Sir Whompus's GameLog

Gears of War (360) - Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:41:44

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:41:44 CST

GAMEPLAY: After another hour and a half of gameplay, and beating the first real level, I come back to write another game log. Wow is all I have to say. As soon as I picked up where I left off, they started throwing my tiny team against waves and waves of mobs. Each room you fight in has about 20 enemies to kill, set against you in waves as they dig up from underneath you. It can get overwhelming at times; each enemy take a significant amount of time to kill, maybe 10 seconds. However, every 30 seconds 5 more will spawn and attack your position. It leads to situations where your cover isnt protecting you from all angles of attack. Use grenades can change the tide, but only if you know how; the UI makes you change weapons into nades before you can actually use them, resulting in a bit of a delay. However, what really interested me was the boss battle against the Berserker at the end of the level. To defeat it, you had to lead it outside a building. It is blind, but had good hearing, so you lure it out by gunshots or movement. However, doors stood in your path that could only be destroyed by making the Berserker run head first into them. To make matters even worse, 1 hit meant death. However, once you got the beast outside one of the most satisfying deaths ever happens. You kill it by using a laser from orbit to blow it up. DESIGN: The design, while leading to excellent gameplay, did nothing extrodinarily different from any other FPS. The main difference I noticed was in how quickly you died, and the boss battle. Both relate to one another; they forced me to use my head in order to survive. Your quickly diminishing life does not allow you to storm a turrent directly. Instead, you have to find ways to kill the gunner without being in their sights. For instance, at one point I had to kill the gunner by breaking into another room, climbing up a few floors, and shoot up from a window high above him. Another way the game makes you think is the boss battles. The one I fought made you lure an enemy to the only place I could deal damage to him; outside. MY bullets did no damage to him, and only a special gun that only works outside could kill him. But, as he is blind, I had to manuver him through a tight maze of corriders using sound as a lure. It was an interesting element of gameplay that was a nice change of pace.

Gears of War (360) - Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:21:25

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:21:25 CST

SUMMARY: Gears of War is a first person shooter relying on quick thinking, taking advantage of your surrounds, and is an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. GAMEPLAY: As soon as I picked up gears of war, I thought this was going to be a great game. "Prisoners killing huge ugly aliens? Hell yes!" I went through the tutorial, learning how to control the character... then got in my first fight. The game suggested that I toss a grenade. I do, and everything dies. "This easy on hardcore? No way..." Then the real combat got going. If you aren't careful in this game, you die. Cover is a necessity, and running around like halo will make you full of holes. Three lives later I learned this. Although a combat system that acts real does make a FPS more difficult... its also fun. Having a challenge more difficult than a normal shooter felt nice for a change, since it required me to think. The story seems underdeveloped, and hasn't gone into the backstory of the human/alien war nor given any real plot other than "end the war... go fight". Hopefully, that will change.

Chrono Trigger (SNES) - Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:56:19

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:56:19 CST

Game play: It seems as though even outside Chrono Trigger I am traveling through time, because what seemed like a few minutes turned out to be a couple hours. Since I left off, I have journeyed backward and forwards through time just by sheer accident. When I say accident I don't mean the means, I mean the reason. The story line in Chrono is amazingly plausible. The characters act like real people, not driven by some divine writer that said "this would make a good plot". For example, I just rescued the girl from the past and returned to the future only to find that I was going on trial for kidnapping her! But wait, it gets better: I caused the trial to occur by saving the royal advisor in the past; after his rescue, he was determined to make a legal system to put away criminals... but i didn't know that I would end up as a victim of the system I indirectly created. I didn't need to rescue the advisor; he was locked up in a chest, and had I not opened it I wouldn't have been tried. However, the fact of the matter was that I did get on trial, and was forced to break out of prison. In an attempt to escape the guards, I had to use one of the time gates to lose them, ending up in the future. It surprised me that the reason wasn't "go kill this bad guy", but more of a "run the hell away" reason. In fact, they haven't even introduced the main villan yet. Anyways, after I played for another 2 hours I was delighted with the battle system. It's natural, without any random encounters (gasp!). Well, their are "random encounters", but they actually show the enemies popping out from bushes or from off screen so it makes sense. It was a small touch that I think makes alot more sense than the normal system. As well as a actual decent introduction to battles, the battles themselves were fun. For instance, bosses require you to think. The first boss I encountered would counterattack when it was hit from far enough away, but wouldn't when it was close to you. I powered through the fight, but I almost died because I did not wait for him to move to a more tactically sound position. The second boss also required though; by reading a book on a desk, you gained information that the boss (divided into 3 parts) would heal itself and was immune to fire until the head was destroyed. It made the fight much more difficult, because the first time I fought him, I was unaware what part was healing, which led to my demise. Design: The design of this game is, quite frankly, amazing. I can see why it is on the classics list: from the story to level design to battle systems, it is a very well put together the use of time periods as level design seemed to be a tricky way to pull it off; unless they actually changed the map it would get repetative. However, after finding my way to the futuristic zone, I was no longer worried. The continents are completely redone, as the entire world was (to the best of my knowledge) devistated by war. Craters cover the ground, and people live in small civilizations called domes. Talking to the NPCs, I found that food is hard to come by, probably because the land doesn't seem fit to grow anything. I wondered after the last log if healing moves would be part of the double tech abilities. Surprising enough, I found that they were combined with attack techs. For instances, when you combine a heal with a AoE, it makes the heal affect all party members. It was an interesting way to include the healing in the tech combos, and one that I will be interested to see more of. The fact that bosses requires you to think is another great improvement over most RPGs. Where in most you can power your way through bosses without much thinking, in Chrono that does not seem to be the case unless you happened to be very, very over leveled. It seems like the battles will not get boring unless they end up rehashing the same abilities for the bosses over and over. The story was also impressive; as I mentioned before, it has characters that seem alive, with motivations other than "i must do (insert quest) to save the world!" One of the party members is a princess who, at this point, has rejected her father as a fool who can't even think beyond the crown. Another, your best friend, follows you because she tried to break you out of prison before finding out you had done it yourself. Finally, the Chrono himself seems caught up in a tangle of problems just because he was interested in a girl. I have high expectations of the story and character development, and doubt I will be disappointed.

Chrono Trigger (SNES) - Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:31:26

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:31:26 CST

Summary: Taking up the persona of Crono, you fight to save the world in the classic RPG setting. However, the world is divided into different time periods, making the world many times more expansive than normal. While the design of the planet is similar throughout the game, each time period is obviously different from another in both culture and even in geography. One of the first games to offer a real time battle system, it is faster paced than games that came before it, but still allows you to choose the typical turn style of RPGs if you so desire. Game Play: Amazingly, this game does not start off with an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil, or really any kind of conflict what so ever. It starts off with a simple day to the fair. Crono, the stereotypical strong yet quiet lead for this game, gets a day off to go visit friends and just relax. When he gets there, he meets a young girl named Marle, who is obvious the other half of the romantic storyline. Guess Crono works really fast... Anyways, you spend the day with this cute, interesting girl by doing events you normally find at fairs. A strong-arm bell ringing contest, food, a horror tent, more food, fights with a gigantic singing robot, a pie eating contest... Oh, and lets not forget the teleporter demonstration. What could possibly go wrong there? Anyways, after you've had your fill of the carnival minigames (that took an hour for me...) you meet Crono's nerdy friend, Lucca, who is demonstrating her newest invention, a teleporter! Square did a wonderful job of the carnival, creating a scene that relaxes you and makes you think you are just getting character development... but then Marle decides to try the teleporter and all of a sudden a huge flash appears and there is no more Marle. But wait, you've known this girl for a full day, you can't just let her dissappear! You travel back in time, and start the real gameplay. While the battles at the fair helped to level you and get you used to the combat system, you begin to get your real battle moves soon after you leave the fair. Instead of magics and battle skills, you have different Techs for each character. If you have the right ones, you can combine 2 Techs of 2 characters to create double techs, which cause much more damage. Its an interesting system, and one that I have just begun to unlock. What I am curious about is if later on, once you get a healer, if you will be able to double tech buffs to give yourself some amazing advantages. I doubt it, but it would be pretty cool...

Knights of the Old Republic (XBX) - Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:00:40

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:00:40 CST

GAMEPLAY: After another 2 hours of gameplay, I feel as though I actually am starting to understand the game now. The plot, although cliche, has well written dialog definately gives you a look at Star Wars from a non Jedi perspective. They acted like stuck-up know it alls who have the "best" solution for everything... and quite frankly, it annoyed me. Even though the Jedi powers help you... it just wasn't worth the preaching I got for doing slightly shady things, as my character tended to do. After last time, I was worried about the fighting system in the game. It seemed to me that it was far to simple, where you hit a button and could walk away for a few seconds as you slaughter whatever was in front of you. The Force powers in the game did not help to fix this. Although they are more interactive, they didn't flow as well as they should have. You almost needed to pause to use them effectively, which took away from the cinematic style of fighting that was keeping me entertain. Although I don't expect KotoR to play as an action game, after all of the hype I had heard, I would have thought that there would be a more interesting and engaging battle system. While it does have a good plot, interesting characters, and a fun light/dark side meter that gauges your actions, the game is a fun experience, but one that had been to hyped for me. I find it hard to say "boy, that was an amazing game" when it seems so poorly put together in comparison to other Bioware games. I almost feel as if they just said "It's a Star Wars game, we don't have to work that hard", and that is disappointing. DESIGN: The level design in KotoR is fairly standard with the exception of two things: terminals and droids. In most buildings, there is a security system that you can "spike" (hack) into using a computer use skill and put security to your advantage. You can blow up power circuits to kill guards, turn off automated defense systems, and sometimes even hack the security droids to fire at everything they see (including one another.) The droids were also an interesting addition by allowing you to repair damage droids that lie around the world, usually in abandoned areas that are filled with enemies. Repairing them gives allows you to unlock special containers with items, with was a nice change from the usual, boring chest. However, the battle system was lacking. The "magic" of the game, the Force, was not able to be used in a fluid way. You could only have one aggressive force power and one passive on your hot bar at any one time. It made switching in the middle of a fight hard. The other thing that bothered me was a lack of any real physical abilities. There are a couple, by which I mean 2 one for range and one for melee, and that is really pathetic. I love RPG story lines as much as anyone, but a good story line doesn't excuse you from create an interesting battle system. It looked amazing, but looks don't count for much when the play is repetitive and boring.

Knights of the Old Republic (XBX) - Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:50:00

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:50:00 CST

SUMMARY: In KotoR, you and your party use a combination of melee, ranged, and force attacks to defeat the Sith. The leveling up style, similar to D&D, gives you great flexibility over what your characters can do. GAMEPLAY: As I opened up the character creation menu, I knew that this game was developed by Bioware. Their RPGs have a distinct feel to character creation and leveling up in general. However, while I have loved every game from Bioware that I have played, it was disappointing to see very little innovation in how their games play. In fact, it seemed like they didn't put much effort into this game. There were only 3 options for classes, and very little character personalization, but I ignored it and decided to just try out the game. Within a few seconds I was thrown into combat with my stealthy character. I decided to see if melee was actually viable without being a lightsaber wielding jedi. And, to my surprise, I found it was. I would sneak up behind the enemy, and start hacking away. After the first few fights, I decided that I would try out the long range attacks, but found that they just weren't as fun. Most of my enjoyment from both was taken from watching the fight animations... which I found disappointing. After clicking attack there was no real control of the battle besides making sure to use medpacs when needed. After playing games like Baldur's Gate, which give access to classes that can cast magic, it was boring to just sit there and watch them fight. The only upside was that it looked very cool... hopefully, when I start getting Jedi characters that battle system will be more interactive.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES) - Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:39:43

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:39:43 CST

GAMEPLAY: As I continued playing the Super Mario RPG, I kept in mind the question that had been concerning me since I started: would the game be able to pull off a good story that brought new, deep characters into the story? I found out soon that it did. In the next two hours of game play, the characters Mallow and Geno were introduced into the story. Now, at this point you might be thinking "Well they don't sound familiar" - and that is right. This is the first (and to my knowledge, only) game that featured these two characters. Fortunately, they are characters that fit perfectly into the Mario setting and story. For example, Geno is a puppet that is given life through the power of the stars that live in the world, while Mallow is a "cloud" (he actually is humanoid, but i guess he was bron from the clouds) that thought he was a frog until Mario's influence brought the truth to light. Needless to say, I was thrilled to find that the game showed a sense of character development and plot; although I am not far enough in the story to say what will happen, a "cloud" coming to terms with his existence and a puppet trying to find a place in the world are excellent starting points for a deep character. But even with a good story, I needed to see if the gameplay got repetitive or boring. I dove back into the battle system determined to make my characters powerful enough to avoid being killed in 2 hits (which did unfortunately happen a couple times; seems that whole armor thing keeps people alive better. Whoops.) The different abilities that have shown up in multiple Mario games (such as fireballs and jumps) proved to be a fun way to give Mario his special moves, while the backstory of Geno and Mallow allowed Square to put the typical magic moves in the game without breaking the feel of the world. They did a good job creating a battle system that did not destroy the feel of the overlaying world. DESIGN: While I was leveling up a few times, I realized something that I did not mention in my previous log: the level up features. When you gain a level in this game, you also get to choose one of 3 powerups: a physical boost, magical boost, or health boost. I realized immediately what you could do with this: focus your characters to tank, hit people good, or blow things up with magic. It was a nice little touch that lets you feel as though you control how your characters will evolve. Needless to say, most people will probably keep Mario as physical damage and give Geno and Mallow the magic upgrades (I know I did), but it still is a game mechanic that doesn't force you into a single role with each character. The level design fit the previous versions of Mario perfectly: even though it is a RPG, Legend of the Seven Stars does show its platformer roots. The levels are 3D, where Mario needs to jump or use platforms to reach new areas on the map. Although not essential to the game, its a way for players dipping into the RPG genre through the Mario name to feel more at easy. Another way they did that was to get rid of the typical random battle system. You can see the gombas you need to fight wandering the map, and can avoid them if you wish. It makes the game resemble its platform ancestors, and keeps the game feeling like a distinct Mario game. It even rewarded you for playing it like a platformer: treasure chests weren't laying on the ground, they were in the box floating high above you or on a area of the map that you need to time a jump right to get to. From what I've seen of the game so far, it reworked traditional RPG elements into the background it came from to make a game that truly represents Mario well. Personally, I think that if it had strayed further from its roots Legend of the Seven Stars would not be as famous and popular as it is, nor would it be on the classics list for this class.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES) - Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:11:57

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:11:57 CST

SUMMARY: In Super Mario RPG, the player takes control of Mario in a way different than any other game. The battle system and reliance on healing and spellcasting abilities makes the player think more carefully about the characters than in a normal, platforming Mario experience. GAMEPLAY: Within minutes of picking up Super Mario RPG, I was appalled by the fact that I had not played it before. As a fan of RPG games such as Final Fantasy, seeing the Mario series recreated in the genre by the masters I respected instantly captivated me. The first battle surprised me by flawlessly combining the typical RPG battle system with the feel of the Mario franchise. Any player who loves Mario would not be turned away from a different style of game: while the gameplay itself was changed, the game was still able to contain the Mario "feel". The unexplainable jump attack of Mario was in the game, available through the use of flower points (fp) instead of the traditional mana. Through these special skills, the player can still control Mario as in other parts of the series: jumping on top enemies, having to find their through a platform-style map, and generally enjoying the same simplistic pleasure than the games have become famous for. However, the battle system is by no means "dumbed down" from any other RPG. The characters still rely on weapons, armor, and accessories to improve their stats and health so they can deal and take more damage. The fun of this game is tied between the battle system and the Mario style; while the depth of the gameplay does not turn away wary RPG veterans, it also brings in the people not used to this format by keeping the style and tone of the series intact. As of right now, the games seems to be very satisfying, but I haven't advanced far enough in the plot to be sure that the style of the game was successfully brought into the dialog and story of the game. It will be interesting to see how characters such as Mario, Bowser, and Princess Toadstool (I had forgotten the change in name...) develop over an epic tale told through the medium of a RPG.

Civilization IV (PC) - Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:39:10

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:39:10 CST

GAMEPLAY: After another hour of gameplay, Civ 4 is just as entertaining as it was when I first picked it up. Winning through pacifist means was definately possible without being a boring experience. While the first session left me tenetive about the character development, the later progress proved to me that the characters did indeed have their own playstyles. For example, Genghis Khan was definately more agressive that any other character I met. Although my concerns about the game were ill-placed, I am unsure of how much the game can be replayed before it becomes less fun. The peaceful negotiator path to victory is definately a defining feature of this RTS, but I wonder how many times you could play it that way before becoming bored. Perhaps I am being to harsh on the game after only a single playthrough. With a game that offers new paths to the same goal it could just be the difference between that playstyle and regular RTS's that is influencing my decision. Two hours with this game is not nearly enough time to explore the different aspects of the game to their fullest, however I feel that I got enough to say that it is a well made game that can provide hours of fun to people expecting completely opposite interactions with the game. And personally, that is why I believe that Civ 4 is a good game, despite any reservations I have. DESIGN: Civ 4 definately gives the user a fun experience, but unfortunately I feel that some users may not give the game a decent chance because of how slowly the game begins. To build your civilization at the start of the game, there are many turns in which you are merely pressing the enter key until an upgrade is completed or a unit is build. Unlike many RTS's, there is very little micro management in this beginning stage of the game, and may fool players into believing it is incredibly slow. Although when compared to games such as Starcraft Civ 4 seems slow, many of the fun interactions with the game interface require a slower game speed. The depth of Civ 4 is what makes it a truly interesting game, with treaties and trades going between all the players building a diplomatic side of the game that I had not seen before in other RTS's. There are two main ways to win in this game; diplomacy and violence. Both of these use a point system, which is based on a how big and advanced your civilization is. Although I did not have a chance to play the game violently, I did get to see how the game's combat works through watching the computer's fight. Either gamestyle is a fun, viable option, yet it is the diplomacy that makes the game stand out. It is possible to use religion to become a neutral party in the war between other "nations", and yet still win by being so influential to other nations because of religion. I used the "missionary" units from the religions I had researched (Taoism, Buddism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all options to research and spread) to convert all of my opponents. However, it isn't possible to just walk into another player's territory and convert them. You have to plan in advance, offering trades to build their trust in you while researching laws and technological upgrades to allow you to have the negotiation skills necessary to make a treaty between countries. If you give to much support to one nation, their enemies may go to war with you, so it is necessary to keep enough troops to fight off any invasion. I was constantly invaded by the Genghis Khan computer player, and retaining a peaceful game was more difficult that just launching an army at the enemy. But it was also more fun that playing just another RTS with no innovation.

Civilization IV (PC) - Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:43:44

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:43:44 CST

SUMMARY: Civ 4 is a very fun game, that allows almost any player to come along and play it. The only downsides to the playstyle are that the technology upgrades can be slightly confusing, and that a game can take 2 or 3 hours to complete. For me, this does not present a problem but for some users it may seem to long for casual play. GAMEPLAY: Although I have played many RTS games before, Civilizations IV was the first game of the civ series that I have touched. As soon as I booted up the game, I was dissapointed that I had not tried it sooner. The depth of the game surprised me; where ordinary RTS games like Warcraft and Command and Conquer make you fight, Civ 4 allows you to choose how you raise your civilization from gatherer societies to the modern era. First off, you choose a nation and a leader. This choice affects you from the beginning by giving you personality type for your nation and two research abilities which start off your strategy. You don't even need to fight to win the game; the strategy I choose was to follow the peaceful path and I picked the Indian leader Gandhi to build my empire. Unfortunately, the first game I played froze after ten minutes, so I had to restart. However, in the first ten minutes I had only gone through three turns because the amount of choices i was given. The upgrades for your people range from religions to mining to improved weaponry. The next time through I had developed a more focused plan, which was to rule the world through peacefully spreading all forms of religion. My replay went by much quicker, with turns taking a significantly shorter time. From what I saw in the first hour, the computer characters seemed bland, without much difference in tactics. However, it could just be the fact that I was early in the game and did not get to see much development in other societies. It does seem that with the level of detail of the advancement of the civilizations that the characters should, and hopefully will, become detailed individuals. It would surprise me if they did not, because through the game I felt my cities evolve and become more intelligent and expansive. All in all, I found the beginning gameplay to be a fun experience, and hopefully will continue to be as I discover more about the later stages of the game. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:40:18.)