Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=591https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2905GAMEPLAY -- After continueing to play this game further this time by myself, I encountered the aspects of the gameplay without social interaction with other live people. Without other people its still fun but the game really tends to have a drag effect. That is it seems like the game goes on forever and never ends. It was like playing monopoly with people who don't say a thing. That made the game fun in the first few turns then it became extremely boring to play. That in my opinion is a very bad aspect of the game. It seems to have a requirement for other actual players in order to experience an enjoyable game. I also found that without the social interaction, motivation for trying hard at the challenges really wasn't there. Because of not the best AI programming, occasionally with challenges, especially if its a team battle you will find it impossible to win with an AI team-mate. This starts to turn the anticipation of playing the challenges in between turns to a dread of them. I find it astounding how different the gameplay experience is without other people playing it with you. Even just having one person is helpful because then you can laugh if they end up with all of the AIs as their team mates. DESIGN -- Innovative Ideas in Mario Party: Mario Party really is one of the major innovations in games in all history. It took the idea of a board game and took it into the video game world and altered it have extra twists. It also unlike most board games made a virtual board game that required a fair amount of strategizing on the player's part. This strategy requirement was put into place with the placement of stars and the many different paths to get to that space. Level Design: Level design in the game is a major part of the game and is very well thought out. The levels are very individual and the placement of stars vary from each one. Also the levels differ by the special events each level/board has. One small problem I found with the levels and the viewing of them is the difference between playing mario party and playing a board game outside a computer. Outside a computer you are used to being able to view the entire board at all times. In Mario Party it is possible to do that but you have to switch to that view mode everytime you want to and adds a bit of a hassle to the play. Conflict Creation and Social Interaction: The level of conflict in this game is extremely dependent on the social interaction and the number of live players in a certain game. With no other live players conflict is still there and created with being able to view your opponents star and coin count and in the mini-games however they lack enthusiasm. When you have multiple other real life players involved the conflict from the same events becomes more personal and I find myself having an intense drive to out smart my opponents. The social interaction in this game really stems from its deep roots in board games. Board games bring people together in a friendly competition and just like its base so does Mario Party. Its hard to completely describe the allure of board games in general but I believe everyone has a competitive side but doesn't want to hurt others in satisfying it. Board games in general provide a non-hurtful way of satisfying that competitive need in all of us.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:51:33 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2905&iddiary=5470https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2905SUMMARY -- Mario Party is a 3d board game inspired game. The player in Mario Party controls one of the few choices of the Mario characters and takes turns moving across the board. The goal of the game is to have the most stars and coins at the end of the game which is determined by a number of turns. GAMEPLAY -- I really enjoyed the gameplay of the game. I remember when I first played this game when I was a child, I instantly got addicted to it. I had grown up enjoying board games and when Mario Party took the board game aspect and took it into a video game environment, I was hooked. I really enjoyed the mini-games that take place between the turns and add a really nice challenge segmentation to the game. The social interaction with Mario Party was such that knowing I was gonna play it again. I couldn't do it unless I had friends playing with me. Mario Party has always been a social game and really isn't as fun to play unless the opponents are played by other people. Mario Party really is a successful social game because it plays off of the board game aspect and adds in challenges that pit each player either against each other or against one or two other players.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:21:35 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2905&iddiary=5461https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2237GAMEPLAY PT. 2 -- gameplay a: gameplay when i originally played it -- I remember that when i first played goldeneye I was blown away by the graphics and the wider 3d areas. Before playing goldeneye the only first person shooters i had played were doom and wolfenstein 3d. Goldeneye the singleplayer was extremely repeatable to play especially once you unlocked the cheat menu. I admit I have always enjoyed playing games with cheats. gameplay b: gameplay now -- Picking up the controller and playing goldeneye 007 for the first time in years was a very enjoyable experience. I was able though to skip the gruelling process of manually unlocking the cheat menu since I used an emulator with a built in cheat function (shhhhhhh!). This also unlocked a mode I did not know about before. 007 level difficulty which allows you to change the health, damage, accuracy rate, and response time of the enemies. This feature i found to be hilarious especially when you max out everything. It made the game almost an entirely new game. The main aspect I like about Goldeneye is its replayability. Its simple in a good way that it allows you to always come back and play it just as good as you did years ago. I also found out that you can lean in the game which i didn't know before! DESIGN -- NOTE: below design analysis is based upon the time period it was released. If I were to judge it based on today's game standards the design of the game would be drastically not up to standard. Innovative elements of the game at its time -- I remember when i first played it and also looking back in history now that i have played it again. I'd definitely say that the leaning was innovative as not very many first person shooters during its time had that feature. Also the manual aiming feature also was a huge step for first person shooters on consoles. Level Design -- The level design in the singleplayer mode is pretty close to the appearance of the locations in the movie which for games that are based off a movie is very important in my opinion. I also liked how the levels were designed that you know exactly where your supposed to go, however, you can also explore little extra areas such as gun towers and underground facilities. Social Interaction -- Goldeneye really was a ground breaker for social games when it was released. Goldeneye's multiplayer feature really brought people together to play. I remember almost weekly hanging out with friends just to play and compete in goldeneye. The party appeal of goldeneye, in my opinion, is really what makes Goldeneye 007 one of the best games of all time. It brought many people together in healthy competition and even disputes were sometimes solved using the game. Goldeneye really is one of the original games that has paved the way for games like halo, gears of war, and other first person shooters with multiplayer communities.Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:29:53 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2237&iddiary=4328https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2237SUMMARY -- In Goldeneye 007, the player steps into the role of James Bond in the game equivalent of the movie "Goldeneye". The game is a simple first person shooter. GAMEPLAY -- The first thing i want to talk about in Goldeneye are the more negative aspects that appear to me. The first apparent con to the game is that the characters are not very developed at all which would leave anyone who hasn't seen the movie confused. The game story wasn't deep but was rather just a loose playable version of certain key parts of the movie and some new parts. As for the gameplay if you were to compare its gameplay to that of modern first person shooters it doesn't match up. However, thinking back to when i first played this game years ago, I found the gameplay extremely fun to play. The most obvious thing that comes to mind when i think back about playing goldeneye when it first came out and when i was younger is the multiplayer. I remember that I used to always have to get my friends over to play goldeneye because it was incredibly fun to play with others. The multiplayer aspect of Goldeneye is really what makes it a golden game and always an enjoyable game to play in groups. I think the main reason behind it is that the gameplay is simple and very easy to learn. I remember pretty much anyone could pick up the controller and play Goldeneye and not be bad at it.Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:18:36 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2237&iddiary=4310https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1730Final Gameplay Thoughts: In the final 45 minutes of play I noticed the storyline speed up. I found myself at the final boss much faster than I am used to with games. In one aspect this was a big disappointment because of how enjoyable the game was for me. However, I believe this was actually a very nice decision on the developers part. By having the last part of the game speed up in pace it increased the sense of urgency and actually got me stressed out a bit. An important part for me in my experience playing a game is how fun the final boss is to fight and the difficulty of the boss. The final boss in Infection was definitely a fun final boss. Skeith ( The boss ) constantly made it a struggle to keep your characters at top strength. Occasionally if you are unlucky enough Skeith will data drain on of your characters which gives them like every status effect known in the game. I found that frustrating but a good frustrating. I believe final bosses should be frustrating otherwise where is the challenge? DESIGN: innovation - I found a few things innovative about this game, including the fact the game is a game within a game. You act a character who is playing a game. Through this they were able to create a simulated MMORPG which I found very interesting to play. The idea of a virus infecting the game inside the game and its effect on the "real life" individuals who played that game also was quite innovative. The virus is a thought provoking ideal. I kept asking myself, What if this actually happened? level design - The level design of the game was unfortunately repetitive unless there was a special event going on in the game. Unlike most of the MMORPGs i have played the simulated MMORPG in .hack//infection was extremely extremely simple in the level design department. Most of the areas you fight in are similar to others in the game. The only difference is the occasional color change and the randomization of where monsters appear and the layout of the dungeons. It didn't really greatly decrease the enjoyment of the game but I would've preferred it to have been more of a variety. cutscene use - The cutscenes were used perfectly in this game. It was mainly the use of the cutscenes and the shift in pace that made the storyline of the game enticing. The developers were able to accurately emulate the sense of duality that exists in conversations in MMORPGs. People could be talking about their real lives or their life in the game and the cutscenes in infection really captured that feel. The use of a storyline that both covered the in game MMORPG world and the in game real world also made me think about the correlations in our world. It made me think about how much MMOs can actually effect someone's real life if you can't distinguish that clearly between reality and virtuality. Overall - Overall I thoroughly enjoyed .Hack//Infection and can't help but begin to start the next in the series.Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:12:23 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1730&iddiary=3470https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1730SUMMARY: .Hack//Infection throws you into a simulate MMORPG known as "The World". You control a character known as Kite whose friend has invited him to play "The World." Throughout the game Kite and his friends try to figure out the mystery of a strange virus that is infecting the game and has caused Kite's friend to enter into a coma. The gameplay is designed specifically to emulate the feel of being in a MMORPG and makes the game a fresh perspective on the RPG game genre. GAMEPLAY: In the beginning the gameplay didn't quite grab me because the control scheme is extremely simple. It causes you to button mash the same button over and over again and can get quite boring in this aspect. But as I got further into the game I began to overlook this annoying feature of the game due to the appealing characters. The characters just like the rest of the game really do closely emulate other players in a MMORPG. Having played many MMORPGs I find the emulation of the experience remarkable. As a computer game design major, the storyline of infection really appealed to me. The idea of a virus that infects the game and causes harm to the real life players makes me stop and ask myself if this could eventually happen with the rapid development of technology and the game industry. The cinematics in the game were used extremely well and drew me into the plight of the main character. I found myself emotionally involved in the quest to find a way to cure Orca/Yasuhiko ( Kite's friend who is in a coma due to the virus ). I also found it entertaining that the game and the idea of the virus is based on a poetic piece known as "The Epitaph of Twilight" by Emma Wieland. Now whether or not this piece was created for the game or it has existed outside of it I do not know. I look forward to finishing this first installment in the series.Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:51:47 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1730&iddiary=3450