My GameLog
A person who is seriously interested in games, game studies, and game design should play a lot of games.
To the right you will see the latest GameLog (diary)
entries I have recorded for the games I'm currently playing and my thought and feelings on the game, the experience of playing it, and so on.
If you want to see all the games I'm playing, or the ones
I'm no longer playing you can follow the "List of Games I'm Currently Playing" and the "
List of Games I've Finished Playing".
During the summer of 2003 I started a little project to keep track of the videogames I had been playing. I also wanted to keep track of my thoughts as I played them.
Thus, GameLog was born as a blogging tool for gamers. If you are interested you can hop on over and register. I personally enjoy reading about other people's thoughts
on the games they play and the more the merrier! www.gamelog.cl
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[ Games I'm Currently Playing ] -
[ Games I've Finished Playing ]
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Monday 23 January, 2012 // Tokobot (PSP)
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As far as puzzle platformers go, this game definitely has more to it than I expected. Actually, I wasn't too sure what I expected since (surprise!) I picked this up only because it was super cheap. I've since stopped playing it for reasons I can't quite remember. It's possible that I just got tired of it, or was there something technical going on? (like, maybe it crashed?). I really should be writing about the games closer to when I play them...
In the game you are accompanied by a bunch of Tokobots. They're little robots you can use to help you out. It's the HOW they help you that's novel. All the robots are the same, but you can give them orders (accompany you in a certain formation) as well as order them into certain positions (in a line, half on one side, half on the other) that you need to use to clear certain obstacles or defeat enemies. Some of the obstacles are spatial (line the robots up so the function as a rope), while others are "dynamic" (surround yourself with robots, jump, and pound the ground).
I guess I wasn't all that impressed by this part of the game, even if it was reasonably competent. What I WAS surprised by, was the amount of backstory there seems to be. The robots you have are basically the remnants (artifacts) of a long-lost civilization that destroyed itself. Mostly you're exploring ancient ruins, finding new ancient tech (powerups for your robots and new things for them to do). Additionally there seems to be other powers at work (evil people plotting about something?), though I wasn't too sure where all that was going since I didn't make it THAT far. I don't think I finished the first chapter (but still made it 30% through the game?)...
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Thursday 19 January, 2012 // Exit (PSP)
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This game's premise is pretty neat - essentially you need to get to the exit of a building using various objects (and possibly controlling other characters you rescue) in order to solve what are essentially environmental puzzles. The game is quite stylized and the animation and audio are pretty neat as well.
So why did I decide to call it quits after completing 30% of the game? (it has 100 missions, I did 30...or so). Cutting to the chase, I just couldn't stand dying over and over again due to issues with the controls. ESPECIALLY since the levels are on a time limit AND the character moves around terribly slowly, I already knew what I had to do to finish the level AND losing means starting over from scratch. None of these things are, in and of themselves, enough to merit my abandonment (in anger) of the game. I guess what I'm most angry about is that the game's design betrays itself.
A game with puzzles, is about solving puzzles. In my opinion, anything that gets in the way of that, should probably be removed from the design. Having a time limit is fine, so long as the limit is about the time you have to solve the puzzle. In the case of this game, I felt I was being punished because the character moves sloooowly. Does everything sloooowly. To make matters worse, not only are things done sloooowly, but the controls are actually pretty imprecise. I was always fine-tuning and adjusting in order to get the character to face the right way, or get close enough to something so as to interact with it, and so on. In this case, navigating the game world ends up being an impediment to the game's main focus: solving these puzzles. I don't mean that the character should feel zippy and fast. Rather, that I should not feel like the character isn't helping me out, and rather seems to get in the way.
If I wasn't playing on the train, I'm pretty sure I would have been yelling out loud TO FREAKING HURRY UP BECAUSE THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE! But no, Mr. X (I think that's his name), is all cool and suave (with his fedora and tie), and sloooowly walks around. Grrrr!
Check out this video to see what I mean:
http://youtu.be/LEHndyjOi4w
I guess I my frustration might be aggravated because the game's art style, iconography, cut scenes, etc all imply speed and precision. The main character SHOULD have them, but he doesn't, and the controls don't let you live up to that expectation.
It's a real shame, because other than that, the game is quite special.
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Monday 16 January, 2012 // Blood Bowl (PSP)
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I'm really digging the game!
As a "fan", I'm quite curious as to which rules they're using because I've run into a few things that are either mistakes I used to make when I played with my group (pretty likely, but at least we were consistent for everyone), changes between 3rd and 4th edition, or mistakes in the game's implementation. I really don't feel like trolling forums to find out what the fans of the game have to say, so I'll just have to live with it.
In the meantime, I've been working my way through different tournaments. Yes, the game is the same each time, BUT I'm enjoying playing against a reasonably competent AI as well as teams/races I hadn't ever played against before. It's interesting how they're all quite so different to play against (including how to win/defend yourself). I have always played humans...which are quite flexible but don't stand out...and it can be quite tough against opponents that are REALLY good at certain things (e.g. Dwarves are super tough to knock over, Elves dance circles around you, etc.)
Another thing I'm curious about, and might have to do with the fact that it's getting harder to win games, is how the AI works. Mostly, I'm curious to know if the AI is getting better, if its the same but the teams are tougher, or if the AI is cheating (for example, is the dice-rolling becoming increasingly biased against me or in favor of my opponent?). I don't really have a good idea of how to figure it out (just by playing the game and without sucking up huge amounts of time)... so for now I'll just blame cheating whenever I lose. He!
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Friday 6 January, 2012 // Blood Bowl (PSP)
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I currently own 3 copies of Blood Bowl! The original (well, I have the 3nd edition) tabletop game in addition to the most recent PC version (and the PSP one as well). Why? Because I love Blood Bowl!
I was looking forward to playing the videogame versions HOPING that they would either faithfully recreate the boardgame or improve it. So far, I'm happy and pleased to play Blood Bowl as I remembered and enjoy it.
I haven't played the tabletop version of the game in more than 10 years. My memories may be rosy and warm, but my grasp of the details was definitely not what I would have hoped for. However, I decided to start the game up "out of the box" without using the tutorial or reading the manual. I assumed that I'd play a match, fail miserably and then have to slink over to the tutorial. I was surprised to find that after a few games not only have I picked up many of the details I didn't recall but have in fact maintained my "ability" to play the game (I haven't lost a game yet...) Ok, I don't exactly remember what ALL the skills do, or what the base stats are for each of the characters, BUT I remember enough to do well. Thankfully, the game's interface is good enough to help me figure out those things I don't quite recall. In particular, I've enjoyed reading the "text" descriptions of in-game events (that you can turn off, but I actually enjoy them).
According to the back of the box, the campaign has 15 championships (I've only just won my first). I seriously doubt I'll play them all, but so far I'm really enjoying the game.
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