Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=499https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3115GAMEPLAY After an epic clash with the world’s #10 assassin, I was introduced to the pattern of gameplay that would follow for (I assume) the rest of the game. Basically, an agency was setting up these fights between the other ten assassins and I and after each fight, I had to earn money for the next one. When not going into a fight, I could freely drive around the town on a motorcycle in order to go job searching or to buy items and upgrades. After earning enough money for the next fight (by doing anything from lawn mowing to bumping off pizza chain CEOs) I had to go through a level filled with lesser enemies and one boss just like before. I think this system, however repetitive, worked very well. Although going to lawn mowing after taking down a world class assassin is a huge drop in excitement, it is nice to have a break from the constant slew of enemies coming at you. In fact, doing odd jobs while being a world level assassin just shows what a strange character Travis is. He’s a top killer living in a motel with his kitty and hundreds of anime figurines and keeps his hi-tech, highly destructive, beam katanas in a drawer under his bed. He is a total slob, an incurable nerd, and not very smart, yet he has an ego the size of Jupiter and is going on a massive killing spree just so he can say that he is #1. Despite all of the violence, the game is very clearly comedic. The goofy Travis interacting with cold-blooded assassins and criminal organizations makes for some hilarious scenarios. Even decapitating someone in this game can be funny as they scream “AAAUUGH MY SPLEEN!!!” after their head has already been cut off. DESIGN It’s obvious many of the design elements in this game had inspirations. There is the obvious “Star Wars” influence with the beam katana. With influences like that along with professional wrestling, anime, and classic video games, it is quite clear that this game was designed for (and very likely by) fanboys. Visually, the combat looks like anything you would see in an elaborate sword fight from “Star Wars” or “Kill Bill”, Travis makes heavy use of intricate and complicated suplexes, everyone wears over-the-top anime style clothes, and Travis himself is a fanboy (which can easily be seen since his room was designed with lots of posters and more video games and figurines than one would hazard to fit in such a small living space). The level design stayed pretty diverse despite each level basically being a series of rooms to be cleared of enemies. Each mission took place in a distinct environment with it’s own visual style (I went through a mansion, a stadium, a high school, a movie studio, and a beach). However, what made each level really stand out was the bosses. No two bosses look, behave, talk, or fight alike. One boss was a big beefy man in a superhero suit who fought with lasers and liked to take cheap shots, another was a disgruntled schoolgirl with an old-school katana and an afro who attacked with great agility, and another was an army woman with one leg who would dig holes for me to fall in and then proceeded to toss grenades in before I could climb out. Designing each boss to be completely unique was a great move since the story is essentially about killing each one of them and it makes the player curious about who he is going to be put up against next.Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:56:01 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3115&iddiary=5862https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3115SUMMARY If “No More Heroes” for the Wii has a genre, then it is whatever Grand Theft Auto is, only with a beam katana (lightsaber) and motion controls. You play as Travis Touchdown, a professional assassin who is ranked #11 of the world’s top killers. Rather than honored, he is infuriated that he is not #1 and sets out to kill the other ten and ascend to “world’s top killer”. GAMEPLAY The game immediately launched me into a mission with minimal plot, and an optional tutorial. I discovered right away that this was not the typically cutesy family Wii game. Blood spewed forth from my enemies like geysers as I dismembered them, decapitated them, and cut them clean in half. It was oddly refreshing to have absurd amounts of blood and gore in a Wii game. Especially after having to put up with the happy, magic, shiny, fun-time of Mario Galaxy. Rather than being constantly being surrounded by adorable critters, I was now in a “Kill Bill” type universe where some guy was going down a list of people and turning one after another into high-powered blood fountains. Another nice deviation from standard Wii games was the absence of abundant reliance on motion controls. I am sure the developers were tempted to have the sword attacks be controlled by “waggling” the remote, but instead they have the basic attacks controlled by a button and reserve motion controls just for the finishing blow or for wrestling moves. Being able to make one big slice with the remote at the end of a combo to watch your enemies explode like water balloons filled with red paint is actually a lot more gratifying than constantly waving around the remote for each hit of the entire combo. Another nice touch is that the remote has to be sliced in a certain direction rather than just nonchalantly flicked just to register a movement.Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:52:48 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3115&iddiary=5792https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2688GAMEPLAY Wii baseball was too tricky for my tastes. The timing for batting was much harder than in tennis. It was rare that I would hit the ball, let alone hit a fair ball. Pitching, on the other hand, was much easier (although I suspect is one of the prime suspects for all of those wii remotes that end up going through the TV screen). Unfortunately, you don't score anything in baseball by pitching, so most of my games ended as 0 - 0 draws. Wii golf was just plain boring. After the mindless fun from all of the other games, having to calculate club power and angles and wind speed at a slow pace was kind of a drag. Just when I was about to get fed up with the trickiness of baseball and the boringness of golf, I was saved by the supreme glory that is Wii Boxing. The controls were amazingly intuitive. Instead of using buttons like in baseball and golf, everything was done with the motion sensors. And even though there was only one sensor in each hand, the game could tell when and where I was leaning and ducking along with punching. Not only were the controls easy and all around awesome, the game itself was really fun too! I was on a mission to beat the daylights out of any and all Mii's that the game could come up with and rise to the ranks of PRO. Unfortunately this mission I decided to put myself on was a rather distracting one and I Wii boxed my way into the sunset, and then the following sunrise. that might explain why I'm writing this entry so much later after the last one. Needless to say, my arms are killing me (and so is my roommate for keeping him up). Sadly, I never reached pro status. As with tennis, I had to start boxing pros before I could become one, and these guys were relentless. DESIGN Wii Sports' simplicity, from art designs and gameplay designs, is what I think is its key to success. Visually, Wii Sports is somewhat minimalist. The levels are only the most basic professional sports arenas and don't have very much detail to them compared to modern sports games. This is just perfect, however, because it let's the player naturally and easily focus on the actual game itself. The characters themselves are possibly even more simple than the levels. In many cases, the characters were just a head and torso with floating arms. This design also helps to focus the attention of the player, this time on the location of the hands and sports equipment. While the characters are anything but detailed, the equipment is actually fairly realistic looking, which helps deepen the connection in the player's mind between the wii remote and the actual equipment. Anyone who knows about Nintendo's current strategy knows why there was a need to make Wii Sports so simplistic. Nintendo, rather than catering to hardcore gamers, decided to instead to market the Wii at casual gamers and people who have no idea how to play a video game. Since Wii sports came with the Wii for free, it is likely to assume that it would be the first thing on the Wii many people would play. With this in mind, Nintendo made it ridiculously easy to learn and even more ridiculously fun to play. Even if it is geared towards casual gamers and flat out non-gamers, hardcore gamers have something to do as well. Several training modes are available that function as score attack mini-games. Many of these require true mastery of the game for any decent score at all. If thats not enough of a challenge, then I suggest trying to go pro in something. I can assure you that will take lots of skill.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:05:24 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2688&iddiary=5240https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2688SUMMARY Wii Sports is a series of small sports games in which the players use the motion sensing feature of the wii remote to mimic motions that would be done in the real world versions of the simulated sports. The sports available are Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Boxing. GAMEPLAY The first sport I tried was tennis. The game was extremely intuitive since all you had to do was swing at the ball. It was extremely satisfying to actually be able to swing at something in a video game and get an actual jolt in my hand along with a loud "thwok" noise. This experience was made even cooler by having a cartoony version of myself on screen. The game itself was really simple. All the running was done automatically and I just needed to swing when the ball came to me. Apart from the extreme satisfaction of having so much sensory feedback to smacking the daylights out of a virtual tennis ball, the other thing that kept me hooked was the allure of getting my skill level to "pro" status. With each game I won, I was able to raise my skill level, and was henceforth presented with progressively more difficult opponents. Unfortunately, it got to the point where I had to start facing opponents who were already at pro level in order for me to reach their status. The pro level AI was extremely aggressive and unrelenting and I was no match for them. Sadly, I had to give up my dreams of becoming a Wii Tennis pro and I decided to move on to bowling. While bowling lacked the satisfying feedback from the remote that I had gotten with tennis, I was amazed at the feedback the remote was getting from me. The way I bowled in real life seemed to almost perfectly be translated into the game. It even picked up on this weird tendency I have where the ball kind of slides of to the side a little for reasons unbeknown to me. This sport too had a pro skill level that could be obtained. But since in bowling your score is not affected by anything an opponent does, my skill level rose based on my ability to consistently bowl well.Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:04:14 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2688&iddiary=5062https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2514GAMEPLAY I made it out of the citadel eventually but, to my dismay, the escape route was through pitch black, underground, zombie infested, parking garages. This provided a complete shift in gameplay from the soldiers I was fighting in the high tech environment I was in previously. These underground areas were so dark, it was completely impossible to see anything without using the flashlight, and even that did not reveal much of my surroundings and would turn off every so often to recharge. I would often find myself turning off my flashlight and then finding a zombie right in front of me once I turned it on again. When I said earlier that the collapsing environment made me edgy, that was nothing compared to how I was in this area. It was even worse when my flashlight turned off while I had to fight off a whole army of zombies while I was waiting for an elevator. While I mentioned before how Gordon Freeman's experience also becomes the player's experience, The reverse also seems to happen. That is, the player gives their own specific experiences and reactions as well. This is done, in part, by Valve making Freeman completely mute. The mute main character with no personality is the perfect blank canvas for players to relay their own personality into the game. This was very apparent in the zombie part. Had someone with more nerve than I been playing, they probably would have kept their cool and taken out the zombies like they would any other enemy. I, on the other hand, was completely freaked out and I found myself running around like a scared little girl and nervously fumbling around with my weapons. Had Freeman actually stated in the game what he thinks of zombies, the player would probably take that as what they were supposed feel about zombies as well, and their reactions would no longer be their own. DESIGN Despite having the same weapon and setting (and not to mention nearly the exact same game engine) as the end of Half-Life 2, the citadel part of Half-Life 2: Episode One manages to mix things up considerably by designing new scenarios in which the repeated elements are interacted with in very different ways. The citadel, which was spacious and sleek before, now has falling rubble and electrical fires everywhere and looks very run down in general. The gravity gun which was previously used to tear the citadel apart, is now used to solve puzzles and, ironically, to put bits of the citadel back together. Another very clever design element that made me feel like I was in Freeman's shoes was that there were no discernible levels. That's not to say there weren't different areas with different gameplay elements to them, but no matter where I was in the game, I could always trace a direct route to where I was from the very beginning of the game. There was a loading screen every now and again, but once it stopped loading, I'd be in the exact same spot as before with the exact same items and people in their exact same spots also. By doing this and using techniques I previously mentioned, Valve did an excellent job in making Freeman and the player feel like the same person.Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:11:12 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2514&iddiary=4782https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2514SUMMARY Half-Life 2: Episode One is a continuation of Valve's extremely successful first person shooter Half-Life 2, and is the company's first stab at episodic games. The player takes control of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist who for some reason knows how to operate military grade weapons. After blowing up a good sized chunk of an evil Orwellian government's over sized monolithic death headquarters at the end of Half-Life 2, Freeman (and his "We're just friends" buddy Alyx Vance)now have to get as far away from the building as they can since it is due to go nuclear very soon. GamePlay The game started me off at the citadel (the building whose top I just blew off at the end of HL2). Even before I was told that the building would explode very soon, I was given an immediate sense that something very bad was going on. The top of the building that I had blown up looked like a swirling vortex of fiery death, ashes were raining from the sky, and there were ruins everywhere. Not long into the game, I was told I had to enter the citadel and try to slow the reaction or else it would explode very soon. Although the game does not actually have a time limit and I could have hung out in the citadel for as long as I wanted, I felt a very clear sense of urgency. This was achieved since the environment I was in was essentially falling apart around me. Although this destruction was mostly harmless to me, it made me edgy watching the area where I just was fall into an abyss and watching enemies getting crushed by debris. A key thing that Valve does to manipulate the feelings of the player is the complete omission of cut-scenes. Instead of cut-scenes, the NPCs and environments act out the story around the player, without the player losing control of Freeman. The player essentially has complete control of Freeman from start to finish. Since this was coupled with a first person view, it really made me feel like I was Freeman. Like the story was happening to me, rather than me watching it happen to some lovable cuddly plumber who I clearly am not. So I was not just watching the environment fall apart around Freeman, I felt like I was in a collapsing building and that I had to make things better pronto!Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:48:26 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2514&iddiary=4733https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2114GAMEPLAY A little more time and effort into Mario Galaxy opens up a story book which gives you a little more plot besides the reoccurring kidnapping scenario that everyone has come to know and love. These little tidbits are apparently one of the supporting character's back story and seems to have been written for 6 year olds. In a game where nearly everything is perfect, this weird backstory sticks out like a robot at the renaissance fair. The only thing I could make out from this backstory is that the shiny items I had been stockpiling and feeding to by the bucketload to gluttonous star things were apparently the tears of orphans. Even then I'm not sure though. Fortunately reading the storybook is completely optional and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a pressing desire to know why some girl is living with a bunch of tiny cuddly star people. I actually beat the game and the ending is as bizarre as the storybook if not more. Usually in these games, the ending is something like "hurray! You saved the Princess!" but this time around is a bit different. I'm not going to spoil anything, I haven't actually figured out what exactly happened myself, but the ending this time around tries to be really deep. They say something about how everything is all a big cycle or something and it's all really confusing. DESIGN While the plot is needlessly complicated, there is so little of it, it hardly detracts from the amazingness of the game itself. The level design is some of the most innovative I have ever seen. Each level is usually a series of planetoids, each with it's own variety of gravity. The player has to hop from one planetoid to the other to get to where they are supposed to be going. Not only is this an extremely original idea, it is also very intuitive and fun for the player. While the general concept of planet hopping is very original, the planets themselves are almost more so. There is an incredible variety of individual planetoids. Every one is masterfully designed despite being implemented on very nonstandard shapes like spheres and other 3D shapes. There are so many excellent designs for just small planets in small parts of the game, it's a wonder the development team weren't exhausted of creative energy a fifth of the way through the game.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:55:48 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2114&iddiary=4166https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2114SUMMARY Super Mario Galaxy is Nintendo's latest incarnation of their famous platformer. Along with the usual running and jumping all over things, they've added a spinning move as well and an extremely interesting gravity set up. As usual, the goal of the game is to rescue Princess Peach by collecting a bunch of stars and defeating Bowser the turtle/dog thing. GAMEPLAY This game is fun. You can easily tell that the developers did not want to tell a story or make any sort of point with this game. They just wanted to go out and make the most fun game that was ever made. They more or less succeeded. I had more fun playing Mario Galaxy than I've had in a long time from a video game. Even the characters in the game seem to having fun. Each one is incredibly enthusiastic, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Not only that, they are all huggable and lovable. Not only THAT, but a large percentage of them are adorable penguins. Need I say more? Even the practically mute Mario radiates fun out of himself. Every jump and spin is accompanied by a "Woohoo!" or a "Weeee!". Along with the characters, the music is also fun. It sounds like the music that they play as you walk around Disneyland. The track for one level was so happy that it nearly drove my roommate to the point of madness. That made the game even more fun for me.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:13:35 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2114&iddiary=4064https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1696GAMEPLAY In my second time around with Crazy Taxi, I was happy to find that the mood swings of the passengers bothered me much less. This was partially because I had gotten used to them, but mainly because I found something that aggravated me even more. After playing the main game for a little while longer, I decided to see what was in the “Crazy Box” option in the menu. Inside I found a series of short challenges that used the game play of the main game but under very extreme circumstances. A few of the early ones taught me some useful driving techniques and they were both fun and not terribly difficult. Little did I know that horror was just beyond the horizon. While the early “Crazy Box” challenges were relatively easy, beating those unlocked progressively harder ones. “Progressively” is probably the wrong word though since it implies there was a transition between easy and hard when really what happened was after I beat my happy little easy challenges, I was immediately plunged into a taxi hell that was one thousand times more horrible than a cab driver’s worst nightmare. I could have stopped and gone back to the main game, but something inside me compelled me to keep trying to beat these torturous tasks. Maybe I was curious to see if even worse things would appear. Maybe I had a strong desire not to give up. Maybe I need a psychologist. Whatever the reason, I kept going with it even though it was slowly killing me inside. The sheer number of things I had to accomplish in just one of these challenges would not fit in this assignment, and I had to do it in less than one minute and ten seconds. I can say there were a lot of bottomless pits involved though. Eventually I came to my senses and went back to the main game. It was like jumping in ice water after a day in the desert. Being able to play the actual game, without jumping through impossible hoops, was highly refreshing. I could also use the techniques I learned in the early challenges to either navigate the streets better or get more tips. The learning part of the challenges paid off in the end, but I cannot imagine why they made the later ones so hard. DESIGN Despite being originally an arcade game, Crazy Taxi manages to stay entertaining for quite some time. This is partly because of the giant size and intricacy of the two main game levels. The two levels are very easy to get around and seem both to be modeled after San Francisco since many of the streets have the same kind of hills as and there are cable cars around. Both levels have a variety of terrain that you have to navigate in unique ways. The hilly areas have fun jumps, downtown has traffic dodging, and so on. The only problem with the levels is that you are unlikely to see most of them. This is because there are certain areas that passengers almost never ask to go. Often I would get to one area, and then get asked to go to the area I was before. There was a huge area of the level full of high rise buildings that I didn’t even know existed until near the end of my session. The passengers themselves are partially to blame for the lack of exploration since they rarely want to go very far. The passengers have very strange qualities. I already mentioned how their personalities broke the illusion for me, but there are other aspects to them that grate on the game itself along with my nerves. I mentioned earlier how they never want to go very far, but sometimes this can get rather extreme. I was frequently asked to take passengers to somewhere that I could already see. Not only does it make no sense for someone to hail a cab to get somewhere they could easily walk in less than a minute, it also doesn’t make for a very eventful trip. The shorter the distance to their destination, the less time you get. So there would be a scenario where some lady would pay me 600 dollars to drive her 50 yards to pizza hut. The pricing of everything, while not really a problem, kind of distracted me. It makes me wonder if it was originally in yen but they only changed the yen sign to a dollar sign during localization. In short Crazy Taxi is a pretty fun game and kept me entertained longer than I expected from an arcade game. It has some elements which were sloppily put together but that doesn’t deter from the joy of driving around and causing mayham.Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:40:16 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1696&iddiary=3547https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1696SUMMARY Crazy Taxi is a driving game where the player drives a taxi around a city looking for fares. The goal of the game is to make as much money as possible in the given time limit. There isn’t a lot too it. Basically, the faster you get your passengers to their destination, the more they will tip you. Frighteningly enough, they will also tip you more if you drive completely recklessly. GAMEPLAY I must say, Crazy Taxi can be pretty fun. There is something exhilarating about fast paced, free range driving. The game also provides a nice break from the horrifically stringent driving laws of the real world. I was able to drive so badly in this game, after a while I started to wonder why someone wasn’t trying to stop me. An even bigger mystery though, was why everyone seemed to be encouraging my vehicular rampages. I was getting heavily tipped for almost hitting cars while driving on the wrong side of the road. Despite having very realistic graphics for its time, the game itself feels quite unreal. This is partially because of how much you can get away with. However, more glaring examples of unreality are the characters. One would assume that a game with a crazy taxi would probably have a crazy taxi driver as well. Well their guess would be spot on. All the drivers the player has to choose from have the appearance of beach bums and the attitudes of drugged up speed fetishists. Strange as they may be, they fit well with the overall feel of the game. The passengers are really strange though. They are prone to extreme mood swings and all behave exactly the same. Example: I pick up a lady who wants to go to pizza hut. Every time I do something exceedingly dangerous, she starts cheering and practically showers me with tips. She acts like she’s more into maniacal driving than the actual nut-job of a driver. If I bump into anything though, she gets really angry about how bad of a driver I am and seems to forget she’s been egging me on this whole time. But it doesn’t matter because she starts cheering again the instant I resume being my reckless self. It would be fine if just some of the passengers were like that. But I could pick up an 80 year old priest and he’d cheer me on just like everyone else. Basically the lack of variety in passengers not only breaks the illusion a little for me, but it also causes me extreme aggravation to be stuck in a city full of schizophrenics where one second they are extreme thrill seekers who sing me praises for driving off roofs, and the next second they yell at me for putting them in jeopardy and loathe me with every fiber of their being.Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:35:43 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1696&iddiary=3447