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Apr 18th, 2013 at 22:08:55 - Halo: Combat Evolved (XBX) |
Game Type:
First person shooter
Campaign - Single player or cooperative
Multi-player - Two to sixteen player (LAN)
Enemies:
The difficulty of some of the enemies in this game are denoted by different colors. The elites have the largest variety of difficulty (in this order) with the colors blue, maroon, gold and black. While an argument can be made for gold elites being more difficult to kill than the black elites, I believe that the black elites show a higher level of intelligence. There are several different types of enemies that are encountered through Halo with each having its own quirks.
Grunt - Basic enemy type that is armed with a plasma pistol, a needler or sometimes a plasma cannon that explodes when they die. Has vulnerability to being shot in the head and will retreat most of the time when nearby elites are killed.
Elite - Officer type enemy surrounded by an invisible energy shield that flares when hit and usually armed with a plasma rifle. Will find cover when shield is depleted and will hide until shield recovers. There are some situations where the elites are invisible and some situations where they are armed with an energy sword (sometimes both). Has vulnerability to being shot in the head when shield is depleted.
Jackal - Enemy type that shoots a charged plasma shot as well as regular plasma shots from behind an energy shield that it holds in-front of itself. Has vulnerability to being shot in the head and will retreat most of the time when nearby elites are killed.
Hunter - Heavily armored enemy that fires plasma cannon shots at long-medium range and charges to melee at close range. Has vulnerability to being shot in orange colored areas of body by single shot human weapons.
Vehicles:
"UNSC"
Warthog - Holds one passenger, one gunner and one driver; Can be operated by player.
Scorpion Tank - Holds up to four non-player occupants and one driver, fires high explosive rounds and has a short range machine gun; Can be operated by player.
"Covenant"
Banshee - Single occupant, flying vehicle that can fire plasma rounds and has a plasma cannon; Can be operated by player.
Ghost - Single occupant, fast attack vehicle that hovers above the ground; Can be operated by player.
Wraith - Artillery type vehicle that fires large balls of plasma; Cannot be operated by player.
Story:
You start out as SPARTAN named Master Chief (who is a enhanced human with special armor) on a spaceship that is running from the covenant and comes across a giant ring-like structure in space. A firefight ensues and the ship is forced to crash-land on the structure, Master Chief then tries to determine the function of the large structure and activate it. Master Chief learns that the "Halo" was built to destroy the flood but to do so it will destroy all living beings in the system, finding this out he then destroys the ring by blowing up the reactors in his crashed ship.
Campaign Game-play:
When I first started playing through the campaign I will admit that I had an arterial motive. Originally I was just trying to hone my skills in preparation for playing multi-player but after I started playing I really became enthralled in the story. I started the campaign on heroic difficulty so I did not get the walk through that you get on Normal and Easy difficulties but for the most part it is pretty simple to figure out how things work. After the first two levels of learning how to accurately and effectively use the pistol (along with good grenade placement), none of the other levels gave me any problems as far as difficulty goes with the exception being the "Library" in which you follow 343 Guilty Spark through a dimly lit building while being attacked by the flood. On my first couple of attempts I just ran with 343 Guilty Spark but that is not a very good idea and I was overwhelmed very quickly. Eventually I found out that the enemies in each section would eventually stop spawning after that the rest of the game was smooth sailing. With the game beaten I proceeded to replay on legendary and was relatively surprised at all of the extras given by playing on the highest difficulty. The perks of playing on legendary difficulty were added dialog in the cut scenes, the marines use more adult language and even an alternate ending.
Multi-player Game-play:
The multi-player aspect of Halo is what made this game one of best games of all time in my experience the smallest teams you can have to be able to get the best experience of how much fun the multi-player can be is two teams of three. The ultimate experience is when you can get two teams of eight which was my last experience of the Halo multi-player. To get balanced teams we played an exhibition slayer match and paired the people who did the worst with the person who did the best and the rest with the second best player. We repeated this process a couple of times until the matches started becoming close wins, then we started to play capture the flag and custom team slayer matches. It was during these matches that I realized that the pistol is the ultimate weapon for mid-range fighting and was really effective at close and long ranges as well. What I enjoyed most about the setup of the multi-player system is that the matches were never a rush to secure the power weapons such as sniper rifles and rockets because they respawn at regular intervals so there was never a situation where one team had all the power weapons leaving the other team at a major disadvantage. The matches usually boiled down to whomever was better with the pistol and with a little team tactics thrown in (FYI, my team always won). To mix it up a little we played what is now my favorite type of match which is the level Boarding Action with the weapons set to Snipers so that everyone starts with a sniper rifle. If you are gonna set up a LAN party to play with a large group of people be prepared to spend all day/night playing because time flies and it will be morning before you know it.
Overview:
Overall the game is amazing and well balanced as far as not making your character too strong or too weak. For it's time Halo was also a great looking
game as far as the graphics go and traversed from a lighter mood for the first half of the game to a more dark/fearful mood for the second half of the game.
The multi-player aspect is why people buy the game but the campaign mode is nothing to snap at.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Apr 18th, 2013 at 22:14:56.
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Feb 28th, 2013 at 03:52:39 - Duck Hunt (NES) |
Duck Hunt for the NES is a first person shooter where the goal is to shoot pixelated ducks that move across the screen for a fixed amount of time.
Setup:
In order to play this game on the NES a NES Zapper light gun and a tube television are required. The Zapper plugs into a control port on the NES and is used by firing it at the television screen. A tube television is required because the Zapper does not work with flat screen televisions.
Game Types:
GameA - Spawns one duck at a time that can be controlled by another player using d-pad on the NES controller.
GameB - Spawns two ducks at a time that can not be controlled by another player.
GameC - Spawns clay pigeons that fly toward the background.
Game-play:
The game is divided into rounds where the speed of the ducks and the required number of ducks shot increase with each subsequent round. There are 10 ducks that spawn in each round and three shots per single/pair of ducks (depending on game type). Gameover occurs when you do not shoot the required amount of ducks for the round.
We started out with GameA in which one person was shooting and the other was controlling the duck. The first several rounds were not challenging but once enough rounds were completed the ducks were fast enough to start having fun. We swapped out who was shooting and who was controlling after each game-over and due to our competitive nature things got a little heated from time to time. After playing back and forth for several hours we eventually got tired of it.
The addition of an extra duck/disk in GameB/GameC did add an extra degree of difficulty to the game because of the limited ammunition, but without a player controlling the movement, the game became extremely repetitive and we decided on a winner after just a handful of games.
Overall:
Duck Hunt is a good game if you are just wanting to kill some time. It does not seem to suffer any major game-play issues with the exception of how accurate the Zapper is from time to time, but I believe that can be boiled down to someone being a sore loser. The entertainment value of this game appears to have a direct correlation with the person you are competing against and while the game can be played by just person, it does not seem to have the replay value without competition. While it is not the game's fault, I believe that it could keep some replay value if the scores were not lost after the system is powered down to allow a person to compete against himself/herself. In my opinion the best aspect of Duck Hunt is GameA where another player can control the duck. After playing this game I can not decide whether I enjoyed shooting the ducks or controlling the ducks more.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Feb 28th, 2013 at 04:05:16.
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Feb 5th, 2013 at 06:57:47 - Magic the Gathering (Other) |
Game Type:
Turn-based strategy card game
Two or more players (team or free-for-all)
Terms:
Lands (mana)– specific cards used as a summoning cost for creatures and spells usually has a color associated with it. Only one can be played per turn.
Library - the remaining cards of the deck that is drawn from.
Graveyard - a pile of face-up cards that consists of discarded, destroyed and used spells/creatures.
Tapping – the activation of a card by turning it sideways if indicated so by the card, also shows that a creature is attacking. A tapped creature can not block.
Stack – a series of cards that have been played in conjunction with one another. Resolves from the last card played to the first card played, when cards/abilities are no longer being placed on the stack.
Instant spells – spell cards that can be played at any time during any players turn.
Sorcery spells – spell cards that can only be played during one of the two main phases by the active player. Sorcery spells can not be played if the “stack” has not resolved.
Generic Deck Types:
Blue deck – a control heavy deck, usually consisting of creatures with low attack/high defense and spells that inhibit an opponent from casting his/her spells.
Red deck – a fast attack deck, usually consisting of creatures with low attack/low defense and spells that can directly deals damage to creatures/players.
Black deck – a deck that usually sacrifices its own player's life for some benefit, usually consisting of ability heavy creatures.
White deck – a defensive deck, usually consisting of spells/creatures that can negate damage or gain the controlling player extra life.
Green deck – a big attack deck, usually consisting of creatures with high attack/high defense and spells that can boost your creatures.
Setup:
To play this game a deck of 60 cards and one or more opponents is required. This deck should have a mix of land, creature, spell and/or artifact cards, the ratio of these cards depends on personal preferences. Which colored deck you decide to play with will have a direct impact on whether this game is enjoyable to you or not. Different playing styles are represented through the different colors and to truly enjoy the game you need you find the mixture of colors that suits you best. Starting out as a new player I would recommend starting off with a pre-constructed starter deck. Depending on the game type each player's starting health differs: for a team battle each team starts with forty health, for a free-for-all game each player starts with twenty health. Before the game starts each player shuffles their deck, draws seven cards and then places the remainder of the deck face down next to the battlefield. The generic setup for the battlefield is land placed in a horizontal row closest to the player and creatures in a horizontal row in front of that. The graveyard is usually face-up cards placed next to the library.
End Game Scenario:
When a player is unable to block a creature that is attacking him/her, that creature deals damage to there health equal to the creatures attack. A player may also take damage by being targeted by a spell that deals damage and can target players. A player loses the game if his/her health reaches zero or can not draw a card at the beginning of his/her upkeep (unless otherwise stated by a card).
Rules:
There are too many rules in Magic The Gathering for me to explain them all. A player may not end his/her turn with more that seven card in there hand. One of the most important rules needed to play is the proper use of the “stack”. The “stack” simply refers to playing instants/abilities in response to a spell being played, these stack on top of each other in “first in last out” order. Once cards are no longer being played in response, the stack will resolve with the last card played happening first. The most important rule in Magic The Gathering is that "what a card says, happens", unless another card says otherwise.
Game flow:
This is a turn based game with the exception of instants/abilities which can be played at anytime. A player's turn consists of five phases: Beginning, pre-combat main, combat, post-combat main and ending (in that order).
1. Beginning phase – all “at the beginning of upkeep” effects happen, untap all tapped cards you control on the battlefield (unless otherwise stated by a card), draw a card.
2. Pre-combat main – can summon creatures, play instant/sorcery spells and/or use card abilities (unless otherwise stated by a card).
3. Combat phase – by tapping a creature in this phase you can make it attack another player. The defending player chooses which creature will block which attacking creature (unless otherwise stated by a card). Destroyed creatures are placed into the graveyard.
4. Post-combat main - can summon creatures, play instant/sorcery spells and/or use card abilities (unless otherwise stated by a card).
5. End phase – all “until end of turn” effects end, active player discards down to seven cards in hand (unless otherwise stated by a card).
Game-play:
The game-play of Magic The Gathering is varying because of the randomness of the draw. The randomness of the game can be controlled to an extent by computing the probability of drawing certain cards along with mixing in cards that let you search for other cards but even with this there is still a chance that you will spend a good portion of the game praying that you will draw a certain card. With that in mind, I did not expect this game of “chance” to be a strategy game but has turned out to be one of the most strategic games I have ever played. While the strength of the strategy depended on the depth of cognitive thought of the opponent and whether or not the deck I created was at an advantage or disadvantage, playing with a blue/black deck required me to anticipate what and when my opponent would play key creatures/spells. After several games with the same opponent Magic The Gathering can turn into a “I know that he knows that I know what he knows” type of stalemate match that draws out until one person makes a move, so it is advised to play against varying opponents with different playing styles. Diplomacy is another aspect of this game that I was not anticipating. When playing against multiple opponents it is advantageous to use diplomacy and trickery to not only keep yourself from being attacked by all the other players but also to be able to take advantage of an opponent who leaves an opening. Depending on the type of deck you are using the diplomacy in this game can vary, some decks with large and/or high mana cost creatures would benefit more from a stalemate in the beginning of the game while a quick deck with lots of small and/or low mana cost creatures would much rather push for continued attacks in the beginning.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 5th, 2013 at 07:15:54.
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