Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=200https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1445For my second session of Super Smash Brothers 64, I decided to try the 1 player mode. I had started getting the hang of the N64 controller, all the familiar memories were flowing back to me. I started playing with Fox and i fought with Link first. I was quick to knock the young kid from Hyrule off the ledge and then i grabbed him to open up some more attacks. He grabbed me and as we were both falling off the ledge toward death. I used my Up-B rocket to shoot up so that he died first and the match was over. Next I fought a team of 18 different colored Yoshis. In this level since there are so many, all the yoshis are weak and fragile they go flying very easily. The next match was verse fox. I wondered how i would fare verse the computer version of myself. I defeated him in the same manner as Link. It was not my proudest victory. We again had both fallen off the ledge in trying to knock the other down to far to return. As we were falling I managed to slow down my descent with the reflector shield. The he fell and died first. The next stage was a bonus level. These levels can be fun, this one gives you targets to break that are hard to reach. You need to understand your characters movements to reach all the targets. Next I played paired with computer Link verse the two Mario Brothers. Link wasn't much help throwing bombs, but i took care of the plumbers. I fought pikachu next. I like the pokeball element. It adds a unique strategy top the fighting and its fun to see the blending of games. I kept playing and defeated all my opponents, all the way through master hand. I remember the first time i played him, I thought he was really tough. Once your familiar with his moves and your own, hes not hard at all. I enjoy this game, but its sequel Melee for the game cube is better. This game is great because of its incorporation of nintendo characters from different games. It combines so many beloved titles into one masterpiece. This game was made to answer the school yard question, if characters were able to fight each other who would win. I look forward to playing Brawl when it comes out.Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:41:03 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1445&iddiary=3055https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1445I played my friend at super smash bros 64. I played as fox, and he played as mario. I like fox because he is very fast and his movements respond quickly to the controls. Our matches were pretty evenly paired. Both characters have projectiles, Mario with his fireball, and Fox with his blaster. The projectile adds a fun element to a fighting game. Items can be thrown as projectiles, and be very effective weapons. Items add a host of other dimensions to gameplay. My friend and I were pretty evenly matched throughout our session. The controls felt a little different because I've been used to playing super smash bros melee for gamecube a lot recently and I wasn't use to the N64 controller. I like Fox's reflector shield move, it is good for blocking projectiles. Fox has two moves, his dash and his rocket move that are very good for returning to a platform from off the edge. These moves are also good for damaging your opponent quickly. Next few rounds i decided to play as Pikachu. He is also a very fast character. He has some very powerful moves. I really think they designed this game well. All the characters have a wide array of moves that are animated very well. All the collisions and contacts between characters looks legit, which is very important for fighting games, as well as all games. The animation is really impressive because characters move in ways that they did not originally, exclusively for this fighting game.Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:24:59 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1445&iddiary=3050https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1290After playing a little more, i am beginning to get better at switching hand positions. John the fisherman by Primus is a fun song to play. I really like the chord transitions. They are making my hands more comfortable with switching. I played Thunderhorse by Dethklok on medium because i love the song, and i hit 100% of the notes. I would like to be able to play it on hard because medium is no longer difficult and i love the song. But hard is way to difficult for me right now, so im forced to not challenge myself in playing my favorite song. For some reason i play better standing up. I think you get more immersed into the game and you can really rock out and become the guitar hero. Its fun cause you can move around a lot more and you pay more attention and become focused as it feels like you are really playing. When you mess up it ruins the song, which is a nice effect because you really want to play better so that you do not butcher the song. I enjoy all the different guitarists and guitars you can unlock in this game. The designs are great and fun. I really like the guitar shaped like a viking. Also the levels you can play in are a cool and creative ranging from a highschool gym to Stonehenge with a UFO. This game is so much fun to play and its no wonder that it sells so well. This game can appeal to a wide range of demographics and casual and hardcore gamers alike. Its a great game and i hope they improve upon by adding a lot more songs. I cant wait to see what they do in the next one.Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:47:22 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1290&iddiary=2751https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1290I went to my friends place to try out guitar hero two. Ive played this game before and I get better every time i play. Im currently working on playing hard difficulty songs. I usually play mediums because i know i can pass those. But i keep playing hard songs in order to challenge myself and get better at the game. GH2 has a lot of great American rock songs. Most of the songs are covers but they sound really good, except for the Rage against the machine song which is way off. I need to work on my two button chord changes. Those give me the most problems. I am not used to hitting the orange button yet. When the command calling for the orange button comes up i have to switch my hand positions and i often lose track of where my fingers are. The more i practice, the more i get better but for now the orange button usually drops my score a lot. Luckily they have the power meter system. It allows you to raise your score meter when your doing poorly to last longer. To fill your power meter you use the power you earned from doing combos in the song. The power star meter is a great system and it allows for players to get further in a song then they normally would have and be able to learn the song better and improve. This is a really fun game.Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:19:14 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1290&iddiary=2748https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1009So I have apparently greatly misunderstood these game log assignments. I am now making my second log for Katamari Damacy. I do not know the results of this but, it is probably better for me to make the second log now then never. I decided to do some of the constellation levels cause i did the moon last time. The constellation levels are different because you are given a set amount of time to collect a specific type of item. I started with the virgo level, because it is a lot of fun to try and roll over as many screaming girls as you can. In these levels it gives you more to think about besides just growing in size, because you also have to go out of your way to pick up the proper items for your constellation, in this first case girls. This includes statues and dolls of girls, all forms count. Unfortunatly my saved score of 161 girls was better than this run's score of 160. So i opted to turn what I collected into stardust. If you do not want to replace your old star records, the game allows you the option of turning your collection into stardust. Next I chose to play the cygnus constellation level, where you collect as many birds as you can. I chose this level because it has my favorite music in the game. I still say that this game has one of the best original soundtracks around. These constellation levels play a little differently because you focused on a specific item and not just growing. This Cygus level is pretty small compared to others and you have to be able to maneuver along small ledges to get bird eggs and not fall. The whole time your collecting bird eggs and birds, and there are plenty of hard-boiled eggs in the level to distract you. I feel this is one of the more difficult levels because the eggs are arranged in difficult to reach places and spread out. You can often fall off the path and waste time trying to collect the birds. I actually did one better than my original record this time, and replaced the star. I got 49 birds compared to my original 48. The king of the cosmos did not neglect to tell me that both were pitiful. The next level i played was the cancer level, where you collect as many crabs as possible. This is a wacky level and it is a little frightening how many living crabs these people have in their home. They have a serious infestation problem. There are crabs walking around with water pistols and a giant crab moving the t.v. around the room. There are also magnets laid out like crab claws on the ground to confuse you. These constellation levels are challenging because your focused on another specific goal and not just height of your katamari. This time i beat my old score again by one crabs this time with 96 of them. I replaced my cancer constellation. This game is a lot of fun and one of the best games out there. The constellation levels add another dimension to the gameplay, and are often much more challenging levels. The katamari series is fantastic.Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:33:28 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1009&iddiary=2447https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1009For this week's classic game assignment I decided to play katamari damacy. I got this game when it first came out and it is one of my favorites. It is one of the best original concepts for a video game. I have no idea how they came up with this concept, but im glad they did. The opening movie is fantastic and all the music in the game is great. This game has an incredible soundtrack, each song is fantastic and it adds a lot to the unique game. I decided to try the last level, where your goal is to build the moon. I have already beat this level in the shooting star record time, so i have eternal star. This means i can play the level for as long as i want just collecting everything. This takes out the main threat to your gameplay, the timer. In different levels you are given a certain measurement that your katamari must grow to the size of, and you are given a time to do it. If you dont, you have to try the level again. Eventually you learn which items to pick up first and which areas to move to to get bigger. Ive played this game a lot and i think the best level is the moon level, because it allows you to get the biggest katamari. At a point this becomes ridiculous, as it is just you in the ocean, collecting clouds, and searching around the sky for the last tiny islands you may have missed. The physics in this game work well, and i love watching people i picked up, squirming on my katamari. Its also fun to send people flying by hitting them with the katamari. When playing the moon level i started with the small starting area, then moved down to the beach, then the town, then up to the school, then the bigger city, then to the 12m up area, which is conveniently labeled as such, then i moved on to boats, then bigger cities, travelling from city to city across bridges. Eventually i was picking up the land itself, and the odd ring of giant mushrooms that encircles the ocean. I moved on to whirlpools and clouds, and even godzilla. The moon i made was 861m 66cm 3mm. Im amazed at all the different items they put in this game, and the great thing is that everything is able to be picked up, nothing is excluded. The game is so original and the series is fantastic.The multiplayer is pretty simple but can be fun. The controls may be a lil odd to get used to at first but once you get the hang of it, your rolling away.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:52:48 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1009&iddiary=2173https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=752I haven't played this game in months, but I picked it up again for this gamelog assignment. I had forgotten how much fun it is. It took me awhile to familiarize myself with all the buttons and combos again, but once I got into the swing of things I was having lots of fun. I played with my old roommate, we use to have epic battles for hours, and made SCIII more fun by turning it into a drinking game. I started with my favorite character Cervantes, the dreaded ghost pirate. Cervantes is one of the best juggler characters. This means he comes from below with a lot of upper cut type moves that send your opponent up into the air. The downside is that he has very short range. But he has several moves to make up for this such as flying across the screen through the opponent like a bullet or by actually pulling out his gun and shooting them from across the screen. My friend started with Rock, a strong barbarian-like fighter with a huge hammer. Rock has a lot of high damaging moves and long range so you have to be careful as you approach, especially with Cervantes since he has very short range. The battles were pretty evenly matched. We used to both play we these two characters so much that we would have 5 or 6 guard impacts in a row because we could predict eachothers moves so well. Since it had been so long, we weren't that in synch so the battles went a lot quicker, but there were still some very close matches. I like the guard impact system because it allows you not only to defend but also gives you an advantage to attack. I had a really hard time getting any throws in because my opponent was able to anticipate all my attempts. In fighting games its fun to switch characters because when playing the same character your style tends to get repetitive and it becomes more difficult to come up with a new offense especially when your opponent is used to fighting you. I tried Taki next because I know a very powerful three move combo that is very difficult to execute but takes 75% of your opponents health. It involves using her explosion move to send your opponent flying into the air, then immediately you must use her jump move to make contact with them in the air, then immediately grab them for a devastating move. The timing is very difficult and very fast. Sometimes it can be very hard to set this up because most players dont get hit by her explosion, because it takes a few secs to work. Its fun to try and pull off, and very satisfying if you do, but spending too much time trying to send them up, leaves you vulnerable to your opponents attacks. Its best to try it when they are knocked down or approaching. But it helps to be familiar with Taki's other melee combos as well. I love the graphics on this game and the fighting and throwing animations are wonderful. They are creative, and very satisfying. I forgot how much I loved this game and it was fun to play again. What makes this game the most fun is playing with another person. Single player is all right, but its a lot more fun and challenging to play with another brain who has their own strategies and can adjust to your playing style. There is also a campaign mode in single player which isn't much fun, it simply involves moving tiny people on a battlefield, then fighting them in a typical match. There is an element of strategy to where you deploy your fighters, but it takes a long time and only the actual fighting is enjoyable. One of the best features of SC3 is the character maker. You can design your own character, and have a multitude of options to customize him, with more options available through the game store, where you spend money from single player. Its fun to fight against your own friends with your own custom character. These custom characters take the movesets of different already existing characters but they add a lot of fun to the game. This assignment reminded me how much I enjoyed this game and I will add it into my freetime again.Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:57:19 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=752&iddiary=1676https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=417I love this game and cannot wait till its finished, and then I look forward to future updates. Today I had a lot of fun questing with a group of other players. I shouted that I was looking for a group and I was instantly invited to a group by a friend I made the night before and they were very close to where I logged in. A lot of frustration in these games comes from wanting to complete a challenging quest but needing other players to help you. Complaints about MMOs are often that the player cant find a group and thus cant get anything accomplished and spends their whole time playing by waiting for a response to their LFG message. I was fortunate to find a group so quickly and the fun was already under way when I arrived with the rest of my party members. They were killing pirates along the coast, trying to grind for experience as well as complete a quest. I did not have the quest but a group member was able to share it with me, so that I wouldn't miss out and could complete it as well for exp and loot. The sharing of quests is a helpful tool that makes this game more enjoyable because sometimes when you enter a new area you miss a questgiver, and its not as fun to be working towards someone else's goal. This allows everyone in the group to share a goal and work together. This session was a lot of fun because are group worked well together and we had excellent damage and support from each member of the group. We were able to kill many pirates at a time, and all maintain control of the battles with no deaths. This allowed for a constant flow of exp, and two people in the group including me leveled very quickly. After everyone completed the pirates quest, we stayed in the area for a "Named mob", which are unique, more difficult than the surrounding generic creatures and often drop special items. Killing these "named mobs" adds excitement to group ventures because they are more challenging to kill, have increased health and sometimes special abilities. Also everyone hopes that they will drop an item that they can use and upgrade their gear. The named pirate dropped a shield which went to the "tank", or defensive fighter type. Afterward we all headed back to town to turn in our quest for rewards. Quests are fun because they have out venture out and kill monsters for exp, and then after a certain number, you can return to the quest giver for bonus exp for completing the task. This gives you more exp for your time, then if you just killed without quests. We then collected 3 new quests and went off to a nearby area to complete them. The first one involved sparring against a monk of the drunken style. This was fun because you got to kill an non-player character who isn't a normal enemy and isn't normally attackable. Then we went off to a camp of lizardmen, where we killed the lizardmen and then rescued soldier hostages who had been kidnapped at the camp and escorted the hostages back to town. This was a fun quest, but there was one annoying part. We were assigned to kill 12 lizardmen, but there was another player there not in the group who killed some of the lizardmen at the camp. When all were slain, we had only killed 10/12. Then we had to wait around the camp for several minutes until new lizardmen spawned and we could finish the quest. Competing with other players for the same objective is a frustrating part of MMOs and can decrease the fun as you spend time waiting. With everything completed we headed back to town for our rewards and I upgraded several pieces of my armor for increased protection and stats. I had a very fun and successful group this session, which increased my enjoyment. Sometimes the group doesn't work well together and there are constant deaths and little accomplishments. I wanted to continue playing with this particular group of players, but I had to log off and run to class. Hopefully some of them will be online the next time I log on. I love playing MMOs cause you can't beat them and there is always more to do, and I anxiously await my next adventure. Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:46:24 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=417&iddiary=1567https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=439ShoryukenThu, 11 Jan 2007 00:05:27 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=439&iddiary=1164https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=417I have played many MMOs and they are one of my favorite types of games. Earlier this week I started playing in the Beta version of a new MMO called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This game has a lot of members from the original development team of Everquest, which peaked my interest, because "EQ" was one of my favorite games. I created my character, a Dark Elf Bard and started to explore this new world. From the start I love the combat system, it seems they have realized what works well in MMOs. Instead of just waiting for auto-attack to kill my enemies, I have a wide choice of combat abilities to use, including opportunity and finishing moves that force me to pay attention and be involved in the combat. I can also support my character with songs, whose effects can be customized by me. This is a big improvement on bards from past games. The quests are fun and the stories are exciting. I've been running around killing traitors for my city, exploring dungeons filled with undead gargoyles, and the occasional errand/ deliver a package quest. I have reached level 12, and I find that as I move to each new area, there are more quests available to keep me on course, gaining experience, new items, and moving to more difficult areas. A lot of the fun from MMOs comes from playing with thousands of other players in the online world. I have had great experiences adventuring in groups, which is a necessity for exploring the difficult dungeons with the best loot. Working in groups requires a lot of communication and everyone needs to know their role and be able to adapt to unexpected situations, such as a bad pull, that brings extra monsters. My main role is DPS "damage per second" I slash at the mobs and provide support to the group through my songs, which often heal the group, increase damage, and hasten attacks. Because the game is still in development there are little changes every day, but so far I love this game and the world the developers have created. I look forward to more adventures as I level my bard. And I play on a pvp server so I will most assuredly pwn all nubs I come across.Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:02:41 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=417&iddiary=1163