JK51981's GameLog

Desperate Housewives (PC) - Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:18:49

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:18:49 CDT

After the first wave of neighbors knocking on my door, it was my turn to do the knocking. I visited a group of ladies who had nothing better to do than gossip. I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR RETARDED DRAMA This game established some conflict in this section by establishing that Edie was involved in questionable business. Apparently she has a habit of frequenting other neighbors’ mailboxes for some unknown reason. Lo and behold, I caught her in the act of badgering around with MY mailbox. I did not tolerate this transgression one bit and angrily shooed her away. I feel this game set up this point of conflict rather well. Even though the player knows almost nothing about any of the neighbors, you can’t help but to feel offended when another person is rummaging through your personal things. Having a gossipy neighbor build anticipation by telling you about her was a clever move on the developers’ part, as well. The game itself progresses you through the game by giving you once “quest” after another, as you work and complete them. There isn’t much of a sense of difficulty, as you can always reload an older save file and retry sometimes challenging attempts on activities such as cooking, to obtain an A+ rating on every single one. Despite this, it’s still a tremendous blast to play. Desperate Housewives offers a unique roleplaying experience that is unique in itself, with colorful characters and scenarios, and drama like none other. If this doesn’t keep the player interested, I don’t know what will.

Desperate Housewives (PC) - Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:16:00

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:16:00 CDT

I’ve always been a fan of role-playing games. I started off playing games like Earthbound and other Super Nintendo RPG’s, the Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior series, and Diablo 2. Then I moved onto more atypical games like Morrowind and Oblivion of the Elder Scrolls series, which broke the mold by introducing more open-ended, non-linear gameplay. I also started playing World of Warcraft after that, but it was a mistake tantamount to developing a crack habit and I’ve managed to quit several months back. In all of the aforementioned games, you play a variety of characters – from a baseball bat-wielding boy to mighty warriors armed with humongous swords – but there’s something all of these games have neglected. That something is the modern American housewife… desperate ones. Why venture into strange, oftentimes dangerous lands when there’s a perfectly good adventure right in your own neighborhood? I created a sexy redhead named Margaret Hatchet with a matching outfit and an attitude to go with it. The character creation process allows the player to choose different faces, hair, hair color, and clothing. It’s rather limited, but it offers enough variety to create noticeably different characters each time you play. Husband and son creation, unfortunately, offers much less flexibility, as you can only scroll through a set amount of stock characters, with none of the choices available from the main character creation. This cat has claws! Soon after I created my character, the game put me through a tutorial that taught me how to use the camera, which seems reasonably solid so far. You can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel and rotate around your character left and right by moving your mouse in the appropriate direction. I fiddled around with various appliances in the house until the door started knocking. I had hoped they’d go away if I just ignored them, but the knocking persisted. When I had answered, the saleswoman from whom I’d apparently purchased this house was there. She opened up with some casual talk and tried to spook me by joking that this house was built over Indian burial grounds, but I saw through her lies. This game allows the player to interact with NPC’s by providing various smiley faces with snippets attached to them. Being a feisty, misanthropic redhead, I always opted to choose the angry face. This obviously lowers the NPCs’ disposition towards you for many of them, but always provides a laugh for me. This game has me interested and hooked so far, so I’ll provide another update shortly. (This entry has been edited4 times. It was last edited on Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:35:01.)

Gradius (NES) - Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:37:17

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:37:17 CDT

After watching a student beat the first stage during Monday’s lecture, I managed to do the same. I had originally thought that the volcanoes involved some sort of gimmick; I didn’t think players had to simply shoot at the lava until the game would allow passage. I easily defeated the next challenge, a circular battleship that shot at timed intervals while spastically moving up and down. At this point, I started using save-states just to see where the game would take me. As I have mentioned before, Gradius is absurdly difficult in many places and it simply isn’t a reasonable goal to finish the entire game in one gaming session as a novice. After I trivialized the initial difficulty, I breezed through several sections, which displayed surprising variety. From the beginning to where I stopped, I’ve seen fortified landmasses, volcanoes, floating fortresses, and even bizarre Moai statues that fired annoying volleys of projectiles. There is also a wide array of enemies; older ones from earlier in the game would also become progressively more difficult as well. In comparison to a game like Galaga, or other older schmups with more static qualities, Gradius is a true innovation with revolutionary new features.

Gradius (NES) - Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:32:42

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:32:42 CDT

I’ve owned a Nintendo Entertainment System during my younger days and I have the scars to prove it. Games were significantly more difficult back then and superhuman levels of patience were required to cope with the overwhelming frustration. However, it’s difficult to vividly recall pain until you suffer through it again. Forcing myself to play Gradius opened a floodgate of bad memories and bitter tears. From what the game has presented so far, story and characters seem to be nonexistent. The player is thrown headfirst into action after selecting one or two characters, without any backstory or introductions. Considering the primitive gaming system, shoot-em-up genre, and the time of development (1985), this is not a surprise. Instead, the production is focused mostly on the gameplay, where Gradius truly shines. Though I’ve only made it to the two volcanoes spewing lava in the first level, the innovative elements are still well-apparent. This game popularized the “power meter” weapon selection bar, where capsules are collected and the player can purchase power-ups. Gradius also set the standard for shoot-em-up games around this time, though it pales in comparison to more modern games.

Katamari Damacy (PS2) - Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:15:40

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:15:40 CDT

I managed to complete the rest of the game in my second playing session, which happened to last only a couple of hours. Relative to many other games I’ve played, this was tragically short and easy. I believe I’ve failed to complete a level only once throughout the entire game, which I easily cleared in the second attempt. I also exceeded the size requirement in the final level more than twice, with a 750+ meter katamari, as opposed to a requirement of 300 meters. I did have a blast playing through the game though. The prospect of rolling up progressively larger objects was an exciting one; since you started off collecting tiny items like mosquitoes and thumbtacks, to eventually culminate at landmasses and gods. There was a great sense of empowerment at that stage, I truly felt like the prince of the universe. Overall, the game oozed innovation in many aspects and truly deserves a spot in the “classics” list. The control scheme was an interesting and original one, since it focused on the use of the two analog sticks and little else. Most other PS2 games only utilize the left stick or directional pad for movement. The storyline and game play were equally as innovative, presenting creative and original ideas that I’ve never before seen in other games. I browsed through the Katamari Damacy section on GameFaqs.com to see what I’ve missed, which happened to be quite a few things. I’ve collected nowhere near 100% of the items in the game and I’ve missed the eternal levels completely. I’m not so sure if I’ll be playing through completed stages again to complete the collection though. As much as this game is innovative and fun at first, repetitious level design and game play diminish the replay value. This does not tarnish the game’s significance, however. Anyone who considers themselves an avid gamer should play this at least once, for the unique experience.

Katamari Damacy (PS2) - Wed, 17 Jan 2007 01:09:33

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 01:09:33 CDT

“Katamari, do your best!” encourages the magnificent King of All Cosmos. You are the Prince of All Cosmos, the diminutive 5 centimeter-tall son of the King of All Cosmos, and it is your responsibility to clean up the mess your father has caused. All of the stars in the sky have been destroyed by the king in an inebriated fury and the only way to replace them is by rolling up random objects on Earth with a katamari ball. The character and plot design in this game are vibrant and creative, though one would have to wonder if hallucinogenic abuse was a factor in the creation process. Regardless, this game is suitable for people of all ages; its colorful, toy-like stylizations and innocent qualities make it accessible for children, while elements of darker humor can attract an older audience at the same time. By darker humor, for example, I mean the idea of rolling up living animals and people into a ball and propelling them into the sky to replace fallen stars, all the while hearing their anguished cries and screams. One cannot help but to laugh and feel a slight tinge of guilt during rolling sprees. I’ve played the first six stages and several human versus human games so far. Already, I can see instances of repetition, in terms of game play and level-design, though I’m not sure how this will affect my interest in the long run. The game transports the character to various locales around the world, but these places, despite being different countries, share the same level layout. I cannot deny the amount of fun I’m having while rolling things up though, so this doesn’t detract too much from the whole experience yet. I have also played several multiplayer games against a roommate, but that is significantly less entertaining than the single player mode. All multiplayer maps, as far as I know, are limited to a bowl-shaped room filled with random objects arranged in geometric patterns for both players to collect. There is also a limited combat system where you can ram the other player, knocking several objects off their katamari ball, and grabbing onto them, which effectively halts their collecting spree and forces them to try to escape. This doesn’t add much depth to the system or make it fun, however.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (PS2) - Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:37:15

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:37:15 CDT

I started playing against the computer in arcade mode with characters I was familiar with, namely the Shotokan trio – Akuma, Ryu, and Ken, the former with which I am most capable. I slugged it through to the end, oftentimes button-mashing in attempts to pull off the special and super moves, occasionally parrying by mistake. The fights were pretty ugly, with my clumsy handling and low marks on the A-F ranking system. I was lucky if I managed to pull a C. Though the first bonus stage was reminiscent of the car-smashing exercise of Street Fighter 2 fame, I had no absolutely no idea on how to even begin attempting the second stage. One of the playable characters controlled by the computer, Sean, would shoot basketballs at you while a simple set of instructions told you to parry them. I kept asking myself, “How am I supposed to parry?” while the basketballs made way with my face and I futilely tried to punch them away. I eventually made it to the final battle against the red and blue antagonist, Gill, who happened to be an excruciatingly tough opponent. He has a particularly nasty habit of hitting the player really hard with fire and ice-based attacks and resurrecting to full health if he dies with a full super bar intact. This combined with the fact that I was a newbie made this an activity almost comparable to shoving bamboo slits under my fingernails. I didn’t keep count on the number of attempts my victory took, but I can assure you there was plenty of screaming and anguish. After a good while, I played a series of human vs. human games against Paul (palani on GameLog), one of my roommates. This is where the real learning and appreciation sequence began. We sampled all of the characters the game had to offer us and figured out the intricate parrying and EX move system. At one point, we had spent at least a solid ten minutes chucking different projectiles at each other and parrying them. We had begun to break the surface of parrying, and we knew that it would take an exceptional amount of time and skill in order to eventually parry the rapid and oftentimes more random melee attacks. I had also deviated from exclusive use of the Shotokan trio at this point; finding utility in Elena, the Capoeira fighter whose attacks solely consist of kicks.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (PS2) - Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:41:31

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:41:31 CDT

Street Fighter III is the long-awaited, true sequel to the legendary Street Fighter II series. Street Fighter III: Third Strike, in particular, is the third and latest installment of the SFIII series and the game that’s currently taking up the most of my time. Fan favorites Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Chun Li are the only returning characters from previous games, while a bevy of colorful and exotic new characters fill the ranks. There are more frames of animation than ever before, resulting in the most fluid movement to date. This is a breath of fresh air that has been due for a long time, especially because of Capcom’s notorious reputation of recycling character sprites (Morrigan of Darkstalkers in Capcom vs. SNK and Marvel vs. Capcom, for example). The gameplay, in the macro sense, remains fundamentally unchanged. The objective is still to defeat the computer or human opponent in a virtual, 2-D environment with fighting techniques executed with joystick/directional pad-button combinations similar to those used in previous games. However, many technical revamps and innovations have been made to suit this sequel. Parrying, perhaps the most significant addition, is a hybridization of defense and offense. This is executed by pressing forward right when the opponent’s attack makes contact with you, which negates all damage taken and eliminates block stun, allowing you to instantly counterattack your opponent after a successful parry. I feel this is an excellent balance of risk against reward, as failure results in the player taking the full blunt of the opponent’s attack. Super moves have also received a revamp; each character being limited to one chosen before the match. Each super move has their own varying bar length and varying numbers of stock, which adds a greater element of strategic choice. These bars can also be used to execute EX moves, which are simply powered up versions of special moves. Like super moves, EX moves have varying bar depletion rates, which further pushes the strategic element. Players have to make choices between their wide range of abilities and when to use them, making this game a rich and complex 2-D fighter, relative to past incarnations such as Street Fighter 2. When I had first picked up this game, I was ignorant to the aforementioned technical additions and I limited myself to special and super moves. Only when I probed deeper and figured them out, did I truly develop a true admiration for the game, which I will discuss in a future post.