Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=550https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2999GAMEPLAY I was able to dive a lot deeper into BioShock on my second play through. My play style has changed a bit since my last entry. I said that I really enjoyed exploring the world and even the bloody and ruined environments had interest. My attention to the environment has been greatly reduced. And that is for one reason only; this game has dangerous psychopathic killers running around. My curiosity has resulted in countless encounters with scary and strong enemies. The first ones where easy, but these guys have guns and bombs, and the ones who don't have a habit of sneaking up on me. The restaurant and main square where one thing. But the medical pavilion is something. There is blood every where. There are dead bodies everywhere. There are scary doctors and lots of mist. There are lights that turn off and crazies in my face when I turn around. And the sound is amazing. I'm enjoying this game in the dark at night with a pair of very good headphones. Every time I hear a sound I have to turn around in the game, and sometimes I turn around in my chair. It got to be that I would nervously wave my gun around at everything, always on edge. If I heard a sound, I'd back into a corner and try to see if something was coming after me. This game really has me scared. And I love it. I also ran into one of those little sisters. Now these 'little girls' have ADAM, which I need to make my character stronger to survive. Now I have a choice. I can either harvest the ADAM out of the little sister, which would kill her. Or I can rescue her. I read in an early version of the game, the only way to get ADAM was to harvest. So the choice was growing your character or making a moral choice. However, in the final build, you get ADAM either way. You just get less from rescuing the girl. So the choice was now if just a simulated morality which I had to make. On one hand, it's an innocent little girl of sorts. On the other hand, it's just an image generated by zeros and ones. I talked about making up a character to play earlier, and that came into play here. I already decided I was a basically good person who was being forced to do horrible things to survive. But this was too much. My character would save the little girls as soon as I would save myself. But what do all these choices have to do with a good video game? DESIGN BioShock has so many interesting design elements; I hardly know where to start. First of all, the presentation of this game is out of this world. This really shows how polish can make an experience. The sound is eerie. The music is creepy. The voices are smart and insane. The world is wonderfully designed. The splicers look like monsters. All this comes together to make one really immersive experience. And I haven’t really talked about the gameplay yet. This game goes to show that if a designer puts time into their presentation, then the experience can go a tremendous distance. But that experience needs a driving force. The experience will never be, well, experienced if there is no reason to play. There needs to be something to keep the player playing, to keep the story unfolding, and to drive the reason and existence of this product. And that is the gameplay. Now BioShock's gameplay is an issue. It is fun, no question. The shooting is fun and the use of the plasmids is unique. I can say that the gameplay does enough. It keeps me interested, it is well designed and most importantly, it is fun. But I can't help but feel like it can be so much more. So many parts of the game seem like that can be deeper, like they were dumbed down to appeal to a large audience. I mentioned that there used to be no way to get ADAM besides harvesting. I think this should have stayed the case. No doubt, it would have made the game a lot harder. And furthermore, the more casual player would probably dismiss the choice as dumb and just harvest to get the ADAM without thinking about it. Maybe this would take away from the concept of the choice by making one choice 'stupid' from a gameplay perspective while the other is stupid from a story perspective. However, maybe the designer could have worked that into the story itself. Something about how most people will choice the easiest path regardless of how that affects other people. I don't know; maybe that kind of player wouldn't even pay attention to that kind of story nonsense. I guess it just comes down to why each player plays the game. Is it just for fun or is it for the story and experience? I know I'm the latter, but I like to have fun too. There are other parts that seem dumbed down too. There is no inventory management. You can pick up a lot of things in this game, but it is either consumed right away or handled by the computer as an 'invisible'inventory. You can save stuff, and you also can't make any decisions on what to leave or keep. It just seems like the kind of game that should have inventory, plus there are enough games that have one, it doesn't seem like a new thing. Also, all the character growth is just using the plasmids to gain new abilities. There are no stats, like strength. There are just 'get better at hacking' or 'get better at melee' plasmids you can choose from. On one hand, this seems like a little more realistic within the realm of the story and feel of the game, but on the other, it could have made the game a lot deeper to add these elements. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:40:44.)Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:33:14 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2999&iddiary=5981https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2999SUMMARY: BioShock is an engaging first person shooter. Unlike many shooters, Bioshock contains an amazing story featuring a ruined underwater art deco city call Rapture. The player controls a man who has fallen into the mist of this insane anarchy. The player has to find guns and other useful items to combat the crazed “splicers.” They also can modify their genes to become stronger and use spell like abilities. But the only way to get the resource they need to splice is through these little girls who wander the halls. Will the player try to rescue them, or use them for their own gain? GAMEPLAY Upon starting BioShock, I was immediately blown away by the presentation. From almost the very beginning, I found myself immersed in a wondrous art deco world. The first location of the game is a light house which serves as a gate to the city. This place had a wonderful design and was not at all in disarray. The entire place was fun to explore and although this was not a large area and there wasn’t really much to do, the area seemed a lot bigger just because of all there was to look at. Once I got into the city proper, I found the once beautiful place to be a frightening mess. There was blood on the walls, lights were out or flickering. Things were just generally destroyed. And this just made me want to look around even more. Everywhere I explored really remained me of the computer game, MYST. MYST did a great job of creating a wondrous fantasy world, and exploring that world was the key to the gameplay. BioShock has the same kind of world with a twist, everything is destroyed and now there are insane mutants trying to stalk and kill you. When I wasn’t fighting, I always stayed around to make sure I could explore everything. I know a lot of players who just try to rush through the levels as quickly as possible, and they are free to do that, I just feel like that’s not the right way to experience this game. I didn’t spend all my time exploring, there where killers about. For a while, the only weapon I could find was a wrench to whack people with and my first plasmid, electrobolt. Plasmids give the character special abilities. Some are passive, but electrobolt gives me the ability to shot a bolt of electricity from my fingertips. I was pleased to find that the world responded well to my electric attacks. In one part, I shocked a pool of water that an enemy was standing in to give him a deadly shock. Eventually, I found a gun. It’s just that it had only six bullets, so I made sure to make every shot count. For a lot of the game, ammo is very rare and I try to make it last. Eventually, it is easy to buy bullets from machines, but this ruins a great part of the game, which is resource conservation. Maybe I just won’t buy bullets to make the game a little harder. I have a habit with a lot of games of making stories up when the game casts the player as the main character. Games like first person shooters or shmups where you do not see the player because you look out of their eyes or they are hidden in a ship and they have no real story or story involvement. I usually just come up with my own back-story and maybe even imagine a little behind the scenes action within the game. In BioShock, for example, I took a minute after killing my first enemy to try and simulate coping with the shock of killing a person. I bring this up because this habit actually seems to come into play when I am playing BioShock. The game has a few moral choices which the player needs to make, and I find the experience more enjoyable if I get into character to make a choice. But what is also interesting is that I take the time to think about my player’s relation to the environment and I come to some interesting conclusions. For example, as a player I attack every enemy on site and try to kill them. Why do I do this? Because they try to kill me. But how does that make them make me any different then the enemies I fight. I feel like these feelings are a part of the game, but are only there for people like me who take the time to look. Is this a cleaver way of marketing the game to a wide audience? (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:49:11.)Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:48:28 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2999&iddiary=5706https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2775GAMEPLAY: After playing a lot more of SMB3, I was able to feel out how the gameplay progresses over time. There is actually a lot of depth to the world map. I find this interesting because this is the first time a Mario game has featured a world map, and I would think that it would be a simple design the first time around and get more advanced in later games. As I kept playing, I found what happens when Mario runs out of lives. I am forced to start over at the beginning of my current world and all the levels reset. However, there are a number of items which helped me pass through the world faster without having to play all the levels. There is a cloud item which lets me pass over a level. I can use a pick to break a rock or a key to unlock a door so shortcuts will open up that let you bypass levels. This, along with the ability to start levels with certain power-ups, adds a new element to the game besides simple platforming. This creates a kind of map management system. There is a good strategy to deciding when to use your items for the maximum benefit and when to look ahead if you have to start at the beginning of the level. Now that I have spent a lot of time with the game, I have a greater sense of the platforming elements. Like I said before, all the classic platforming elements I am used to are present in this game. The problem is I don’t really know how revolutionary these elements are because I didn’t play the game when it was released. What I can say is that this game is a whole lot of fun and its gameplay is both very simple and complex. Like most good games, it is easy to learn, but difficult to master. The levels I played were not that hard. Even as the game progressed, I could still beat the level if I took it nice and easy. The basic idea of continuously moving right and jump on enemies’ head was apparent from the beginning. However, it is almost impossible to resist the urge to try and beat the level as quickly as possible. Even if no body is watching, I like to show off by running through a level without stopping. And SMB3 allows you to do that. A level could be easy if the player is cautious and careful, or that same level could be much more difficult if the player wants to run through as fast as possible. In this way, Super Mario Brothers 3 offers variety in gameplay and replayability, both of which are qualities great games have. DESIGN Like I previously stated, SMB3 contains many elements which make a great game. However, what makes this game itself great? I know for one that this game was very built up when it was released. Super Mario Brothers was already a huge success and SMB3 was the true successor. I couldn’t help but note all the improvements from SMB when playing the game. Besides the improvements in graphics and presentation I spoke of earlier, I noted how the gameplay itself evolved. The control and the play itself stayed mostly the same, but the designers added a slew of new objects into the mix which gave so much more to the gameplay. The music note boxes for example allow the player to make huge jumps previously unseen in the past titles. I guess what I am trying to say is, why should the designers change the gameplay that already worked in SMB? Players want to see more of what they fall in love with. But players don’t want exactly the same game either. SMB3 is a great example of gameplay which is not basically modified, but greatly improved. That’s what I define as a great sequel. But while SMB3 may be a great sequel, why is it a great game? I’m sure there are a lot of people who haven’t played SMB. One difference I noticed is that there is no way to save in SMB3. You can keep continuing if you die, but you cannot save the game unless you are playing a later version. Like I said before, there are a lot of items which can create shortcuts and skip levels and even worlds. One of the great things about this game is replayability. Playing for the first time, I could only try to beat the levels as best as I could. But I do know there are a lot of shortcuts hidden around. By experience and word of mouth, I could eventually find these secrets which increase my skill at playing the game. This increases the social appeal of the game. It encourages players to play in pairs or groups, and share information. Again, this gives the game more and more replayability, unlike other single player games which are played once or twice. What also makes this game great is that it is fun and easy to learn. As said before, the jumping mechanic and the opening levels are very easy to pick up. But what makes this game a masterpiece is how deep it is at the same time. There is a lot to the levels, there is a lot to the world map and there is a lot to the gameplay. There just is a lot to Super Mario Brothers 3.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:34:27 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2775&iddiary=5478https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2775SUMMARY: Super Mario Brothers 3 is a classic 2-D side scrolling platformer. SMB3 is a legend within its series, genre and within video gaming itself. A more faithful successor to the original Super Mario Brothers, SMB3 introduced many new elements to the already popular game. SMB3 added a world map with multiple paths, as well as a bunch of new items, power-ups and collectables. Also, each world had its own distinct theme, such as water or dessert, instead of the same time of levels. GAMEPLAY: As a veteran Mario Bros. player, Super Mario Brothers 3 (SMB3) was instantly familiar to me. I have played a lot of Mario World and Super Mario Brothers one in the past, but not a lot of SMB3, the game which came between the two. Most of the early levels where too easy for me, being an experienced player. However, it is worth noting the learning curve itself is very well developed. These levels were easy, but I became very comfortable with the game while playing them. They introduced me to some of the game’s unique features. There are few video game players who are not familiar with the super mushroom and the fire flower. But I also became familiar with the super leaf, which gave me the raccoon suit which allows Mario to fly and the strange frog suit which let Mario jump higher. And besides the “?” blocks and normal blocks, there where also music note blocks which bounced me back the direction I came from. There are a large number of improvements in SMB3 as well as a good deal of common elements. The main enemies of the game are still the gombas, koopa troopas and hammer bros. However, they occupy a wider environment. The first game only mostly only contained blocks and pipes, but SMB3 adds real hills and inclines. While the mushroom kingdom was still very abstract, the design made it look a lot more like a real place. The game also featured a charge meter of sorts which builds as Mario runs, filling it up while with the raccoon suit, Mario can take off and fly across the level. Besides providing a shortcut, I was able to find hidden areas in the clouds which contain extra lives and coins. This freedom made each level seem a lot larger and it felt like I had more freedom in exploring. Another new aspect is the world map. Each level is set up as the next step in a path Mario is taking. At times, the path splits and I can choose which way I want to go. This was very helpful when I would get tried of trying the same level over and over again. There were also other objects on the map. Some levels are short mini games which offer power-ups and life ups. There are also houses which offer a random power up. But there are threats too. Mini bosses patrol the roads and each time I finish a level or lose a life, they move a random number of spaces. There is a chance I will be ambushed or not run into any enemies at all. All the power-ups I collected from the mini games I was allowed to save and use at any time on the world map, so when I would have trouble with a level I could just pick an item and chose to start the level with the raccoon suit or with some other power-up. As I play the game more, I think I be able to dive deeper into the level structure and give a better description of how the gameplay itself ties into these new elements. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:25:53.)Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:51:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2775&iddiary=5193https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2436GAMEPLAY I got to dive a lot deeper into the game this time around. The combat continues to disappoint me. It didn’t quite become a problem until I started spending a lot of time fighting. The combat seemed so repetitive. It was like I was fighting the same battle no matter what kind of enemy I was fighting. However, this game is much more then just combat, so I didn’t let the issue ruin my experience. What the game does have is a very detailed potion system. Potions are very important in The Witcher and they play a greater role then in an average RPG. The player chooses which potions to carry on hand, which are instantly ready for use. They could choose health restoring potions, potions that make Geralt stronger, faster or smarter, or potions which give bonuses against certain enemies. But the game doesn’t present the potions as simple buffs. To explain, I’ll have to dive into the lore of the game. As I said before, this game contains a very detailed fantasy world which is cataloged in the player’s journal. But the lore is not just background story; the lore is actually a part of the gameplay. For example, each potion is made of different ingredients, which have different properties and components. To make a potion, first I had to buy a book on plants and another on monsters in the area. Each would tell me about the monsters and also tell me which parts of their bodies are useful. For example, a ghoul has poison glands in their neck and teeth, so you can loot those items. You can then use them as components to make a poison potion. But the poison is a little more then that. To make the potion, you need a base extracted by a root found in the wild. To do this, I need the herb book. This may seem tedious, but it was actually a lot of fun. It felt a lot more immersive, and that’s what I find fun. The game could just say this is a potion of +10 to attack rating. But instead they say it is an eagle eye potion with an alcohol base which drugs the user into a type of trance which seems to slow down time and heighten reactions. It’s the little details that make the game for me, and the Witcher has those. DESIGN The first issue I’ll address is the combat. I’m a big fan of action RPGs and I also like to play melee based classes. The problem I have is that melee combat usually just consists of clicking on enemies to attack them with no further interaction. When I first heard of the rhythm based combat of The Witcher, I was excited because it seemed like I would get a lot more input into what used to be dull combat. However, I still found the combat dull, even though I seemingly had a greater role. But then I realized why. The combo system works by clicking again once you finish your previous strike. So the rhythm of combat is the same series of combos every time. It’s always the same rhythm! It doesn’t matter what you are fighting, it’s the same battle every time. Ideally, I would want the rhythm to be different which every combo and every different monster. That would feel more like the chaos of a battle and would take more skill. The rhythm feature of this game got me to thinking about Guitar Hero. What if every song in Guitar Hero sounded different, but the button inputs where the same every time, not matter what the song? Now that would be a dull music game. That’s how I feel about The Witcher’s combat. But this game is not all bad. I spoke highly of the game lore and world before and I will do so again. This game is actually based on a Polish fantasy novel, so I found it interesting that is this appendix like journal is in the game. A video game doesn’t always feature so much written word that needs to be sorted through. It almost felt to me as if the journal was like the novel itself, describing the game world around me in vivid detail. But once I closed the journal screen, the world from the text came to life before my eyes. The relationship was not too profound, but it got me thinking about narrative and games, which we talked about in class today. Would it be too radical to have some kind of story that is outlined in written form, like a novel, but then opens into a game where the player physically plays out the story? Maybe that’s what games always have been, and to draw attention to it in that way would be awkward. But nevertheless, I still see a interesting relationship between the written lore of The Witcher and the gameplay itself. One other small issue I have with the game is its depth. The inventory and character development is very complicated. There is a lot of information available in the manual and in the tutorial part of the game, but I found myself checking back to this information a lot more often then I would have liked. I’m all for a deep game, but when the game is too complicated to just pick up and play, then that’s a problem. I don’t quite want the game to do it all for me, however, because then what is the point of playing an RPG? I could just play an action game. A good balance I think would be an inventory and character development which is simple and easy to understand, but has advanced features which are under the hood, optional, or become relevant once the player experiments a little. I think then the hardcore role-player would be happy, as well as the more casual player. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:22:19.)Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:05:08 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2436&iddiary=4887https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2436SUMMARY: The Witcher is a role playing game where the player takes control of Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster slayer called a Witcher. The Witcher offers a rich and dark fantasy world based on a Polish legend. The dark and “in your face” story tackles mature issues such as racism, terrorism, sex and rape. The game itself is designed with the Aurora engine first featured in Neverwinter Nights II. It offers a detailed if not complicated real time role-playing experience where the player can specialize in many different areas such as combat, magic or potion making to overcome the game’s obstacles. GAMEPLAY: The gameplay of The Witcher is very standard for a PC role-playing game. There are three camera modes available. Low and high isometric provides an overhead view of the action and the OTS (Over the Shoulder) view puts the camera behind Geralt, more effectively placing the player in the middle of the action. I decided to play with an OTS view because I wanted more immersion as opposed to more strategic control. I played my way through the prologue, which served as an extended tutorial on the game play. The game HUD was unique, detailed and complicated at the same time. The game features a mini map in the upper right corner, along with button which opens up the character sheet, inventory and journal. All of these options do not seem radically different from other RPGs. One difference is that there is only one character class available, the hero class. However, the player has the option to grow their character with experience points in any way they wish. They can choose to build a combat focused hero, or perhaps a magically focused character. There are a lot of options open and the character growth is very deep. The journal is also a great addition to the game world. It allows the player to keep track of all their active quests, but also keep enters on characters, monsters, places, terms and items. This fictional world has a very rich background which can be discovered by the player and added into this book. Combat, on the other hand, seemed like a bland process. To attack an enemy, I merely had to click on them and Geralt would run over to attack. The mouse cursor would appear as a sword, and upon a queue, I would click again to start a combination attack. I was also given the choice of different attack styles. I could choose between powerful attacks that have a high chance of missing, quick weak attacks or attacks that damage a group. This system seems like it offers a lot of player input, but I didn’t find it to be that engaging. The area I explored had only one type of enemy, one that required quick attacks. So instead of combat merely being clicking on an enemy to attack, it became merely clicking on an enemy in a rhythm. The problem is that the rhythm is the same every time. So I wondered why the designers even put the combo system into the game in the first place. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:24:05.)Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:55:50 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2436&iddiary=4697https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2209GAMEPLAY My second round of gameplay was both very rewarding and also very frustrating. I started out the session finding the sixth dungeon, which I was able to enter despite not yet finding dungeons two through five. I had to navigate a maze to get to this dungeon. The only way to solve it was to pay another character to tell you the way through. Then I found the dungeon. Unfortunately, I was killed by some sword throwing centaur like creatures. These swords caused two hearts of damage, and I had four (you get another heart after beating each boss). So I could only take two hits before dying. And these monsters threw swords as if they had some sort of sword machine gun. So I was killed. And I continued to go back only to be killed again and again. But I did not give up and made it to the next dungeon. Unfortunately again, I found I needed to bypass two locked doors and was only given one key. I found a bunch of merchants who sell keys at high prices, so I figured I’d just come back. So I was back to wondering around the map looking for dungeons. There were more merchants, some gamblers and some “wise men.” They had semi-helpful advice for finding more over priced merchants and so it was just luck when I ran into the next dungeon. I cleared it out with little trouble. The boss was too tough to fight with a sword, but a wise man hinted that the monster hated smoke, and so I made short work of it with a few bombs. Another thing I found about this dungeon was that the monsters dropped a lot of money, so all those items were now buyable. So I bought a stronger shield and headed back to the dungeon to get more money to buy a key for that dungeon I was stuck in earlier. Yet again, disaster struck, as I couldn’t find the dungeon again. I aimlessly wandered around looking for the dungeon and I just couldn’t find it. I was really missing a map at that point. There was just nothing to reference myself too. I eventually found another dungeon and just continued on. I did some research online on the game and found that a key component of the game was the manual and map that came with the original game. Earlier, the game told me to look up items in the manual and that it contained all sort of tips and tricks for finding dungeons. And it also had a real map with landmarks. I really missed having this manual a lot during my session. I felt like I would have made it through a lot faster if I had that information. Because for me, I felt like I was shooting in the dark and I only knew what I was looking for because I was already familiar with the story and goals. There is an interesting relationship between the game and the package. The game is very hard to play without the manual. However, the designer never expected the player not to have the manual. A poor design choice perhaps? DESIGN I figure I’ll jump right into the manual issue. Now, the idea of the manual being so integral to the gameplay is an interesting one. The idea of using physical objects in the game is definitely something that should be explored. Having a physical map in front of you to navigate a fictional world makes the entire experience much more immersive. Instead of instructions of how to play, the manual seems like somewhat of a guidebook, almost as if it was part of the game itself. Knowing how popular the game was when it came out, I imagine knowing how to get through this game was a revered skill. So if someone did get stuck, I guess they could just ask the local master for some advice. It that why, the gameplay almost becomes part of the community. I wonder if this was intentional, or maybe the manual was just an afterthought after they figured out how difficult this game was. These are some of the strong points, but I experienced first hand the weaknesses of the approach. It was very hard to me to play this game. I felt like I was just wondering around, waiting for something to present itself. I bet I could have found that dungeon I lost again if I had a helpful map with me. And was it wise for the designers to assume that every player would have access to this map? I played this game on my Wii, a situation that the designers never could have foreseen. But what if the game was lent to me by someone, without the manuals? For what if I checked these games out from the library? Without access to these supplemental parts of the game, my experience was much less enjoyable. I imagine if I were a less then serious game player, I would have walked away from this game. The difficultly of the Legend of Zelda may have been a help though. Perhaps the notoriety of this game caused players to rise to the challenge and try harder to beat it. I know when I was playing, I was frustrated, but I didn’t give up. I had a desire to keep playing, to see it through, even when I kept dying over and over again. I cannot deny that this game was incredibly popular, so the designers must have done something right. Besides these issues, the game really was a lot of fun. Zelda is a classic game, and I already fell in love with the gameplay long ago. But even without the manual issue, I had trouble. Enemies would switch back and forth from being too easy and way too hard. I felt like I would get stronger to combat the stronger monsters, but the transition did not feel as smooth as it was in later Zelda games. All the game play introduced in this game is common place now, but for the time, it was something new and exciting. I can at least tell it was new, because it felt loose and sloppy at places. But I don’t mean that as a bad thing. To me it proved that the designers were trying something new. As a last note, I enjoyed being able to tackle the dungeons in any order I wished, or rather the order I discovered them. That non-linear gameplay helped to make mean feel like I was really in another world, a real world. (This entry has been edited3 times. It was last edited on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:04:08.)Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:03:47 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2209&iddiary=4363https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2209SUMMARY: The Legend of Zelda is a classic action-adventure fantasy game. The action takes place in the fantasy land of Hyrule. The player controls Link, a young hero determined to rescue the Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon. To do this, Link must collect the 8 pieces of the magical triforce, which is hidden in 8 dungeons. The player must use Link’s items and sword fighting skills to defeat the monsters and solve the puzzles standing between Link and Zelda. GAMEPLAY I was already very familiar to the game play of The Legend of Zelda. The series has a very long history and I have played most of the series’ games. The action is viewed from an isometric perspective, where the player can view their avatar, the iconic Link. The HUD consists of a simple world map, with just a dot to show the players’ current area. There are no land marks, so all the player knows is their relation to the boundaries of the entire world. There is also a life bar, which comes in the form of hearts, and two item boxes, one for each button. There are also counters for the player’s bombs, keys and rupees, the currency of Hyrule. Upon starting the game, I was give little instruction or back story. I waited at the start menu, and a screen told me to rescue the princess by getting the triforce. And then it showed me a picture of every item and to look in the manual for details. When I started the adventure proper, I was put in the middle of the world with a shield and no instruction. I found a sword in a cave in a nearby cave and was then able to fight monsters. With no apparent direction, I just started to wander around. I encountered monsters in groups of two or three which I could easily defeat with my sword. But it wasn’t longer before I found myself overwhelmed against groups of four or more monster. I was very surprised to find this game to be tremendously difficult. Starting off, I had only three hearts, and most attacks take away a half of a heart, so about six hits. Sometimes, enemies would drop heats or fearies, which would heal Link, but it didn’t seem to happen often enough. I would find myself wandering around with one heart or maybe even a half of heart. It seemed like a strange mechanic, because I could mostly only get more life by killing enemies, but I didn’t want to fight with enemies because of my low life. It’s strange that I have never run into this problem in the later games, perhaps because of the addition of hearts inside of bushes and pots. Eventually I discovered the entrance to a dungeon. Inside was a series a rooms and puzzles. The typical structure was to find a locked door and a path that lead to a dead end. The trick was the keys was somewhere along that dead end. The keys were pretty easy to find. Most puzzles consisted of finding the right block to push, or killing all the enemies. I also found my first items, some bombs and a boomerang. The boomerang became my favorite. Combat became much easier as I would use it to stun and enemy, and then finish it off with my sword. I came to a boss, and easily defeated it with bombs. It’s strange how some fights where so hard, while others where so easy. With my first piece of the triforce in hand, I set off to find the next dungeon.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:27:44 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2209&iddiary=4185https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1694 GAMEPLAY I’ve been digging deeper into Bully and I’m really happy to see the direction it is going, but I just hope it can follow through and actually build up a dramatic conflict by the end of the game. By now, I have an annoying enemy who has dreams of ruling the school, whatever that means. I hope something epic, but still in league for the setting, will take place by the end of the game. I have had the chance to interact with more of the characters and they are all really entertaining. Every nerd and jock is a parody of the stereotype they are trying to emulate. Their dialogue has a great habit of being both very outlandish and very believable for a character. Such strange statements such as “I’m going to get good grades so I can get a good job and make more money then anyone!” and “I love it when boys give me gifts; it really boosts my self esteem!” are hilarious but also have a strange sense realism to them. Just because no real high schooler would say them doesn’t mean they aren’t true. I’ve also had a chance to leave the school and explore the small town. It’s actually a very different environment, for where you rule in a school, you're nothing in town. It’s almost impossible to take down an adult, and the police are a lot stronger then the prefects. It’s interesting how easily my bubble is burst once I step outside the school. I am glad there are so many ways to get around, between the bus, the skateboard and my bike. I’m interested to see how the town people will change the experience of the game. I’ve also been noting the reactions of my roommates while playing this game. ‘Bully’ is a controversial game because bullying is a controversial topic. And this game has a large bias against it mostly based on a lack of understanding of the game. One friend, familiar with arcade games and party games but not sandbox, came in the room and was confused on how the game play even worked. She asked if the game was “Preps Gone Wild” and couldn’t understand why I would spend hours playing a game about being at school. Another friend came in and upon learning the game’s title, asked me if I knew how many kids committed suicide a year because of bullying. Oddly enough, when I told her the game lets you stop the bullies, she asked to beat up a random in-game kid. It was interesting how these two people reacted to a game that was largely out of their element. The first friend was not a gamer, and so she didn’t seem to want to approach the game. The second friend took the game very seriously, as if I was bullying real kids but then suddenly became more bloodthirsty then I would have been. Other friends who watched had different reactions. One friend told me to hit enemies with bats or to break their arms. Both of these actions cannot be preformed in game and even if I could, I do not think I would want to because their violence oversteps the bounds established by this setting. So in this case, my friend broke the mood created by the game on two levels. DESIGN ‘Bully’s design is based on an interesting element that I have seen a lot lately. A setting is taken, in this case the school. An ecosystem is added: the teachers and students, each in their own groups. Then a wild card is thrown in the mix, the player. Like many sandbox games, this world seems to work perfectly without any of my input. Bullies beat on nerds, jocks beat on preps, and it all blends together to form a seemingly independent world. But then the player comes along, suddenly someone is standing up to all the bullies. Now I seem to see a lot less bullying in the game. Bullies would harass me on sight. Now they leave me alone. It cannot be easy to create an AI such as this, because it all works very convincingly. Although it may seem like a formula that has been tried before, I’m impressed by all the new things that ‘Bully’ brought to the table. The time factor gives the player a lot of choice in either obeying the rules, or disobeying them and facing the penalty. Going to class had rewards, but sometimes I would just rather do missions. But then I’m skipping class and have to keep a low profile, otherwise I’ll get a detention. The way the school and rule system works is impeccable. I was not forced to do anything, so I could be the bad boy I wanted to be, or follow the rules. Both had their excitements and rewards. When I started playing, I made the choice to play the game as a “good kid.” I usually take this path with most games and leave the bad boy play through for the next time. So I was pleased that ‘Bully’ gave me that option. As I went around the school yard, I would save kids instead of bulling them myself. What was an interesting element about the design, however, is that the player is not explicitly rewarded or punished for following either path. It is up to the player to decide what is right or wrong, or to decide that they don’t care about these fake computer people. I ran into some interesting situations because of this. For one, it was up to me to decide if I was really being “good” or “bad.” I would save weaker kids from bullies, but then sometimes I would give the bullies themselves a taste of their own medicine for no reason. At my point in the game, when I shove a bully off another kid, he backs down and begs forgiveness. At first, I would just beat them up, but then I realized I was just being a bully(!) myself. When I said that I wanted to play the good kid, I meant that I would play the game with the morals from my own world, treating it as if it were a real event ( mind you I’m still aware that it is fake!). However, this attitude would sometimes falter. I would call what I described above as imaginative play, imagining something to be real and taken seriously within the context of the game, basically role playing. But other times I would just decide to mess around. I treat the game as a game, a fake world. I decide to beat up everyone in sight. I pick unwinnable fights. I betray in game friends. I just generally muck everything up. And the game itself has no punishment for this. Where you would lose if you killed a friend character in another game, ‘Bully’ lets you do almost whatever you want to any character, for the most part. What I find so intriguing about this approach is that it allows seamlessly allows different types of play. Those who want to stay inside the realm of the game story and not step outside their avatar’s character can do so, while others who just want to play a game also have that freedom. I think what is important is that the game subtly offers that choice and therefore can appeal to many different kind of players. It is also possible to freely switch between both styles of play without any change in the game world. I believe this is what makes a great game. (This entry has been edited5 times. It was last edited on Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:36:55.)Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:35:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1694&iddiary=3540https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1694SUMMARY: In ‘Bully’, the player takes control of 15-year-old Jimmy Hopkins as he is dropped into the world of Bullworth Academy preparatory school. The player interacts with an extensive variety of characters which mostly consists of students but also includes teachers, prefects, school staff and other authority figures. Bully is an action-adventure game with a sandbox format, first made famous in Rockstar’s own ‘Grand Theft Auto’. However, the sandbox format features a big twist in the form of a school schedule. The player is expected to attend class and obey rules such as school curfew. GAMEPLAY When first looking at ‘Bully’, many similarities can be made to Grand Theft Auto and its sandbox game play. As Jimmy, I was dropped off at Bullworth Academy and then set loose. After a talk with the principal and some tutorials on fighting and interacting with my peers, I was given a school outfit and a dorm room which doubles as a save point. The display includes a mini map to help me move around and a clock to keep track of the time. This clock is extremely important as time puts many interesting factors into the game. As Jimmy is a student in a school, he is expected to attended class. Each class includes a mini game, such as button prompts for Auto shop and a word scramble for English class. On their own, classes are enough fun to stand and don’t seem like a chore, especially since each class only has to be attended five times until you do not have to worry about that class anymore (assuming you pass every time, which I did not). Not only that, but each passed class offers unique bonuses, such as access to new items or abilities. All in all, attending classes was a good use of time and not boring. I also did not feel like the freedom of the sandbox design was ruined as I could always choose to ditch class. The title ‘Bully’ can be misleading, as Jimmy is not necessarily a bully and does not have to be. That choice is completely up to the player. As a student, the characters I interacted with most were other students, each divided into various groups, such as nerds, jocks and preps. Each group has general “nerd” or “jock” characters, as well as many named individual characters who give out missions. In many games, these characters are mostly unseen in the casual game world and are only featured in cut scenes. However, in ‘Bully’ all of these students can be seen walking around and interacting with both Jimmy and each other. As I walked around, I saw bullies picking on smaller kids, preps fighting jocks, kids slipping on banana peels and all sorts of interactions. Best of all, once I got in a fight with a few bullies, a group of students gathered around me and cheered on for no side in particular. That is until a prefect came and everyone scattered. Next thing I knew, I was running through the halls try to get away. Unfortunately, I soon found myself in the principle’s office. Another great aspect of the game I found was the character interaction. It would be pretty easy to just have a solid combat mechanic and call it a day, but the interaction with students is a lot deeper. I soon learned how to greet and insult my peers. I could shove someone to intimidate them, and try and apologize to prevent a fight. Not only that, but there are a number of context sensitive interactions. Instead of knocking out a kid, you can perform a type of finisher where you can humiliate them, such as giving an indian burn, dunking a head in a toilet or applying a wedgie or wet wille. All these options give Jimmy a trove of non-violent or less violent options to succeed. It was very satisfying to stuff a bully in a locker while he was giving a nerd a wedgie, much more then it would have been if I just beat him up. At one point, I accidentally provoked two fat nerds and next thing I know they are trying to swing at me. I didn’t want to hurt them, as I was trying to be a “nice kid”, so I tried shove them off so they would leave me alone. When they continued, I was happy that I intuitively found alternate ways to stop them instead of beating them up. With one nerd, I found I could fake him out by cocking my fist as if I was to hit him, he then wet himself in fear and ran off. I gave the second a shove and he tumbled backwards into a garbage bin, getting himself stuck. Both outcomes saved me from having to hurt anyone seriously, but still disabling the situation. My reaction to this game actually surprised me a great deal. I’m a firm believer in video games being an outlet for aggressive thought and see no harm in imagining even the most violent act as long as it stays imaginary. When it is said that first person shooters cause school shootings, I wonder how a kid learned to use a gun from a controller. I also have never felt more violent after playing a violent game, as the actions are usually so outlandish from my everyday life that I cannot make a connection. I mean, when I have I ever seen a person reach into someone else’s ribcage and pull out a heart? But this school setting is a lot closer to home, and fists are something everyone knows how to use to some degree. So I was surprised to find myself becoming a little aggressive emotionally after playing the game. I’m not saying that I got in any fights or shoveling matches, or even insulted anyone. But I felt a great deal of self confidence both during and after playing the game. I would rate this as a positive reaction, but I still approach with caution. I have felt a lot of emotion while playing video games, self confidence included. But something was different about this time. Maybe because I was revisiting high school, or maybe because I could relate to the actions or maybe because the entire setting is pretty similar to my setting now, but as I said, it think self confidence was good, but I am weary about it turning into aggression. (This entry has been edited3 times. It was last edited on Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:11:14.)Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:56:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1694&iddiary=3438