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Jan 25th, 2008 at 06:28:39 - Super Metroid (SNES) |
Summary:
Today's game was Super Metroid, for the SNES, which falls into the 2D platform genre. You control Samus Aran, jumping from one rocky ledge to another, avoiding enemies or blasting them from a distance at your pleasure. The setting is a sort of science-fiction horror, with detectable influence from Ridley Scott's Alien. What sets it apart from other platformers is that the world is a little more open, and there are exploration and collection aspects to the game.
Gameplay:
The intro cutscene is clearly cut from a horror movie. The screen pans over a closeup of a lab, too close to really make out the entire room. Dissonant synth strings provide the background music. Eventually the view settles on a alien creature, which I recognized as a “Metroid.” Slowly the camera zooms out, so we finally get a view of the entire room, which contains the Metroid in a glass capsule, flickering computer screens, and 3 corpses surrounding the Metroid's container.
The actual playing of the game begins by Samus tboarding a research space station to investigate an S.O.S. She enters the station via a lift, and navigates a bunch of platforms. This part of the game is clearly the tutorial mode, as there are no enemies, and the player is being taught the movement mechanics. Jumping, moving, crouching etc. Samus passes the room displayed in the intro cutscene, only the metroid is missing. One room deeper, and the metroid is found lying on the floor, but as you approach, a pteryldactl looking creature swoops in from the background to grab the Metroid away from you. He then lands, and you have your first boss fight of the game. The first fight of the game is a bossfight, which is unusual in any genre.
The boss fight is abbreviated as the pteryldactl retreats, and you're given a timelimit to backtrack through the spacestation to your ship before the station self-destructs. The screen is shaking all during this portion, and some of the stages are rotated a bit off center from when you entered and the station was not falling apart around you. Pieces of the ship falling from the ceilings and vents of gas make getting back to your ship somewhat more difficult than just backtracking..
Next the real game starts, where you set down on a planet, and get to do some quasi-free-form exploration. The planet consists of a bunch of interconnected rooms, with platforms inbetween. Little creatures inhabit the rooms, they impede your progress without actually seriously threatening you. They exist just to make it somewhat challenging to move from point A to point B. Some rooms are currently inaccessible, I will need to collect power-ups to circumvent the obstacles preventing me from access, before I can explore further. This annoys me, I feel it contradicts the free-form feel the game seems to be trying to push by limiting my freedom to explore. I might as well be collecting blue, red and yellow keys. But on the other hand, the items I collect have functions in the game outside of opening doors, and this is sufficient motivation for me to seek them out.
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Jan 15th, 2008 at 02:51:32 - Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) |
2nd look
Gameplay
I did a few more levels, and was pleasantly surprised by the variety. My impression of the game before doing this was that all levels would be about moving from planetoid to planetoid. But I'm pleasantly surprised that they have levels with 1 direction for down. Feels more Mariolike.
On one level, I found a Bee suit, which allows Mario to fly around for short periods of time, and to climb on specially marked walls. This changed the nature of the gameplay, as Mario could no longer jump, and traditionally Mario games have been all about the jumping. On another, I raced a manta ray through a water track hanging in the middle of space. The controls for this were radically different from the main game, twisting the wii remote turns the manta ray in one direction or another.
Design:
I mocked it in my first post, but collecting star bits is awfully addictive. The game throws them at you like candy on halloween, but I still like collecting them, even though I don't have any real use for them yet. It's just the simple pleasure of pointing at things on the screen, and being acknowledged with a sound effect.
The game opens up new levels as you gain power stars from old levels. But you don't need to collect all the stars from an old level before you move on to new levels. This keeps things fresh, because if you're bored with one level design, you can move on to one you like, and not have your progress impeded. This adds a casual dimension to the game... play it however you want to play. The unlocking mechanism motivates you to collect that last extra star to unlock a new level, and then of course you have to test out the new level, and if it's a level you like you collect a few more stars from the level, until you're about to open up a new level, and the cycle repeats. This fury of short term rewards seems to be the main addicting factor to this game.
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Jan 14th, 2008 at 13:18:54 - Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) |
Today I'm playing Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo produces at least one Mario/platformer game for each console it produces, and Super Mario Galaxy is it for the Wii. The overall goal is to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, who has kidnapped her for whatever reason. In order to reach Bowser and hold a final battle, there will be a lot of jumping from platform to platform, and a lot of collecting coins and 1-Ups. In an interesting departure from the series, now Mario has you collect star bits by pointing your wii remote at them where they appear on the screen. These clever gameplay innovations are why Nintendo is winning the console wars.
Gameplay:
The game starts with a cutscene showing Princess Peach's entire castle being abducted by Bowser, who now has a flying saucer for such tasks. Mario gets dragged along with the castle, which is put into orbit around the earth, or whatever planet the Mushroom Kingdom is on. Mario is then separated from Peach, and lands on a little spherical piece of rock, whence the tutorial level begins.
The controls and movements of Mario are very similar to Mario 64. He has various set jumps of varying height which he can use to navigate the stages. The camera is zoomed out quite a bit from what I'm used to in a 3d Mario game, and doesn't seem to be an over the shoulder camera like I'm used to from Mario 64. I travel from planetoid to planetoid in the game, using "launch stars" to move from one to the other. The goal of each level is to grab the "power star" at the end.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 14th, 2008 at 21:28:25.
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