Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=177https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1484Alright, time for a bit more on Goldeneye, namely the multiplayer. I'll do the graphics for now. After spending a substantial amount of my free time playing Gears of War, Goldeneye definitely looks a little antiquated. No anti aliasing, bump mapping, or particularly sophisticated character modelling are the major contributing factors for me. By and large it's forgivable, though, because it doesn't really affect how tight the game feels. The game is definitely not ugly either, and the graphics serve the game well. The main problem I have with the sound is the heavy exhale the character does whenever you get shot. It sounds pretty stupid and doesn't add anything the game and is something that's bugged me for a long time. The music, on the other hand, is pretty true to the movie and really helps set the tone of the matches. I wouldn't say the guns sound realistic, but they do sound like guns at least and it's not distracting. Overall I would say I'm pretty neutral towards the sound effects in the game, but they sort of stand the test of time. The game on the whole, overall, does stand the test well due solely to its tremendous gameplay. It's a great game, and even though I'm not phenomenal at it, it remains tons of fun to play.Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:42:39 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1484&iddiary=3115https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1484It's no secret that this game's key to success was the insanely robust multiplayer mode, so that's going to be what the bulk of this game log is about and also so I don't have to play through the entire thing to remember how it worked. My partner for this experience is going to be my roommate and anybody who happens to walk into my room and wants in on this. Let's start with the level design of a few of the different multiplayer maps. I remember the stacks the best, and it hold up well over time. There aren't places for people to camp and be big jerks, and even with two people the level doesn't feel too big. Except Mat's still kicking my butt so it still doesn't matter. The more interesting map we're playing a lot of is the facility. Oh nostalgia. The big room adjacent to the outdoors is an excellent place for shoot-outs, and the close-quarters of the rest of the level make for excellent tension. It is also worth noting that this map is doubly intense with throwing knives as the weapons. Speaking of which, let's move on. The gameplay definitely feels about as solid as it was possible for it to be at the time. I definitely prefer the contemporary dual analog format, but it wasn't too tough to get back into the jive of using just one. The "Z" trigger also feels natural and is a good control mechanism. The weapons are all fairly balanced, but it seems to take an awful lot of bullets to kill the bad guy (or your roommate). Or maybe it's because I'm getting laid out pretty regularly. In any case, the gameplay feels a tad slower than what it is today and I think I prefer the pace of today's games. That's all for right now, I'll be back later with graphics and sounds.Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:31:28 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1484&iddiary=3114https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1149Alright, after playing some more I'm ready to keep going with how I feel about this game. The gameplay is the first thing I said I'd get back to so let's do that. The gameplay is very different between Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Gamma, and Big. A lot of the time, though, the core running and jumping mechanic remains fundamentally the same, so I'll stick with exploring that. The lack of accuracy necessitated by a 3D is pretty well made-up for with the addition of a homing attack. Sonic has two homing attacks, one of which glitched out on a couple of occasions which caused me to die. Speaking of glitches, that is apparently another pretty substantial part of the gameplay. On the Egg Carrier, there was more than one instance of me dying because of clipping issues, which was less than stellar and something that should have definitely been fixed. However, the game makes it pretty easy to come across extra lives so it never really felt like a huge game-breaking issue. Although I said before the character mechanics were basically the same, that was actually a big lie. Big the Cat is an especially large derivation from the tradtional path; as Big, you fish. All of his levels are basically just big fishing expeditions, which are sort of amusing but definitely get old if you're just trying to power through his part of the game. The fishing mechanics are also sort of broken and nonsensical for a reason I can't describe other than to say it is almost impossible to do what you want in these damn things 80 percent of the time. Gamma's combat mechanics are also very different from the other characters, insofar as he uses a lock-on feature to shoot enemies down. He also gets around a little differently; while dashing, he pops out his little treads and goes faster which is sort of a neat thing. Once again, sometimes the differences can be sort of obnoxious at times, but it definitely works better than Big's levels. Amy uses a hammer and isn't as fast as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, but I found her story to be the most compelling (probably because her voice actress is the most competent). She also, in my opinion, had the coolest looking versions of the levels, so there was that little aesthetic too. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are basically the same as they've been since Sonic 2 and 3: Tails can fly for a bit, Sonic just jumps, Knuckles can glide, etc. The game incorporates some cool items that make the attacks a little different, but all in all it's used to the same end. The level design is the last thing I'll touch on, but it's probably the best part of the whole game. I really like night life-oriented things, and there are two huge levels that do this really well: Casinopolis and Twinkle Park. All the characters go through these levels, too, so they get a lot of screen time. The rest of the levels are also very well done, except I thought the Egg Carrier was particularly broken in several areas (mainly with the gravity switching and the part where the ships are actually taking off from the carrier), and for some reason Windy Valley just didn't feel especially fun to me. The main thing I take away from the level design as a prospective game designer, though, is how much variety they have while using the same couple of game mechanics all the way through. That really spoke volumes to me and is something I'd really like to incorporate in games I'm involved with in the future. To any TA's who notice this was late, sorry about that but I wasn't planning on writing this much! I got really into it.Sat, 10 Feb 2007 03:09:58 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1149&iddiary=2785https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1149For this entry I picked Sonic Adventure because I think it has a lot of design elements that make it really unique from that perspective, and because it gets a lot of things right and some things wrong, it's a good example of a wide array of different features. This was the flagship title for the DC when it first came out, and it's pretty easy to see why: mascot character in glorious 3D for the first time (I know Sonic was in 3D before, but not GLORIOUS 3D). On that note, let's start with the graphics of the game. The Dremcast definitely helped perpetuate the graphical arms race that was the console market until the Wii, and they did a pretty good job at it. It seems to me that Sonic Adventure's graphics stand up well to the test of time, mainly because they weren't trying to go for realism. There are a couple of anomalies in the graphics, mainly how Sonic's textures become blatantly flat when he's jumping or rolling. Other than that, it actually looks damn good. I've played this game through multiple times, but the models still look good, the environments are bright, and it's generally very aesthetically pleasing. One other minor detail is the length of the draw distance on some environmental objects. It's REALLY short, but usually on with things that don't matter (grass, peripheral trees, etc.) and I've yet to die as a result. For some reason, the sound seems to be the next logical place to go. This is another one of those games that I consider to have exceptional music, so I may think the game is better than it actually is. The music is also probably the strongest piece of sound in the game, too. The voice acting is just terrible (Tails! You're gonna crash! Ah!), and for some reason it sounds like some of the more important sound effects, like Sonic jumping, were encoded at a spectacularly low bitrate. For my money, I'd say that the sound effects in the Genesis games was better. None of the sound effects are outright out of place, though, so the quality serves as only a minor infraction. I'm going to do gameplay and level design next, but I need to play a little further to refresh my memory some more. I'll write again in a bit!Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:05:17 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1149&iddiary=2471https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1113Returning to SMB3, I realized that I forgot how cool the music is. Not only is it instantly recognizable to millions of people across the world, but it is also surprisingly complex. More importantly though, it always seems to fit the situation. The underwater theme sticks out especially to me because, for whatever reason, that music is just THE music that you use if you're underwater. Something about the way it's composed makes it seem like that is the only music you would ever need for being underwater. The rest of the sound library is also nothing to sneeze at. Making a "boing" noise when you jump makes perfect sense (oddly enough), and the "boo-boop!" sound you get stomping on an enemy makes it seem strangely satisfying. All in all, the way the game sounds really makes a subsantial portion of the game to me. How Mario handles is another major asset the game displays; variable jump heights, responsive control, and the effectiveness of the various power-ups throughout the game make SMB3 a title that, in my opinion, we ought to judge all current games against. Developers today seem to get completely engrossed in just one part of the dev cycle, the graphics, the story, etc., and wind up forgetting about tightening up the controls or unifying all the elements togethre to make a really cohesive package. That's what I think Super Mario Bros 3 does best, and why it IS the best. I can't imagine it ever being dethroned in the gaming world from one of the greatest games of all time.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:15:03 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1113&iddiary=2396https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1113Instead of going for a classic game that I hadn't played before, I decided instead to go for something I know and love: Super Mario Bros. 3. Because just about everyone in the universe has played this game to death, I'm going to instead focus on why I think this game was so incredible. For starters, it has a really intuitive level design that really eases you into the gameplay. Coins and a mushroom are present right off the bat, and various types of enemies are also (re)introduced quickly and intuitively. Unlike most contemporary games, it is far from intimidating for new players to pick up. Nintendo also did an excellent job of continuing the Mario franchise in this game. Mario 2 is, at least for me, sort of a sore spot in the history of Nintendo gaming because of how it isn't a Mario game, but instead is Doki Doki panic. I hate that. Mario 3 not only brings the game back to its roots, abandoning the borderline absurd gameplay of the previous entry, but shows that the NES was really no weakling as far as graphical processing was concerned. Which brings me to the third point: the graphics. They're bright, colorful, and very fitting to the Mushroom Kingdom. I would put them at only about a half step down from Super NES graphics, which to me is saying something because that machine displayed some pretty beautiful sprites in its time. That's all I've got for now, more in awhile.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:09:50 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1113&iddiary=2395https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=644Ok apparently I need another second entry (?) so I'm going to write this one evaluating the storyline and juxtaposing this and other games in the series. The story, as I'm pretty sure I mentioned in my first gamelog, is that you're the warriors of light, and at the outset of the game you find out that you have orbs that can help save the world. There isn't much of a story except what happens as you reinstill light into the orbs. At the end you fight the ultimate evil and defeat it with the power of the orbs, and that's the end. I think it's pretty obvious how much improved the story of later games was. Stories weren't really a big part of the Final Fantasy series until around the third game, but the light warrior motif wasn't really dropped until the fourth game, where storytelling became the main motivator for the games. As for gameplay, the only "major" alteration in gameplay happens when characters basically get a name change (Fighter becomes Knight, Thief to Ninja, etc.) and some slight ability boosts that only just match the obnoxious difficulty of encounter after encounter. I think that about covers it, not a great game but at least it paved the way for an excellent series.Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:30:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=644&iddiary=1942https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=388I did that thing I do again where I get stuck, then beat a level and get all excited and forget to post. I beat that one crappy pirate level I was stuck on, and luckily the rest of the levels weren't quite so cheap. My overall experience with the game is resoundingly pleasant, and it's probably a game I'll continue to play to relax or just jam out to the music. The levels were really creative, but I think where the game actually dominates is in the minigames. There are about a zillion of them, some with more repsonsive controls than others, but I can honestly say that I've not NOT had fun with any of them yet. Of course, when playing with friends even disc golf can get ruthlessly competitive and fun, but I think that's the point of the whole game. I probably enjoy this title more than any I've played in years. For sheer, uncomplicated fun, it's hard to beat. Although I am picking up WarioWare soon. . .Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:00:31 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=388&iddiary=1535https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=644Well apparently the gaming gods saw fit to destroy my save file, and needless to say that threw me into a bit of a rage. So I ditched the liveblogging thing and just went through and beat the damn game. At least it only took a couple hours. My final verdict is that although the game does grow on you, it is still, at its core, not an especially good game in my opinion. The Warriors of Light story just doesn't hold up over time, and the storylines are what have made Final Fantasy games standouts in the genre since FFIV. Probably my least favorite thing about the game was how easy it was to just get lost and have no idea where you're supposed to be going; it was a little too reminiscent of FFVII (in my opinion, the single most overrated game ever). I hate that lost feeling in games: I'm a pretty blunt person in life and I kind of like my games to match that nature. The trick to this game is to learn resource management or, if you're like me and you have no problem wandering around a field and being OCD about levelling up for a couple hours, amassing as much gil as possible (was it called gil in this game? I wasn't really paying attention) and buying about a million potions and all the best gear and then just having at it. I think that's what overall made my endgame experience a positive one. When I can beat the crap out of everything in the game, it makes me feel good. Anyway, I guess at the end of the day I feel like I have a respect for the game because of the fact that it laid the foundations for a series that would wind up changing the whole industry, but overall it is most certainly not my favorite game of all time.Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:09:54 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=644&iddiary=1499https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=388I think that if any game were begging to be made into a Wii title, it was the Monkey Ball series. I had no prior experience actually playing the games before this one, but I'd seen them played quite a few times before and it always seemed like something destined for a higher degree of interactivity. The controls for this game are probably the most intuitive for any game out on the Wii or, for that matter, any platform. There isn't much to the main game; just move your controller to tilt the levels and get your monkey of choice to the end goal. It becomes apparent fairly early on though that the phrase "easy to learn, hard to master" is most definitely applicable to this game. It can be frustrating, but I consistently find it difficult to blame anyone but myself because this game is actually super well put together. Just about the only thing that kept me from throwing my Wiimote against the wall is the cheery little music that plays in all the levels. It feels perfect for what you're doing and can be very soothing. I'm big on having good music in games. I find that good music actually makes or breaks a given game for me and love some games just because of how great the soundtrack was. I'm stuck on one of the pirate levels right now, so I'm going to take a break, but I'll get back to it in awhile.Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:47:57 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=388&iddiary=1220