Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=363https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1389I think one of the coolest level designs in a first person shooter has to be the Frigate level of Goldeneye. Something about shooting up bad guys on a military boat seems very, cool, I dunno... I can't explain it very well. Anyway, after playing Goldeneye a bit longer I have realized that while the game has it's fun elements, the controls and the character detail really hurts the gameplay experience. I'm not advocating photorealistic graphics, but it's weird fighting an enemey that looks like something out of a geometry book. The level designs help to keep the player believing they are James Bond, and are thoughtfully laid out. Some levels seem to lack much of a narritive and seem to be randomly thrown in the game, I guess reading the briefing before each mission should be suggested , heh. I didn't really get much time with the multiplayer, but it's still as fun as I remember it. Somthing about the A.I. in the single player campaign doesn't seem to do the trick. My favorite level is the facility using proximity mines. Overall this game is still a classic, even with a lot of the components feeling horribly dated compared to newer games.Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:05:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1389&iddiary=2981https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1389Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 was one of the most influental games of it's time. The game that launched 1,000 console first person shooters I should say. After recently play the beginning stage of the game I realized how dated the game feels compared to more modern first person console shooters, like Halo and Gears of War. I started the Russian Dam stage on Secret Agent mode and proceeded to head through a tunnel. One of the things i noticed about the game is how repetitive it is. Point and shoot seems to be the only thing you do. Thing get complicated when you're trying to aim and you can't control the camera and aim independently. The story telling method is interesting. Instead of sitting through long drawn out cinematice the player plays through plot development scenes. I liked the part at the end of the level where James Bond bungee jumps off the damn to escape the Russian guards.Between these small interactive segments and the missions in the game, the player gets a sense of the over all plot with minimal downtime play-wise.Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:38:52 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1389&iddiary=2940https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1147Second Entry Alright, well as I promised I am back from the pokemon tower with a review! One thing that I though was fairly repetitive but actually became kinda cool was the fact that in the Pokemon tower you had to fight trainers who had all ghosts as pokemon. In the beginning it seemed stupid and tedious. Then after a while I just used a psychic pokemon and I was doing 1 hit kills left and right. The repetitiveness kind of emphasised the fact that we were surrounded by the dead. It was kind of a cool plot device in a lot of ways. The only real variance in enemies came at the end when I had to fight Marow Wack (sp) who apparently was killed by Team Rocket and was a vengeful spirit. Anyway I remembered the Pokemon tower being boring in the original game but I actually appreciated it in the new one. I'm in Saffron City now and I tried to fight the gym leader early and apparently I can't. I did however fight in the dojo and won a fighting pokemon (as if I didn't already have one), Hitmon Lee. I need to go inside the Silph Co. Building now and clear out Team Rocket members it seems. Then I think the Gym leader will challenge me. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:52:14.)Fri, 09 Feb 2007 02:50:26 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1147&iddiary=2567https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1147Pokemon Fire Red is a remake of the original 1995 Pokemon Red game for the Gameboy. The game contains a small amount of elements thrown in from the modern games for good measure as well. While playing the game I've been trying to point out differences between the original and the new version, the most striking is the graphics. Currently I am at Celadon City and I am about to head to the Pokemon tower. I beat the Gym Leader Erika, which proved to be easier than I expected the second time around. She actually kicked my but the first attempt I made, but the second time around I just put all of her plant pokemon to sleep and kept using Butterfree's confusion attack. The battling is pretty bland as far as gameplay goes, more of a rock paper scissors type of battle engine, but it works. One of the great things about this game is its sense of exploration and the comical dialogue at certain points. The game does a good job of making the player feel interested in the game world. The updated graphics help Pokemon Fire Red achieve that to a slightly higher degree than it's predicessor. Since I have the Silph Scope I'm going to Pokemon Tower to do another dungeon style busy work type of gameplay segment in order to advance the story. I'll make another log with some highlights. (This entry has been edited3 times. It was last edited on Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:24:53.)Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:23:48 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1147&iddiary=2469https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1023This is my second gamelog for Super Mario Brothers 3. I am continuing from where I left off in World 3 (mor eor less) This may be a slight spoiler but one of the neat gameplay mechanics that makes the game fairly pick up and playable is the fact that you only need to play a few levels of World 1 in order to obtain warp whistles to warp to any world in the game. I mentioned earlier how Super Mario Brothers 3 does a good job of keeping stages varied. I neglected to mention the fact that the worlds themselves are very diverese as well. I'm in World 3, the water world. As you would expect the levels seem to fit the theme very well. I ended it up stoping in the next world which is named Giant World (and for a good reason). World 4 is interesting in that most levels let you play as a giant Mario in a small level or conversely a small mario surrounded by giant enemies and objects. Funny enough Mario's jump ability works the same whether you are stomping on a cat sized koopa or a VW Beetle sized koopa. The game difficulty seems to slowly be getting higher as well, which is a nohter aspect of a good game in my opinion since it helps to keep things interesting as the game progresses.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:38:31 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1023&iddiary=2261https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1023I decided to choose Super Mario Brothers 3 from the relatively small list of classics availible. One thing I was pleased with was the fact that I was able to just jump in and play. The goal of the game is relatvely straight forward, get to the end of the stage. For being an older game I feel the graphics are very well done. Many other NES games feel a little monochromatic, but Super Mario Brothers 3 introduces a very colorful art style. One useful aspect of the game is the ability to store power-ups for later. That came in handy for the stage in the second world where the sun (of all enemies, ya) is chasing you as you try to run across the desert. I simply pulled out a P-Wing and flew across the stage to the goal. I also really appreciate the level design of the game. Some levels are set up in a puzzle manner such as the last level of World 2 inside the pyramid. Others are more open ended such as the first level of the game, run to the goal while killing enemies. Others focus on getting to the goal why dueling with a foe, such as the sun or that big fish that chases you in World 3-3. Then there are always the levels like World 1-4 where the screen pushes you forward and you have to react quickly to tackle obsticles. Those types of levels coupled with the castle and airship stages help create a healthy mix in what could have easily been a boring and repetitive two and a half worlds that I played through.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:50:31 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1023&iddiary=2191https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=931Even though Super Mario 64 is more of an open ended type of game where you can play other worlds before completing prior ones, I still like to try and get all 8 stars (if possible) before I advance. I played through Big Boo's Haunt, which happens to be one of the more clever worlds in the game in my opinion. Hunting down all of the ghosts and then battling the Big Boo is a pretty interesting game mechanic. I appreciated the level of complexity to the level design. There is an underground carousel in the basement of the haunted house, and roof top access at the very top. But it required some moderate acrobatics on the part of mario to reach that height. Collecting the 8 red coins may seem tedious but it happend to be pretty cool since I was able to also collect 100 coins in the process. If you guys aren't aware there is a hidden star in each world that is unlocked by collecting 100 coins in each stage.Mon, 29 Jan 2007 02:19:03 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=931&iddiary=2050https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=931Nintendo faced a big gamble launching the Nintendo 64 with TWO launch titles. Luckily they hit a homerun with this game and the second game released wasn't half bad either. Often imitated, but never duplicated, Super Mario 64 was the blue print for which all 3D platformers were to follow. It managed to combine intuitive controls with nice looking graphics and addictive gameplay. Not only that, the game solved the problem from a developers stand point of how to created large 3D worlds without spending an excessive amount of time and money modeling. Overall I'm very impresed with the character animations for Mario. Even held to today's standards they are very detailed and fluid. The controls respond perfectly and you get many chances to test that claim throughout the game. The Lava level in the basement being on of the better examples. Voice acting? Wow it's actually in the game, I know unheard of. Luckily for us Nintendo was smart enough to realize that we are all literate and spared us the excessive cutscenes and inane drama that modern games seem to love making us suffer though in order to play. Mario's voice is spot on, and doesn't seem to get annoying during extended periods of play. Princess seems to be the only other person who speaks and she only says two lines of dialogue in the beginning of the game. Overall I am very happy with what Nintendo did with the game. Super Mario 64 is a light but solid game that doesn't nag you to commit to it for life like some of the codependent software titles of recent memory on the other systems.Mon, 29 Jan 2007 02:01:19 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=931&iddiary=2049https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=930I'm going to use this log to explain why the battle mechanics in Final Fantasy Tactics work so well. If anything the core element that lends itself to being the best aspect of the battle mechanics is the reward structure. Not only do you acquire experience points from battles but you also acquire job points. These can be used to purchase abilities for the jobs you characters are currently in, as well as level up jobs. The ability to pick and choose abilities for your characters changes the dynamic of the game drastically. For example, saving up job points early in the game and purchasing the expensive ability "steal weapon" in one of your character's theif jobs will allow you to avoid difficulties in certain battles like the Execution Site battle with Gafgarion and his annoying Blood sword. The ability to mix job classes is a very useful game mechanic as well. I find having the chemist job as a secondary job very helpful, especially if I have a knight or a monk who doesn't have many abilities due to a recent job change. Reaction abilites are a very nifty concept as well. Basically if a character is attacked they they have the ability to react. For example if my samurai gets attacked by a monk and he has the reaction ability "blade grasp" enabled, he will be able to dodge the attack 100 percent of the time. The reaction chances are based on the brave percentage which is a statistic of each character in the game. Support abilities are also great in that they allow you to equip abilites to alter your current job. For example you can allow an archer to equip a sword, granted you learn the ability "equip sword" from the knight job skill set. As you can see there is a lot to configure in order to make the perfect attack squad for battle, but this leads to why I think the game has a high replay value. Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:40:58 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=930&iddiary=2048https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=930Final Fantasy Tactics is one of those games that you feel like you could play through a million times and never get tired of, it's that good. Granted the graphics are dated compared to the current crop of games being sported on the next generation video game consoles, the game ages well. I just joined the class before the midterm but luckily I've been playing this game since the beginning of the quarter so I have a lot to discuss. Firstly, I have to mention the job system as being a well very executed gameplay mechanic. There are 18 jobs that generic characters in your battle party can use, and in addition there are various special characters you can acquire throughout the game with jobs that are unique. The jobs are accessable by progressing through a series of prerequisites to unlock them. Calculator, Bard, and Dancer being some of the most high level jobs in the game. This emergent complexity keeps the player interested in the game, as they get a sense of accomplishment from watching their chracters grow and become more skillful. Secondly, the story in Final Fantasy Tactics is very compelling, although most people will neither understand it the first play through, nor care to since they will be too busy trying to get through some of the tougher battles in the game. Translation issues with some the plot elements doesn't make things any easier. Now that I've played the game a few times I understand a appreciate the rather complex plot. Currently I'm in chapter 4 and I have just finished the Dogulas Pass battle. I'll do an indepth review of the battle mechanics in the next log.Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:23:05 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=930&iddiary=2047