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Feb 9th, 2008 at 01:17:33 - Empire Earth II (PC) |
Gamelog #3
Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
For my second hour, I played a single player skirmish as the Americans and with difficulty set to normal. A significant difference in gameplay, it did not take long for my opponent to sail over from his island and quickly destroy everything, forcing me to restart. After I restarted I played smarter, building a sizeable army at the very beginning. This round was more evenly matched, which more or less resulted in the two of us racing to achieve more technology than the other. Because we were both confined to our own small island, it was difficult for both of us to attack, since we had well place turrets and giant forts and armies, I crushed him whenever he attacked me and he crushed me whenever I attacked him, although I did manage to raze some of his buildings. Eventually my eyes started to hurt, so I had to stop.
Again I learned more about the mechanics of the game. This time I learned how to acquire technology resource (by garrisoning citizens in universities and priests in temples) and what they are used for (resource upgrades and advancing through epochs or civilizations). I also partially learned how to advance through the different epochs, although I am still not sure what allows you to advance in the first place.
DESIGN
This game is very similar to Age of Empires. It has civilians gathering resources and building structures, separate buildings that produce different unit (barracks for soldiers, stables for cavalry, etc) and various different resources to collect such as food and gold (unlike requisition by holding command posts in games like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes).
One of the unique characteristics I liked about this game is the technology resource and technology upgrade system. Unlike other RTS games like Dawn of War and Age of Empires where you shovel out food or requisition for an upgrade, you put citizens in a university and it is equivocally the same as them studying up on how to manage resources better. Also another aspect I liked was how territory was organized and how control of it was maintained by building certain buildings, like the city center. It is similar to how in Age of Mythology, there are certain number of settlements where one could build a town center on. In Empire Earth, however, each territory limits the number of certain buildings that can be built (i.e. only one university and a maximum of six houses can be built).
One of the things that frustrated me was that there were too many resources to manage. While I do prefer RTS games that require more than just two resources, it was very hard to keep track of which resources were low. Also the tin, iron, and stone resource look very similar to each other, which made me think at times I was getting all I needed or could on the map when really I was completely missing out on a certain type of resource. Also, most RTS games have the ability to give consecutive commands to a unit by holding down the shift key (such as left clicking on part of a map and then another part of the map, making the selected unit go to the first left click first, then go to the second click instead of immediately going to the second click). This made it harder for me to explore the map. While there is an option to have a unit explore, it usually goes about it in a random order. Also, ctrl doesn’t allow the user to deselect certain units when a big group of units are highlighted. This makes it difficult when troops are near civilians. I have to first move the civilian out of the way if I want to select only troops.
One of the things I noticed is that unlike most other RTS games where you have to manage a balance between workers and military units, you didn’t really have to in this game. The squad cap was extremely large. I never came close to maxing it out. I’m not sure if I would consider this a good thing or a bad thing. In general I like the challenge of having to be wary of not creating too many workers; I think it helped balance out the need to more effectively manage resources.
This game has a lot of the RTS elements I would like to implement in my own game, the technology resource being a big one. I’m not sure about the territory concept; it’d be a little hard to do. I’d definitely pull back on the number of different resources, especially since mine would already limit the amount of freedom on the user. Also, instead of using individual units like this game uses, I’d ideally use squads like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. This is still a great game and I’ll probably be constantly coming back to it.
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Feb 8th, 2008 at 23:01:29 - Empire Earth II (PC) |
Gamelog #3
SUMMARY
Empire Earth II is a real-time strategy game with 14 different civilizations to choose from. It also contains a campaign mode for Americans, Germans, and Koreans, each set at different periods in history.
GAMEPLAY
Due to the negative reviews I heard about for Empire Earth III, I decided to play its predecessor. I choose to play the German campaign because that is the time period I am most familiar with when it comes to RTSs, like Age of Empires II.
I spent most of the first scenario of the campaign learning the mechanics of the game. Because I set the difficulty to easy, it wasn’t hard to pass the scenario without too much knowledge of the game. Some of the things I learned were how to find out what my objectives were, what certain units did (like priests being able to convert enemy units), and how to claim other territories by destroying their city centers and creating my own within their borders.
The second scenario was more exciting because I needed to establish trade routes with the Holy Roman Empire while at the same time fend off the Polish and keep my own people from rioting. While being simple enough on easy mode, it did require a lot more multitasking then the previous scenario. I used my simple strategy that I use for most RTS games by simply annihilating all my enemies, making it easy to set up and protect my trade routes. A struggle I had was securing a decent gold supply. None of my territories had any gold mines, and the one water trade route I had stopped working for a period of time. This made it initially difficult to create enough units to attack enemy strongholds.
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Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:32:13 - Gradius (NES) |
Gamelog #2
GAMEPLAY
The second time playing this game is nowhere near as fun as the first time. Extended play of this game gets very tiring. There is not very many ways to play and beat this game. The first three levels I kind of just go through the moves of where I should fly and who I should kill. Once I get past level three, it gets better again.
I have to constantly keep my upgrade meter highlighted over the shield option because it later becomes very easy for me to lose it. It becomes a real challenge not to collect power-ups because collecting one would reset my upgrade meter to the beginning, and I do not always have enough time to collect enough to cycle through the list again.
The final level is the true test because the amount of space available to move around in is reduced to less than half of what is normally available. It is very easy for enemies to run into your ship and there is very little room to evade the barrage of fire power that your enemies deploy. I often scream out in a torrent of curse words whenever I’m about to restore my shield but instead I don’t and die.
DESIGN
I really enjoy the color scheme for this game. It uses a lot of bright colors against a dark, starry background. I think this is what enthralled my as a baby. Also the music seems to really set the mood and goes well for each level. For example, I thought the music in the first level was very bouncy and thought it was interesting how some of the enemies are bouncing around on the ground like they were dancing.
I can understand why people get so easily discouraged with this game. It is near impossible to survive after losing a life and therefore losing all of your power-ups. Unless you are an extremely skilled player or know the cheat code (up up down down left right left right B A) it is impossible to continue on after losing a life. However, that is what I love about this game. I normally would rather play a game that took me several tries to beat it then simply having to go from room to room to advance. I would however make the AI take a little more time to go back up to their hardest level. The game does that a little bit but not enough. As long as I do not die, I can get through the game without cheating (but not often).
The bosses were poorly designed. Level 1 and 4’s bosses were exactly the same except reverse (volcanoes on the ground, volcanoes on the ceiling). Level 5’s was exactly the same as the level itself except that the screen was not scrolling. Level 6’s shot randomly similarly to the volcanoes and the final boss put up no fight whatsoever. Level 2 and 3’s bosses were a little more interesting. Level 2 required you to evade a bunch of green squares instead of allowing the player to sit in one place and level 3’s boss were sphere that came directly at you and required you to destroy them. They often shot out littler spheres that could not be destroyed so you had to evade them while trying to destroy the larger spheres.
I think at some point the creators ran out of ideas for level design. Level 4 was near identical to level 1 except upside down and level 6 was very similar to level 2 in that you could shoot certain objects out of the way to make more paths for yourself. Level 5 was a very plain level. Nothing but rocks with tentacles on them came after you. There was no background for this level. I think the reason why it was made like that was because the tentacles graphically took too much power (whenever there was more than one, the game lagged). They could as used a simpler design for them or just dropped the level entirely.
And finally there is the upgrade system. It makes it more of a challenge to get certain upgrades, like the shield, because it cycles through the list instead of accumulating power-ups that could be traded off or specific power-ups that instantly change the current weapon system. Some power-ups require the user to use a little bit of strategy. You cannot choose both the double and the laser upgrade so it is a matter at figuring out when which one is more suitable. Also there seems to be no limit to the amount of speed-up boosts you can get. I once got so many that just tapping on the D-pad sent me from one side of the screen to the other.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:34:02.
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Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:30:47 - Gradius (NES) |
Gamelog #2
SUMMARY
Gradius is a 2-D side scrolling space shooter where the user has to save Gradius from invading forces using the Vic Viper (the game does not explain the storyline; I had to look it up). The player can destroy certain colored enemies or destroy a sequence of enemies to gain power-ups, which can be used to add a shield, speed, or other weapon upgrades.
GAMEPLAY
As a baby, the only way my dad could get me to stop crying was to play video games for hours at a time until my mom got home. Gradius was one of the games he played. I think this is one of the major reasons I do not get so easily discouraged playing this game.
I love this game. It is one of the most exhilarating games for me to play because it keeps my hands busy the entire time. I do not have to sit back and listen or read some story to play the game. While the controls are very simple (up, down, left, right, A to fire and B to upgrade) I’m using almost every button at all times (the upgrade not so much).
The gameplay gets extremely difficult starting at level three. At this point enemies will shoot a barrage of fire power at you. The eastern island heads in level three also make the gameplay insanely hard because it takes several shots in the mouth to destroy them. I consider this level the hardest next to the final (7th) level because it is so easy to crash here. Even though I consider it harder than subsequent levels, it is easy enough to beat without too many upgrades (I can get through it with two speed-up bonuses alone). After this level, is near impossible to survive without a shield.
I am very disappointed with the bosses however. Most of the bosses are simply objects that fire rocks or something constantly and randomly and all I really had to do was tap A over and over to destroy them before they hit me. The final boss however is the worse. The boss is nothing more than a giant brain that sits there and lets you shoot it. Maybe a real pilot fighting to save his planet would enjoy that, but not me. After all the insane intensity I had to go through, I was expecting for some ultra, near impossible mission, where if I somehow managed to defy all logic and win I could be declared the all time greatest gamer ever, but no.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Jan 25th, 2008 at 21:33:37.
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