Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=629https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2983ENTRTY #2 GAMEPLAY So I continued on level 3, which turned out to be fairly entertaining. Set in the the canals of Venice, it provided all sorts of carnage and wild jumps. The timer actually is fairly short for each level, usually about 6-8 minutes, so everything is really fast paced and chaotic. This chaos is a main theme of the game design. The first time you play a level you experience this huge onslaught of information and necessary actions that create a very frantic gameplay pace. You must be aware of several different mission objectives at once, avoid dying to swarms of enemies, be careful not to kill civilians, and on top of all that you must do it under the time limit. Of course, once you have played the level a few times (which is usually required to complete all the objectives) this overwhelming chaos becomes manageable and the levels become fairly repetitive. I had to play level 3 three times, then replay level one (the horrible training level) to get one more objective to unlock level 4. Despite this, Level 4 was almost ,worth the wait as it was a wild swamp level. However I never could complete enough objectives to advance to level 5. DESIGN The narrative discourse of this game is pretty underachieving. The first level starts with a poorly rendered movie of a bunch of men in suits talking about their satellites the "Four Horsemen." The heads of a huge evil corporation, these men represent your enemies and you must single handedly destroy thousands of enemies and structures to thwart them. As of level four, which is roughly a third of the way through the campaign, there are no story updates, except small level blurbs that come during the load screen. The level design is interesting. The designers cram tons of enemies, destroyable props, and interactive objects into the levels. There are always jumps, ramps and secret passages. The levels are fairly linear, which helps with completing objectives, but definitely cuts down the replay value. I feel this game is extremely limited, and that probably contributed to its relative lack of success. The system of rewards/punishments is extremely painful, it is like instead of making new levels they just decided to make you play each one SEVERAL times. Not the best idea, in my opinion. There isn't a whole lot of emergent complexity or complexity in any form, really. Overall this game seems like a poor arcade game at best, and at worst like a torturous experience. Ok, so it wasn't that bad.Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:20:42 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2983&iddiary=5680https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2983SUMMARY In Spyhunter, you pilot an all-in-one vehicle in fast pace levels, completing a series of objectives. GAMEPLAY Having never played this game before, I started on the first level, which turned out to be an extremely difficult training level. Game progression is dependent on a series of objectives that you must complete during the level. For example, for the first level there is a main objective (a slalom course) and five more objectives like minimizing civilian damage, destroying certain targets, etc. In order to unlock the second level (and additional weapons), you must have completed at least 4 objectives. While this method (which is common in such games as the Tony Hawk series) can provide some amount of replay value and player options, I found it rather frustrating. It took me almost 30 minutes just to satisfy the first "tutorial" level since each run through took about 6-8 minutes. Things can get extremely repetitive when you are playing whole levels only to miss a certain jump and fail a mission you need to advance. Once I passed the training level things started to get a bit more fun. The second level only took me one try to complete all but one of the objectives. The level was very fast paced and consisted of destroying a helicopter. I found the life system fairly forgiving, this is how it works: Once your car (the main form of your spy vehicle) is destroyed from it emerges a motor cycle, and once that is destroyed you die. However, there are repair trucks throughout the levels that take you back to a full health car. This also applies to the water form of your vehicle except instead of a motorcycle you get a little wave runner. So dying and finishing within the time limit were not much of a challenge, but missing objectives that are often hidden or difficult to reach is frustrating. Playing entire levels over is rarely a design method that I feel encourages the player to continue. So thats the first two levels, hopefully in the next session I can progress farther.Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:06:20 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2983&iddiary=5611https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2682Entry #2 GAMEPLAY So starting where I left off yesterday (nobody had erased my game overnight!) I continued level two and eventually finished level three as well. I find that the more new things one discovers during the course of a game the better the game tends to be. Now this is not always applicable, but I found myself pleasantly surprised at the amount of complexity and depth in this ancient classic. I continued discovering new ways to approach level movement and enemy management. Although the way to kill bosses are basically all the same (you suck in what they throw at you and spit it out at them) I feel it didn't really detract from the overall feeling of surprising complexity. One aspect of the game I really enjoyed were mini games between levels. Each level world has a few different mini games to play between stages that helped me get lives (which I was going through rather quickly). And this leads me to the life system. I found it so much more forgiving and friendly than Mario. You get five health bars, with health packs throughout the levels, lots of lives, and you can jump forever! It may be an illusion but I felt so much more like I was the one responsible for my own death rather than some cheap level design trick or unlucky slip. DESIGN So here is where things get interesting. Since my team is making a platform game with weapons, I paid very close attention to the game design. First and foremost: the weapons system. Normally Kirby can suck an enemy and spit them out, blow air at them while jumping, or perform a sliding kick across the ground. However, if you hit down while you have sucked in an enemy you receive their special powers (i.e. fire, lasers, swords, tornadoes, etc.). This makes the fighting aspect of the game very entertaining. The designers did a very good job at keeping relatively simple enemy battles engaging by providing a consistent reward system of seemingly endless different weapons. Once you kill a boss you can suck them in as well, providing you with insane super powers. If you lose a health bar, you lose your power up, so I found myself with a new power every couple rooms. In my humble opinion this blows away Super Mario Brothers 3. There are endless possibilities and the design even goes so far as to incorporate small level puzzles based on powerups. For example, during level three there are some rooms where you must first have some sort of ranged power up (laser, ray beam etc.) to shoot a switch that then destroys bricks letting you pass. So this leads me to the level design. Very fun and varied backgrounds, as well as a fairly open feel concerning level design. Since you can swim and fly, there is a lot of vertical movement as well as horizontal, something that I feel is vital to any platform game. There are different ways to complete rooms and levels, and it certainly conveyed a sense of player control or "emergent" aspects, which is always helpful in a relatively linear genre. Overall a stellar performance on design. Way more engaging, replayable, entertaining, and challenging than I first thought. So what have I learned? Design is everything. Well, almost.Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:23:33 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2682&iddiary=5113https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2682SUMMARY Kirby's Adventure is a bright and playful platformer featuring an innovative weapon system and several different challenging worlds. GAMEPLAY So without any delay or narrative introduction I found myself on level one and ready to spend the next hour in blissful platform madness. I was immediately struck by the simplicity of the control system, and yet as I played more I was impressed at the variety of movement options available to the player. I progressed through the first level with relative ease, and was at first worried that the game might either be too easy or too short or both. However as stages of level one progressed it became apparent that this was not going to be an issue. The infinite jumping (or floating) provides some interesting gameplay aspects and helps gives the level a more open feel. Maybe its just me, but I am not fond of platform games that require precision jumping. So this was perfect for me. Upon reaching the second level, rather than being bored like I thought I may be, I found I was more engaged than when I had started. I found myself wondering how Mario beat out this game for the platform king. The level design is fairly simple, but the bright and varied background design keeps interest from level to level. Also you can go underwater and fly! The fact that there are multiple ways to get through a level and multiple doors within levels provides at least a vague sense of freedom in the very rigid world of platform games. Overall, a fun hour, and it is easy to see why Kirby's Adventure is on the classics list. There are many interesting design features of this game that I will discuss tomorrow after my second session on my second log.Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:16:53 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2682&iddiary=5066https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2551GAMEPLAY So I thought I would delve deeper into the mod game playable on Battle.net called DoTA (Defense of the Ancients). After doing a little research it turns out that Dota is the most played game in the Philippines and Thailand and in the top 100 of several other countries. It is based on the original Custom Map Settings mod "Aeon of Strife" for Starcraft. It has had many different developers, which become almost immortalized in the gaming world for their free contribution to gaming. As far as its similarities to Warcraft, it basically stands on its own as a completely different game. Each team of 5 people chooses a hero and tries to turn the tide of battle across a river. With almost 100 unique heroes and hundreds more items to choose from the depth is no less impressive than the original Warcraft game. DoTA has basically taken over battle.net like WoW has taken over MMORPGs. It is by far the most popular aspect of the game and offers a kind of RPG/RTS hybrid, a combination that works very nicely. I have played my fair share of dota as well, and I must say it has to be the most popular mod ever created in any game or platform. Thats a strong statement, but i honestly believe it. Part of what makes it so enjoyable is the unlimited possibility of ten humans making decisions at once in the same game. That combined with the strategic complexity of the heroes and items offers crazy replay credentials. DESIGN The simple fact that human minds are almost always better than AI helps make DoTA incredibly engaging. The innovative combo of RTS elements with a RPG level and ability system makes this game hard to categorize. Its immense popularity stems from its uniqueness. Constant exhibition of emergent complexity keeps the game incredibly complex throughout. It also spawns entire social networks and fosters a dedicated community. There are several websites devoted solely to Dota strategy and forums. So this community is constantly trying new strategies as new patches update the details and add new features. This serves to provide a kind of constant reward structure outside of the actual gameplay, as new rewards are constantly being added. This game is a very good example of what you can do with a good idea for design. Dota borrows all its artwork and mechanics from the actual Warcraft but it is undeniably its own game and stands alone completely. An impressive foresight of Blizzard to include such a powerful Map Editor. This game is especially interesting because it symbolizes a new open source approach to gaming where the the input of the gamer is constantly being considered and addressed. The future of gaming is in mods and Blizzard is smart enough to realize it. Why do the work when the gamers are happy to assist you?Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:56:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2551&iddiary=4880https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2551SUMMARY Control Orcs and other medieval creatures to conquer your enemies in this award winning RTS from Blizzard. GAMEPLAY So after having played a significant amount of both Civilization and Starcraft throughout my adolescence, I decided it was time to play Warcraft 3. That was 3 years ago. And the game has really been impressive. I played the whole campaign twice through, and was once even ranked on Battle.net for my 2v2 wins. So what gives this game such replay value? Well, having always preferred games of emergence to the often narrow creative options of games of progression, I took a liking to Warcraft right off the bat. It is much like Starcraft and Warcraft 2 (its predecessor) but the strategic detail is ridiculous. Becoming truly good is a thing that only few people achieve. At my peak I would still occasionally fight people online that were in a different world of skill. The learning curve is not terribly steep, but it is incredibly long. I still play occasionally so after playing again today twice after class(once before and once after!) I feel like it is deserving of an in depth design analysis. The single player narrative campaign is incredibly engaging, and it just the tip of the iceberg. The Battle.net server constantly provides challenging human opponents, as well as consistent patches and new material. You can play anyone's custom game (or "mod") online as well, including the game "Defense of The Ancients," or DoTA which has almost surpassed the actual game in popularity. You can play with friends whenever you want! So my favorite aspects are the depth and replay value that comes from depth and one of the best multiplayer experiences in gaming. DESIGN So the game is designed alot like other RTS games in the genre, but with an RPG twist. The game demands resource gathering building of an army and micro management. But where it differs significantly is with the feature of heroes. Heroes gain levels ala an RPG game and act as units that get better with your skill and careful "micro" skills. This changes the game immensely, adding items and abilities more reward features. The heroes serve to give the game millions of outcomes and insure a unique single game: Something that has never been played before. The single player campaign has an excellent story line, and serves as a warm up for your online battle against skilled human players. With four different races, four heroes for each race plus 6 other heroes and hundreds of maps there were plenty of hours to lose. The balance between all the complexities is excellent (the constant updating via patches helps) and helps this game provide entertaining gameplay time and time again.Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:17:29 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2551&iddiary=4837https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2224Gamelog Entry #2 GAMEPLAY So after throughly exploring the multi player and having a very good time earlier this week I decided to explore more of the single player "campaign." The single player campaign offered a completely diverse experience. In "campaign" mode, the game incorporates the addictive battle feeling into a series of stages that must be completed in order to progress through the game. The "campaign" mode begins with simple battles, but soon develops into significant fights (my personal favorite being numerous amounts of small chrome warriors). Another very original aspect of the "campaign" mode is found after completion. The designer of the game opted to present the game credits in a very original way. After the final battle, the player is immersed into a "star was fighter" like credit which gives the player a chance to enjoy a simple game while reading the credits. Overall, the "campaign" mode offers a truly unique experience. If you are alone, then the famous "Super Smash Bros" multiplayer game, can also be addictive by yourself. DESIGN Smash 64 pushed the innovative envelope of the fighter genre by incorporating elements from platformers and a new way to kill and be killed. The game broke away from the average fighters by placing value on position and height. Damage and successful strikes raise the percentage of the opponent, the higher the percentage, the farther the opponent flies when hit. This becomes important because in smash in order to KO an opponent enough damage must be accumulated to send them off the stage far enough for them to not be able to return or recover. This concept was not entirely original but the concepts had not yet been packaged together in a high speed multiplayer. In most fighter types, you get to know your opponent's tendencies relatively quickly. In Super Smash Brothers the differences in characters, varying stages, and open environments allow for a great deal more personality to shine through. The game is designed with relatively easy, instinctive controls. Players who enjoy flailing will still be able to play but the design favors speed and precision, for example, a character attempting to recover (return to the stage and avoid a KO) may be attacked by someone jumping off of the stage who in turn is trying to prevent their recovery. The stages are designed with heavy influence from the platformer genre. The majority of the games characters originate from platform games so stages styles, shapes and colors are derived from each character's games. Each stage has a unique design, some have moving platforms, and each provides a different scenario for fighters to survive in. The stage designs largely focus on the edges, where recovery gameplay sets smash apart from other fighters. Fun fact: the orginal smash 64, now two consoles old, still goes for nearly $30 on eBay.Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:19:50 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2224&iddiary=4315https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2224SUMMARY In Super Smash Brothers you control a popular Nintendo character and fight your way through a stage based, fighting style single player, or engage in wild multi player action with three other friends (or enemies!). I think it fits best in the fighting game genre but borrows elements of platformers. GAMEPLAY So i cut straight to the main attraction and played the versus multi player with my friends. I have played the Gamecube version extensively, but I never really sat down and seriously played the original. It is easy to see why this game made it on the "classics" list. The versus mnode is ridiculously intricate for a seemingly simple game and there are almost infinite possibilities for combat interaction. I played every character on every stage, and each is unique and fairly balanced. Each character has a different set of moves, and all the levels, which often resemble old NES Mario or Kirby levels have an interactive aspect, as well as many items which you can turn off. Needlesss to say the game fosters an intense level of social interaction. IT quickly becomes apparent that the intricacies offer a wide range of attainable skill level. Both these factors do wonders for the shelf life replay value of this relatively simple game. So the things I enjoyed most: socially active multiplayer, gameplay intricacy, and a gentle but incredibly long learning curve.Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:47:25 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2224&iddiary=4236https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2224 (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:49:11.)Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:11:39 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2224&iddiary=4213https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1815Raiden DX - Entry #2 GAMEPLAY So my friend and I played another 45 minutes of the venerable 2D shooter Raiden DX and I can safely say that I've reached the end of pretty much all avenues of entertainment this game has to offer. The hard mode proved to be the same exact levels as normal mode but with more enemies. Its hard to get into a game with no narrative value. One thing I did notice that I hadn't during the last session is that when you bank hard one way or the other, your aircraft tilts slightly, dipping one wing down and lifting the other. Where as before I thought this to be just a simple flying animation, I know realize that it is a means of dodging the often ridiculous amounts of enemy fire that fills the screen. Oh the subtle discoveries of gaming! DESIGN So lets start with innovation. Besides the weapon system this game has VERY few innovative aspects. But keeping in mind its age and the limits of the genre, I can't really expect a whole lot. Design elements that I liked were the weapon graphics, AI action, short levels, and enemy placement. Elements that fell short included: narrative substance, campaign longevity, and general depth. The game just does not stay interesting for very long. There is a noticeable lack of emergent complexity. So with some relatively minor additions and add-ons I feel like this game could be very satisfying, but as it is it has some very noticeable holes. This being said I will try to play the newer Riaden for PS2 and see if these issues were addressed.Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:37:33 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1815&iddiary=3850