Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=118https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=331For my final session, I just devoted my time to some more driving around. I decided that the story is cool and the missions were interesting, but I was simply more interested in listening to the music and enjoying the various cars I could steal. Overall I enjoyed the game, I especially enjoyed missions that I had to perform with a certain time limit. For instance there was one where I had to find a boat and follow a helicopter that was flying over the river and pick up boxes that it was dropping. I had to pick up all the boxes and make my getaway before the cops showed up. Since water is hazardous in this version of GTA, I had to be very careful not to die and also very dexterous to pick up all the boxes and make my getaway in time. I had to retry this mission several times before I actually made it but I had fun each time. I liked that I had several hideouts in the city and I could cause all sorts of havoc and all I had to do was get a paintjob and hide out for a bit until the cops left me alone. I'm still not 100% sold on the GTA franchise but the story is fun and the cars are cool, so I enjoyed how simple it was to get into the game and spent many hours just cruising and enjoying the game world.Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:12:19 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=331&iddiary=993https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=331This time around I tried to complete some of the missions. I had to go to a certain corner in a certain car, and shoot certain gang members but avoid the other ones. I think I had to shoot the red ones but not the purple ones because the purple ones hired me to do the drive by shooting anyways. So I steal what looks like a black tahoe and head to the neighborhood. I found that the controls were very hard for me to handle in this mission. Not only did I have to drive, but I also had to aim and shoot the right guys at the same time and I simply could not do it. I actually had to get someone to beat that part for me. I'm generally bad at driving games to begin with but just driving along the city and not doing anything specific I can handle. Once I had to combine driving with a precise task like shooting is when my dexterity deteriorated. Boy was I glad to be out of that mission ...Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:06:41 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=331&iddiary=992https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329I am officially annoyed with this game. I still can't really figure anything out well enough to want to keep playing. All I really want to do is play with my characters appearance and there is not enough intuitiveness in their UI for me to want to play with a whole family and keep them all happy and functional. I liked the layout of Veronaville but I wish I could have a bit more freedom in what I did in it. What I really wanted was to create a female character and break up the whole Monty/Capulet thing by seducing the "romeo". I wanted to fill my house with furniture and just keep redecorating but balancing one character is enough, and I had no real desire to play with anyone else. I probably should've played through the tutorial before I began, but that was my test for the game: how well I could figure things out on my own. And I couldn't.Sun, 19 Nov 2006 14:12:13 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329&iddiary=988https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=330On the last try, I attempted to build a megalopolis (500,000) people. I tried to accelerate the time of construction so I didn't have to wait so long. Towards the end I finally got the city to grow in a good way, but I found that I simply couldn't get the balance of commercial/industry/residential quite right to achieve anything over 200k. I think I've lost my SimCity edge :(. This game is easy to get into and easy to lose yourself in once you get going. The controls come intuitively to you (unlike the Sims 2), and there is always something else you can try and build. Too bad that I couldn't make the city grow as big as I wanted, but I did finally get crime down by building enough police and fire departments.Sun, 19 Nov 2006 14:09:03 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=330&iddiary=987https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=331I borrowed a friend's copy of Vice City to see how I liked it. At first I drove around trying to get used to the controls. I found them very comfortable and intuitive and spent a long time driving around, stealing more cars and running away from the cops. What I enjoyed was the fact that I didn't have to do the main missions all the time. I could ride around, go for cool combos and rob stores. I spent about an hour and a half just driving around and learning the controls to do what I needed to do, but to be honest I really didn't want to follow the narrative. I was enjoying the immersive world that was created and that allowed me to drive around from neighborhood to neighborhood, stealing cars and changing radio stations.Sun, 19 Nov 2006 12:55:39 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=331&iddiary=986https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=330For the second time I played SimCity I tried to see if I could really handle disaster scenarios it could throw at me. I actually find these annoying and usually concentrate on overall city building when I play the SimCity series. Hospitals, Police departments and fire stations are among the last of the buildings I place in my mythical cities so turning off natural disasters is one of the first things I do. So I allowed bad things to happen to my city, I had some fires and some crime and had to rebuild on several occasions. What I really noticed this time around is that disasters have very instantaneous effects that don't really last. You have a fire that devastates your city for a few seconds, you rebuild and life goes on. There is no lasting effect on your economy, on that residential or commercial area, or your citizens. Things just pick up and keep going. Of course this could be chalked up to the fact that this isn't a REAL simulation, but a very abstracted one, I would still have liked to see the affected area grow slower over time, if at all. Permanent damage or more lasting damage would have forced me to manage my city better in the long run.Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:40:34 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=330&iddiary=982https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=330I love SimCity. I have played the many incarnations of this game through the ages but I decided to return to the game to analyze it with a new eye. I picked the multi-island layout and started anew. I forgot how simple the graphics and controls were and I started on how I thought it should be run. But sadly my first few cities failed miserably. I kept trying to balance my industrial areas with the commercial areas and residential areas. Making sure everything is getting the proper tax support it needs and the areas are getting their needs met. What I have always found interesting in this game is that you can't place individual buildings and areas. Unlike SimCity 2000, the original gives you blocks of area to work with so you must plan things in 3x3 sections. So in order to succeed at this game you must attain the proper balance of yellow, blue and green blocks within your world space. Finally I figured out that to create a thriving city I can put off taxing everything else but the roads, put commercial areas in the center surrounded by residential, with the industrial areas on the outlying parts.Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:17:34 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=330&iddiary=981https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329The second time I played the game, on Friday, I attempted to interact with my characters. I found the controls very difficult and very annoying to learn. There was a large tutorial on how to exactly manipulate your Sims and make them interact but all I really wanted to do was control one and leave the others be. I found that if I ignored the other three Sims they wouldn't fulfill their ambitions and they'd get mad and do crazy things. I believe that you should be able to find out how to play a game through simple trial and error instead of having to read a cumbersome manual and follow a thorough tutorial. Furthermore, I wanted to decorate my house but to save my life I could not figure out how to place the furniture I wanted so I gave up. Right now, I'm very frustrated with the game. I still don't understand the narrative thread and the fact that I can't really manipulate the Sims as I want, bothers me enough to quit the game. Maybe tomorrow I'll have more luck.Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:58:46 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329&iddiary=980https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329 Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:32:46 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329&iddiary=979https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329On Wednesday (11/15) I started playing The Sims 2. I was drawn to the game by the promise of making your own family of characters and then controlling their lives. I spent about an hour this first time, making characters and setting up home. I chose to play the Montague/Capulet style storyline and created a family called the Guildensterns (mother, father, teenage daughter, young son) and moved them into a small house between the two main villas. I definitely liked how much of the characters I could customize, anywhere from forehead shape to hip width and zodiac choice. The first hour was spent on detailing everything I could about the characters appearance but when I got to the "ambitions" part, I was confused. I didn't really want to tailor their personalities, I just wanted to play with their appearance and then move them around the board. So far, I was impressed with the game, the customization was almost infinite.Sat, 18 Nov 2006 20:32:32 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=329&iddiary=978