Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=312https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1401After playing more of the game Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas, I noticed more things about the level design, the character, as well as a few other things that help to really shape and create awesome gameplay. The main character, CJ, starts out as a pretty scrawny guy, in a white tank top, with a boring hair cut, and not much fighting abilities. However, the player can actually choose from hundreds of articles of clothing and accessories all over the city to make CJ dress better. The player can also get him a better haircut, and the more that the player runs, works out, rides bikes, rides motorcycles, and other various tasks, the more CJ's stats. go up. Example/ If a player runs all over the city, CJ's run stats. raise meaning he can run further without running out of breath. The player must also make sure that he goes to a restaurant often so that CJ can eat or he'll get weaker. This aspect of game design puts the player into a position where they feel very much in touch with the gameplay and they feel a connection with the main character, almost like they are controlling an extension of themselves. The game designers also did an amazing job with the creation of the levels. The detail ranges from the tops of mountains, to the bottom of seafloors, and yet, the graphics aren't overwhelmingly good or bad, and it allows for an amount of loading that gives us big levels with not too much loading time. If I were in charge of the next Grand Theft Auto game, I would continue to add more weaponry to the players arsenal. Vice City and San Andreas had pretty similar weapon arsenals (which was disappointing for me). I believe that more weapons and more cars make the game more fun. In San Andreas they added a feature where the player could "supe" up a car by adding spoilers, rims, paintjobs, nitrous oxide, etc. I would like to see them expand on that idea for the next game and really make it a prominant aspect of the game. The music selections for all the grand theft auto games are pretty good, whoever makes the tracks does a great job, I would leave him to keep doing his job. I feel that a character creation mode (like the tony hawk series) would really be a cool addition to the game. Rockstar is not dropping big bucks of the graphics of the game, so custom characters would be easy to do. I also liked the addition of learning things such as martial arts. How about other traits such as learning to graffiti, drive, climb, and other things like skateboarding, computer hacking, weapon modification, I'm not 100% sure, I'm just thinking about possibilites. With the incredible amount of freedom that this game offers the player, it makes it truly epic, and hopefully the follow up game will continue to be an amazing game.Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:52:09 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1401&iddiary=2963https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1401For my gamelog I played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It is the most recent grand theft auto game to be released onto the playstation 2 console. Rockstar (the creators of the game) took a new approach to the grand theft auto games by targeting the "hip-hop" crowd. The main character is a man from the ghetto named CJ who was just released from jail. Then (like the other grand theft auto games) you must so missions and tasks until you are wealty and powerful. The game's story was very good and well thought out. It was resonably simplistic, but it kept the gameplay constantly moving. The game relies more on freedom and gameplay more than cinematics and storyline. The level design really makes the gameplay good in San Andreas. The citys in the games are huge and take days to really get to know well. Plus, you unlock more places to explore as the game progresses, your starting city (which is gigantic) is only ~ 1/3 of the land maybe ~1/4 of the map. The incredible freedom that the game offers, awesome building, city, and landscape design really puts the player into the game and makes it a super entertaining game. I felt that one of the greatest aspects of the level design was that there were so many levels within the large level. Small hick towns, forests, mountains, and giant cities such as Las Vegas, San Fransisco, and Los Angeles are some of the levels within the grand map. The game also does a great job at keeping the game interesting by providing not only a variety of fun and interesting tasks and missions, but hours of things for the player to do such as killing rampages, racing, stealing cars, flying helicopters, fighting, taking taxi cab fares, fighting fires, motorcycle stunts, boats, swimming, hunting for grafitti to tag over, secret weapons, and many other things as well. I felt that the game had a great system of rewards, you get money, cars, houses, businesses, and weapons from completing certain missions. So every mission you beat makes you stronger. This game is a one player game, and the pedestrains in the game don't communicate with the player very much, but you usually wind up shooting, fighting, or scaring them off, so its fine that they don't communicate (it also makes them easy to kill without feeling bad because they don't feel human). Overall, this is an amazing game and it has great replay value.Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:32:42 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1401&iddiary=2961https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1215For my continued session of Tony Hawks Underground, I played the versus mode, as well as continuing my story mode. I played the versus mode “trick attack mode” versus my brother. I played as my created character against my brother Brendan and his created character. We set the time limit of the trick attack mode for 10 minutes. Basically, the object of the game is to accumulate a greater total point score than your opponent by using combinations of flip tricks, grabs, grinds, stalls, manuals, special tricks, and cavemen. We played on every single level, even the bonus levels of the original Tony Hawk games. The versus mode seems to have an incredible replay value and remained entertaining throughout the gaming experience despite my brother being much better at the game than me. The versus mode levels are the same ones as in the story mode, and are equally as expansive. After playing the versus mode for a while, I returned to my story mode game. I had just finished the competition to become an “amateur skater.” When the player gets his character to the amateur level, he can complete more tasks to increase the characters statistics. The player must also choose which sponsor that he wants his character to have. The sponsor that the player chooses determines what happens in the story, who he meets, and what types of boards that he skates on. The player can choose between Birdhouse, Flip, Girl, Zero, and Element. I chose the Element skateboarding company as my characters sponsor. As a result, I skated with professional skaters who are sponsored by Element in real life such as Bam Margera and Mike Vallely. This game has incredible replay value because the character can choose multiple story paths. The game also has different levels of difficulty ranging from easy to sick mode. The more challenging the level, the harder the challenges are to complete and the harder it is to level up the statistics of the character. The incredible graphics and the expansive levels help to make the game amazing, but the most important part of the gameplay is that the character can trick off of anything, allowing him to combo across entire cities for minutes at a time if the player is good enough. The versus mode, expansive story mode and levels, the many things to trick off of, the character creation, and the incredible replay value have made the Tony Hawk series into classic games. This one may be the best one that I have played yet. Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:54:28 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1215&iddiary=2598https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1215For my gamelog I played Tony Hawks Underground. I believe that it is the 5th game in the Tony Hawk game series and it is as amazing as the previous ones. The game has a massive story mode, a freeskate mode, and multiple versus modes such as "trick attack, freeskate, horse, graffiti, and tag." The game has an amazing character creation mode that was awesome for its time. It has many faces to choose from, skin colors, genders, clothing, skateboards, and the player can even adjust the characters height and individual body part sizes. The story mode is a progressive game where the character that you create plays his way from a nobody skater, to a professional skater. The levels are located in big cities such as Miami or New Jersey. The cities are filled to the brim with hundreds of places to “trick off of” and create huge combos. The character can grind his board on a variety of things such as rails, ramps, ledges, or even things such as tree branches and telephone wires. The character skates around the levels completing skateboard oriented tasks for the citizens or the city and for fellow skateboarders. The tasks are fun and challenging, and can range from simple things as having to prove your abilities by busting huge combos, or having to ride all over the city delivering peanuts to distract security guards so that you can sneak into a building to skateboard. The hundreds of places to skate across the city make the game constantly fun and allow the player to increase their characters statistics. The characters become better as the player accomplishes tasks such as grinding for 15 seconds without breaking, doing a 900 degree spin trick, or 10 flip tricks in one combo. As characters become better, they can do bigger, better tricks and bust much larger combos. If a player and a character become good enough, they can combo across the entire city. One very important aspect that was added to Tony Hawks Underground is that your character can get off of his/her board, run around the city, or climb onto buildings. If the player is fast enough at hopping off and onto his board enough while in a combo, it the combo continues. The game so far is expansive, constantly entertaining, has elaborate levels, and a wonderful character creation.Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:10:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1215&iddiary=2591https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1027After reviewing Super Smash Brothers, I noticed some more details about the design of the levels and the game play. The levels have multiple platforms that characters can jump onto and battle from. The characters have attacks that specialize at attacking opponents from above them such as Pikachu’s lightning bolt attack, attacks that attack below such as Link’s downward sword slash, and horizontal attacks such as Samus’s laser gun. The opponents of these attacks can run, roll to safety, or use their force field to block the attack. The force field gradually deteriorates if it is used too much or attacked too much. When it breaks, the character is temporarily stunned, leaving them open for attacks. I also noticed that the story mode has many types of battles. Some of the battles are against many weak opponents, and others are against single opponents that are more powerful. The final opponents are many powerful opponents that are polygon warriors shaped like the characters in the game. The player must defeat them all within the 2 minute time limit. The player can adjust the challenge level of the story mode from very easy to very hard. That makes it fun and gives a lot of replay value to the game. The level design puts the character into the game. The details of the levels such as Hyrule Castle allow the player to get into game play and enjoy the game. The game’s soundtrack also contributes the experience. The music and sound effects make the game play more intense. There is not much that could be added to this game, which could make the game any better than it was for its time other than the things that were added to the sequel, like the extra characters, and more levels. However, my opinion of the game still stands. It is an amazing game that, in my opinion, has become one of the greatest games of all time.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 06:28:24 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1027&iddiary=2205https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1027For my game log game this week I played the original Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64. I hadn’t played the game in about 4 years and was anxious to see if it has “aged well.” As I suspected, the game was as great as I remembered it being. However, the game play and the characters move much more slowly than the game play and characters in the Smash Brothers sequel. There are many multiplayer levels to choose from, as well as a story mode. There are also many characters to choose from that all came from other Nintendo games. The characters include Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Bowser, Captain Falcon, Donkey Kong, Fox, Jiggly Puff, Link, Samus, and Pikachu. The characters also have 4 costumes or colors that the player can choose from so that they do not mix their character up with their opponent’s character in the multiplayer mode. The multiplayer mode is a versus mode fight with 2 to 4 players fighting at a time. The characters can be played by humans, computer bots, or both. The computer players can be set to have a skill level ranging from 1 to 9; 1 is the easiest and 9 is the hardest. They do this so that players with more skill can fight harder opponents. The player can also assign teams so that there can be 2 versus 2 fights, 1 versus 2, or 1 versus 3 battles. There are also many items that the characters can use in their battles such as bombs, beam swords, hearts and tomatoes that restore health, lasers, pokemon balls and a few more items as well. The player can set the amount of items that appear from none to frequent items. The levels are detailed and range in size they also have different additions to the levels such as tornados and space ships that fire at the players. The player’s health is displayed in percentage ranging from 0% to 999%, but the player can generally defeat their opponent after dealing about 100% damage. The players defeat their opponents by knocking them out of the level until their opponent runs out of lives, or the time runs out. The characters all have different attacks, speed, strength, and range of attack so that they can play the game with different strategies and hone their abilities to defeat any opponent. I found the game to be incredibly fun and more challenging then when I played the game more. However, I was still very skilled with Pikachu and Fox and did not lose any matches against the computer or against my human opponents who also had not played the game in a few years. The levels were well designed and had complex strategies to apply for each level and for each opponent. It was, and still is, an amazing game.Wed, 31 Jan 2007 05:47:27 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1027&iddiary=2201https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=787After playing more Soul Calibur 3, I remembered some key aspects of the game and spent more time focusing on the design of the levels and the characters as opposed to the gameplay itself. The levels each vary in size and the scenarios for every level are unique. Also, when one player knocks their opponant out of the level, it is called a "ring out." When a player "rings out" their opponant, they automatically win that round, in other words, it has the same effect as a K.O. (knock-out). Some of the levels have walls and fences surrounding parts or all of the borders (some of the barriers can be broken by knocking your opponant into it with enough force) so some levels are easier to "ring out" your opponant and other levels are harder. I thought that the "ring outs" were a fun and interested addition to the game that enhanced the gameplay and gave the gamer another obstacle to overcome. I also noticed that each character has a unique storyline and (generally speaking) come from vastly different lands and lifestyles. In the case of the characters Sigfreid and Nightmare, the characters are the same person from different times in their life. Each of the characters specialize in different types of attack. Some are powerful and slow, some are tricky and agile, others are fast and use quick slashes and kicks. It all depends on the player's gaming style. The ultimate gamers memorize their favorite character's move list and learn to apply all aspects of their characters in battle. I also want to discuss Mission Mode. Mission Mode is another single player mode where players can earn money to buy things, however, mission mode is quite different from arcade mode. In mission mode the player must complete a task such as "destroy all 3 opponants in a row without dying." This is another alternative to the single player arcade mode if the player gets bored with single player, but it can still feel a little tedious at times. Once again, I agree with my previous status that the multiplayer mode was my favorite part of the game. With many different characters to choose from and many different levels, Soul Calibur 3 is a great "party game." Each one of my friends has a character of their own that they created in the character creation mode, and we also play with the standard characters created by the programmers. My created character is a gladiator class character named Sabaku. I also play with Rafael, Mitsurugi, Lizard Man, Talim, and I am a master with Voldo. This game remains one of the most addictive that I have played in a long time, and the series continues to improve. Awesome multiplayer, fun and interesting first player (gets tedious after a few weeks, but thats because it needs to vary more), and an awesome character creation makes Soul Calibur 3, a classic.Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:13:59 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=787&iddiary=1755https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=787For my classic game I played Soul Calibur 3. It a fighting game where the players use weapons as extensions of their own bodies as opposed to just kicks and punches. Each character has their own unique weapon and their own independent combat style and movesets. The weapons vary from massive swords and scythes to knives and hand-axes. The one player mode is about 10 different levels that almost always ends with a final battle with the boss of the game: Abyss. The only exception to this rule is when a player plays well enough that the final boss becomes an incredibly powerful opponant called Night Terror. At the end of the one player campaign the player gets money to buy costume pieces for the character creation, buy weapons, purchase video clips, and buy concept art. The single player "arcade mode" is good, but beating the same thing again and again eventually feels more tedious than fun. In my opinion, the main focuses of the game is the versus mode and the character creation mode. The character creation mode is extensive and the graphics are awesome. The player can choose their characters skin tone, hair color, eyes, voice, outfit, weapons, and combat style. The characters have huge lists of moves that can be combined to make vicious combos. There are also many level choices from pillars of fire, to japanese temples that give the gamer a very interactive feeling while playing the game. Overall, the game was very good, but in my opinion the single player "arcade mode" should be altered so that it varies a little more and does not have a tedious feeling after being beaten too many times.Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:52:18 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=787&iddiary=1754https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=586After reviewing Halo 2, my previous opinions about the brillience of the game still stands. However, I would also like to note some of the details that I noticed while playing the game, especially in the multiplayer mode. The weapons are each good for different scenarios and for different players. For example, the battle rifle is balanced in range, power, ammunition, and is pretty basic. It fires its rounds in medium damaging "bursts." The rifle serves the purpose of ranged killing to medium ranged killing. It is not very good in close combat as compared to a weapon such as the shotgun or the plasma sword which are both instant kills when used at the correct distance. The battle rifle is best used when the player aims for their opponants head. It is important to hit your opponant in the head or the torso because some spots deal more damage to your opponant than other spots. The sniper rifle kills in 2 shots to the torso, but kills your opponant in one shot if the head is hit. There are also other instruments to assist in killing. Cloaking is a temporary thing that players can find on the battle field that makes them (almost) invisible, this makes them hard to find and allows them to sneak up on opponants for easy kills. There are also things called "over-shields" which give the player temporary extra health that makes them harder to kill. The vehicles can also be used as weapons beyond their mounted guns. They can be used to ram opponants (which results in instant death), they can be used for cover (when under fire), they can also be grenaded which results in a double explosion potentially killing multiple opponants at once. One of the things that I noticed about the levels is that they are very balanced in the sense that players that specialize in certain weapons don't nessesarily have the "upper hand" over their opponants. There are usually open spaces and cover for snipers, long hallways, underground levels, towers, teleporters, mounted turrets, caves, and/or vehicles assorted around the level to balance out the match. This aspect of the game makes sure that every level is fun for all the players and allows the gamers to use many different strategies to win. Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:00:10 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=586&iddiary=1374https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=586For my first gamelog game I decided to play Halo 2 for the X-Box. Halo 2 is a first-person shooter that takes place in the future. Basically, humanity discovers an alien race called The Covenant. The Covenant are attempting to "purify" humanity, in other words, they are attempting to destroy humanity. I played a few hours of the single player game and I played a few hours of the multiplayer game as well. The original Halo was revolutionary because of the games incredible artificial intelligence. The levels in the single player are large and well detailed. The levels are interactive and the opponants are intelligent and powerful. Your own troops are supportive and interactive and they carry a massive array of weaponry including battle rifles, shotguns, sub machine guns, magnums, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, and many more. There are also many Covenant "plasma weapons" that the player can take. The player can also carry up to 8 grenades, 4 are human "frag grenades" and 4 are Covenant "plasma grenades." There are also multiple vehicles such as the "Warthog" which is a mix between a hummer and a dune buggy that seats 3 players and has a hounted gatling gun on the rear of the vehicle, the "Ghost" which is an alien hovering vehicle that seats one rider and has 2 mounted cannons on the front the vehicle, and the "Banshee" that is an alien plane that seats one passenger and has mounted cannons on the front of the ship. The vehicles are easy to control and have the potential to be very powerful. The multiplayer mode was also a great experience. The levels ranged from very small to very large and incorporated all of the weapons and vehicles from the single player mode. The multiplayer can have up to 4 human players or can have more if there are more x-boxes in the local area network or have "X-box live" which is an online gaming system that allows players to play agains't other opponants who also have "X-box live." I believe that there can be up to 16 players in a level when there is a LAN connection or an X-Box live connection set up. The players create there own character in the character creation portion of the game. They choose whether they want their body type to be human or covenant (the choice does not determine what team that you play on in the multiplayer), you choose your characters colors, name, controls, and the symbols that are marked on them (examples: #1, military symbols, rank, star, eagle, etc.) There are also many types of gaming modes in the multiplayer. My favorite is called "Slayer." The object of a "Slayer" match a free-for-all round where players kill as many human opponants as they can until someone reaches the maximum kill count (standard is 25 kills), if you aquire the most kills you have won the round. There are also team matches, capture the flag, king the hill, and many other modes that I haven't gotten to try yet. Halo 2 was an amazing game. The weapons were balanced and fun to use. The computer players were intelligent and challanging. The levels ranged in size and environment type. Overall, Halo 2 was remarkable.Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:45:37 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=586&iddiary=1372