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Jan 30th, 2007 at 23:51:59 - Goldeneye 007 (N64) |
Continuing my Secret Agent run-through, I played the Runway, Surface, Bunker, and Silo. As I got used to playing the game again, I started to recognize some glitches stemming from the fact that this game was one of the first extensive and pseudo-realistic first person shooter. For example, if you get right up in front of an enemy who is shooting at you, he cannot hit you because his gun goes through your body and then shoots, hitting the wall in back of you. Theoretically, this should be much more painful than just getting hit, but due to the magic of N64, it is harmless. This glitch is partially countered by the fact that if there is more than one enemy in a hallway or room, they can shoot through each other but you cannot shoot through them. It is frustrating when you shoot someone in the head which should instantly kill him, sending him to the floor, and he waves his arms around and pretends to be in a lot of pain, eventually falling down to his knees, and then the floor... and THEN you can kill all the stuff in back of him. All the while they have been shooting at you, if you didn't go hide behind a wall.
The pausing effect also adds to the realism of the gameplay. Sometimes pausing can save your life, if you need to gather yourself in the middle of an intense battle or string of enemies, but in Goldeneye, you have to wait a few seconds while you put your gun away and look at your watch. Luckily you never really need to pause in the middle of such encounters, but if you accidentally hit the button sometime, it can be a deadly mistake.
For a game that came out in '97, Goldeneye is still stunningly real in its gameplay.
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Jan 30th, 2007 at 23:39:28 - Goldeneye 007 (N64) |
I started my session by attempting the very first level of the game (the dam) on the hardest difficulty, 00 agent. Having played this game in my past far beyond exhaustion, I still failed the level the first couple times. I wanted to blame my semi-broken joystick on my N64 controller, but soon I came to realize that it was hard because the makers of the game designed it to be hard. Not everybody can be 007, James Bond. I decided I was not ready for the challenge, mainly because I wasn't getting anywhere, so I moved down to Secret Agent difficulty in which enemies are easier to kill, give you more ammo, and hurt you less when they shoot you. Thus, the first two levels passed with ease and enjoyment, as a game should be.
One thing that I found odd in switching between the difficulty settings, though, was the fact that your mission objectives are not the same throughout. What happens to the data that Bond is supposed to download in the first level (a 00 Agent only objective) if you're playing the whole game on Secret Agent? If you read your mission briefing, it tells you how to complete each objective and tells you the significance of that objective. Why would they tell you to do these things if you don't have to do them? They should have either not told the Agents/Secret Agents about the objectives they were supposed to do but didn't have to. Or they could have had the same objectives for each difficulty, but had different amounts of enemies in each place.
Either way, Goldeneye is an excellent, challenging, and fun first person shooter.
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Jan 19th, 2007 at 19:34:51 - Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) |
This time, for my second hour, I just barely got to the end of the third world (having started at the beginning of it). All of a sudden, with the introduction of water levels and other such insane things (moving platforms, falling blocks, harder enemies, a scarcity of powerups, powerups that fall off of cliffs with you chasing after them, etc.), the game got much harder. I was on the first castle level for about ten minutes, and all I had to do was choose the correct door. I guess I just got unlucky, but a little hint about which of the ten or so doors would have been nice. Since I was dying so much, I was perpetually the little Mario who dies in one hit, and since I am used to SMB2, I forgot about the powerups I had won in the minigames along the way. I wish I had remembered, they would have been extremely helpful. Again, another reason to go back and play the game again. SMB3 gives just the right additions of character customization and level diversity to the simple sidescroller to make it a very entertaining game with a high level of replayability.
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Jan 19th, 2007 at 19:24:14 - Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) |
I had never played Super Mario Bros. 3 before this, even though I have played the first two, so I was familiar with the controls and interface, but not with all the items and various other new and innovative aspects of the game. Being able to move around in the world screen makes for a much more interesting game. The bonus games and extra mini-bosses change up the gameplay so you are not always just running through a level. Even though some levels are optional, I chose to beat all of them because they were fun. The various different kinds of Mario and diversity of monsters make each level a new challenge. Even the levels are made unique by their setting and whether or not the screen is automatically scrolling. The minigames and minibosses that give prizes are a great break from a long string of difficult levels. The bosses of the castles themselves, though, are far too easy given the difficulty of each level.
I got through the first two worlds in my first hour and was thoroughly enjoying myself. The secrets make the game much more fun, even if they only give you rings. Rings eventually lead to extra lives, which are always helpful, but just the satisfaction of finding a secret is enough to be worth getting it. Unfortunately, I only found a few, but I know that if I really spent time on each level, I would be eternally entertained, or at least until I found all of them, but at least I would be able to move on to the next level and do the same thing again, or even go back and play the game again.
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mat has been with GameLog for 17 years, 3 months, and 16 days |
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