Gamelog Entry #2
Game play:
As I played more, there was still little known about the characters, which somewhat affected the flow and story of the game. Like I didn’t know why the character was on this journey. Was it because it was for love of the dead girl or did he have a different agenda? The lack of info just made it seem like I was just completing the task to ultimately beat the game without story or substance. Other than that it became a little more fun to play and a bit challenging as I had to find out how to defeat each colossus.
Design:
To start off, there were some good elements about the game. The artistic design was very good; from the vast landscapes and different terrain to each of the colossus themselves. It exemplified the hero’s meager size compared to the vastness of the environment and the colossal size of his enemies. It promoted this sense of fantasy that he was in some foreign land where gods and giants lived.
Another good element of the game was the different colossi that I had to fight. Instead of classifying this game as an action-adventure, I would say it’s more of an action puzzle game. Each colossus represented a unique level in which I had to figure out how to use different tools whether it was my surrounding environment or the weapons given to me to defeat the boss. For example, for one of the colossi, I had to shoot the bottom of his foot with my bow and arrow so that he would kneel down allowing me to climb his leg to the top of his head where I could kill him. The design of the colossus was well thought of because although there were only a couple ways of killing each boss, the means of getting there was totally left up to the player. For example, for one of the bosses I had the option of scaling the giant by jumping onto his tail or choosing to jump onto some rope hanging from his chin, which was more difficult but faster.
Some of the bad elements to the game were the navigation of the game and some of the controls. Like I described in my previous log, I was pretty much lost in the beginning of the game, which kind of showed that the navigation of the game wasn’t all too clear. The map given to you in the game has little to no use, because it only provides a map of the landscape and that’s it, no directions or no pinging dot about where you’re suppose to head. So, if you didn’t know how to use the sword, you would be left wandering the entire map. Although it was a little fun riding a horse, it wasn’t too appealing because it was like driving a bulldozer. The horse could hardly maneuver in small areas and in order to keep running I had to keep tapping x.
Another problem that I seemed to start noticing as I played more and more was that the camera angles were always messing up my direction. For example, I was climbing up a colossi’s leg and he was shaking which moved the camera around, so in order to get my camera angle back on my hero, I had to manually rotate the camera to actually see where I was going. It felt like I was fighting the default camera view all the time, which made maneuvering difficult.
Another drawback to the game was the time spent climbing or waiting for the colossi to do something so you can attack it. If I fell off the colossi I would have to wait another minute or so before he would try to attack me again, which became a little irritating. In another instance, there was a walkway that I had to walk up in order to reach the next colossi. At the end of the walkway was a jump that I had to make to get to another platform, but because I missed it and fell, I had to spend another 30 seconds or so walking all the way back up and trying the jump again.
In conclusion, although each colossus was challenging and sparked a little amount of fun, the overall game and game play didn’t suit my appeal. The several drawbacks about the game allow little to no replay value and the lack of story makes the game a little bland. There was no reward system so there was a sense of repetitiveness as you were teleported back to the “main center”, just to go out and do the task all over again with no immediate reward. Although, one good thing that I take from this game that I might be able to use in my own project is the use of puzzles on a live action monster. The incorporation of puzzle like features into the action of the game was a genius feature.
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Gamelog Entry #1
Summary:
The game I have chosen to play is Shadow of Colossus on PS2. It’s an action adventure type game where you start off with a character named Wander who is attempting to revive the lost soul of a girl named Mono. In order to revive her he must defeat these colossal giants.
Game play:
While I started playing the game, I was a bit confused on where I was supposed to go because I wasn’t given any direction until I realized that the sword when in sunlight focuses the reflection of the light in the direction you’re suppose to go. My initial thought on this game was that it wasn’t very explicit and easy to understand. For example, there was no background story to any of the characters, so it just felt like you we’re being thrown into a world without much information. Additionally when I came to the area where the first boss was located I was wandering around for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get to the top of the hill. Only until I read the walkthrough did I realize that the character could climb, and that I had to climb a certain area of the wall to get to the top. I’d have to say that I was a little irritated running around the map trying to figure out what I was suppose to do. After scaling the wall I came to the first colossi. To defeat the colossus I had locate certain weak points by shining my sword upon it. Then I had to figure out that by jumping onto its leg and stabbing it made him kneel down, allowing me to jump on his back and run up to his head where his other weak spot was. By stabbing his head I was able to defeat the giant.
So far, I like the graphics and art to the game because it gives it a real ancient majestic feeling. In terms of flow, I didn’t really feel the flow because I was stuck trying to figure things out for awhile and because of that, the game didn’t really arouse my enthusiasm, but I would have to see after another session.
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