Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=509https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3074Gamelog Entry #2 GAMEPLAY I do have a small criticism of Halo 3 and the Halo series in general. I think that the series' characters are a bit underdeveloped. For example, no one really knows a lot about Master Chief's background, where he comes from, why he never takes his helmet off, etc. You do, however, get a solid basis of the core storyline describing the epic battles/wars between the alien species and the humans. Another character, for example, is Cortana. Again, no one knows where she came from, except that she is the amazing AI. Overall, I wish there was a little more description and character buildup in Halo 3. One thing that Halo 3 did accomplish very well is flow in the game. I never found my playing experience interrupted by annoying text boxes or pauses in play to where I had to change weapons. The whole system of picking up weapons with the X Button and switching with the Y makes the game flow better. I personally find it very annoying when I have to pause the game to go to another screen just to change my weapon or item. I find the Xbox system of button pressing to be much more efficient. DESIGN One of my favorite elements of this game is the new addition of grenades and items that players can throw. For example, there is this shield called the bubble shield; no weapon can penetrate it and the people inside the shield cannot shoot the people outside of it. I personally find this to be a very innovative item that increases the possibilities of gameplay because you can use this bubble shield to come up with different strategies of defeating your enemies. For example, players can throw the shield on their enemies, run in really quickly, throw a grenade or two, and run out and watch the intensity of the grenades destroy their enemies. Another item that I've had a lot of fun with is throwing air lifts. These are especially fun because you can strategically place them in certain areas to gain special items or avoid your enemies (or get to a key sniping position and gain the upper hand). All of these new items placed into the game adds in emergent qualities and allows the players to build new, more intense and intricate strategies. This also makes a very interesting round of Slayer. Halo 3 helps foster social interactions among players because it helps the player release stress and anger (at times). It also is extremely fun to play with human players because they are better than any AI that could be programmed into the game. When given the weaponry and tools for annihilation, each player can come up with some very uniqe (and very hilarious) strategies at defeating people. This game also promotes extreme competitiveness through its 50/25 kill set up. The goal is to kill the most people out of all your other opponents - this leads to the extremely competitive nature of Halo 3 (and also the extremely addicting aspect of it).Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:25:50 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3074&iddiary=5750https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3074Gamelog Entry #1 SUMMARY Halo 3 is a science fiction first person shooter in which the main player is a character called Master Chief. Master Chief uses a large artillery of weapons as well as a huge span of vehicles to fight two enemies - the Flood and the Covenant (both of which are some form of alien). The goal of the game is to "save the world" and stay alive. GAMEPLAY I was pretty amped up when first playing this game. I recall many times when I was playing this game that I was shouting and cussing. I find the ways that you can kill enemies in this game to be extremely hilarious. Halo 3 allows you to defeat your enemies and kill your opponents with a statement. You don't just kill someone; you kill them and make them feel dumb about losing, just through the way that you annihilated them. In contrast to popular opinion, I think the storyline in Halo 3 is quite interesting. Personally, I found the entire Halo series to have an interesting sense of progression. I also found it interesting when the Arbiter, a member of the Covenant, came and fought along Master Chief. I think Halo 3 has some interesting plot twists in general. Halo 3 was incredibly fun to play. There are a lot of great design elements and new added techniques that make the game very intriguing (and addicting). I believe the designers did a great job in combining progressive and emergent qualities in Halo 3. The essence of the game is basically progressive by nature - however, there are many aspects of the gameplay, such as weaponry and environment, that allow the player to explore unique ways to overcome obstacles. I've seen many kills with a sticky grenade, all completed in entirely unique fashions. I believe that this is what makes Halo 3 partially emergent and I also think that this is one of the major reasons why it is so popular. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:04:03.)Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:01:13 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3074&iddiary=5740https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2807Gamelog #2 GAMEPLAY As I continued to play Chrono Trigger, the game became more boring. Some added combination attacks between Lucca and Chrono added some interest to the game, but after awhile even this became tedious. I slowly became of sick of leveling up the characters and gaining more experience by killing the same (or very similar) enemies. I wish there was a little more variation in setting, enemy design, and attacks in this game. I also realized that when this game said that it was multiplayer capable, it did not mean that it allowed two people to play. I believe in Chrono Trigger multiplayer means that the player is able to control more than one character. For example, I can control Chrono and Lucca in battle mode when fighting enemies and I can use their attacks in combination. DESIGN Overall I think Chrono Trigger is a good game for its time. One part of this game that the designers executed extremely well was the storyline. The plot is mainly linear - however, for some things you have to walk around town and talk to people to find out where to go and what to do next. If anything kept me interested in this game it would be my own curiosity to finding out the end of the story. One of the main (and I think only) challenges in Chrono Trigger is the enemies the player has to fight. I think the designers did make a mistake here in limited attacks and not much variation. It could be that I just did not get far enough into the game to find more attacks, but as long as I played I still found fighting enemies to be extremely tedious. I have to admit though, when I first discovered that I was able to combine attacks between Chrono and Lucca I did find that fun. Another thing that I observed when fighting enemies is that the player's motion is extremely limited in the game. You are fighting in the game, but the player is essentially only pressing the A button repeatedly as fast as possible. Otherwise you are just, in a way, waiting to take turns with your enemy. I think the designers of this game could have been a bit more liberal in designing their character's movement so that there would be a little more player interaction with the game; this would also make it a bit easier for the player to fall a little deeper into the magic circle. Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:46:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2807&iddiary=5354https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2807Gamelog Entry #1 SUMMARY Chrono Trigger is a RPG in which you use simple character level ups and a limited arsenal of weaponry to save Queen Leene. Chrono, the main character, goes back in time to save Princess Nadia but instead discovers that he needs to save the queen from the past to preserve his future world. Chrono Trigger is heavily plot based and there are many things to explore in this game. GAMEPLAY My initial emotional state while playing this game was boredom. I personally do not really like RPGs and I found this to be an extremely tedious game. Fighting enemies was not very interesting at all. "Fighting" would purely consist of me pressing "Attack" and watching Chrono take a stab at someone with a sword. The player's range of movement in this game is very limited and I found it to be too restricting in this game. It prevented me from taking interest and increasing the value of defeating enemies. Chrono Trigger's storyline, so far, has been interesting. I do enjoy going around town and talking to people. I do appreciate how the game was made to build the plot and take interesting twists and turns. I also like how the designers incorporated two time dimensions of the same environment. The only part I do not like about the storyline is that it consists of the basic "save the princess" goal. I believe that this has been done way too many times already, but it could just be that this is an older game and I expect too much. I also found it interesting that the game is designed to be multiplayer - however I do not see how it could be. I played with a friend and took turns being Chrono but it was not very fun and the person not playing was almost consistently bored. I think the multiplayer implementation definitely could have been better designed. One thing that I really did appreciate about this game is the flow. This is one of the few games that I have played from older consoles in which the game flow did not feel choppy. Most of the time, whenever I read the plot in textual form I find this too interrupt the flow of the game. However, Chorno Trigger did not do this.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:02:51 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2807&iddiary=5236https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2555Gamelog #2 GAMEPLAY Even after playing Guitar Hero 2 for an extended period of time (somewhere around 4 hours), I still found it extremely fun and interesting to play. The only criticism I have is that if you cannot defeat a particular song, playing that song over and over again can get a bit tedious and, as a result, the player might give up for awhile. I, however, was determined to reach the end of the game and was ecstatic about sometimes barely making it through a final song. DESIGN I believe one of the good design elements of this game is the guitar controller and the steep learning curve of the game. If you happen to be really good at Guitar Hero, you will soon find that many of your gaming friends will worship you like a god. This, in a way, is a glory reward through games as systems of rewards. The steep learning curve is such that mastering the game is a very difficult thing to do - and very few have actuallly succeeded. In more detail regarding the guitar controller, this controller actually makes you feel like you are playing in an actual concert in front of the crowd. When you succeed, the video crowd cheers for you and if you fail, the crowd boos you off the stage. The controller and star power function allows you to enter the magic circle more quickly and immediately be entranced by the game. When the star power is deployed, your character begins to do amazing power-ups on stage and it is easier for you to maintain your "life." Surprisingly, this also allowed me to strategize throughout the game and determine how I could effectively make it through a difficult song. I had to be very careful where to deploy my star power. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:27:05.)Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:24:46 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2555&iddiary=4843https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2555Gamelog #1 SUMMARY In Guitar Hero 2 the player uses a guitar controller to press a series of colored buttons and strum the guitar to succeed in playing many popular songs. The player can also activate "star power" to gain life and essentially "power up" their characters. Throughout the game, you acquire songs and earn money which you can use to buy new characters, outfits, guitars, and songs. GAMEPLAY My emotional state while playing Guitar Hero 2 was extreme excitement. I thought the game was extremely fun and it was easy to get into the songs. It was also a great game to play with friends and I think the replay value is very high. I had a lot of social interactions while playing this game. During my first time playing this game, I actually was invited by my friends. I was very intimidated by the game and I was stubborn to try to learn. However, after I got past a few songs on easy, I quickly found how addicting the game could be. I would say I have always had the most fun playing this game with friends. Guitar Hero 2 was fun to play mainly because the songs provide and pretty steep learning curve in playing all of the songs. I found it was most fun to get to the end of the game and try to learn the more complicated hammer-on series. The song list of the game is also very addicting, which also greatly improves the gameplay. Guitar Hero 2 definitely makes you feel like a rock star when playing it.Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:18:02 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2555&iddiary=4838https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2013Gamelog Entry #2 GAMEPLAY After playing Shadow of the Colossus for the rest of the day, I quickly realized how boring the game was going to be. It was, again, EXTREMELY frustrating because I spent a good hour just trying to LOCATE the stupid colossi. The scenery consists of nothing interesting and there are no "games within the game" or side tasks/obstacles. All I could do was meander around on a horse and try to find my way to the next object of excitement. Unfortunately, even the challenges of defeating the colossi quickly became repetitive and not very entertaining. Also, looking down the line of how long it would take me to defeat this game, I have around eight colossi left to defeat and locate. I have no where near enough patience to do that. In addition, even after I have been playing this game for a good seven-eight hours, I still found the control design/set-up to be ridiculous. Riding the horse continues to be a rather dumb attempt to cover ground relatively quickly. There were some times when I just dismounted the horse and walked...because it was faster (something seems to be wrong with their physics engine if you ask me). DESIGN The design of this game can overall be described as poor. Shadow of the Colossus fails to keep the player interested because of its overly expansive maps and lack of interesting and engaging environments. I understand that the essential "levels" are the colossi themselves - however, climbing giant after giant can get a little tedious, especially when the goal is to simply reach the top of each one. The level design is not varied at all. The goal is way too repetitive and fails to keep the player guessing and on their toes. Despite the fact that I disliked this game overall, I will give the game designers credit for implementing potentially creative design ideas. I think the designers just failed to fully max out the potential of these ideas. For example, one idea that I thought was interesting was the light beam that comes out of your sword to show you where to find the colossi. Over the time I played this game, I realized that the designers were very strategic in deciding where they would allow the environment to provide you sunlight and where they would not. I found that many times during the playing of this game I desired to gain some guidance from that sword, only the game did not permit me to use it because of a lack of sunlight. This is a very ingenious way of creating conflict and controlling spacial relationships in my opinion. Another game design concept that I thought was a creative idea, but not executed well, was the design of the colossi as "levels." I have to say, this is the first time I have ever seen a moving, 3-dimensional, "live" being be the main level. It's very creative and I found it interesting for about the first four colossi. I think the game designers could have made the game a bit shorter. This way the originality and uniqueness of this idea would be preserved, instead of being beaten into the ground. Overall I was pretty disappointed with Shadow of the Colossus. However, I recognize that it did have its creative aspects and it does, in my opinion, deserve to be on the classics lists for this class. The game design is definitely unique and attempting to push the boundaries of what we consider normal gameplay. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:26:57.)Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:14:04 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2013&iddiary=3979https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2013Gamelog Entry #1 SUMMARY Shadow of the Colossus is a progressive RPG. The story is about a boy who wants to bring back a young girl's soul and to accomplish this, he must defeat these god-like beings called colossi. When he defeats all of the colossi, he will then possess the power to bring back the dead. The object of the game is to find these colossi and figure out the varying strategies on how to defeat them. Each colossi has unique weak points, behaviors, and body structures. The setting of the game is pretty basic; it has some ancient ruins and large plains. GAMEPLAY My emotional state when attempting to defeat the first colossi and become familiar with the controls was extreme frustration. I have been playing on Xbox 360 controllers much too long. It was very difficult for me to revert back to the PS2 controls. However, even after I continued to play Shadow of the Colossus for a few hours, I still found the controls frustrating. The camera angles are slow to respond to the movement of the main character. Also, I found the capability of movement when riding the horse to be ridiculous. It seems like the horse never goes where you are trying to go. In addition to this, scaling walls was also very difficult. I feel like the gameplay was constantly interrupted by inadequate control design. In further criticism, I believe the storyline to be under developed. I still do not have a very good sense of the character backgrounds. I read the game manual and the plot was essentially no different than I described above. I do not know why we are trying to save this young girl - however, I do acknowledge that it is possible that the story will be further developed as I progress through the game. Hopefully this is just part of the "mystery" of the game and not a fault in plot design. Also, the beginning set up of the story was EXTREMELY slow paced. I was greatly tempted to press a button and skip the introduction. The beginning consisted of just a boy riding a horse and massive spannings of scenery. The pattern looked like this: boy riding horse, massive camera span of mountains and plains, close-up of boy riding horse, mountains, mountains, plains, river, close-up of boy's face...quite tedious to watch if you ask me. On a more positive note, it has been great fun trying to figure out how to defeat each of the colossi. Each one is unique and provides a new challenge to defeat it. I think it is interesting how each colossi is essentially designed to mimic and 3-dimensional moving level. I definitely like the creativity of this aspect of the game. Overall, the game has been slightly frustrating in attempting to locate the colossi and navigating through the land, but once you face the colossi the game kicks into a high level of fun and challenge. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:29:22.)Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:58:00 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2013&iddiary=3908https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1632Gamelog #2 GAMEPLAY After playing for awhile longer and encountering the Little Sisters in BioShock, my high opinion of this game began to deteriorate. You essentially have to "harvest" the Little Sisters to gain a larger life meter. If you choose not to harvest the Little Sisters, it will be very difficult for you to survive in the next levels. The Little Sisters are LITTLE GIRLS...young girls, probably no older than 4 or 5 years-old. When you reach the part of the game in which you choose whether to harvest or save the girl, the Little Sister runs away from you, panting and shaking in fear. You back her up into a corner and she helplessly grapples the wall for survival. I am disturbed by this graphic image and by the fact that the game designers at 2K thought it would be an interesting "game" to decide whether or not to kill a helpless young girl. I chose to save the little sister, which made Jack pick her up and heal her. If you chose to harvest her, I imagine that the screen would zoom in on you killing her. I found this to be disturbing. Yes, I know that this is part of the gaming world and that BioShock is rated mature for a reason, but does that make it ok for killing children to be part of a video game? I was really disappointed with this aspect of the game. I was also greatly disappointed with the fact that if you chose to do the morally sound thing, future levels are significantly more difficult for you to pass. Yes, BioShock has a great story line and interesting form of gameplay. I like the concept of the plasmids. The concept of throwing fire, using telekinesis, and shooting electrical surges from your hands is very thrilling - however from a conceptual perspective, I believe the killing little girls part to be too extreme. I think the game designers took it a little too far here. This interrupted the game flow for me and I had to pause and think about what I would do - this almost made me want to stop playing. DESIGN I initially thought BioShock was a fantastic game and that the design was great, but some of my opinions changed after I found out about harvesting the Little Sisters. However, BioShock is still innovative in some aspects, such as the plasmids and their functions. I personally find the ability to control fire and electricity and move objects with your mind to be quite fantastic. I think that this was a brilliant design because it allows you to strategize and use your environment in different ways to pass obstacles. You could definitely replay BioShock again and play it in an entirely different way and discover new things every time. I greatly enjoy this part of the game and I think it is genius. One element that I do not like about the design of this game is the Vita Chamber. This chamber makes the loss of life almost entirely irrelevant. In fact, the loss of life might be entirely beneficial to the player...almost to where you want to die on purpose. The Vita Chamber revives you and provides you with significantly more life and significantly more Eve. It also gives you a bit of ammo. This makes the game relatively easy to progress through when playing on medium difficulty. I think that the Vita Chamber should not have been designed to renew ammo, life, and special powers. This makes the game too easy and it also decreases the cost of life. Suddenly the players don't really care if they die or not. I think that the way to revive life should have been designed to where the player has some significant loss of progress when he or she dies. I have heard many gamers say that when playing BioShock, if they die they just turn the console off to avoid the advantageous Vita Chamber. I find this to be extremely annoying and I think it is a big mistake on the game designer's part. Overall, I believe BioShock to be a very innovative way of presenting a first person shooter - however, I would have liked to seen it done more tastefully and not quite so shockingly violent. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:38:55.)Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:56:36 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1632&iddiary=3360https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1632Gamelog #1 SUMMARY BioShock is a first person shooter with a slight twist. The goal of the game is to save an underwater city called Rapture from its own self destruction and make it out alive. The player controls the protagonist of the story, Jack. As you proceed through Rapture, you gain more weaponry and also gain the ability to control plasmids. The plasmids allow you to manipulate your DNA and give you the capability to throw fire and electricity, among other super powers, to defeat your enemies. GAMEPLAY I initially bought BioShock because I heard it had a fantastic story line and that the gameplay developed an interesting twist on the basic first person shooter. I had also heard that it made many of my friends "cry like little girls." Naturally, they encouraged me to play BioShock with maximum volume and the lights off. Unfortunately, I did not have enough courage to do this. When I first began playing BioShock, I was pretty scared and nervous that, at any moment, some creepy splicer might jump out at me. When I landed in the dark ocean at the beginning of the game and was forced to find my way into Rapture, I didn't like the fact that I had no weaponry. Even later in the game when a splicer with chain saws as hands began to cut his way into my elevator, I had no weapon. I was frantically trying to find the control for an attack similar to melee in Halo. My experience of the entire duration of playing BioShock could be described in two words: frantic anticipation. I found the plot of Rapture to be very original and I greatly enjoyed progressing through the levels and having little historic "leave behinds" (such as the radio, audio diaries, and broken video tapes) inform me about the history of Rapture and how it became a desolate place of death and insanity. As to BioShock's gameplay, I found the plasmid mechanism to be extremely fascinating. When I discovered the incinerate plasmid, I called my mom over to show her my cool ability of throwing fire. I also like how you can use the plasmids in creative ways, such as throwing electricity into water on the ground to shock multiple enemies at once. One aspect that I thought BioShock took great advantage of was the ability to use the environment around you to reach your goals. In addition to the plasmids, I also found the hack mechanism to be extremely interesting. I could basically play a mini puzzle game to hack into various machines, which would allow me to use them to my own advantage in the game. These machines could give me extra defense as well as extra health. I found this to be an interesting "game within a game." (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:33:47.)Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:09:54 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1632&iddiary=3351