plays because I always chickened out and quit after the first few mines, and that was so long ago anyway that a lot if it's faded from memory.) I got slightly stuck at one section where you have to use a succession of dumbwaiter-like setups to lower yourself down several stories while being persued by Slogs and Sloggies (weird little two-legged eyeless things that like to chew Abe up if they get the chance)--once again, it mostly came down to timing and zapping the Slogs with electricity before they could kill me. (I got killed plenty of times before I got the combination of run-that-way and pull-the-lever right so as not to be mauled.) I ended up quitting in frustration after about an hour, though; I discovered a small gaggle of blind Mudokons to rescue, but despite all my efforts I couldn't divise a way to lead them out of their area and over to a bird portal without getting crunched up by one particular bone drill that apparently had no on/off switch like most had previously. The walkthroughs I looked up in frustration were too confusing to be able to properly understand, and none of my experiments seemed to be leading anywhere. I suppose I could just go down and go to the next mine and leave these blind Mudokons to rot, but somehow I just put too much effort into trying to figure this out to be able to do that. Admittedly, it IS quite rewarding to be able to figure a difficult bit of gameplay out on one's own without being spoon-fed what to do by a tutorial or a walkthrough, but when I quit I was just plain stumped. We'll see how the next session goes.Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:39:00 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=489&iddiary=1198