Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1110https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4000I did not complete columbine today, far from it. I did however enter hell after massacring the entire available population. I cannot fathom the intention and tone of the game's creator. After clearing the library and committing the paired suicide, there is a montage of post-columbine images, here I feel maybe is the point of the game, awareness perhaps, maybe the game is finally taking sympathy with the victims. This seems to hold up when I get to hell, and Dylan is alone. I fought my way over, noting that the enemies are much tougher in hell than the schoolchildren I'd been previously facing. Perhaps I was indeed being punished, as enemies actively sought me out. But then I met up with Eric, and the dialog revealed the two's true perspective. That they had been enjoying hell. This is something I would have expected back in the earlier phases of the game, where I felt the game might just be being contrary for the sake of it. However, compared to the mellow montage mere minutes ago, it was an absolute about face. I then proceeded to fight through hell with no real goal. I think this game might actually be unwinnable after hell. I'd killed every available human being in the game for experience, but even then I was not strong enough, being wiped out by gradually diminishing health. I don't know quite what to think of this game, every aspect seems to want me to hate it, and I begin to think that might be the point, the unreadable text, the artifact ridden images, the low quality midi music, all of it makes me pay less attention to the game itself and more to its contents, which made me somewhat sick to consider. I did not enjoy my time in Columbine High School, and I highly suspect that I was never meant to. The game has succeeded in making me consider the events on a more personal level, and has done so effectively.Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:47:22 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4000&iddiary=7556https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4000I resumed playing Super Columbine RPG! today, playing for closer to an hour this time around. Again, I find myself rather uneasy with the game on some level I can't quite describe. I feel that I am not supposed to enjoy this game, or be fulfilled by it in any way. My roommate tells me that after you clear the school and commit suicide, you do not finish the game, but enter hell, and that in order to progress, it is smart to kill as much as you can to gain experience. However, I feel a certain dissonance between my own expectations of an experience/level system and what is presented before me. In my experience with JRPGs (which this is most reminiscent of, the old 16 bit SNES final fantasies come to mind) experience is granted based on a number of factors, difference in levels between yourself and the opponents, damage taken, time taken, and other such things, but most boil down to 'the harder the enemy, the greater the reward'. That does not seem to be the case here, I note that the Jock Type is one of the more dangerous human opponents to be found in the school, he gets two attacks, and early on can survive even firearm hits. Yet he gives between 8 and 14 experience. While in comparison, the Cherubic Bumpkin, a smaller enemy with no attacks and low enough health to be killed with a single melee attack grants 24 experience quite consistently, almost half of the 50-52 you can get from taking on a group of two jocks and two preps. The impression I get is that the game wants to reward the player for killing the helpless. Another dissonance is the enemy encounters. Stereotypically, your typical rpg will have random encounters, times where you will be wandering the map and just simply stumble upon some unseen enemy to inconvenience you. In Columbine, all the enemies are already there, you need merely chase them down and hit a button. But this becomes frustrating, your fellow students are inhumanly agile, switching directions every few frames, making it very frustrating to deal with some of them. This is especially true with the cafeteria, where you cannot assault anyone before pulling the fire alarm, which causes everyone to run around at insane speeds, making it very aggravating to kill them. I am not enjoying my experiences with this game, I feel sick, conflicted, and somewhat uncertain of my actions, and I feel that that might in fact be a purposeful design choice.Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:18:52 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4000&iddiary=7471https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4000I started playing Super Columbine RPG today, beginning from the start of the game and working my way to the beginning of the massacre. I did not enjoy this session of play. Not only is the typeset hardly legible, but the hideously artifact-ridden images and midi files of recognizable tunes (Smells Like Teen Spirit and Creep were notably recognizable, but they both took a second or two of play to recognize, and felt rather jarring) make me feel like I am playing something with a surprisingly low level of polish, not only that, but they seem to draw more attention to the subject matter of the game. I feel very uncomfortable with the subject matter, considering that I knew what I'd be getting myself into. The game's tone is just so contrasting with my own attitude towards the subject matter. The game gives us dialogue between Eric and Dylan, the overall tone seems to glorify their actions. As I began combat in the parking lot, this felt even more reinforced with the action text. Eric and Dylan 'dodge matrix style' and when rewarded, the end of the sentence is 'brave boys'. Knowing what I'm doing, the rewards system only serves to be discomforting. I felt uncomfortable during my playthrough, and the minimum time limit added to the feeling that I was being forced to watch something distasteful.Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:41:17 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=4000&iddiary=7468https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3883Played for half an hour today, I have mixed feelings on this session. On the one hand, I feel I'm making less headway with missions and such. I only completed two missions today, and failed another. On the other hand, I feel I'm beginning to accrue enough 'toys' that I can begin to enjoy the game more outside the context of missions, and make use of the sandbox. I have access to enough money and weapons that I can wander about and do what I please. Though I've yet to get hold of such things as rocket launchers or assault rifles, I can start massive firefights with the police, or rival gangs. On the down side, Missions are becoming longer and more tedious, and are moving out further from the hub that the Grove street cul de sac began as. So the game is becoming more tedious, but at the same time, more possibilities are opening up and the game is becoming more fun.Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:06:04 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3883&iddiary=7315https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3883I continued to play San Andreas today, playing for a half hour, and continuing through the Grove Street missions. So far, I have been introduced to places to acquire guns, which makes dying a lot less of a big deal. I find myself annoyed with the loading times, considering how the game will load a cut-scene before I'm allowed to input to skip it. This annoys me, as the game is taking time to load content that I do not desire to see. I also found that I could not find an option to turn on subtitles, which would be appreciated, considering how many characters like to talk during car chases and firefights, which results in a lot of words and sentences being punctuated and interrupted with gunfire and crashes. The AI of my allies from Grove Street is also somewhat of a concern. They can shoot and run just fine, but they are incapable of good path-finding, getting stuck on corners, or getting lost, requiring me to go back and get them. They are also programmed to stick to one car, which can result in problems. For instance, if I begin a mission in one of their cars, then even when the car is on the verge of explosion, they will not exit the vehicle, even after I exit and start running for my life. This has resulted in at least two non-death mission failures, and I suspect will continue to do so. It is still easy to abuse early weapons to excel in the game. For instance, when saving Sweet and his Girlfriend from some Ballas gang members, it was challenging to take them out with your pistol, but easy to mow them down with a sub machine gun.Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:40:18 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3883&iddiary=7264https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3883I restarted GTA: San Andreas today, going from the beginning of the game, as I did not have any of my old memory cards. I skipped most of the cutscenes, as I do remember the gist of the story. CJ comes home because his mother died, and finds the family to be in a spot of trouble, begin game. I found the game to be rather harsh and unforgiving in terms of difficulty. The game seems to encourage you to cheat, or rather, to bend the rules to solve your problems. I found it annoying how in one of the Ryder missions, where you must clear out a drug den, it is almost impossible to take on all the enemies in melee combat simultaneously. It's much easier to take the time to go out north, run over rival gang members, and take their guns. The system also seems to encourage you to do this by the injury and arrest systems, which strip you of money and weapons, forcing you to find new ones. I also found myself annoyed at the checkpoint system. Once you fail a mission, you can go back and pick it up again. However, in introductory missions, a lot of the objectives are to show the player game elements, like the barber shop. On the Ryder mission, I died twice in the drug den, but before that, you have to spend some money and get a haircut. Having only failed the drug den, I had to pay the barber two more times, which was aggravating.Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:11:20 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3883&iddiary=7254