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Barcalounger's Super Smash Brothers (N64)
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| [January 15, 2008 02:16:26 AM]
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Second Gamelog Entry
Gameplay
Nintendo 64’s Super Smash Bros. has a whole second element to it outside of the onscreen gameplay. This is the social interactions between you and your opponents. This includes trashtalking, taunting, intimidation, and maybe even a little physical contact. These real life interactions are almost worth more than the game itself. The onscreen game doesn’t offer very many rewards or merits, however being able to flaunt your victory in your opponents faces makes up for the absence.
I was playing against three of my friends; two of them whom were exceptional at the game. I am definitely in the still learning category in terms of skill level, but this did not make the gameplay any less fun. Every time that I would get blasted out of the screen, I would make sure to voice my distress, and agony, which grated on the other players. Because of my whining they would target me and this created a very tense, very loud, and exciting environment. The first few rounds of play, I finished with negative scores. I died three times as many times that I killed another player. However fear not, for as we continued to play I began to get a feel for the game and eventually was able to vanquish my opponents and claim the title as number one, (a proud moment for me, much taunting and trashtalking followed.)
DESIGN
The two friends of mine have been playing this game regularly since its release in the mid-90’s. The fact that they have been playing for such a long time, is a statement to the quality of this game. The real life interactions are always different depending on who is playing, and the environment they are playing in, and this is really what makes the game so timeless. The game also has an interesting aspect to the controls, they call it the “Tap” feature. It distinguishes the difference between you holding the toggle switch in one direction as opposed to tapping it in that direction. This allows for a lot more button combinations, and therefore a greater variety of possible actions. When you use the A and B buttons you can change what the button does based upon how you manipulate the toggle. The only downside to having the toggle do so much is that I found my thumb getting sore and raw, that may just be do to my soft virgin video game hands.
This game seems limited though when it comes to level design. After playing all the levels they all become similar. There is basically a small level, a big level, and a hard level. The hard levels come with built in obstacles like lava, carnivorous flowers, or giant angry pokemon. This game has an updated version that’s just been released, Brawl. Brawl offers online play, and more characters at once. I am curious to see how the game play is different and hope to get a chance to play it soon, however I am skeptical that it could be as fun as Super Smash.
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| [January 13, 2008 05:19:06 PM]
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First Gamelog Entry
First off, I am not a gaming enthusiast. As a child I was prohibited to play video games and as a result I am gaming challenged. I live in a house with five other people and they all can navigate Mario over the lava and through the pies with much more ease than I can. Everyone and their mother seems to have developed these highly tuned 21st century thumbs. They have this inert ability to make rapid, and minutely different movements with their thumbs in just the right order to make their character flip, jump, and fly all over the screen. I get lost in all the buttons and what-nots, and find that because of this I have had a low tolerance for video games.
However, now that I am a grown adult I can play video games at my own free will. I have started to find certain games that work for me. The kind where you just jam all the buttons at once and eventually the character does something beneficial, or at least interesting, Nintendo 64’s Super Smash Bros offers this kind of gameplay.
The user, or users, (up to 4), get to choose one of some ten characters, and they battle in one of approximately 15 environments. All the environments are “high-up”, sheer cliffs border the platforms that the players battle on. The objective is to smash your opponents off the cliffs, or out of the screen.
This game is intriguing to me because it has some interesting aspects to it. One, it has an active sense of framing on the screen. As in if all the players are close together, it zooms in and fits all the players in the smallest frame possible, so that we get the most close up view. As the players fall further apart the screen zooms out and opens up the frame so to allow all the players in the frame at once. Also as a players damage goes up, they are more susceptible to your attacks, a player with twice as much damage as another, will fly twice as far as one with half the damage, even when the same attack is used.
I have been playing this game in one player mode, I am now going to play it again, this time with three other people, I am curious to see how this changes the game.
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