Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=660https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3201Gameplay So far the game has been pretty interesting. I mean, who knew that the pockets of a trucker's outfit could hold multiple firearms, meat hooks, portable TVs, typewriters, wrenches, hammers, drip stands, meat cleavers, katanas, crates, tablelamps, energy drinks, health drinks, first aid kits, and other various weapons, consumables, and key items. It seems like there's an infinite amount of inventory space and it seems kind of ridiculous what your character can have on his person. Aside from that, I have found that for at least the early parts of the game, it is pretty easy to get around using only your fists as weapons. I even managed to beat the first boss with just fists though i did get hit a few times. The firearms seems pretty easy to shoot since holding the R shoulder button automatically targets an enemy for you and the melee weapons work pretty much the same way, though some get thrown an break while others have mini health bars and break when damaged too much. The game has very few human characters. At this point in the game, there are only four characters other than the main character and they seem to go off and disappear soon after you talk to them with the exception of the creepy little girl that you see quite often comparatively. That said, the characters of this game seem to be varied to say the least, consisting of the trucker main character, the cult leader and her severely burned daughter, a nurse, and a doctor/cult member. As far as i can tell, all of them look like they're hiding something and will probably end up trying to kill me though the little girl seems to just be messing with everyone. Design The levels of the game are varied to an extent, with a few examples being the hospital, the sanitarium, a theater, and a motel, though they all have an Otherworld version. As can be inferred about my previous statements about the Otherworld, it is esentially the normal world painted in blood and gore. As frightening as it could be (and is) after a time, the sense dull and it the mind becomes accustomed to it. It loses the effect of being frightening since all of the Otherworld versions of Silent Hill's locations is similar to each other and lack a sense of originality between them all. It would be understandable if each one had something to give each location a unique fearfullness but I feel that this is lacking from said locations. The reward structure is pretty interesting, mainly because if you beat the game, you esentially unlock God Mode by gaining the ability to equip a pair of gloves that one-shot most enemies and can finish off bosses after a few hits. The main reward structure that was apparently a basic fundament of the Silent Hill series was to have alternate endings and the same goes for this game. Unfortunately the game forces one ending on you while the others can only be obtained after beating the game once. This seems to weaken the effect alternate endings would normally have and makes them seem rather trivial in comparison with other rewards. The only rewards that seem to have some sort of value are the awrads given to the character after performing certain feats such as killing a majority of the enemies with bare fists or collecting over three hundred of the items in the game. These effectively reward the player's performance and at the same time give the game much more replay value than simply the possibility of a second ending scene.Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:07:53 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3201&iddiary=6024https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3201Summary Silent Hill: Origins is a third person survival horror game in which you must unravel the secrets of the mysterious Silent Hill while trying to survive within its various realms. A variety of weapons can be used, ranging from a target pistol to a portable television, in order help you survive while solving the games many puzzles. Gameplay During my first playthrough I felt a mixture of excitment and anxiety, mainly because I had never played a Silent Hill game before this and was looking forward to it and also party because I feel that I scare easier than most people. Anyways, I'm one who prefers to watch movies in a room devoid of light so as to enhance the viewing and seeing as Silent Hill is known to play out as a movie would, I began playing in the dark. The music and the sound effects really created a great deal of tension and are largely responsible for the successful implementation of the games atmoshperic horror. Another major contribution to the anxiety I felt and the horror of the game is the game's use of frightening and disturbing visuals, most of which come from the Otherworld, a gruesome alternate realm (that can be accessed through contact with mirrors) where everything is covered in blood and gore and deformed and malevolent creatures dwell. My first encounter with an enemy did not occur for at least a half an hour but it probably frightened me more than any of the other encounters. The music combined with the Otherworld's gruesome detail increased the feeling of fear to a higher level than should have been felt due to the fact that it was only a single enemy and the weakest of them at that. I really like the games story so far. It's most likely because they took a simple story and expressed it in a complex way. This expression of the story allows for more freedom in creating the atmospheric conditions necessary for the game and allows the player to piece together the story for themselves, taking pieces of information from documents found by the characterby chance along with events and cutscenes that are a part of the game's linear progression. It creates a more realistic view of the horror. Seeing as Silent Hill is only a one player game, there aren't any interactions with other players within the game itself. On the other hand, I found that with friends watching it feels more and more like a horror movie, everyone getting scared or jumping at different points in the game. It makes for a fun experience and while it may not be as frightening as when playing alone, it'll be worth it to see your friends react to the game.Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:46:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3201&iddiary=6017https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2914Gameplay Okay, the game is still esentially the same as it was before. There has been no change to the story and the drunkard king is still making you clean up his mess. You still control a katamari and your still rebuilding stars. Now that that's out of the way, I found out that the prince has cousins scattered throughout the levels and finding and picking them up unlocks them for multiplayer usage. It adds some level of humor in the multiplayer mode when you have different odd things pushing sticky balls around, one of which looked like a ball himself (herself?). Anyway, they don't have much too offer to the gameplay or experience of the multiplayer unless you have cousins like me who supply the audio commentary. My continuation of single player mode led to many more surprises and amusements. Now many people wouldnt be at this point yet but I kinda sped through some things. On the last level, the objective is to build the moon. You would think the stars would have to be pretty large and that the katamari replacing them would need to be large too. Well compared to the moon, those specks of dust don't even come close. I dont remember if there was a time limit or not but it got to the point where I was uprooting forests just by pressing up on the d-pad once and at some point you find Godzilla fighting a robot. Eventually the islands became part of my moon and even the god of thunder. By the time I felt ready to put the game down I had grown large enough to pick up the clouds and possibly a few tornadoes or hurricanes. It's difficult to express how this experience felt but it was like drinking multiple bottles of Jones' Soda while watching UHF through a kaleidoscope. Design If I were to list one innovative element of the game it would probably have to be the use of the katamari. Afterall this is the first game in which we see an entire game based on rolling around a growing ball. To elaborate more on the game's design, it feels old but in a good way. It reminds me of games like Sonic the Hedgehog or Pacman where the entire game is based off of a singular simple objective (in Sonic, run to the end of the level; in pac man eat all the dots) without losing its replay value. On the other hand, the games use of cutscenes seemed to be tacked on after the levels simply because people are used to them. I mean, after a star was completed a.k.a. a level was beaten, there was a funny little cutscene that served no purpose other than to amuse the audience and to give some sort of semblance of a complex story. In actuality, they have nothing to do with the games main plot and serve only to fill in the apparent void where modern gamers would view a cutscene that's purpose was to hold the gamer's attention and keep them from becoming bored with the gameplay. In the case of Katamari Damacy, it was an unnecissary addition to a great game.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:00:05 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2914&iddiary=5492https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2914Summary In Katamari Damaci you control the prince of the universe who must roll things up with a ball shaped katamari and create stars from the resulting mass of objects to rebuild the universe. Gameplay When I first picked up the game I imagined myself getting bored within the first few minutes of gameplay, but once I actually started playing it, you couldn't get my attention for even five seconds. It's highly addictive due mostly because of its absurdity. I mean first imagine an ant pushing around a ball of dirt. Now imagine anything smaller than the ball getting stuck to it. Now imagine that five minutes later, your still the size of an ant but your pushing around a ball made up of buildings and cars. Aside from this, the most amusing experience I had was when my katamari was large enough to pick up people. It was hilarious to watch those block shaped people screaming and trying to waddle away as soon as someone near them got picked up. Now the story of the game is almost as absurd as it is short. The "King of All Cosmos" as he's called in the game destroys the stars when he's out drinking and then makes his son go out and rebuild the universe with stuff on Earth (Gee! Thanks Dad!). That's it. Nothing else. There is a side-story but it doesn't make much sense. My guess is that the creators of this game set out to create a game similar to many of the classics where they focused on the gameplay itself and just threw the story parts in there as an afterthought. Also the game did have a multiplayer mode. I'm not completely sure how to win yet (didn't pay too much attention to the rules) but I'm pretty sure its a race to make your katamari larger than the other player's. What made the multiplayer part fun was theability to ram your oponent to shrink his or her katamari by knocking off objects they accumulated. You can then take the objects for yourself and continue growing your katamari until either your opponent fights back or time runs out. Oh yeah, it's timed too. Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:48:59 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2914&iddiary=5491https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2593Gameplay During the later parts of the game I came across another town. On the outside it appeared to be just another large village, but once I entered it, I discovered it was actually a port town. I beat some pirates up and get their ship in return for not killing the captain. "Yeah!," I thought to myself only to discover that at this point in the story, the boat can only take me to a limited number of places. Most of which are either places I've visited or areas that give me no reason to make port. Oh well, it saves me the trouble of walking back through all those forests. Unfortunately, the game isn’t very direct in telling you what needs to be done in order to follow the storyline correctly. For example, after you get said ship, you’re apparently supposed to sail south to an elven kingdom with a cursed prince. After listening to some random gossip it is safe to assume that you must travel west in search of ruins. Sadly, they neglect to mention a fork in the road. If someone wanted to follow through "correctly" they would take the north fork to some ruins and talk to a nobleman about lifting the curse, then go to the south fork to get some other ruins to get a mystical artifact of some sort. Not knowing of this, I went in the opposite way, and as a result skipped the previous scenes and obtained the artifact. Whichever way is chosen, the nobleman turns out to be the cause of the curse and causes a boss battle. This would not have bothered me except for the simple fact that should you skip the first part, he reacts as though you spoke to him prior to that moment thus causing a simple plot development to become confusing and more complicated than it has to be. Design You start off the game as the main characters who happen to be the Warriors of Light. As a neat little feature, you are given the opportunity to choose each of their names and classes. It seems the game was based off of the concept of allowing the player to choose his or her character to determine how the story unfolds rather than having the story follow that of a set group of predetermined characters who already have their own names and back-stories. Also the lack of a back-story gives the player more flexibility and creativity in how they play through the game. An example would be that the player can create a character and create a back-story for said character (though the game would not recognize this back-story, it gives the player a sense of control in the flow of the game as opposed to "reenacting" a pre-made character's adventures). Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:14:57 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2593&iddiary=4929https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2593Summary Final Fantasy is a fantasy-style RPG where you join the legendary Warriors of Light in their quest to restore balance to a world threatened by darkness. Gameplay I found the first part of the game relatively easy and managed to finish it in about a half an hour (most of the time was spent leveling in preparation for the boss fight). While the monsters encountered were relatively weak, the difficulty varied depending on which area I was in. For example, I could be standing in a section of the world map that looks like a plain and fight the extremely weak goblins only to take a single step north and fight a ‘crazy horse’ or other more aggressive and threatening creature. Though the weakest of the game’s creatures, I found myself having to stay close to the city when at levels one and two, visiting an inn every once in a while to restore health. After level 5, all of these monsters didn’t seem very challenging. An interesting feature in this game is the ability to use magic. The way this was set up, the player must both purchase the desired magic and designate a character that can use the magic. Secondly, all of the purchasable magics of the game fall into a category of magic ranging from lv. 1 to lv. 8. As the character levels, they become able to use higher level magic and therefore become more useful throughout the story and more powerful.Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:13:20 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2593&iddiary=4928https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2230Gameplay As I continued to play the game, I began to notice that Wander’s began to take on a sickly appearance. This worsened, I noticed, after each time I killed a colossus. Also, Mono’s appearance began to improve as time went on. When I noticed this I remembered the conversation with Dormin, where he had mentioned that Wander may have to pay a terrible price to bring Mono back. This is interesting because it shows that his actions are taking their toll on him and the results of the decisions he makes are gradually introduced rather than sprung up on you when the game is over. Also, the colossi have gotten harder to beat than the first one I encountered with a couple of them being infuriatingly difficult. The 5th colossus is particularly infuriating in the fact that you are forced to fight a flying colossus. This one encounter took many tries just to get on the colossus in the first place and then resulted in Wander being thrown off, often only seconds later. Aside from this sporadic difficulty, the “battles” result in gratification, mainly because a 5-6 foot person somehow managed to take down several walking mountains using only a sword…and the occasional arrow or two. Design Seeing as the world of this game is all one large level, it could e said that there isn’t a lot of level variation though the one level itself varies based on the character’s location. On the other hand, it could also be said that the colossi themselves are the levels of the game, thereby making it true that the levels are both similar and varied. Obviously they are similar because they are all colossi, but the variation comes in the form they take and the paths along the bodies that lead to their vital points. The game creates conflict not through the use of traditional fighting but through the process of leading up to the strikes needed to take down the creatures (apparently it only takes about 3). Another conflict which is entirely optional is the ability to shoot the lizards with your arrows, with a select few actually giving you stat boosts. Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:24:12 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2230&iddiary=4369https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2230Summary In this game, you control Wander who must kill 16 colossi with the help of a magic sword and his horse, Agro, in order to bring a girl back to life. Gameplay When I first started to play the game, I was amazed with what I saw. The scenery was amazing and seemed almost real. I felt this same sense of awe when I encountered the first colossus, a giant creature of stone and fur that was rendered beautifully (well as beautifully as walking earth can get). Riding Agro also seemed very realistic when moving, having him turn in an arc while running. The game has very few characters which seems to be a good thing in the case of this game, with the only ones being Wander, Agro, Mono (the girl), and the disembodied Dormin so far, and lets the player focus on finding and defeating the colossi. It allows the player to appreciate the games environment without having some useless NPC ruining things. Defeating first colossus was a gratifying experience though it was relatively easy to do. Using the creature’s fur, I was able to scale the beast to certain vital points on its body marked with a glowing symbol of some sort and drain its energy using Wander’s sword. Because of the realism of the beast, I was gratified (as mentioned before) but at the same time I felt almost saddened at the sight of this once magnificent giant being reduced to rubble and ruins. Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:00:19 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2230&iddiary=4246https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1837Gameplay So far the game has done well with the difficulty of the game, with its gradual increase in difficulty as the game progresses. One problem may be that at some parts of the game, specifically Agrabah, seem to have boss battles of a difficulty slightly higher than what could be considered accurate for the world, and in the aforementioned world, the enemies have a higher chance of killing you off before you can properly procede with the story. I found that the Cave of Wonders boss battle, was a bit hectic, with the purpose being to attack both its eyes while being attacked by Heartless, normally in groups of five at a time. Also, Donald appears to have some difficulty in staying alive, though that could be said of any mage-type character in Square's collection of RPG's. This said I found myself either healing him more than the rest of the party or running around the area during a boss battle, waiting for him to regain consciousness. For him to stay alive without my assistance I found that I had to set it to where he was always casting the two defensive magics, Heal and Aero. I found that the Goofy and I could be managed fine without the use of equipment given the area, but if I wanted to keep him alive, Donald would have to wear some defense boosting equipment. Aside from accesories, I found that I could manage perfectly with the starting weapons of each character. The new weapons acquired in the different worlds did little to help with my stats due to the use of Power, Defense, and AP Ups i stocked up to this point, though i know later i will surely need to up my weapons due to a shortage of these enhancing items. Design Aside from the main story, I found that many of the extras added an enjoyable experience to the game and added to he replayability, mostly of the same game file. Some of these, such as rescuing all ninty-nine dalmation pups from the classic movie by rescuing them from item chests (three per chest) reward your hard effort. The side-quest mentioned previously rewards you for making certain milestones such as finding ten, twenty, and so on with various items such as a rare ribbon accesory or a full set of gummy ship parts. Of course I still have yet to recieve these rewards but the other rewards are still worth obtaining. Another aspect item was the Trinity Marks, which allow you to gain items and other and other useful things by meeting certain criteria, mainly having Donald and Goofy in the party. Some of the cutscenes were amazing and a majority of the story is told through them. For those who have already played the game, the inability to skip past them may be slightly annoying, especially in the beginning and end (laying the groundwork for the games story and ending the game without unintentional ambiguity), but do not disturb the gameplay too much throughout the rest of the game. Also i might add that the opening CG was quite remarkable and was very sybolic, forshadowing events that have and will happen during the game. The game itself, I felt was very innovational. Its replacement of random battles and the removal of a turn-based battle system give it the feel of an action game and gives the world amore realistic (or semi-realistic) feel. I partly believe that the success of this battle system and character customization for party members evolved into some of the features in Final Fantasy XII, with random battles being elimated and encouters being modified instead of the trap-like encounters in Kingdom Hearts. Also the character customization may have been a precursor to the Gambit system, a sort of prototype version so to speak.Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:29:56 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1837&iddiary=3700https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1837Summary In Kingdom Hearts action-rpg in which you control Sora, a boy whose world was destroyed by the dark creatures called the Heartless. With the aid of new friends and the mysterious Keyblade, Sora and his new friends must save the various worlds from being consumed by the Heartless while searching for his missing friends, his new friends’ king, and a way to destroy the Heartless and those controlling them. Gameplay An interesting thing to note about the character's of this game is that all of the secondary npc's that you encounter and that are necessary for story progression happen to be from the Final Fantasy games and Disney movies. Aside from the npc's that appear in Traverse Town, whom encounter is not necessary for much of anything aside from the occasional shopping for items, the main characters and enemies are all really well thought out and their personalities almost make them seem to be alive. The lack of background information on the main characters, whether it is because they hope to expand on that in a future release or not, doesn’t create a bond between you and the character like in many other games in this genre. In other words it doesn’t make the main character seem like a friend but more like an alternate version of you, where if you place all of the attention that would normally be placed on the character’s past and focused it on the personality. The Keyblade itself is a different matter. It is a relic surrounded in myth and treated almost as if it was a character itself. Since it changes form depending on what keychain it is equipped with and since most of them are give to you by friends you meet, it seems to connect the hearts of those you meet with your own. I was easily engrossed in the game's storyline, which is surprisingly dark for a game that some assume to be for only children (something Disney is pretty well known for I guess). While it may be true that the game is pretty easy to pick up, learn, and play towards the beginning, the dark storyline is actually quite complex, something that older audiences may want to pay attention to when playing this game. To give an example of how dark and complex the storyline is, the Heartless are created from darkness, more specifically the darkness within people's hearts, and are created when a person is consumed by said darkness. But what's surprising is that the being is only able to become a Heartless if his heart is "taken" by other Heartless who "feed" on the darkness it contains which in turn results in the heart itself turning into a Heartless, and what's even more surprising is that this is most prevalent with "artificial" heartless. That is how the game states it but if you stop to think about this, it means the Heartless are literally tearing out a living person's heart, thereby killing the person in what would normally be an excruciatingly painful way. It also means that someone created more... Moving along, the story can be stated in a simple way as one full of love, deceit, betrayal, sadness, and hope (you know, the stuff that makes stories complicated). One of the main thoughts I had about this game, something that helped the story very well in my opinion, is the underlying theme of light and dark though I’m not sure if I can call it that, it’s pretty obvious. Ok, the story is the main thing about this game that I love, but it wouldn’t have turned out the same as it did if it wasn’t for everything in the game such as the memorable main characters, the form the game play took, and other important aspects. Emotionally, I feel very close to the events within the game and felt many of the same emotions the main character did while I was playing the game, which may be the main reason I love it so much. About the only thing missing from this game was the lack of a cooperative mode of some sort, something that will most likely be fixed in a few of the games later releases. Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:40:30 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1837&iddiary=3635