Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=506https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3011GAMEPLAY Now that I'm near the end of the game, things have picked up since my last entry. I've gotten past the hurdles of the early and mid game, and levels are much more a test of my flying skills then my ability to manage my resources to get a plane that would let me dominate a level. The level I started with was an interesting one. I had to fly through a network of radars while remaining undetected. As I flew closer to the ground, the radius of the radar decreased, opening small holes that I could slip though. Sadly, the radar can only been seen on the "radar" screen, leading most of my level to be played as a small red triangle avoiding various sizes of circles. In another level, where I had to shoot down an orbital laser platform, I began to feel that the with the large target on the underside labelled "Laser" and the dodgeable bullets, it almost felt like I was playing a 3D shmup. The other level that really stood out to me was the last level. Though the begining of the level is trivial (simply shoot some ground targets) the most annoying thing about the level is its opening, which takes several minutes. This would not be much of a problem if not for the second stage of the level, which requires the player to fly quickly through a narrow corridor. As mentioned before, the collision detection in this game is a little quirky, and the control scheme tends to fall apart when trying to maneuver through tight corridors. Crashing is common, and to crash sends you all the way to the begining of the level, much to your chagrin. DESIGN In general, Ace Combat is one of the few remaining flight simulation series. Its success is attributed to its strong story, realism, and incredible gameplay. When it comes to realism, Ace Combat does not disapoint. The aircraft's parts move realistically as you fly, missiles behave reletively realistically; even the Prandtl-Glauert singularity can be seen when you hit mach 1 in your fighter. Mission objectives are now much more focused; where AC4 would simply have "Score so many points in this time limit" AC5 chalenges you to protect friends, destroy enemy contingents, break through fortresses, and even fly in formation. With its story, Ace Combat 5 has a number of realistic cutscenes which depict your fighter wing. The many characters have a realistic feel to them, and make you want to get farther into the game. The story's few downsides are, without a doubt, the miserable poetry your wing mates spout during missions. When you're in an intense dogfight, a wingman breaking in to eloquently (and sometimes ineloquently) describe the snowy terrain below really kills the mood. Otherwise, the controls are well thought out, and the camera system, which allows you to follow enemies and missiles, is a joy. The only issue I had with camera was with bombing, as when in 3rd person view, it was often difficult to get the bombing indicator on the target without loosing a good deal of altitude, leading me to either crash on bombing runs, or drop my bombs point blank onto their targets.Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:02:37 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3011&iddiary=5987https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3011SUMMARY Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, is a Fighter simulation game by Namco. The series is well known for its realistic game play and engaging stories. In Ace Combat 5, the player controls "Blaze" a fighter Ace from the country of Osea (which is similar to the United States). Unlike its predecessor, Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies, The Unsung War has replaced the point system often used as mission objectives in the former game with more focused mission objectives. The game has a very focused and realistic story, following the members of the Wardog (and later Razgriz) squadron that your character is a member of. When actually playing the game, the player flies a single fighter jet, using the control stick to adjust pitch and roll, while using the R2 and L2 buttons to adjust yaw. With the simple control scheme (offered in the options menu) control is simpler, though advanced maneuvers are not possible. The player's fighter jet can carry an unrealistically large number of missiles and special munitions; late game fighters can carry upwards of 80 basic missiles. A number of aircraft are available to the player, all based on either actual aircraft used by real-world militaries, or concept aircraft that were designed but never entered production. When engaging air targets, the player must maneuver to where the enemy plane is in front of them, then either lock on with missiles and fire, or close to close range and use its machine gun. Missiles can typically turn sharply about once, and inexperienced players may find themselves missing enemy planes with their missiles at first. Planes also have special weapons, which range from unguided bombs to quick air to air missiles. In Ace Combat 4, many aircraft were equipped with missiles that could easily target multiple enemy aircraft at long range, but in Unsung War, early fighters that specialize in anti-air typically come with SAAMs (long range, single target, easy to miss with) out of the box, making mid-game antifighter combat difficult at times. GAMEPLAY I decided to replay through Unsung War on Very hard mode for this game assignment. My missile-launching skills have been getting rusty, and I trashed a number of my missile shots. The most difficult missions, hands down, were those where I had to protect something from attack. This was often a helicopter under attack from fighters, or some sort of structure. At this point, my fighters did not have multi-shot missiles, which made defence difficult because killing the attacking fighters requires damage output that is difficult to get. Interestingly, I've found that using my wingmen is very important, especially because its quite easy to run out of ammunition. Luckily, unlike AC 4, I have infinite machine gun, though hitting with that can be a challenge. On very hard mode, enemies take many missile hits, dodge like crazy, and missile evasion, unlike the easier difficulties, is a challenge. Collision detection is a bit better over AC4; I don't crash into things like telephone wires any more, though its still very, very easy to crash. The ground attack missions were mostly fun: my favourite mission pits you against an entire fleet and later, a gigantic submarine armed with ballistic missiles.Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:46:03 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3011&iddiary=5670https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2640GAMEPLAY After my first log, I used a number of glitches to put the final levels at my disposal (I'll talk about a few of these later on). The final levels though, are amazing to play. Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Road are two probably two of the most skilfully designed levels ever. First is Rainbow Road. With the slightly bizarre tone of rainbow riding flying carpets and lots and lots of instant death bottomless pit (veritably, the entire level is floating in the sky) the level forces the player to think and jump quickly in order to stay alive. The other level, Tick Tock Clock, is even more interesting. Since the entrance to this level is a giant clock face, depending on what time it "is" (the clock moves absurdly fast), the level will be different. If you enter at 12, the moving parts in the level will stop. At 3, they move at normal speed. At 6, they move at absurd speed, and finally, at 9, they move backwards. With relatively normal objectives of getting to various areas of the clock, the level keeps you interested with an amazing theme and multiple modes within the level itself. DESIGN Without a doubt, Mario 64 is one of the greatest video games ever created. With huge, thematic levels and lots of replay value for each, the game keeps a player going until he or she is done. That said, Mario 64 also pushed the N 64 to its limit graphics wise. As a Nintendo product, Mario 64 could have no load times, since Nintendo games almost never break the 4th wall or do anything to cause their gameplay to not be seamless. This, however, forces developers to take some short cuts. The glitches I used to advance into the game are some such short cuts. One is in a stairwell on the way up to some of the higher areas of the castle. The ceiling, although it appears to be solid, is, in fact, not, and can be jumped through using mario's famed wall kick. Another such glitch allows you to pass through doors by using a jump glitch that propells you backwards. As you need to "talk" to a door to pass through it, the dialogue that should have come up could not come up, and game physics brought me flying through the door. The other thing I find interesting are mario's many moves and jumps. Though easy to understand, the many jumps are all needed in different ways in order to progress. A puzzle may require you to jump onto a platform high above you, and in order to do it, one might have to combine jumps, such as a side jump and a wall kick. In addition, mario's attacks all seamlessly flow from and into his jumps, allowing you to perform some sort of attack at any point.Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:28:02 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2640&iddiary=5012https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2640SUMMARY Mario 64 is the first effective 3D platformer. The player controls our favourite portly plumber, Mario, as he gathers stars and fights bowser to save Princess Peach and get his cake(which, coincidently, is not a lie). The player progresses through the game by going to different worlds from the central world (Peach's castle) which has links to all of the other worlds. Each level has 8 stars hidden within it, which are used to unlock more levels. There are also a number of levels with Either two stars, or a star and a power up (such as the three bowser stages, the three cap stages, and the famous "slide" level). To obtain a star, the player must do a variety of things, from simply jumping up (or across) a number of platforms to the star, beating a boss, collecting all of the 8 red coins in a level, and many other things. The most obvious aspect of Mario 64 is its level design: almost every level is non-linear, allowing many different approaches to obtaining each star. GAMEPLAY As a long-time veteran of Mario 64, I decided to simply start a new game. As usual, my first star came from bob-omb battlefield. Since I wanted to talk about the level design of the more interesting levels, I went ahead and sped through the first set of available levels. The one level that I'd like to point out, though, is the first of Mario 64's two snow levels. In this level, there is the so called "ice slide." I have to note that the ice slide has probably claimed more lives from me in my time playing Mario 64 then any other area. Especially as a kid, attempting to control a skidding mario on a snow and ice slide, and, even worse, actually turn with some accuracy, was quite difficult. After beating bowser, I went along to the Haunted House level in the basement garden. Interestingly, this level was one of the most difficult for many people to find, and is also the only one that is actually contained IN an enemy. The level can't be properly executed without the vanish cap, a power up that allows Mario to pass through some walls. Activating the Vanish cap can be difficult, requiring you to complete a treacherous jumping puzzle. The Haunted House level has a number of interesting stars to be collected, such as the star that requires you to find your way to the very top of the house.Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:09:18 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2640&iddiary=5011https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2337GAMEPLAY Booting up Dynasty Warriors again, I decided to have a bit of fun. Since in the last campaign, I unlocked the strongest character in the game, Lu Bu, I decided to play with him. Lu Bu doesn't have a campaign of his own, so I was stuck with free play, that is, playing through the levels with absolutely no concern for history. I played the most populous level, Hu Lao gate (traditionally rendered as Hu Lao Pass). Since the real Lu Bu in that level ties up your allies, it is quite easy to get kill counts up around 1000 without much effort. Normally, staying away from Lu Bu is of the utmost importance, as he can easily kill you in single combat, but, being free mode, I just went ahead and challenged myself and won handily. The thing that stood out to me the most playing as Lu Bu was his remarkable difficulty with engaging multiple people for the strongest character in the game. Only with the last hit of his combo does he swing his halberd around himself, making it easy for my enemies to interrupt my combo from behind. That said, his brutal power and range more then made up for his lack of decent combos. In the end, I have determined that only Lu Bu is manly enough to pull off wearing peacock feathers on his head. DESIGN The thing that makes Dynasty Warriors stand out so much is its lack of concern over making anything particularly accurate to the period. Players receive radio transmissions from generals and officers on a regular basis, and combo moves often defy gravity in visually appealing ways. For example, Zhaou Yu's combo puts him into a horizontal in-air barrel roll slash that bounces clockwise, and then counter-clockwise for the length of the special move. In addition, the fact that the characters in the game existed along a period off approximately 300 years does not stop D.W.'s writers from putting them together in the same levels. That said, the almost constant war screams around you, and the sound of your halberd crushing masses of conscripts with the whine of an electric guitar playing Chinese-inspired songs certainly makes up for any reservations about the game's accuracy during gameplay. In the case of D.W. the player doesn't need to know that the game is contrived because the played doesn't care: he/she is busy killing people!Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:17:14 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2337&iddiary=4471https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2337SUMMARY: Dynasty Warriors is, in every sense, a hack and slash game. Pick your member of the Chinese nobility from the Three Kingdoms period and commence in the slaughter of hundreds of minor soldiers and generals. The game progresses along the traditional story arc of the Three Kingdoms period as laid out by "The Romance of The Three Kingdoms". There are many, many story arcs to follow for each of a wide variety of characters, though, since this is not the expansion, there are no story modes for the more colourful of the characters, such as the absurdly powerful Lu Bu. GAMEPLAY: I played the game a bit before this, and had unlocked some of the unlockable characters (since you start out with only a few). I chose my personal favorite character to play, Da Quao, the fan wielding beauty married to Zhaou Yu. Playing as her is always as amusing as it is intense. While many characters have difficulties when surrounded, Da excells in it. Since real world physics aren't a particularly large issue in this game, Da can have her fans circle around her in a spiral shape when she uses her special move. Levels take around 30 minutes to beat, though you're allotted a full 90 minutes on most. As I fight my way through the battlefield, my allied troops push ahead on other fronts. Overall, the feel of the game win screen telling my story in traditional style and listing how many people I killed in each battle was well worth it.Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:58:16 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2337&iddiary=4470https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1964GAMEPLAY Well, on I go the shadow temple. After dealing with some side quests, I moved into the temple. With invisible swinging blades, undead skeletons, and, even worse, undead disemboweled hands, the shadow temple keeps you on your feet. The level happens to be my least favorite, despite being easier then the water temple. As a kid, it scared me to hell with its crazy, evil atmosphere. The dungeon promenantly features invisible enemies and obstacles, as well as puzzles that must be solved with the Hover Boots: footwear that allows you to walk temporarily on air. Finally, the boss of the shadow temple is, without a doubt, one of the weirdest in the game. You fight it on a giant bongo drum, and the boss itself is composed of two giant hands and a freakish body. Luckily, as soon as you "down" the boss (that is, put it in a mode where it can be damaged (typically with your sword)), you can destroy it quickly with the big-goron's sword, which deals double damage over your normal sword. DESIGN There are several notable mechanics in the shadow temple. The most annoying is the Floormaster, a disembodied hand. After killing it normally, it splits into a number of smaller hands. You must kill all of them within a certain time or have to kill the floormaster again. To complicate things, the developers decided to give the little floormaster the most powerful attack in the game (it saps all of your health). The addition of a instant death mechanic greatly annoys me, as there is no real reason for it to be present, especially in a game that stresses the acquisition of additional health by searching and progressing. Second is the idea of invisible enemies. Although they can be seen with the lens of truth, just their existence is a constant struggle. Unlike the floormasters (who themselves can be invisible at times), I think the addition of these doppelgangers was a good design decision, as they add to the aura of the shadow temple. In addition, there is the miniboss of the dungeon, a weird construction of hands protruding from the ground. Although you have already fought the boss once as a child, the boss's incessant attacks impede your movement, and the general idea of the bizarre cadaver is both stylistically and mechanically astounding. In all, both times fighting the boss were fun, if not actually frightening.Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:52:27 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1964&iddiary=3864https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1964SUMMARY After scrounging around for a little while, I finally found my copy of LoZ, OoT. It's been awhile...a long while, since I played, but, luckily, I have a few save files, so I don't have to start over from the beginning. As you already know, "Zelda 64" is an action adventure game in 3D space. You control Link, a normally green-clad swordsman who, after navigating through overworlds and various minor challenges, must clear a series of dungeons. GAMEPLAY I found myself spawning near the water temple. Dang. Out of all of the dungeons in Zelda, I think the water temple is probably the worst. It's less of a dungeon and more of a puzzle, punctuated by the occasional enemy. After about 30 minutes of hopelessly annoying running about, I turned to my trusty computer and got a walk through of the dungeon. Luckily, after I got the long-shot (a sort of spring loaded grappling hook), things got a bit easier. I decided to play all the way through the dungeon, and fought the boss, an giant evil protozoan, which was, as I knew already, quite easy when compared to the dungeon. At the end of my session, I felt tired. Very tired. The dungeon was a pain in the behind, and, even worse, I know that I'm going to be doing the Shadow Temple next, which isn't much better. During my play session, a few friends watched me play, and we chatted about how annoying it was to play the dungeon. The only thing that could have made my time more aggravating would have been if I had been playing the remake of Zelda, Master Quest, which is the same graphics and controls, just with more difficult challenges.Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:21:33 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1964&iddiary=3843https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1629GAMEPLAY Well, after realizing I needed to log again, I booted up the not-so-old PC and slammed in Sup-Com again. This time, since I've played a bit since last time, I'm about half way through the second campaign. Playing as a nation of cyborgs, I quickly realize that my stuff is nowhere near as strong as it was when I was playing with the last guys. In the mission I played, I happened to be on a water map. One that required me to use, well, water units. I built a few Destroyers, the basic mid-level assault ship, and sent them off to do some shore bombardment. Five minutes later, and they aren't there. Confused, I look at a point about 10% of the way down the coast. There's my destroyers. They sprouted legs. And they're walking. Slowly. The walking destroyer would eventually be very, very, very annoying. While it made for a great tank and ground assault vehicle, it was a terrible ship, since whenever I asked it to, perhaps, destroy an enemy ship, it would, by virtue of faulty AI, proceed to the nearest land, and slowly walk in the direction I wanted it to go. DESIGN Supreme Commander is a first in the RTS world in terms of scope. You can zoom all the way out to view the entire map, or you can look up the barrel of your tank's cannon. While the units aren't really anything new, the massive variety makes up for it, letting you carefully plan out your attack. As I mentioned before, the AI is, although impressive, as it allows your units to cross miles of terrain with just a mouse click, still very, very buggy, especially with ships, and with formations. When told to head across a system of way points, units often deviate, and, as shown with my walking destroyers, sometimes to disastrous effects. When told to move in formation, units who are not already in formation will try to move towards each other in order to enter formation...useless, if you happen to have two groups of units. Also, when your guys reach the area they were told to go into formation at, they'll recalculate their formation...even if they're already in one, which creates some terrible traffic jams. Along another line, in game commands and commentary aren't voice acted, which makes for some problems, as I often miss characters telling me important information.Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:06:07 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1629&iddiary=3842https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1629The game supreme commander is a Real Time Strategy game, that is, where you control units and buildings from a (typically) third person view and attempt to use your military units and buildings to defeat your enemy, primarily by destroying their buildings or some other objective. In this particular game, everything about it is BIG. Maps up to 81x81km, and armies of potentially thousands of units are not uncommon, as well as single units that could wipe said armies off the map. Other nice additions are how adjacent buildings tend to give each other bonuses, and the inclusion of strategic weapons in the form of various buildings. Today, I was playing as one of three races in the game, the UEF, or United Earth Federation. For those of whom like playing other space-genre RTSs, you'll probably identify these guys as the "Terran" type. I happened to be playing their last of six story missions, which was an interesting challenge. About 1/4 of the way through the mission, I encountered a problem. I had to take an island that was heavily defended. I set up a heavy cannon (which took a full 45 minutes to build) and had it shell their base until their nuclear missile defenses were down, where upon I proceeded to annihilate their entire base in a giant blaze of toasty death. After my three hour trance, I finally beat the campaign! Now on to the two others, so I can actually understand the storyline.Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:30:45 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1629&iddiary=3343