Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=659https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2986Game Session 2: Game Play: During my second session of playing Eternal Sonata I spent the entire time running around in the sewers and fighting. The fights got a little repetitive because I must have been involved in 30 fights and they were all with cute rats with glowing lights on their tails. It was cute the first few times but eventually I got a little bored. I know it is early in the game so my characters haven’t had a chance to learn any new skills yet, but I got a little of tired of using the same two skills over and over. I probably need to give the game a little more time and grow my characters a bit more and then I will get some new abilities (this is an RPG after all). The music was good and the visuals of the game are amazing. Despite being cartoon like the world still looks very three dimensional and there is a lot of shadowing and blending to make the colorful world very appealing. There are also a lot of details like water reflecting light on the wall and little lizards scampering around to give the game a very rich environment. The world is very nice, but the actual game play has yet to impress me too much. Design: As far as innovation goes this game doesn’t do very much. It is immediately recognizable to anyone who has ever played and RPG before. There are item shops, weapon shops, houses with people who provide pointless dialogue but provide atmosphere, pretty much everything you’ve seen in other RPG games. The fighting style is slightly different but is still reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII. One difference is that for each player’s turn they have an action gauge and when the gauge runs out the player‘s turn is over. If a player holds still and does nothing the gauge won’t drop, allowing the player time to think and strategize. When they take an action like an attack, moving or using an item it depletes their gauge. The player must decide how far they have to move to get within range of an attack or whether they want to stand away from the enemy and use magic (depending on each character’s abilities). I like that the gauge won’t move if you hold still because it allowed my to think without pressure which provides the more strategic play of turn based RPG’s. You can play very slow paced or very fast paced depending on your preference as a player. From the cut scenes that I have experienced so far the plot features an embedded narrative that is very linear. It is not the most exciting kind of narrative but again it holds true to the traditional RPG format. This game is enjoyable for its faithfulness to the traditional RPG that many people enjoy and brining a new visual and musical fullness that takes advantage of the strength of the 360’s graphic ability. The game world is pretty predictable. I ran through the woods to get to a village, I ran around a city and I went into the sewers. All of these are classic locations but re-envisioned with the new visual style. The motivations for the players are a bit lacking for my taste. So far I’ve had to get home before dark and deliver some bread. My first boss fight was against a big rat who wanted the bread. OK….I haven’t really learned yet what my main goal in the game is besides running around with various characters that I assume are going to meet up eventually and create a party. So far this game seems like it is a really slow starter and it seems like it needs more than two hours to start getting into the real meat of the game which is a bit slow for may taste. I think that the creative aspects like the visuals and the music are fantastic and that the battle system is simple but nothing new. Overall this game is adorable, and very nice and enjoyable to play, but I wouldn’t say that it is anything extraordinary or groundbreaking.Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:36:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2986&iddiary=5619https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2986Game Session 1: Summary: Eternal Sonata is an RPG that takes place in a peaceful but mysterious land that I believe may end up being a dream world created by Frederic Chopin. Chopin is a famous musical composer that came to be known as a child prodigy on the piano. In Eternal Sonata his story has been adapted to create a world out of the mind of a child who has suffering from failing health his entire life. So far the story has consisted of playable characters that are children but who have hard lives from being homeless in one case and rejected from society for using magic in another. With each character you travel through the world to complete tasks and fight monsters along the way. Game Play: The first thing that I noticed about the game was the intense color scheme and artistic style. The graphics of the world are very stylized and rounded looking to create a very beautiful and cartoon like environment. The characters all drawn in anime style which adds to the sweet and cute tone of the game. The color palate is extremely vibrant and bright which makes the whole visual aspect of the game adorable. Even the sewers and sewer rats were cute and colorful. I could tell from the look of it that this would be a game that is very sentimental and sweet. Normally I enjoy scary and action oriented games so I wasn’t sure if this game would really engage me, but small hints at a more complex plot really drew me in and made me want to find out more. Despite being incredibly cute, cut scenes that show small portions of the character’s everyday lives reveal that life for them isn’t as sweet as it looks. The main character Polka has the ability to use magic but the ability means that she will die young and she is outcast from society because they fear that her abilities will hurt them. After playing as Polka for awhile the game switched to a new character named Allegretto who lives on the streets but does his best to support his little brother and other homeless children. The game seems really interesting even early on because it plays with the themes of childhood innocence, death and perseverance with characters that try hard to do good despite their own hardships. Another main aspect of the game is its focus on music. The game focuses on Chopin, a famous composer and all the characters and town names are musical terms. Though I must say that the town names “Ritardando” amuses me even though it is a musical term. The musical score for this game is amazing obviously. So far this game seems like a basic RPG with item shops, lots of menus and world battles but Eternal Sonata took a hint from FFXII and made the monsters walk around the world so you can avoid them if you choose. The fighting is turn based, but being able to block enemy attacks by taping a button at the right time keeps the battles interesting even when it’s not the character’s turn so you don’t have to sit and watch your character take a beating.Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:40:26 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2986&iddiary=5614https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2744Session 2: GamePlay After playing the first few levels which are amazingly fun I started coming across the constellation levels that change up the basic level format. In the constellation levels you have to collect as many crabs within a certain time for Cancer or swans for Cygnus etc. The addition of levels kept the game fresh and entertaining. I thought that I would get bored with just rolling things up in every level but it hasn’t happened yet. The further you get in the game the bigger your final Katamari ends up being and it’s really gratifying when you finally get to chase down and absorb people, then houses, then skyscrapers! The controls are very easy to learn but you get real satisfaction when you master abilities like flipping over the katamari to change directions and the super charge that lets sprint across the game world. After only a couple hours of playing I feel like a katamari guru and I beat all my friends in two player mode. Two player mode is not very different from the regular game play with the exception of getting largest first and rolling up your friend. Besides attacking your friend there isn’t really anything too special about two player, but single player mode is engaging enough that I don’t feel any real disappointment as I can still compete with my friends by reaching a certain diameter quickest or by getting the biggest diameter within a set amount of time. Game Design: One of the most innovative things about Katamari Damacy is obviously the core mechanic of rolling up items. The game is actually more complex then it appears at first as the layout of items throughout the levels are carefully placed by the game designers. The player must create a strategy that constantly takes into account the largest size item that you can pick up to maximize growth without smashing into items and losing katamari mass. The controls are also fairly innovative as you must coordinate the left and right analog sticks to move the katamari with efficiency. Some of the factors that make this a good game are the visual and audio effects. The visual style is very stylized and quirky and the music is extremely upbeat and catchy which encourages the fun and silly spirit of the game. By adding a timer for each level and target diameters the game creates challenges for the player that are achievable but also difficult so the player gets that sense of gratification and personal skill when they complete a level. As the levels progress you are allowed to replay levels to beat your own personal records and try out playing in a time test where you try to get to a certain size as fast as you can or the regular attempt to get as large as possible in a fixed amount of time. The player is constantly able to try and best their own records or their friends while the humor of the levels keeps them entertained. There is also a menu where you can examine every item that you have picked up as you play and shows empty slots for items that you have not yet collected. This menu also gives items a rareness value which adds the challenge of collecting all the items in the game and trying to find the most rare ones that are hidden in the levels. Along this line there are also ‘Royal Presents’, secret items hidden in each level that the player can find for a bonus. Another kind of level is the constellations which add new goals and objectives. Some of the constellations require obtaining as many of a certain kind of item as possible while others require getting as large as possible before picking up a certain theme item, ex: picking up the biggest bear possible for Ursa Major. You want the biggest bear possible which means getting really big before you pick up anything with a bear on it. This gets really hard when you are very large and it gets difficult to avoid tiny objects with bears on them that you really don’t want after so much strategic rolling. The incorporation of multiple goals while playing through the levels keeps gameplay engaging and encourages replaying the levels. My criticisms of the game are that sometimes you can get stuck behind or underneath items and it is almost impossible to get out without breaking off half of the items you’ve collected. Also, it is unclear sometimes why you can pick up some items when ones that are smaller can’t be picked up. The parameters for what can and can’t be absorbed seem a little off to me. Another issue that I have is that the camera would frequently go behind walls leaving me blind which was especially frustrating when time was running out and I only had a few more centimeters to grow. My last frustration is that when you achieve a certain size the perspective changes to show you the world now that you are bigger. I love this aspect and think it makes the game better, but whenever you reach one of these perspective adjustment phases the game pops up a loading screen and the King of the Cosmos blabs something random at you. This really interrupted the flow of gameplay for me though I understand that it may have been necessary for the game to have a loading screen at that point.Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:43:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2744&iddiary=5166https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2744Session One: Summary: In Katamari Damacy the player roles a ball (a katamari) around various maps and picks up items that are slightly smaller than it in order to increase the ball’s size and pick up larger and larger items. The game could most likely be classified as a puzzle game because the main objective of each level is to carefully choose your route and the size of items you pick up in order to maximize how quickly your katamari grows. The avatar you control is a tiny character called The Prince, who does the actual rolling of the katamari even though he is nearly invisible as the katamari reaches larger proportions. In theory the game has a plot where the King of the Cosmos destroyed all the stars in the sky and now his son, the Prince must roll up katamari’s to create new stars and constellations. There are a few cut scenes telling the story of a family with a father who is an astronaut, but the story is marginal. It has no direct effect on the levels and only adds humor to the already zany atmosphere of the game. GamePlay: I really enjoyed this game. The core mechanic of the game where you roll up items is fun enough on its own but the environment of the game adds the strange and silly aspect that makes it extremely fun. The graphics are very abstracted and cube like which makes everyday items funny looking and bright colors make it very cute even when you are rolling over small children and cats. One of the main factors that made this game fun for me was the addition of Japanese items and culture. The music is all Japanese Pop which is very upbeat and happy. When you pick up items they are listed in the bottom left hand corner and part of the fun is seeing all the mundane and wacky things you can pick up from socks to a samurai sword to an alien. The random and the everyday are all mixed together and kept me laughing the whole time. The only real character in the game is the King Of The Cosmos who is lovable in a very annoying kind of way. He is extremely bossy and says things that are non sequiter all the time but it is enjoyable because it is just part of the strangeness of the game. He frequently pops up when you are in a level to comment on your progress or an item that you just picked up and no matter how good of a job you think you did he always thinks that he could have done a better job. The humor of his comments gets old pretty fast but I guess that a part of his character is to be annoying. The game did get frustrating at times when the controls would not do what I wanted them to and I would get stuck or my katamari would fly off in an unwanted direction and have large pieces fly off. The minor annoyances from the controls did not hinder me from enjoying the game too much. After a while of playing my friends started watching and pointing at things to pick up that looked funny and yelling ‘look out’ whenever an animal would come after me. Katamari is really fun and exciting and my friends all wanted to give it a try after only watching for a few minutes.Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:49:38 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2744&iddiary=5151https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2547 Game Session 2 As you get further in to the game the Little Sisters and the Big Daddies being to be a major factor in the game. In every level there are a certain number of the pairs wandering around and when you encounter them they will not attack you or hurt you unless you attack them first. Little Sisters carry a substance called Adam that is used as a kind of currency to purchase the genetic modifications that stand in for leveling up you character. New Plasmids and Tonics (upgrades that you don't actively use but that raise your stats) are vital if you want to be strong enough to face the enemies that get progressively harder as the game advances. Whenever I heard a Big Daddy stomping around or a Little Sister talking to her Big Daddy I would immediately dispatch all splicers in the area and hack every nearby turret so that I could battle the Big Daddy with everything leaning in my favor. Big Daddies are difficult to beat but you get a real sense of accomplishment when you finally succeed in bringing him down. Then you're faced with the next big problem, the dilemma of saving the Little Sister or killing her. Saving her yields less Adam but the payout in the end is much greater and you get to feel like a good person and get the special ending for your good moral behavior. If you kill the Little Sister you get instant gratification, a lot more Adam at the moment though probably less overall, and you get the greedy evil ending which I also rather enjoyed. Design: The 'moral' dilemma with the Little Sisters is by far the most innovative aspect of this game. The consequences of the actions you take while you play effect the outcome and the style of your game which makes the act of playing the game more fun and interesting. The nostalgic music and ambiance mixed with the horror story and the "science" and all of it taking place underneath the sea creates a mood I've never experienced anywhere else and that is probably my favorite in any game I've played. The controls were very easy to use and did not hinder my enjoyment of the game one bit. The good control scheme made exploration and fighting smooth and fun. All of the menu screens, maps, and gauges were easy to understand and I felt like I really had a hold on how to play the game very quickly. The combination of plasmids, guns, new kinds of ammunition and manipulation of the environment allow for new styles of fighting that keep the game fun after hours of playing. Each new area of the game is very individual with its own mood and atmosphere, but each level is without a doubt a logical environment in Rapture so it feels like you really get to explore the city and see every part of it. The moral question of the Little Sisters and the varying ideologies and ethics of the people you interact with really bring a more complex narrative to this game that the player is able to take part in. This made the game more than just mowing down enemies with cool guns, it made the game fresh and unique despite it being a first person shooter. Another element of the game is the ability to hack security cameras and turrets so that they will attack your enemies. This game gives you a lot of options to develop your own style of play without making the player feel overwhelmed by options. By using the radio and the audio diaries to move the narrative instead of cut scenes the player is allowed to continue playing while the plot is being revealed. This led to a very smooth progression in the game as I was always able to keep moving and never had to stop and watch multiple or long cut scenes. Over all the mechanics, level design and creative aspects of this game are so amazing I really can't think of anything to improve on. I really love this game and promise that it is worth the money to get it. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:26:54.)Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:57:47 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2547&iddiary=4818https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2547Game Log Entry 1 Summary: Bioshock is a first person shooter with a bit of a twist as you control not only guns, but can also 'genetically modify' your character allowing him to shoot lightning, fire or use telekinises to hurl objects. Bioshock starts out with the main character surviving a plane crash in 1960 somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Surprisingly (or not hint hint) there is a strange tower which turns out to be a gateway to the underwater city called Rapture. You find out that the city is now run down and populated by insane and mutated people called Splicers, mysterious little girls called Little Sisters and their guardians Big Daddies. You're character must escape from Rapture fighting through splicers and making decisions about how to deal with the Little Sisters. Gameplay: My immediate reaction to this game was one of complete excitement. I absolutely LOVE the combination of old 40's music and advertisements mixed in with the horror of the mutant splicers and the scientific creations of Little Sisters and Big Daddies. The combination of wholesomeness and disturbing genetic modifications creates an atmosphere that is intense, scary and nostalgic all at the same time. I like how the game begins in the ruins of Rapture and you have to listen to audio diaries left by Rapture's inhabitants during its collapse to discover what really happened. As far as a cast of characters, there is pretty much only the main character who in his only line of dialogue says something like he "always knew he'd be someone special." He has tatoos of chain links on his wrists and has random flashes of a picture of his family pop in to his mind. These let you know that there is something mysterious going on and made my interest in the history of Rapture even more intense. The narrative is delivered through radio messages with your 'friend' Atlas and your 'enemy' Andrew Ryan. THe exact relationships between the people you meet in Rapture are also very mysterious and reveal themselves throughout the gameplay at pivital moments. Lots of hints and allusions keep the player intersted and focused on exploring and finding out more. The Gameplay is very smooth and easy to control. One trigger fires guns while the other fires the genetic modifications called Plasmids. There is very little jumping but a lot of crouching and slaming things with your wrench to knock obstacles out of the way. I really enjoyed exploring the world and finding more audio diaries so that I could learn more about Rapture. I had a hard time stopping and played for about three hours in my first sitting because I was having so much fun playing it. Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:57:27 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2547&iddiary=4817https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2547 (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:58:16.)Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:33:51 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2547&iddiary=4801https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2165Entry 2: Gameplay: For my second gameplay session I defeated three more colossi. I really enjoyed the variation of the colossi. So far there have been some on two legs, some on four legs and one that flies. Figuring out how to beat each colossus is pretty fun, but the learning curve is a little steep. You really have to be observant to beat this game. I spent ten minutes on the fourth colossus just running around aimlessly until I finally figured out that if you hid in the small underground caverns in the area long enough the colossus will lean over to peek inside and you can pop out the other side and climb up its back. So far each colossus has been a challenge, but not so difficult that I got too frustrated to keep playing. One frustration of mine is the mysterious plot. At first I really liked the withholding of background information, but I still haven’t learned anything about the Wanderer’s motivations or relationship with the dead girl. Where did he get that magic sword? After each battle he gets stabbed by the creepy black tentacles and somehow ends up back at the fortress surrounded by shadowy black figures who can only be the spirits of the colossi as there is one more after every battle. The black figures just stand there and stare at him while he is unconscious but the game refuses to reveal any more of the plot. This is both frustrating and compelling. This game seems unique in the way it progresses. Despite the lack of cinematics I noticed that my character is beginning to deteriorate. His hair has gotten darker, bruises have appeared on his body and his skin has become more and more dull. It seems like as he kills colossi he has been hurting himself somehow. The creepy tone is enhanced by this new development and I think this is a really cool way to let you see that something is happening; but letting you notice on your own without just being told. This game is all about observation. Design: The level design of this game is amazing. The world is gigantic and extremely detailed with various terrains from forests, lakes, caves and deserts. There are also many ruins strewn about the landscape and you frequently end up facing a colossus there at some point. I did a bit of galloping around the countryside just for the sake of looking at the seamless world that the designers created. Another aspect of the landscape that I enjoy is that specific kinds of trees have yellow fruits that you can shoot down with arrows and eat to increase your life bar. Having a larger life bar isn’t too important in this game but it helps out when you fall off of a really tall colossus or get stomped on a few times while trying to figure out what to do. There are two gauges in this game, already mentioned was the health gauge but the second and I feel more important is the stamina gauge. You don’t take too much damage while fighting but the stamina gauge is crucial because it determines how long you can cling to the side of a colossus before falling and needing to climb all the way to the weak point again, which can take several minutes in some cases. The size of the stamina gauge also determines the strength of your sword attacks when stabbing the weak points. You can increase the size of your stamina gauge by shooting special lizards with white tails that crawl on the save points that you find around the world. You can kill the lizard and eat it or just shoot off the tail which leaves it alive to generate a new tail that you can come back for later. Though the white tailed lizards are somewhat of a secret as nothing mentions them in the game, as usual you just have to notice on your own or go online, it is essential that you increase your stamina as the game progresses or you won’t be able to cling to the later colossi long enough to kill them. The lizards and the stamina gauge bring up some of the issues that I had with the design of the game. The lizards are pretty small, especially compared to the colossi. The controls for the bow and arrows are very difficult to use with any accuracy which becomes painfully obvious when you’re trying to shoot the tiny lizards as they scuttle around the save point. The controls in this game are generally pretty loose and inaccurate. Steering the horse isn’t so bad in open spaces but if there is any kind of objects like trees or walls navigation becomes really tedious. I spent a good amount of time with my horse rearing because I kept accidentally steering it into walls. The other issue I had was with climbing on the colossi. If you are climbing on a colossus trying to kill it, it will try to shake you off, understandably. This aspect can get very frustrating when you are trying to build up a good charge for your stab or even try to navigate on the body. If the colossus shakes too violently your character will stop climbing and cling on for dear life. I like that this feature gives the game a more realistic feel and also adds to the desperate tone I get from the landscape and the Wanderers continued physical deterioration. But after five attempts to stab the weak spot before I run out of stamina, fall off and spend another five minutes trying to get back to the weak spot I want to bash my head in with the controller. Also the physics for the jumping don’t always seem accurate so that when you think you will make a certain jump the Wanderer goes off in a random direction and misses and you must start all over again. These control issues are very frustrating because they make the game hard to beat not because of a good challenge but because of bad and annoying physics. Despite these frustrations I still enjoy the puzzles of each battle and look forward to exploring the world to find the next colossus and figuring out how to beat it, even if I sometimes have to put the controller down for a minute so I don’t throw it through the TV screen.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:14:35 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2165&iddiary=4177https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2165Entry 1 Summary: You play as an unnamed character that is commonly referred to by players as 'The Wanderer.' The game begins with a cinematic that shows the Wanderer riding his black horse Argo and carrying a body as he crosses a very long bridge and enters a gigantic and ancient looking fortress. You soon find out that the Wanderer has stolen the body of a young woman and a magical sword and brought them both to a forbidden realm where a spirit named Dormin will restore the dead girl's soul, but only if the Wanderer uses the sword to defeat the 15 colossi that roam the forbidden land. The price will be high Dormin says, but the Wanderer accepts the challenge. For each colossus you must find its weak spot using a beacon that emits from the sword then discover how to reach that weak spot by manipulating the environment or by climbing on the colossus itself. Gameplay: What made this game really interesting for me was how mysterious and desolate the world feels. The dulled color scheme of the world and the slow and sad music during the introduction give the game a melancholy tone. The dead girl has been sacrificed because she had a cursed fate and the magical sword can protect the Wanderer from the menacing smoke creatures that begin to approach him when he enters the fortress. I wanted to know who the girl was and how the Wanderer knew her and how he got the sword, but the game teases you and won't let you know any background information. Immediately I didn't trust Dormin because of the mixture of voices blended together to create its main voice. The Wanderer seems to be in the forbidden land as an act of desperation. He wants to bring the girl back to life so badly that he has resorted to coming to this land that has a definite cursed feeling to it. Despite not knowing whether or not I could trust Dormin the only way to proceed is to battle the colossi. Once you have free rein to explore the world you can’t help but notice that the world is almost completely desolate. The only other creatures besides the Wanderer and Argo are lizards, hawks and of course the colossi. The world is massive, but there is really no point to exploring anyplace that isn’t along the way to the next colossus. The empty world adds to the sorrowful feel of the game that I found so intriguing. For my first session I defeated the first three colossi. Each colossus was a unique battle besides the common goal to stab the weak spots on the colossus’s body. A typical place to find a weak spot appears to be the head but they appear on other parts of the body and you must find and attack each weak spot in order to bring the colossus down. Each colossus is more like a puzzle than a boss fight. You must use the beam of light that projects from the sword to locate each weak spot. Then you must manipulate the environment and the colossus until you can reach the spot. There is climbable fur and stone structures that you are able to climb on each colossus and you must carefully examine each situation in order to figure out how to win. I enjoyed the deceptively simple style of this game. Your only actions are run, swim, jump and climb. The only weapons that you are given are the sword, arrows and the horse, but as the game progresses you must constantly find new ways to combine the limited actions and equipment in order to discover the way to bring down the next colossus. The only time when you hear music is when you are in battle and the music is usually eerie and sad. When you finally find the way to reach the colossus’s weak spot the music changes to a fast and heroic song that lets you know you’re on the right track and really gets you excited. When you finally kill the colossus shadowy black tentacles reach out of the body and attack the Wanderer, knocking him out until he reawakens at the fortress and receives instructions from Dormin about the next colossus. The ominous feel of the game and the mystery of the plot make me want to keep playing and the excitement of solving the puzzle of how to defeat each new colossus made it hard for me to put the controller down.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:17:10 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2165&iddiary=4138https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1855Gameplay: For my second session of Mass Effect I found myself exploring the Citadel Station, a massive space station that is the hub of galactic politics and houses embassies for all of the allied alien races. The station lives up to the character's description of it being a massive complex as I explored it for two hours and have only covered about half of the layout. The Citadel Station was fun for me because the main actions are speaking with people and learning about the various alien cultures. After exploring for awhile you start to meet people who have problems that you can help them solve by running around and finding other people and delivering messages or convincing them to do things. This style of solving minor problems for locals while being on a planet for a greater more plot motivating reason really reminds me of Knights of the Old Republic. This section of the game was almost completely lacking in action sequences but kept me entertained by building in depth histories of different alien species and giving a complex history of the world that the characters live in. The multitude of sub quests and running back and forth between people started to feel a little confusing but the well designed journal in the menu helps keep track of all missions and quests. The journal helps keep track of which quests are integral to the main plot and which are superfluous yet still fun for building a full picture of the amazing depth of world the designers created. There is also a nice variety of conversation choices, you can be polite, indifferent or a complete jerk and the way you speak to people affects how others react to you later in the game. The endless amounts of talking and errand running did start to leave me wanting more action and I found myself shooting my gun randomly in hallways just to remind myself that I had a gun. I think the designers must have known that more action would be required and added the pleasant surprise of an ambush by assassins that let me get out some of my itchy trigger finger issues. Design: So far my favorite elements of this game are the decisions that you must make with how to interact with the other characters in the game. Two characters may be in a conflict and you must make a decision about how to resolve that conflict based on who you think is right or wrong. The player must use their own ethics and opinions based on the knowledge they have gained in conversations and the decisions they make will shift the way the game is played afterwards. If you make the decision to help one person then they will be more likely to help you later or conversely, if they don't like the way you handled a situation they may ignore you when you ask for help or advice. As you go through conversations with characters you can earn 'paragon' or 'renegade' points based on how civil you were in your discussions. This reputation building is similar to whether you become a jedi or a sith in Knights of the Old Republic. I think that this style of game is very innovative because it opens up many new possibilities every time you play. When one conversation can change the outcome of the game, you really have to be careful how you behave and with who you choose to become allies. The level design of this game really opened up as I suspected it would. The first level seemed to be rather linear, but the level of Citadel Station is expansive and huge with many options and no required order for how to explore it. While mildly stressful for me because I always want to explore ever single nook and cranny, this open city to explore really contributes to the freedom the gamer has to experience this game in their own way. I really enjoy learning about the different species and how the decisions you make changes the way people react to you and speak to you. This aspect really makes it feel like you are in a fully interactive environment and not just running through it and watching watching what happens. The expansiveness of the station is exciting to explore because each district and area looks different depending on the purpose of that area or the demographic of the people who can be found there. By interacting with the varying people in each area and hearing their opinions and problems you get to feel like you really see the inner workings of the city and complexity of the alliance of so many different alien species. This really shows how the world of the game is fully flushed out and well designed.Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:26:39 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1855&iddiary=3741