Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=285https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1526Crash mode is a radically different mode of game play where the winner is the player who causes the greatest amount of damage, measured in terms of dollars. In single player mode you are awarded gold, silver or bronze medals for surpassing certain dollar amounts. As crash events are part of the World Tour mode a seasoned player quickly learns the most valuable vehicles to crash into – most notably the oil tankers that are worth a massive 100,000 dollars if their tanks are destroyed. This is helpful when playing the multi player crash modes where players compete to do the most damage. After the initial collision the crash moves in slow motion and the player is able to control the direction in which their car flies. This is helpful for getting the cash multipliers that multiply your score by 2x or 4x. The 4x is usually much more difficult to obtain. If you cause enough accidents (the # is based on the level) you become eligible to activate the Crashbreaker feature which explodes your car. When in the air you are once again able to control your direction; sometimes providing a second chance to get a score multiplier. An excellent balance to the multiplier system are Heartbreakers, items that when collided with remove any multiplier obtained that round and cut your score in half. These are often very strategically located to prevent easy passage from the densest traffic that has the most potential points to the cash multipliers. I enjoy crash mode but feel that despite the variety of levels it is quite redundant and quickly leads to game exhaustion.Thu, 15 Mar 2007 02:42:02 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1526&iddiary=3193https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1526In Burnout III: Takedown, new cars are awarded for reaching certain benchmarks. For example, benchmarks like 500 takedowns or Gold medals on all tracks. Going for the latter, I went through my World Tour mode to try to beat the remaining tracks that I had only been able to achieve silver medals on when I was more avidly playing the game. The one specific event that had given me trouble is called Burning Lap. In these events the player is given a high-end car like the F1 Racer and a time in which to reach the finish line for each rank of medal. From endless trials I learned that each rank of medal corresponds to the number of crashes. If driving optimally (which entails driving on the wrong side of the road and constantly gaining and spending Burnout accumulated from near misses with oncoming cars) you can crash once and still make the gold medal time. Respectively, two crashes are permitted for a silver medal and three for a bronze. This can be especially challenging in the long races where you’re driving at over 200 mph through busy cities in heavy traffic for over two minutes. I spent about half an hour in heightened emotions, occasionally screaming when I would crash around the corner from the finish line after two minutes of perfect driving. It’s certainly the most frustrating mode of the game, but helps to develop the player into an elite driver. After the insane acceleration and speed of the F1 car, racing most of the other cars in other modes is a walk in the park. Things seem to be in slow motion and you have a lot more time to respond. So although I haven’t been able to master all of the burning lap events, my game play ability has certainly been elevated by it. It’s especially nice to have warmed up with some burning lap events before racing a friend with cars from something like the compact series.Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:15:18 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1526&iddiary=3192https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1240Feeling confident in our improved abilities my friend and I decided to challenge my room mate in a 2v1 game despite being slaughtered a few days before. I swiftly made my first few commands, constructing the essential structures and ensuring my economy was on track. Things were rolling well but in my haste to build an army and upgrade their arsenal I had repeadedly forgotten to save money for upgrading my city center. Upgrading this central structure is essential for developoing more powerful troups and my delay here was costly, leaving me seemingly a generation behing my ally and sureley my opponent. However, I was lucky enough not to have my weak forces attacked and had the good fortune of my ally’s forces defending me while I continued upgrading. I finally assembled what I felt was ad cent army but failted to organize it well. Though I had previously been told about the ability to group forces so they can be selected with the press of a button rather than struggling to target groups with the mouse, I negeltected to use this feature…bad move. My comrade and I launched our first offensive and were tearing through my room mate’s base. He started complaining about being bombarded before he had a chance to recover from his last attack we squashed and having the upper hand, my friend and I decided to show him some mercy…again…bad move. With the extra time we were pleased to upgrade our forces and expand our grasp by securing additional gold mines to support the elite armies we were building. But before I knew it while my army was out exploring there were over twenty hyppogryph riders (powerful arches on flying mounts) in the center of my town destroying all my gold miners and timber collectors. He even destroyed my barracks before I could create any defensive forces. I was whipped out before my army was even able to make it back to my town. My room mate was able to trample us because he steadily improved as we leveled off. That loss taught more than I can express, and I we haven’t lost a 2v1 since, but that’s not to say it hasn’t been close. =)Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:38:32 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1240&iddiary=2657https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1240Despite my longstanding appreciation of Starcraft, I had had not had a chance to try its brethren Warcraft 3 until very recently. I'm still pretty newb so for the most part I've just been learning playing against the computer or my roommates on the LAN. I've definitely progressed and developed a fairly solid game plan, however, I'm not comfortable enough with it yet to start building the foundations for my town almost unconsciously like my roommate can. I've gotten accustomed to playing Undead, which isn’t too much of a surprise since I played the parallel race Protoss in Starcraft. What makes Undead unique amongst the other races in Warcraft 3 is their "builders" have ability to open portals that summon buildings and then move on to another task. All other races builders have to stay around constructing the structure. Due to the initial monetary constraints in the beginning you cannot build all the structures you are permitted to, so you must prioritize. I sometimes build 3/4 of the base structures, get caught up building an army or scouting for an enemy and needlessly leave my town unable to progress. But I'm getting better. =) The numerous projects and conquests one has to pay close attention to to maintain give the player a sense of what it would really be like to be the commander and chief of an expedition. There is a remarkable amount of strategies involved in successfully defeating a skillful enemy. One often has to make moves that seem irrational to succeed. For example, if you have a somewhat fortified base under attack but your army far away but close by the enemy it can be better to attack in hopes of destroying his base first or forcing his troops to retreat. Through my first couple of battles I was refreshed on the value of strategies like importance of having a rush defense and teaching crypt fiends the Web ability so ground troops are able to hit air targets.Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:57:16 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1240&iddiary=2639https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1036Burnt out from dueling I gave the single player mode “chronicles of the sword” a try. In this ‘tactical’ mode you are a commander for an army. You begin by creating a character, first choosing their gender then their profession, some of the choices include; thief, knight and ninja. You then have the option to change their garments. Although there is a limited selection, it truly was a breakthrough idea that I see embodied by so many other games today. After you’ve created your character you hear a dialogue explaining the history of the nations, who is at war and why. Then your commander condescendingly tells you he will be training you to command your army. The first goal is to take over enemy bases. From a far away overhead camera you guide your character along a path with graphics reminiscent of the original Mario towards the enemy tower. Upon reaching it your character automatically begins slashing away, and after watching the little man on the screen chop away for a minute, you enter into a “Decisive Battle” here game play reverts back to the dueling mode and you finally get to see your character up close and with clear graphics. They same some lame phrases to each other before the fight starts, if you win you conquer that base and may move on to attack more, however, if you loose it’s game over. I went on conquering until I cleared the stage, ultimately facing two enemies in a row when I took the final base. To add a bit of difficulty and realism to the mode your health constantly drains when you are attacking an enemy base. I found this mode exceptionally boring because there was so much waiting, both for the character to run and slash down the bases and with load times. Additionally, the dramatic difference in graphics between the arena fight scenes and the running around and slashing bases in “chronicles of the sword” made me feel like little attention was given to producing this mode. It feels choppy. Next I tired the world tournament mode. The way it works is pretty self explanatory, there is a bracket with randomized characters and you have to win 12 consecutive matches to become world champion. I entered with Nightmare and made it about five rounds until I ran into someone with a bigger sword than me. I couldn’t get into his range without him landing huge hits either to my head or knocking out my feet. I had a couple of other feeble attempts with characters I was more unfamiliar with…nothing worth talking about. =) All in all I’m really happy with the quality of the game. As far as fighting games go I’d say this is right up there at the top with Guilty Gear X2.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:27:51 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1036&iddiary=2216https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1036The first time I played this game was at an arcade, I remember always playing as an armored dark knight named Nightmare. Today I played Soul Calibur III for the first time on PlayStation2 and resumed my career with Nightmare. I skipped the tutorial and went right to dueling my friends in versus mode. At first I was using just the directional pad and the [] X O buttons. However, after being destroyed by my opponents the first few rounds I realized the importance of using both analog sticks and the R1, R2, L1 and L2 buttons. The right analog controls special moves that deal superior damage if you power-up successfully beforehand by pressing R2. The moves become less powerful each time you are hit after powering up. After I got used to controlling my player I was able to aim my swing at the enemy’s most vulnerable area. After playing Nightmare for a while I got accustomed to the speed of his swings and was able to piece the best moves together to make effective combos. Against some of the frailer characters I was able to power up and K.O them in three swings. I had the most trouble fighting the smaller characters because I had a small target area and would get my legs taken out from under me often. The unique special abilities and inherent advantages and disadvantage due to their physical attributes are what keep this game balanced and interesting. The numerous attacks and techniques for each character keep this game exciting and balanced. Another ability I had once I understood more of the attack methods was to hit high, medium or low. In addition to this allowing you to realistically choose where you are hitting your opponent by reading their defenses, the game has built in special attacks that involve combinations of low, medium or high hits. This requires a lot more attention and skill on the defenders part. You can’t just hold block and be immune to all attacks. The incorporation of the diverse array of abilities into the game are what really make it so outstanding to me.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:27:09 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1036&iddiary=2215https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=919For 1/19/07 - Part Two It seems that there is some sequence of more challenging levels in the Agent (easy) mode of the game. I felt like I would breeze through two or three levels, then get stuck on a particular objective and be forced to wander around trying to accomplish it or die in the attempt. However it happened, whenever I felt like I was on a roll I’d always encounter that one level that I would be forced to keep restarting until I really understood the objective and had a clear idea of how to accomplish it. Although the added difficulty of finding things can be a nuisance at times, its part of what makes the game such a great representation of a scenario a spy might find themselves in. It’s not a game merely about wasting as many enemies as possible, it’s about the way you approach things, your tactics. Very few games, especially at the time of 007’s release, required such cunning. The first level played in secret agent (medium difficulty) stands out in particular to me because it requires you to move stealthily. Because you will fail if you’re seen you must be conscious of all of your movements and actions, as well as constantly scan ahead to make sure you destroy any cameras that could spot you. To ensure you’re discreet you must also only use your silenced pistol. This addition is an excellent new dynamic to a first person shooter game because it makes the missions feel so much more realistic. Another tactical challenge I encountered in GoldenEye that I had yet to see in any of its predecessors was the importance of reading and interpreting Bond’s in-game conversations. About midway through the game Bond meets up with 006, now his agency’s top rival. If you approach him with your weapon drawn he’ll sick his guards on you and run away without telling you the necessary information to complete your mission. It requires poise to successfully complete the meeting, you must go in unarmed and pull your gun just after you hear what you need or you’ll be ambushed by his guards.Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:58:21 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=919&iddiary=2028https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=9191/19/07 - Better late than never Probably the earliest memory I have of Nintendo 64 is playing 007 Golden Eye. Though that was sometime in grade school it remains one of my favorite games and I love to play it whenever I have the chance. As opposed to its competitive contemporary Mario Kart, Bond is more of a skill game that relies more on your memory and ability to make decisions rather than the randomness of an item. Unlike Mario Kart, Bond wont make it any easier to catch up when you’re loosing. And that’s precisely the reason it is so much fun, its unrelenting brutal competition with your friends that you can (and should) laugh about. It wasn’t until I started single player mode with the intent of playing for a while that I really took note of the quality of game play and recalled the frustrating difficulty of some of the missions. There was snow everywhere, and all of it looked the same!! One snowy hill after another with an occasional Russian you were obligated to shoot and a cabin or bunker here and there. Somehow I needed to find a clearance key so I could get to the control room, and on my first run through I found it right away. However, I failed an objective and was forced to restart. And for the next 5 or 8 runs through I could not find it for the life of me. I ran to and fro shooting every Russian in sight for the better part of an hour until it magically turned up. As soon as I beat the level I had to take a break, that was plenty frustration for the moment.Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:04:42 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=919&iddiary=2026https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=563One of my favorite parts of World of Warcraft is the ability to interact with people from almost anywhere. Just as I was finishing my first gamelog my real life best friend messaged me asking if I wanted to do some battlegrounds with him. Upon logging onto my character I received a group invite from him and in less than a minute I had signed us up for a battle with Alliance (opposing player faction) from other servers. The ability to be able to send group invites across zones and then be warped into a battleground from anywhere in the world saves players tremendous amounts of time and tedious running and is one of those minuscule but absolutely crucial aspects a good game must have to maintain flow. It wasn’t always this way in WoW however, one used to need to distant parts of the world to enter a battle ground queue and were only eligible to fight groups of opposing players from the same server. After joining the queue it could be hours until you began fighting! As you can imagine this wasted tremendous amounts of time and they apparently got enough feedback to change it to the current system where one can queue up themselves and their friends for all three battlegrounds from one room in any of the main cities. Waiting more than two minutes for a fight is unheard of now. The adaptability of WoW is its main strength, despite tantalizing efforts it is still nearly impossible to create a game that doesn’t need refining. Blizzard is able to take advantage of the feedback they get from their millions of subscribers in their weekly patches to constantly evolve their game to their player’s demands. Also simplified chat features save players from having to repeat chat prompt commands, helping them make fewer mistakes. To direct who you are speaking to you must select a channel by typing either /g for guild, /w to whisper, or /1 for General chat. However, unlike previous MMORPGs I’ve played, once you speak in a channel the next thing you type will be directed at that channel without needing to repeat the chat command. It’s the thousands of little features like this I had always dreamed of having in other MMORPGs WoW has integrated that makes me appreciate the years of design put into it so much. Grizzel Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:43:39 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=563&iddiary=1378https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=563Today I did one of the smaller 20 man raid instances, Zul'Gurub, with my guild mates. Though this is by no means an unfamiliar or particularly difficult instance I still find it exciting because of the strategy and teamwork required. Each boss has a different special ability that has to be accounted for, forcing the participants to be aware and make the right decisions at the right times. For example, the final boss, a life leeching, mind controlling serpent named Hakkar, requires players to bring a particular monster a "Son of Hakkar" to the battle site, keep it immobilized for a minute or so until they expect a a life drain to be cast soon, kill the Son, making a poision cloud appear that every player must get close to so that they are afflicted by the poison when Hakkar attempts to steal their life. If done correctly, Hakkar's siphon backfires as he steals the effects your poison, significantly draining his own health. To further complicate things Hakkar will mind control players throughout the fight, forcing them to attack their teammates. The elements of strategy. the reasoning behind them and the teamwork and unity required are what make and keep this fight interesting to me. Usually this fight is not a problem for my guild, I heal people, we all get the poison at the right time, Hakkar damages himself and dies within a couple of minutes. However, tonight we had problems. With the upcoming expansion, Blizzard (the game's producer) has been making a lot of changes to the game and a lot of bugs have emerging, we were unfortunate enough to experience one first hand tonight. Every time Hakkar mind controlled the person 1st on his aggression list they would get disconnected and erased from the list. This forced Hakkar's aggression to be transferred to people it shouldn't have been and collapse our raid. Additionally there is the storyline behind the Zul'Gurub instance that explains why some of these "boss" trolls have extra ordinary powers and why Hakkar can mind control. Tied into the storyline are quests offering items as a reward for turning in a quest item dropped by one of the bosses if you have killed enough creatures in ZG to raise your reputation to the appropriate level with the quest giving tribe.Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:42:13 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=563&iddiary=1336