Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=463https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3012GAMEPLAY: During the second 45 min of the game, the fleets got bigger (as certain technologies were researched to allow this), and the battles got tougher. Static defenses started to play a negigible role in planetary defense, and the whole focus of the game shifted into having the fastest ships, able to respond to enemy attacks quickly and also be able to hold their own in battle. The movement AI is very hard to understand at first, until you remember that the ships are moving in 3D (I don't use a 3D controlled camera very much, preferring to keep it static). However, in 3D, they move very well, even banking and turning realistically, so when you order a fleet to move, they don't just start off, but have to align themselves first, which adds an interesting twist to strategy. In the game I was playing, I didn't quite manage to get out of my solar system and into others, but I could still interact with the players who lived there. This is the only unrealistic part of the game that I could find; how do two civilizations communicate when they are galaxies apart and don't have technology to traverse that distance yet? DESIGN: One of the best design elements I have seen in this game has to be using the scroll-wheel to zoom. This feature makes the game so much easier to play, since the player doesn't have to move the mouse very much to get to where they want to go. Even though there is really not a lot to do (only a few units, buildings, technologies to deal with, and very little economy), the game I played was packed with action, and that was on the easiest level of AI. On the more difficult levels the player will most likely be glad to only have a few options to deal with as they try to build an army on the fly to meet massive attacks.Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:41:46 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3012&iddiary=6063https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3012SUMMARY: Sins of a Solar Empire is a RTS (Real Time Strategy) set in space. The player controls a fleet of ships to take over galaxies that range from a few planets to multiple solar systems. The game allows all the usual functions of an RTS, such as multiple races, each with a technology tree, different units (The game doesn't really have that many units, but the action is quick enough so that this comes as a blessing at times rather than a curse, since the player doesn't want to worry about what they should build). GAMEPLAY: The first 45 minutes of the game were not really that fast for me, but that was because the random map I picked (there are no single player campaigns) was set to giant, and as a result the players were spaced far apart. “Easy to learn, difficult to master” is the phrase that comes to mind. It took me at least half an hour to master the tech tree, position of buildings and static defense, and ship management. However, once I figured it out, the game was pretty easy to play, if not so easy to win. The diplomacy within the game was rather odd, in my opinion. The computer AI would give me “missions” such as supplying them with some money, killing so many enemy ships, or destroying certain structures. In the beginning, I began to take these missions, only to realize that the more I completed, and the more the other player trusted me, the harder they became. I quickly realized that I would not be able to satisfy the demands of the potential allies I was trying to recruit. This would also make it very difficult to keep an alliance going, since more and more missions would be required to keep the AI happy with you. Because of this drawback in the diplomacy, I fell back to my usual strategy when playing an RTS: Use diplomacy as a tool to keep others off your backs until you are ready to deal with them. Dispite the flawed diplomacy, however, the game was very fun to play, once the slight learning curve was mastered.Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:17:00 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3012&iddiary=5658https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2637GAMEPLAY: The game pretty much was the same for the next 45 minutes, except that the challenges got slightly harder as I progressed. I was never quite sure why I was moving through this world, except that this was where the path led me. I'm sure there was more to the story than that, but I missed it somewhere along the way. However, this didn't take much from the enjoyability of the game, since the story doesn't really seem to be an integral part of gameplay. The characters in the game are all whimsical, cartoon-ish, and would look very out of place in any other game I have every played. Here, however, they were right at home with the settings, which matched them perfectly. Character interaction pretty much (as far as I went in the game at least) consisted of Mario jumping on the heads of enemies, and onto the backs of Yoshi. There was no dialog, but it's a platform game with really no storyline-who needs dialog, anyway? DESIGN: One of the best design elements I remember from this game is the very basic inventory, which can hold an extra mushroom, turtle shell, etc, for use later in the game. This allows the player to go through an area with plentiful powerups and not have to leave them all behind. Of course, it also gives the level designers the ability to create more challenging levels, knowing that the player will have an extra chance, as it were, to get through them. The game creates challenges in many ways. The player is given a certain amount of time to complete each level, so standing still is not an option, and parts of the game world are constantly moving, also requiring quick movement. Then there are the enemies, whom the level designers have placed anywhere the level might get too easy due to a lack of the other two factors. The tone of the game world is light and happy. This is enhanced by the bouncy music playing in the background and the design of the characters. This tone gives the player the feeling that there is really nothing to be worried about, and can lead to overconfidence. I know it did for me.Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:49:05 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2637&iddiary=5007https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2637SUMMARY: Super Mario World is a 2D side-scroller in which the player dodges (and jumps on) obstacles to get through the level and continue on in order to save Princess Toadstool, who has been captured by Bowser (again). GAMEPLAY: Despite the fairly simple idea of dodging enemies to get through a level, I died quite a few times at first, just because I had no idea what something would do if I bumped into it (hey, I wonder what that is... oh, oops). After a while, though, I realized that I didn't have to smash every enemy into the ground or bump into every box if I didn't really want to, which sped things up considerably. After I figured out how to play the game, it became relatively easy to get through the levels... after two or three tries. I was rather annoyed by the fact that I could never seem to see danger coming until it was too late to get out of the way, unless I already knew it was there. As a result, I was losing on average two lives per level until I figured it out and was able to remember where the enemies were, so I could dodge more efficiently. Even with this setback, though, I found the game to be very entertaining. The levels were challenging, though there was always a way to beat the challenge (even if I couldn't see it at first).Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:48:51 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2637&iddiary=5006https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2432Gameplay: The game only took two hours to complete, but during the end the action was intense. In the final boss battle, I, along with a couple dozen NPC rebels (not that they survived very long) had to take out thirteen Striders, giant three-legged machines of war who can seriously back a punch. And if that wasn't tough enough, each Strider was accompanied by one to three Hunters. It was impossible to kill the Strider with the “Magnasun Devices” without first killing the Hunters, since they could shoot the devices out of your grasp. Killing each Strider was immensely satisfying-the Magnasus Devices stuck directly to the Striders and exploded with a very satisfying crunch as the now separated legs fell to earth. The NPCs would cheer with each kill, then an urgent message would come in, warning that yet another Strider had been spotted nearby. After all the Striders had been killed, the game was pretty much over, except for the rocket launch that would close the Combine portal and save the earth, then an attack by Combine advisors. I would have liked to have my gun when the advisors picked us all up and slammed us into the walls, then began to kill people one by one. Even if it didn't make a difference, it still would have felt like I was doing something, rather than just watching a movie unfold. Design: My favorite improvements over Episode 1 are: 1) Flashlight power separated from suit power, so you can swim in dark places without worrying about your oxygen running out twice as fast while using the light. 2) The ammo now has little icons that show up both when you are using the weapon and when you pick up the ammo, instead of just when you pick up ammo. This was a big problem for me the first time I played Episode 1, since I never could figure out what ammo I had picked up and when I could use the more powerful weapons again. 3) The models are much better. This also means that Episode 2 took up a whopping 3 gb on my hard drive, but the enhanced quality is worth it. I found the puzzles fairly easy to figure out. There was nothing inherently new about any of it (though driving a vehicle that didn't have a weapon for the WHOLE time made me feel slightly exposed). However, the levels didn't seem so linear as in Episode 1, giving the game a more open feel. Of course, it was still progressive gameplay, but it didn't feel so much that way.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:23:53 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2432&iddiary=4606https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2432Summary: Half Life 2: Episode 2 is a first person shooter (FPS) in which the player plays Gordon Freeman, a lab assistant from Black Mesa who's specially designed HEV suit allows him to fight off wave after wave of zombies and aliens. Episode 2 continues the story of the Combine invasion of earth, and the fight to survive their assault. Gameplay: In the beginning of the game the action was rather slow, as new players were expected to learn how to use the controls to complete a rather simple puzzle to advance. Quite quickly, however, the action ramps up, until, about fifteen minutes into the game, I was fighting for my life against swarms of bug-like Ant-lions. Throughout the game, my heart was constantly pounding as I wondered what was around the corner, and the game never seemed to disappoint me. Even when we had finally arrived at the safe haven, not thirty seconds later there was somewhere else to go, and some more aliens to blow up. The storyline in the game was quite compelling, with the cut scene at the beginning getting new players up to speed on what happened in Episode 1, then the rest of the game extended it quite well. I wasn't quite paying attention in the beginning, so I wasn't entirely sure why we were going to White Forest, but the game kept me too busy to worry about that much. In addition, the main characters are very well developed, allowing the story to be told quite efficiently through their mouths.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:23:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2432&iddiary=4605https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1999Gameplay: During the second 45 minutes the game got much harder and also much more fun. I was able to collect enough powerups to get an 'option', which at first I thought was some sort of extra rocket (it's a little orange ball), but is really a nifty little thing that will fire when you fire, doubling your fire rate. The game allows the player to have up to four options, and those, along with a missile upgrade, lasers, and a shield bonus, allowed me to progress quite swiftly through the next two levels. However, the increased amount of friendly fire on the screen made it much more difficult for me to see the enemy fire (it didn't help that their shots looked exactly like my missiles), and so I never managed to progress much further than that. Design: One of the best features that I saw in this game was the ability to use the options to increase not only the rate of fire, but the area that I could cover with them. This made shooting through a swarm of enemy craft a whole lot easier, as well as the boss levels. As stated above, this made the enemy shots a lot harder to see. However, that could be looked upon as the penalty for the ease of killing, and if so would be a credit to the design, rather than a flaw. The levels (those that I saw) mostly consisted of the same alien ships and turrets, though there were other enemies that varied from level to level. The game creates conflict by throwing wave upon wave of enemies at you from all sides, which forces the player to move in all directions, instead of just up and down. On the other hand, the boss fights didn't really seem that hard, but there wasn't much space to maneuver, so perhaps that is more of a blessing than a curse. On the whole, Gradius III is a good diversion, a game that is good if one has half an hour to kill, but not something that a gamer would spend hours on, trying to beat the next level.Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:11:13 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1999&iddiary=3887https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1999Summary: In Gradius III, the player operates a spaceship fighting against hordes of alien ships, creatures, and elements of nature. There is no story that I could see, except for a very brief intro movie of the fighter being dropped off by a larger mothership. The one very distinguishing feature I saw is that the powerups are leveled, so to get higher upgrades, the player must collect more powerups, instead of getting a single powerup for a certain power by killing a high level enemy. Gameplay: At first the controls were very difficult for me to figure out, though this was probably because I was running the game through an emulator on my PC. Still, I would have liked a tutorial at least. When the game started, I found myself frantically pushing buttons, trying to find out what did what before I was swamped by enemies. In addition, I found the loadout screen, where the player chooses the type of upgrades that powerups will give them, rather hard to figure out. It was only after the third game I played that I realized that pressing the arrow keys would choose options. Now, I know this probably should have been obvious, but I have played other space shooters where the controls were different (ie, pressing A moved up and B moved down), and the purpose of the loadout screen was not very clear, since I did not start out with the selected upgrades. It was only much later that I discovered that this was the powerup selection screen. For example, choosing if a level two powerup would give me a single powerful missile, or multiple weaker missiles. At the very beginning of the game, I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't seem to survive longer than a minute every single time. However, this was fixed by changing the difficulty setting, which for some reason had been set to “Hard”. After that, I was able to enjoy the game much more, since the enemies and enemy missiles didn't move so fast, and there weren't so many of them as before. Not to say that it still wasn't hard. At all times I felt tense, wondering what was just up ahead, and if I had enough powerups to get through. As I said above, there was really no story to the game. However, I didn't miss it, and in fact felt a little relieved at its absence. Other space shooters that I have played had storylines which were very shallow, or just didn't fit the genre. Having no storyline allowed me to continue to the next level after defeating the boss without having to endure a long cutscene showing me why I was going there.Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:10:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1999&iddiary=3886https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1802Summary: Alpha Centauri is a Turn Based Strategy game in which the player plays as the leader of one of seven factions who have crash-landed on an alien world after the captain of their colonizing ship is killed and the ship destroyed. Gameplay: Throughout the first 45 minutes of the game, I felt constantly edgy, since the native life on the planet (mindworms) can appear out of nowhere, even in the middle of populated areas, giving the game a very good feeling of suspense. In addition, the other six computer controlled factions had distinctive personalities that made keeping the peace next to impossible. The micro-management ability of the game makes it possible to tweak every single detail of your faction, or let the computer pick what is best. I enjoyed this feature, since I could turn on automatic to learn how the computer would handle certain features, then go about it myself (I love to micro-manage). Gameplay: During the second 45 minutes of the game, the mindworms started to become thicker, the planet itself started to fight back against the farms and improvments the factions had created, and the entire game map became a battlefield as faction relations dissolved. Sides were quickly drawn and the war began. Caught up in the excitement, I forgot completely that this was turn based, not real time, and I could take as long as I wanted to plan my strategy and move. The whole game world seems very real, dispite the fact that the game is nearly ten years old. The individual faction leaders seem three-dimensional and alive, hurling insults or begging for mercy. Design: The most innovative thing I saw in the game was the unit editor, which allowed the player to design any unit possible from the ground up. The only thing I found frustrating about it was the fact that certain weapons/modules would not connect to certain chassis, with no explaination. Now, a colony pod I can understand, but why can't I put a transport module on a jet? In addition, Alpha Centauri allows more than one way to win. In addition to Total Dominaiton, you can also choose to buy out the global energy market, become elected as supreme leader, or guide your faction to trancend to a higher level of being. Even though the game did eventually dissolve into war, these options still remained possibilities, though remote. The game keeps players interested by first letting them build up a huge sandcastle for the first hour or so and then making them keep the waves off of it for the rest of the game.Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:56:09 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1802&iddiary=3579