Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=622https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2944Gamelog Entry #2 GAMEPLAY In the second session I was still having fun. I could probably play for a few more hours before I felt the need to eat, sleep, socialize, etc. I had a real intense round where I basically held off the whole attacking team by myself, and at the end of the round it labeled me as the “MVP” of the team. That made me feel good because our team was getting owned before that round. Being crowned the MVP is one of the many subtle but satisfying rewards for doing well in the game. In this session there was a player who was abusing the in-game voice feature, he was playing classical music, then changed to fifty-cent. A few players on the team lost their cool at that point, and cursed at him. This happens a lot, again the in-game mic is a mixed blessing. Some people play things that are awesome like Rick Astley, and others hurt our ears and minds with things like ‘Boots wit da Fur.’ Valve has mostly fixed this problem though with the addition of the mute player mic feature. DESIGN Team Fortress 2’s game design is an interesting thing to talk about. Let it be known that it is an awesome, well designed game. It’s got a few things that have never been done before, that work really well. Simultaneously, the thing about TF2 when compared to the first team fortress is that conceptually they are exactly alike. The eight playable classes are the same. There have been a few tweaks to them, but they have very few things that are actually new. Even the maps are the same. But I think the mastery of how improved these things are is what makes this game so awesome. Examples of improvement in classes: The medic has been drastically improved for healing, where his healing in the first team fortress was impractical. Now he can heal at a range and still have mobility to dodge enemies, or hide behind a wall. He also has a game breaking ability called the Ubercharge, where he and a teammate become invincible for ten seconds. The scout has been outfitted with a double jump that allows him to switch directions in midair, making his movement untouchable in comparison to the other classes. He also has a more powerful shotgun, making him a formidable opponent in the hands of a good player. In the old Team Fortress, the scout was essentially useless because of how fragile he was in combat. The gameplay improvements are huge as well. They do something with collision in this game that I’ve never seen before. It’s a simple concept: instead of being blocked while running into friendly players or devices, the avatar appears to kind of squeeze by. If you intentionally try to run inside of a still player you can see how it works. There is technically no collision, but a force that pushes you to the edges of where collision would be. It also pushes the avatar with the perfect amount of force: not so much that it jars or interrupts your movement, but not so little that you can overlap numerous players and appear like a Doppleganger to the enemy. Then theres one of the coolest things about TF2, which is the feel of the game. The original Team Fortress was actually a very silly game, with people flying around the map with various purposeful explosions, as well as a gratuitous amount of gore and yelling from the different avatars. Team games tend to be more tactical, moment by moment strategy operations with navy seals and Tom Clancy. This is what Team Fortress 2 looked like in its early stages of development. But somewhere along the line, it was decided that they’d take the originial ridiculous chaos of the first Team Fortress and take it to the next level, and it was executed Beautifully. The graphics are key in this execution. The artwork in this game is 3-D cartoon-esque, looking very similar to the artwork in the animated feature The Incredibles. These graphics allow for the ‘silly chaos’ of the game to take form. Unrealistic features, like shooting a rocket launcher at your feet to propel you high into the air wouldn’t work as well in a more serious aesthetic environment. So whether or not Team Fortress 2 has much innovation, it’s still very well-designed and a ton of fun. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:44:52.)Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:32:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2944&iddiary=5613https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2944Gamelog Entry #1 SUMMARY Team Fortress 2 is the Action Packed sequel to the classic Half-Life mod Team Fortress. It’s an exciting team based first person shooter with an emphasis on its eight playable classes. Attack, Defend, Capture Objects and Control Points. You may or may not work as a team, but either way you’re bound to kill some fools. GAMEPLAY I love this game. I played the old version for some time, so I’m predisposed. Throughout the first session I was having a good time. As with any online game, there were brief moments of frustration like when I died very quickly several times in a row, but it was only temporary. I was flowing while playing TF2, especially when I was killing several players without dying. I was in the magic circle and I preferred that people didn’t bother me while I played. There is no story to TF2 Whatsoever. It has no single player mode. Yet its levels have a bit of content to them. In one attack/defend map, the last capture point is a fortress type thing with a giant lazer gun on top. Each class has its own character as well. For example, the Scout (notably the fastest moving character in the game,) has a fast talking New Yorker accent, and included in his arsenal is a metal baseball bat. In advertising for the game, Valve released a few hilarious videos each featuring one of the eight playable classes. (You can find them on youtube or any other popular video hosting site.) Other than these things, TF2 doesn’t have a story, and doesn’t really have characters, though each class certainly has ‘character’ if you know what I mean. This is the first multi-player game that I have gamelogged, so I did get the chance to have social interactions with others for once. I didn’t really talk to anybody directly, but when we lost, one of our teammates on his microphone scolded us for having too many of one class. There is always at least one guy on your team who feels the need to talk all the time, which is kind of O.K. because it’s supposed to be a team game that requires cooperation, but it all depends on the guy.Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:08:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2944&iddiary=5545https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2690Gamelog Entry #2 GAMEPLAY My second session of this game went on for two and a half hours. For the first hour, it was all in good fun, but immidiately after I was starting to get really frustrated. All I wanted to do was get to what was called "Level 2," the dungeon that was the next easiest. Although it's possible to play this game doing the dungeons in any order, I see myself as a competent gamer who has been playing RPGs all of his life and can find the 2nd level. But I really, couldn't find it. And it was extremely frustrating and I didn't want to play anymore. At this point I also had no idea what the backstory of this game was, and I had went everywhere on the map that I could go. The game was becoming much less interesting to play because I had already seen everything there was to see and killed every monster that I could kill. Eventually though, I did something I normally never do: I looked for a map online and looked for where level 2 might be. Even seeing it on a map, I couldn't get there easily. I finally did, beat the dungeon, and felt a lot better about the game. That is also the time when I let the title menu of the game idle so that I could see the small prologue, and the index of items. I didn't have the manual, so I had wanted to figure this stuff out on my own, but this really changed my mood, and now I actually am going to keep playing. In the process of finding level 2, I had found levels 3, 5, and 6, and found 6 separate secrets within the game. I was still dissapointed that I had to look up on a guide somewhere, but I did try my best. DESIGN Oh, where to start. Innovative elements of this game included the fact that you could do the dungeons in any order. This really made the game have more freedom to it, you had the outer gameworld, and you could come and go into the dungeons as you pleased. Also, being able to have a primary and secondary weapon and being able to choose which ones you currently had and whether you used the A or B button was definitely a cool feature. Most common was the sword and the boomerang, but things like bombs or bows or candles were often necessary. Let me list some good and bad things about the design with this game. Good: The shield is not just for aesthetics, if you face an enemy who throws a projectile at you, it will bounce off of your shield! very cool. This makes combat more complex than just hitting enemies with a sword at the right time or right angle. Bad: Enemies can be right on top of each other with no collision. This is sometimes really lame when there are four monsters bunched up in a narrow corridor and they just keep throwing arrows at you and theres not really a way for you to approach them other than to wait until they unbunch. Good: The boomerang in Zelda is one of the classic weapons in the history of gaming. The boomerang not only can stun enemies temporarily, but you can use it to retrieve rupys or hearts that are out of your reach. The boomerang is also the only weapon that you can throw at an angle, you can curve it and throw it diaganolly, making for some really skillfull action that really transcends the 2-dimensional combat. Bad: Every enemy is different. But there are a few enemies who are just downright irritating. There are ones that burrow underground, and pop up, which is fine... But when they come out of the ground at random places on the screen, you often don't get to them in time to hit them with your sword, and to clear a screen of them is just torture. Even more torturous are enemies that fly around and are invulnerable most of the time. They do stop though temporarily, and it's random. I had to wait for one of them to become vulnerable for like thirty seconds, and I was just over it by then. Good: The world is made up of something like 100 rooms, and almost every one has enemies to fight. The game regulates the number of enemies really well. Instead of having the monsters respawn every time you go in the room, if you've already slain them all, they remain slain. (Until you enter a dungeon.) If you've slain 2 monsters, the rest of the monsters remain. Bad: The minimap is just a giant black square, with your green dot somewhere on it. There is no map, no grid. The logical thing is to get a piece of paper and pen and start going to work, but I wanted to play it as a novice gamer would... and it was really frustrating. See the above to see how impossible it was for me to find level 2. I realized early on that this game is pretty hard, and I imagine inexperienced gamers would be turned off by it almost immidiately. It's pretty easy to die quickly, and you only have to die once to GAME OVER. The nice thing about it is that you don't really lose much by dying, you still get your items and your progress back. I loved the game's reward structure. Getting new items was just really cool, even if I wasn't sure what they did. I knew a larger shield must've been better, but I didn't realize for a while what the difference was. The reward structure was very clear: get RUPYs, get items/gear. With this, the player gets that idea of progression that really makes them want to play the game for long periods of time. Firstly, if I was to change anything about the game I would definitely make the map and world more understandable and accessible. I would add cooridinates, squares, anything to make it so the player would be able to know where a certain room was. The game did this better in the dungeons, but the outside world just kind of left you for dead, which I know was intentional, but frustrating nonetheless. Another thing I think I would change is the use of the select button. Select pauses the game, and so does Start, but start lets you access your different gear. I think if Select was used to cycle through your different gear, it would really improve the gameplay, so you wouldn't have to pause the game and switch weapons every time you wanted to use something. I also think that Nintendo games got really lazy with explaining things in game, but I suppose that was what the manual was for. Anyways, what The Legend of Zelda is a really well made game, despite my beef with finding level 2 on the map. The gameplay and its form of progression make it a game you want to keep playing, even if it's over twenty years old. (I'm actually going to continue playing it, too.)Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:03:56 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2690&iddiary=5454https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2690Gamelog Entry #1 SUMMARY in The Legend of Zelda, you play as Link, a young warrior whoi must traverse the lands and dungeons of wherever to save Princess Zelda from "Prince Darkness" Gannon! Slay monsters and recieve RUPYs, to buy better items and gear! Defeat monster bosses to collect pieces of the sacred TRIFORCE! This classic NES game is known to be unclassifiable in genre. It is an rpg-action-adventure-puzzlerama. If you can find the second level in the first two hours of play, you'll absolutely love this game. GAMEPLAY I had a blast in my first sesssion. I was naturally excited to play this game. It wasn't my first time, though I never owned the game when I was a kid. I had to play on a friend's NES, and so I never played it for more than half an hour at a time. As I played I was all about it, and I didn't lose interest in the entire first session. Sure, I was doing the same thing the whole time, walking around, hitting monsters with my sword.. But there was so much space on the minimap that my little green dot had not been! Starting out I had no clue what the storyline was. In fact, when I was a kid I thought Zelda was the name of the character I was playing. Until the second session, I didn't think to let the title menu idle in order to get a little text out of it. There, it told me that I was Link, that Zelda was a princess, Gannon was a bad guy, and Pieces of the Triforce were things I needed to get. It also said to see the manual, and it's my understanding that theres a ton of backstory in the manual, and "invaluable maps." Don't get me started on maps yet. So other than the text in game that I hadn't seen, there really wasnt any story. You walk around, kill things, and sometimes you'll make your way into dungeons and kill some monster and get a piece of the triforce. There really isn't anything else story related, other than getting a piece of the triforce and seeing a little animation of Link holding it up in the air and a triumphant MIDI sound. There is a bit of text, though, when you go into caves and there is a man or woman standing there. They say things like "buy something will ya," or "take some medicine before you go." They never say anything related to the story, but they do often give hints on how to find secrets / solve puzzles. I go into this more in the second entry. What his game really does well is give the player a sense of progression. This really contributed to my flow in the first session, because I just had the feeling that I was making progress the whole time. "getting money, getting money, getting hearts, getting hearts, getting items, getting items!!!!" I think instilling this feeling into players is becoming a really, really important factor in making a successful game. I think world of warcraft, which can often be a really lame game, really has its success in this illusion of progression. The legend of Zelda did this very well. The gameplay was fun because with the different types of monsters you did have to mix up your game, and fight each type differently. Sometimes though, that could get annoying, and I'll go into that more in the 2nd gamelog.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:45:22 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2690&iddiary=5350https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2378Gamelog Entry #2 GAMEPLAY My second session of Paperboy was different than the second sessions of the other games I played. For the first time, I wasn't bored in my second session. I was still enjoying the game, and there was even still a little excitement in me. I was liking the new challenges of the new levels, and the intensity of the game as I was determined to beat it. Still no characters or story thus far, and I think it's going to be like that for the rest of the game. The only characters could be the hilarious neighborhood people that are trying to stop you from delivering papers. People like: -The woman who sprints out of her house after you with a kitchen knife -A small running person dressed in orange who has loops around his hands. (A convict?) -A large, completely grey woman who stands in your way with a GIANT SCYTHE. (I call her grandma death.) -A man who appears to be on his back, flailing his legs in the air as he trys to put his pants on? As you progress through paperboy, these neighbors come to have a warm place in your heart. DESIGN I think the game is actually pretty innovative. Though technically it still is just a side-scroller where you throw things at different things... I think what PaperBoy does hasn't really been done in any other games I've played. You are Paperboy on a bike that is constantly moving forward. This is one of the first elements that make the game difficult, because objects are always coming at you've got to maneuver around them. Simultaneously, you have to be able to throw your newspapers onto people's doorsteps, which takes good timing. The idea of being a paperboy and making a paper route could really be complicated, but Nintendo pulls it off pretty well. I liked these elements of the game. The level design in this was really basic, each level as you progress only differs because there are more enemies. This could be the weak point in this game, but this small difference is all that is necessary to make the levels harder. The game remains interesting because when you successfully deliver papers to certain houses, they remain on your paper route. But houses that you miss, or damage with the papers (like breaking a window) makes them unsubscribe. Thus, almost every level has different houses that you need to deliver too. Of course, since the game is pretty well designed, it's clear to the player which houses you need to to cover and which you don't. Not only does it lay it out on a map of the block before the level begins, but while you're actually playing the level the houses you don't need to hit are a bold firetruck red color. To make another criticism of Paperboy, i could talk about its use of space. Though you can theoretically ride your bike anywhere between houses, signs, etc... The realistic place for you is right on the sidewalk. If you stray to the right of the screen, you'll likely get hit by a car, and if you are on the left, an object in someones front yard will come up on you and you won't be able to get out of the way in time. So really your space is limited in this game, but I think it's just another aspect that keeps the game challenging. Paperboy has a reward structure that I think is cool. If you make it through the day without missing a single house, you get a "resubscriber" at the end of the level. I should mention that there are two ways to lose the game. You can run out of lives, which are lost by crashing your bike into things, and you can run out of paper subscribers by not delivering to them. So if you have a bad run on one of the first levels, a good performance later can make up for it. I really like this feature. I loved this game, and I think it could be remade with today's videogaming technology into another hit. (Especially with the Wii!) Though Paperboy is quite difficult at first, it's good design make it a lot of fun. Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:31:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2378&iddiary=4893https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2378Gamelog Entry #1 SUMMARY Paperboy for the Nintendo Entertainment System is an underrated classic. You play as the neighborhood Paperboy who must... Deliver Newspapers! Riding a bicycle in a diagonal side scroll, you pass every house in the neighborhood and throw papers at their doorsteps! If you're a "Pro-perboy" like me, you can throw them in their mailboxes for extra points! But lookout, because the neighborhood is doing everything they can to stop you! If you can make it through the week, you can enjoy an honorable retirement. GAMEPLAY I love this game. It was one of my first games on the nintendo, and me and my brother played it a ton when we were kids. Playing it now, I was surprised at how hard it is. I've been playing videogames all my life, and I catch onto things pretty quickly. But Paperboy is a challenging game. With my determination to beat it, I got a sense of flow for about twenty minutes, until I lost all my lives and game over'd. Paperboy has a certain intensity to it, you have to bob and weave and nail the timing perfectly to get the papers into the mailboxes. I was excited to play it. The game play is cool because it's very easy to get the hang of, but tough to master. It's also simple, but at the same time it's challenging. Even if you don't die, if you miss a house or accidentally throw a paper through their window, you lose that customer! And Losing customers = death. (Game Over if you lose all of them.) It's also interesting to play because you have to adapt to each enemy and each house so that you know what to do when you approach them, because you don't have much time to react when the house or enemy appears. Essentially, the game had no story or characters. There was you, the Paperboy, and the only cut scene really is the very start and very end of the game where it shows a newspaper frontpage with your face on it and it says "Paperboy Delivers!" The other characters are just different sprites of people in the game, who reoccur and you grow to love even if they are chasing you with a knife or drilling you with a jackhammer. I played this with my roomate who doesn't play videogames. It's a challenging game, so she gave up pretty quickly. The two player feature is like the original mario bros, where it's the same thing but you take turns. So even if you could just hand off the controller instead, this was still fun because it switches you off every time you die. There was the common "Aww," when Paperboy ran into a sign, etc.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:10:13 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2378&iddiary=4524https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2039Gamelog Entry #2 Gameplay I have to admit that playing this second session was kind of boring, I did defeat some monster-lady that made my town pretty happy, and then I went to the next town and saved them from pirates. Getting a pirate ship seemed awesome at first, but there really wasn't anything that great about it because I still had no idea where to go. The story had progressed, but it was still kind of uninvolving and wasn't clear on how I had progressed through the game.(I'm sure my reaction to the story has a lot to do with my predisposed experiece with newer RPGS.) The game wasn't really that fun to play anymore, it got repetitive as I would go and get into 4-5 battles, then go back to town and pay for the inn to heal my guys, and repeat. Definitely no more flow, and not all that interesting. Though I admit that I did get a kick out of fighting a shark. The reason for this somewhat negative experience were the design issues in the game, which are understandable. This was one of the first RPGS and it was really great, but still needed a lot of fine tuning. (Apparently, there were improvments made upon the game in further versions of Final Fantasy.) Design There are a lot of cool innovative elements of this game. Controlling a party rather than having a central character is one of them, and being able to name each member of your party is very cool. Also the class system was another neat aspect, you have the freedom and the power to have a team of nothing but fighters, nothing but black belts, or even (if you're a moron) nothing but white mages, if you wish. Having the freedom to roam from town to town makes it a little less linear, which is cool. Another innovation is the randomness of the battles. In Zelda, you got to a level and you see all the monsters and you kill them. In Final Fantasy, you see your destination and you move there but you don't know if you'll fight one battle or three, and you don't know if you'll be fighting tough ogres or weaker imps. The biggest complaint I had about this game was that there is no instruction, hints, advice, or definitions whatsoever. The reason I had such difficulty at the start of the game was because I was fighting all the monsters with no weapons, armor, potions or magic. When I got weapons, (And it was a gamble to see which character could use which weapon,) my warriors started killing them in one shot. When you go to buy weapons, armor, or magic, there is no indication of who could use what, Or even what the spell or armor does. You assume that the more expensive armor is better, but it turns out your Black Belt can only wear Wood armor and your Fighter is the only one who can wear Chain. I have learned over 8 spells for my white and black mage, but I still have no idea what some of them do. The names of each spell is limited to 4 letters (the names of almost everything in the game is limited to 4 letters,) So I've got things like "FIRE" and "CURE" which make sense. Fire does damage to one enemy, cure heals one ally. But then I've got things like "LOCK" and "HARM," and every time I have ever used these spells, they say "ineffective." There is never any explanation anywhere for what these spells actually do. I've tried the spells in different contexts in battle and still I've got nothing. "Ineffective" is a vague term for not doing anything. Which brings me to another irritating part of the Battle system: If one of your warriors kills an enemy, and You've already set another warrior to attack that enemy, the turn is spent and you get "Ineffective," rather than that warrior going to the next enemy. Since you can't see the health bars of the enemy, its pretty much up to chance of how much damage your guys do so focusing attacks on single enemies is not always the best idea, because you could kill him on the first shot and the rest of your team's attacks are wasted. Another irritating part of the battle system is that for your Mages, they are allowed to do 2 spells of every level before you have to go to the inn. This makes the regular attackers much more effective. Apparently in later versions of this game they implemented Mana or Magic Points. Lastly, another thing that was irritating is something that most people get used to in RPGs, and thats the "waiting" kind of effect in battle after you've chosen which each of your characters will do. After each enemy or each warrior does something, there is three seconds of text that you can press A to bypass, but you still have to wait three seconds nonetheless. This gets irritating when there are 5 enemies and 4 of your own guys, and the only thing you're doing is pressing A A A A A A A A A A A to have each of your guys perform a regular attack. I didn't see this change significantly in the Final Fantasy series until Final Fantasy X, where your fighters did things instantly, and while the animation was happening you could select actions for your next fighter. Space was an odd thing in this game. You had a whole island to walk around on, but it didn't help you or reveal anything new. Even when I got the pirate ship and could basically sail forever to the left of the screen if I went around islands, it just didn't make sense. There was no map, and you really have no idea where to go in this game. If you talk to the townspeople they don't even tell you where to go. I don't recall any cutscenes in my sessions with this game. When you do get in a battle you cut to the battle, but there is nothing in between. If I was making an RPG, I would want to make sure that I explain what every item does, and I'd want to have a minimap and clear indication of how to progress through the game. So Final Fantasy was really a great step in the right direction for RPGS, but not that enjoyable to play nowadays, unfortunately. (This entry has been edited11 times. It was last edited on Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:30:33.)Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:13:35 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2039&iddiary=4023https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2039Gamelog Entry #1 Summary Final Fantasy for NES was a pioneer of the RPG genre. In this game, four warriors dubbed the "Light Warriors" must encounter various enemies in turn based combat in order to restore the elemental orbs and save the world! Winning each battle yields experience and gold, necessary for making stronger warriors! Victory is obtained by defeating the Evil Elemental Fiends! Gameplay I was first excited to play this game, because I've played most of the other Final Fantasy RPGS and I love nintendo games. But after a few battles I got a little more serious because I found that this game was going to be a lot harder than I thought. Sure, I could kill imps 4 times over, but without having any means to heal my warriors, I could run into a giant pony who would destroy my weaker guys in a few turns. The characters in the game aren't really distinguishable from each other, you just accept them as "Light Warriors," and most of the Non Playable Characters in the game are unnamed. So the story doesn't run too deep, by talking to people in town you do get the idea that you're supposed to be "Light Warriors" with some sort of magic orbs. Other than that there is not a lot to it. For its time, the story portion of the game is good, but it can't be compared to the Epic RPG stories of today's games. Something I should mention though is that you get to choose the names of your four warriors, and their classes as well, which is very cool. Each class specializes in certain things and has a different look to them. The game was fun, and I did experience flow for the first 10 minutes or so, but almost near the end of my session I realized I was just playing for the sake of playing. It was fun because the battles were actually difficult at times, and I was eager to see what I could do with all the gold I was earning. I did play this game by myself (it is a one player game,) but I did name my warriors after my friends, and when I told them they thought it was pretty cool. (They play videogames too.) The game was interesting to an extent, but it was full of things that ultimately turned me off from the game, which I will discuss in the next entry. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:13:18.)Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:11:11 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2039&iddiary=4017https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2082 (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:44:40.)Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:44:20 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2082&iddiary=4010https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1797GAMELOG ENTRY #1 SUMMARY In Shaq Fu, NBA Star Shaquille O'Neal must travel to an alternate dimension to beat up various Creature-Peoples, in order to save a young boy from the mind control of an Evil Mummy-Warrior. In this one-on-one fighting game, you must use a series of hits and combos (or just mashing the "C" Button,) to drain your opponent's life bar and win each fight. GAMEPLAY This game cracked me up. Shaquille 'Oneal fights a giant lava monster, A cat woman, a human cyborg, the Prince of Persia, and The Crypt Keeper: All while in his bball shorts. The story and the characters develop through the trash talk that goes on before and after each fight. Needless to say the story doesn't have much depth, but you can get the main idea: Shaq wanders into a Kung-Fu dojo, going to the "second world," and fighting an evil mummy to save a boy. The story was kinda weak but funny nonetheless. http://i9.tinypic.com/80picjk.jpg http://i1.tinypic.com/8fziwxt.jpg As I progressed I was somewhat interested, I liked to to see what kind of ridiculous opponent I'd have next, and what kind of trash talk Shaq would have for him. I played story mode on my own, so I didn't really get the 2 player part of the game. The game was fun for the first 30 minutes, but it kind of got old fast. There is no guidance to do any special moves so you're kind of left for dead against guys like the cyborg who just shoots you with his gun arm all day. The game is actually pretty hard, and takes some getting used to. But I think with a second session I'll be able to beat it. GAMELOG ENTRY #2 GAMEPLAY At this point I have adopted a style of play that is ensuring me quick victory. It is a "Norrisian" style of fighting that consists of several roundhouse kicks to the face. Using my thumb I pound the C button several times until Shaq does his victory dance (running in place.) Playing this game for an hour and a half has dampered my mood a bit, It's not really that fun anymore but I'm just playing to beat it. The idea of the game is still funny to me, and I look forward to seeing what kind of terrible ending is in store, but there isn't really any other reason to continue playing this game. The gameplay isn't that great because you don't know the button combinations for the special moves, so you end up pounding "C" like me in order to win. Hitting the other player is pretty hard, maybe the hitboxes on the sprites are messed up or maybe there is something else, I'm not sure. Another thing that makes me want to stop playing this game are the MIDI songs, you know, Sega music. At first I thought the music was complex and entertaining but now it's just piercing my brain, certain notes are repeated over and over. UPDATE: I have beaten the game! Sett Ra has been slain by the mighty hand that is Shaquille 'ONeal! I have also learned a throwing blade type move through the "Duel Mode" called the "Shaq-Ruken," but I can't seem to do it in the game. Here are shots of the ending scene: http://i3.tinypic.com/72iiqgo.jpg http://i2.tinypic.com/6ltnw9i.jpg DESIGN If there was anything innovative about Shaq Fu, it could be the incorporation of Shaquille O'Neal into a Kung-Fu videogame. Maybe another part is the map that Shaq runs around on to select his opponents in whatever order, I don't see that in many other fighting games. Other than that though, Shaq Fu doesn't bring much to the table. A good quality of this game is the smooth animations of the different fighters doing different moves. All of these looked cool. Though the gameplay isn't smooth, at least it looks smooth. The levels within the game are only different aesthetically, otherwise every battleground is the same. What is different though are the enemies, which pose a bit of a challenge. Sometimes you need to to be an agressive roundhouse kicker, and sometimes you need to protect yourself more often, depending on your enemy. But if you can mash the C button good enough, you can usually overcome any foe. The reward system didn't reward very much, when you win a fight you get to progress, and you get to read your enemy's response of defeat. I think it would be a good idea to learn special moves when you beat enemies. Another thing I would try to fix about the game would be the mechanics in general. It's just kind of hard to hit your opponent and control your fighter well. Cutscenes were used pretty well I thought, they were one of the only charming aspects of the game. It makes for a little confrontation or even story with the person you're fighting. In other games like Mortal Kombat and street fighter, you're just faced off and you go. All in all, Shaq Fu is a Novelty game, played for laughs more than for the gaming experience. If you're interested in playing a slightly better game than this one, try Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City (This entry has been edited3 times. It was last edited on Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:40:40.)Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:36:41 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1797&iddiary=3575