Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=536https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2968GAMEPLAY For this gamelog I attempted the multiplayer mode of this game with a friend. I hoped it would provide us with a humorous golfing adventure, but what I hoped would be the redeeming feature of the game completely disappoints. At the beggining of multiplayer you get to choose between three characters to golf as: Frylock, Carl, and Master Shake, each comes with three costumes. This is all very exciting at first, especially because Frylock and Master Shake aren't available in single player. After your players are selected you get to make a map playlist from the 12 available golf courses. Things are still looking hopeful, but then the game actually starts. Multiplayer is simply a game of golf. No longer do you run from shot beating up enemies, now you simply play golf, magically teleporting to your ball after each shot. The other thing that is sorely missing is the only thing that makes the game fun: the music and the amusing dialogue. All that remains is a dead silent game of golf between two usually amusing cartoon characters. They very least I would expect from an Aqua Teen Hunger Force video game is constant humorous insults and annoying dialogue, which the single player provides, but multiplayer completely lacks. The game quickly gets tedious, and any element of competition will very rapidly dissipates. By now I've unlocked pretty much everything and I've found another cool feature, the disk for the game is packed full of extras. Not only is there a full single player game, and a pretty crappy multiplayer mode, there are 4 full episodes of the Aqua Teen tv show, and a ton of extra clips from both the game and the show. So even if gameplay is frustrating you, you can find something else to do for a while before you trade in the game for something new. DESIGN Here's what I have to say to the developers: Good Try, but you guys fell short. Maybe, you couldn't meet a tough deadline, didn't have enough time for playtesting, or ran into other issues. This game could have been made far better than it is if the developers spent more time with it, but a game in this state shouldn't be released to the public. If gameplay was flawlessly executed, and they used the resources they had to the fullest extent this would be a much better game. Sadly the single player game is full of glitches and bugs. Sometimes bad guys won't die, they often respawn inside of objects. I've had issues where boss battles don't work; there is some puzzle you need to solve to win but it just won't activate. The races are stilted and boring, and I feel like if they spent more time tweaking gameplay they could have been fun. Then there is multiplayer.... If they had simply scripted in the same dialogue that they used in single player multiplayer would have been so much better. Then if they really felt ambitious they could have brought the whole action mechanic into multiplayer, but I would have forgiven them if only they gave us something to listen to! Now onto the good things: honestly, I can't really think of anything good about gameplay. The way the three modes of play are strung together in a somewhat original way, and thanks to the familiar characters and voices, I was willing to endure boring unoriginal gameplay, but no-one other than a highly devoted Aqua Teen Hunger Force Fan should ever play this game.Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:38:33 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2968&iddiary=5787https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2968SUMMARY Aqua Teen Zombie Ninja Pro-am is a golf themed 3D action game with three play modesL Golf, Action, and Racing. Gameplay involves playing a whole of golf, but between shots you have to battle your way from one shot to the next, with various golf cart races in between. GAMEPLAY When this game came out I was super excited to play it because I'm a huge Aqua Teen Hunger Force fan. After it got bad reviews I decided to wait a little while until the price came down. It's been a while, and I just picked up a used copy today for $20. I came home and excitedly popped the game in my PS2. Soon I'd started a new game and I was singing along to the theme song, and then I was playing. The game is overflowing with characters from the tv show, and right off the bat I got to abuse Carl as Master Shake and then I set off golfing. The best part of this game is definitely the voice acting, the characters are constantly talking and its fun to listen to aqua teen chatter as you go about your golf. The art isn't bad either, the transition from a 2D cartoon to a 3D game is always a bit rough, but this game has done a decent job of it, and I'm not going to complain to much. The place where the game goes bad is with gameplay, which is somewhat boring and often frustrating and tedious, not to mention tons of little glitches I've run into. The best way to describe the game is to say that it is golf themed. All the levels take place on some sort of golf course, and the game is played like a game of golf. Each level involves teeing off and taking a swing at your golf ball with a traditional distant-accuracy mini-game. Then you have to walk along the course to where the ball is landed, and as you walk you are under constant assault from chatty Aqua Teen characters. You get to play as Master Shake and Frylock, you can switch whenever you want, but each only has two attacks. Their regular light attack, and their charge-up heavy attack which leaves them stunned. This leaves you with two battle strategies, charge the enemy and try and quickly attack before they can get a lot of attacks in, or get a bunch of enemies to follow you and then use a heavy attack. There isn't very much complexity either way, and it gets tedious quickly. There are powerups lying around the level, but often they don't work properly and usually its just easier to stick with the regular attacks. The next part of gameplay is the golf cart races. They don't happen with any regularity, they just seem to pop up. It is a simple racing mechanic and you move relatively slow, there are only two pickups: homing missiles and boosts. The big flaw here is that once a missile is locked onto you, there is no way to shake it, so the race often comes down to who can recover from spinouts faster (which is all that happens when you get hit). The few races I've done have been difficult and I've had to repeat them each quite a few times before suceeding. What makes them so challenging is that your opponents move at the same speed as you so you have to tactically employ your boosts and rockets to suceed, driving skill doesn't really play much of a part. Overall the game is funny to watch, and often amusing to play. Gameplay just seems very unbalance and rough, perhaps they just needed to spend more time beta-testing before the release, because I feel like with minimal tweaks this game could be made good. But the way things are now, the only thing that keeps me going is my love for Aqua Teen Hunger Force and all things [adult swim]. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:06:44.)Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:04:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2968&iddiary=5584https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2810GAMEPLAY So now that I've had a chance to warm up and meet my hit-and-run quota, I'm ready to settle down and explore some of the more mundane aspects of gameplay. Here I am standing in front of the hospital looking for some work. I've made a pledge to myself not to use violence to meet my goals (at least for the time being), although I'm down to stoop to some carjacking. I watch cars drive by for a while until a taxicab pulls by, that looks like a good steady line of work. So I run in front of it and claim it for my own. I hit a button, and suddenly I have objectives. Welcome to the taxi mini-game. I ticking clock now resides in the corner of the screen, I have to pick up fares and take them to their destinations before time runs out. Its a Crazy Taxi clone, but I don't mind because I'm in the GTA universe, and I can leave my taxi and beat a hooker to death whenever I get bored. I drive around, picking up fares and trying to keep my murder rate low. It's fun for a while, but eventually the police start chasing me for reckless driving and its back to car-chases and violence. As soon as I've left the hospital I look for another non-violent profession. I run around to the back of the hospital and find a waiting ambulance. I climb inside and start the ambulance driver mini-game. It's very similar to the taxi mini-game, only now my destination is always the hospital and my fares start in slightly more amusing situations. Again, I rapidly get bored, and after a few hospital runs, I'm back to unrestrained violence. This time the cops get me and I'm sitting outside the police station. Time for a new job. This time, I resolve, I will find a slightly more entertaining job. I think I want to be a vigilante. Luckily, I'm right outside the police station, so I steal a police car, activate the vigilante mini-game, and all of a sudden, I'm a semi-licensed killer. A drive around, killing whom I'm told for a while. This is a game that I have the proper skillset for. Heres my job: Drive quickly to where the criminal is. Attack his car until it's about to explode, the criminal will then get out of the car. Run over the criminal. Find the next criminal. What a rewarding career. Also, as I progress, there are more and more criminals to kill each time. What a world! DESIGN As I've played GTA: San Andreas with a game designers mindset, I've picked up on some important design elements that really make the game fun. So first off, lets label the obvious important design features and get them out of the way: 1) massive world with no load times 2) huge variety of cars, weapons, npcs, etc. The world is beautifully populated. 3) compelling and humorous story with well scripted missions that moves along only when the player wants it to. Now lets talk about what I noticed as I played today. One aspect of GTA: SA that I think is super important but also fairly subtle is the contrast between the plot and general game mechanic with the career mini-games. It is tons of fun to go through the missions, shooting, driving, and killing. Its also fun to just run around doing those things: shooting, driving, and killing. On the other hand, the career mini-games are repetitive and boring. You usually just have to complete the same task over and over again, simply competing against a ticking clock, and only making chump change. I'm not sure this was done on purpose, but as I reflect now, I'm sure it was. The fun of breaking the law to make money and succeed contrasted with the law-abiding way of making money (minigames), really shows how players are encouraged to break the law to succeed. I'm sure there is a paper here on the ethics of this choice, but both the story and the actual gameplay really push across the point that crime does pay. I also think the fact that real jobs are boring and being a criminal is fun makes for a more realistic gaming experience. In real life its true, crime does pay, its a fast and relatively easy to make money, the only problem is that in real life crime comes loaded with tons of consequences. In a game, when all of those consequences are stripped away, we can completely revel in a life of crime. Another really important design aspect of this game is the incredible amount of collectible items. While this is nothing revolutionary, and previous GTA games have definitely used this strategy, it is incredibly important for a game of this scope. In GTA: San Andreas there are 6 kinds of hidden collectibles and 60 - 100 of each. Which means hours upon hours of extra gameplay. What these collectibles do is reward the player for their continued interest and devotion to the game. Recently other games have attempted to copy the GTA sandbox style of gameplay. For our uses we will use Just Cause as an example, it is very similar to GTA in that it is a 3rd person action game with a massive explorable world, and non-linear gameplay. The problem is, when you finish the plot of scripted missions there is nothing left to do. Sure you can keep running around and exploring the world but the game stops rewarding you for doing so. I mean the rewards in GTA: San Andreas are pretty sparse. Getting a horseshoe for climbing to the top of a building isn't that great, but its a lot more than nothing.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:42:55 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2810&iddiary=5284https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2810SUMMARY GTA - San Andreas is the third 3D GTA game, and the last built on the GTA3 engine. It is the defining sandbox game of our time, and it builds upon successful gameplay elements from earlier games in the franchise to create an incredibly open and immersive world. GAMEPLAY My console of choice is really the PC, so when I originally played GTA:SA it was there. Since then, I've logged ridiculous amounts of time on the computer, I've also acquired a PS2 and a copy, so that is where we will go for todays session. Instead of starting a new game and navigating the streets of Los Santos as a inexperienced ex-con, I loaded up an old save game where practically everything is unlocked. Today I'm going cruising for trouble. I find that the best way to get back into the game is to grab what you've got and go on a killing spree. In my garage I find a crimson Voodoo, I climb in and speed off into the desert (I've spawned at my secret desert airfield). I fly over dunes, narrowly avoiding oncoming obstacles. Soon the lights of Las Venturas begin to sparkle on the horizon, and my sights are set. I barrel through traffic on windy roads, smashing over a granny on a motorbike and hitting the outskirts of town. It's time for some carnage. The framerate slows down and gets a bit choppy as I skid through a group of pedestrians to a cacophony of curses and splats. Just like that I'm up to two stars, and the fun is about to begin. I fly down the Las Venturas strip, causing as much damage as I can in hopes of hitting three stars before I see my first cop. As I speed past Caligula's Palace two police cars hurtle out from a side street. One flies past me, slams into another car and flips over. While the other one hits me right in the broadside and we both spinout. Soon I'm off driving again, only this time I've got a whole parade of virtual law enforcement behind me. Back into the desert, police cars, fly wildly through the air after every jump, while I land effortlessly and speed on into the night. I don't make it that far, seeing as I'm the center of this universe and #1 on the police agenda. After a few heated fire-fights, a bunch more car-chases, and a brief helicopter ride, I'm sitting on top of a sky scraper making my last stand. I shoot the heavens and mow down every officer I can see, but eventually I run out of ammo, and I'm shot down in a blaze of glory. What a life. And 6 hours later I walk out of the hospital unscathed, ready to do it all over again. Playing San Andreas today is just as fun as it was the first day I got it, which is truly a testament to its exceptional quality. The gameplay is so free and there are so many options that every time I play I have a new, fun, and unique experience. The size of the gameworld and the number of vehicles and weapons are really what keep the player coming back, but the fluidity of the gameplay, the realistic and often amusing art, and the elaborate soundtrack are what make this game phenomenal. There are just so many layers of gameplay, that it takes a ridiculous amount of dedication and effort to even access it all. It will be further analyzed in the design section, but there are just so many things you can play with in this game. First of all there is simply the gameplay mechanic which is so much fun, the thrill of stealing a car and throwing the laws of our society out the window is just so appealing. Then, once the novelty of gameplay is starting to wear off, there is the long and high-quality narrative the game takes you through, and which simply introduces you to the massive gameworld and all the options you can later explore. Lastly there are all of the tangents and mini-games that branch out from everywhere, waiting to be discovered. For the OCD player, there are hundreds of hidden objects to be found. For the ADD player, there are tons of mini-games and careers that require finding and mastering. And everyone else can mix and match, choosing whatevery collectibles or games they want to pursue. GTA: San Andreas isn't simply a game, it is a virtual universe containing hundreds of small games, all perfectly placed in a realistic setting to keep the player excited and exploring. Just one more small step towards the Matrix.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:03:03 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2810&iddiary=5237https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2746 (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:02:13.)Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:22:39 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2746&iddiary=5159https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2351GAMEPLAY So by now its the 23 of Winter in my 2nd year, I've been playing a decent amount today. Winter is the dead month of the game, where you don't have to think about your crops and you can explore other adventures. Last winter I spent most of my time mining gems for money, but I decided that this year I want to take it easy. As usual, days begin with a checkup on my animals. I feed the chickens and take their eggs and then head to the barn to groom and milk the cows (and to groom and shear my two sheep as well). I've decided that I want to use this season to work on my standing in town and to expand my farm. My first task was to harvest enough lumber to expand my henhouse, I've been feeling like 4 chickens isn't enough and I want to take it up to the next level. So I spent the first week or so of winter harvesting all the wood I could find and eventually I had enough to upgrade my henhouse. As that was being built I spent most of my time fishing with my recently upgraded rod, and there were one or two days I headed to the mines. Mostly I'm taking it easy and planning for the planting months ahead. I know a big part of the Harvest Moon games is getting married and starting a family, and it is something that I am trying very hard to do. I've had fleeting romantic encounters with a few girls in the town and I'm starting to piece together the way the whole romance mechanic works. Pretty much you just gotta show up in the right place at the right time on the right day of the week to activate the proper cut scene, and all of a sudden your a step closer to marriage. After a few weeks of stalking the girl I was interested in with no progress I got frustrated and turned to a online FAQ for answers. Apparently my house was not suitably upgraded for these particular ladies, my kitchen was lacking a full set of appliances and my bed wasn't big enough. According to internet wisdom, one must own a full set of furniture to even begin to impress the ladies, so my new goals were clear. Become the must fiscally attractive man in town, and seeing as I was the only one in town with free will, Im guessing my chances are pretty good. New priorities in tow I've continued to toil on the farm, now with the intention of impressing the ladies. Wish me luck! DESIGN I've been spending a great deal of time trying to decide why this game is so incredible. The short answer is: the freedom given to the player. The long answer is thus: Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is a completely open-ended game. The game never ends, there are no defined objectives, the gameworld rules are rigidly defined by during gameplay the player can do whatever they want. This is a formula that could define an incredible game, but just because your game is open-ended it doesn't mean its incredible. Harvest Moon just does a lot of things right. I think that the main reason I keep coming back to this game is because all of my goals and objectives have been set and chosen by me, not some programmer in Japan, which makes them a lot more personal and important. A very important aspect of gameplay is how quickly you get tired. It doesn't take much more then two hours of hard work to make you exhausted for the day (and while there are remedies they are time-consuming). This means that even as you are working you are gauging how much work you can get done that day, as well as what you will have to do over the next few days. Once the player has worked this out, all of a sudden the game has objectives and forward momentum. It is really up to the player to keep the game moving forward. It is incredibly difficult to design a fun game that makes the player do a significant amount of the mental labor involved in keeping the game going, but the genius of the game is that it really makes you think like a farmer.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:30:07 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2351&iddiary=4626https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2351SUMMARY Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is the eighth incarnation of the incredible Harvest Moon series. The game is totally open ended with no objectives ever given other than to run a successful farm. Activities on the farm include planting and tending crops, raising and maintaining livestock, gathering resources (wood, precious minerals), and becoming accepted by the town, eventually marrying a local and raising a family. GAMEPLAY I recently got a Gameboy SP for my birthday and I invested in a few games I knew that would keep me busy. At the top of my list was Harvest Moon. I adore games of emergence where the player is in complete control, and along with Civilization and the Sims franchises, Harvest Moon is one of the shining examples of these games. Ever since I got the game about a week ago I've been farming hard, and at this point I am just finishing that Autumn harvest of my second year. Time is a very important factor in this game, and the year is separated into four seasons, each thirty days long. Gameplay is divided into days and there is a constantly ticking clock in the corner to help you orient yourself. Let me take you through an average day in Mineral Town. I wake up at 6:00 (unless I've been up late the night before, in which case I wake up at 8:00) and after briefly playing with my dog I head out to work the farm. First I check on the chickens, make sure they are all healthy, feed them, and collect their eggs. Next its off to barn, I check up on my cows and sheep, feed them, and then do any milking or shearing that needs to be done. After that its off to the fields. There are four main tasks to be done in the field; preparation for planting, planting, watering, and harvesting, and what has to be done depends on the state of my crops. At the beginning of the month I have to clear the debris of my field and till it with a hoe to prepare for planting. Then I have to go into town to buy seeds and plant them. Once seeds are already in the ground, most of my energy is spent watering. And by the end of the month, all of my energy is put into harvesting my crops before the weather changes. The amount of work I can do in each day is limited by how much energy I have. I'm not sure of the exact equation but as you do things you get tired, and if you work to hard and ignore the warning signs you will pass out and lose the rest of the day. You can regain your energy by relaxing in the hot springs or eating special food, but mostly the amount of work you can do is very finite and rigid. This isn't to say that you have to spend all your time working your field. This is just the routine, that after playing for hours, I have decided is the most efficient. If I were so inclined I could spend my days sitting on the beach fishing, harvesting lumber or precious minerals for cash, or in town developing my relationships. I love the freedom manifested in this game. There are practically no consequences for anything (an animal dying, working to hard, ignoring your crops or friends) other than a scolding, and all of the rewards come from dedication and hard work. Its just like real life without all of the scary and crazy stuff. I really enjoy being able to carry around a perfect personal dimension in my pocket that I can escape to at any time. Few games can really give you that sense of belonging and contentment that Harvest Moon does. At this point I'm off to finish harvesting my Autumn crops. When the snows come and I've had my fun, I'll be back to examine the design issues that make this game so phenomenal. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:28:24.)Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:20:41 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2351&iddiary=4494https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2129GAMEPLAY Another few hours of gameplay bring a few rewards and a very sore arm. I have yet to get significantly far into the game, because a lot of levels took a few tries for me to get through, but what I have done so far has been considerably enjoyable. All the levels continue to be pretty straightforward and can get almost frustrating as I search for that last hidden Elebit, but it is usually found quickly and the game moves on. The in-game puzzles are very simple and involve sticking objects into other objects the challenge comes from manipulating the objects with the wiimote and sorting through the scattered furniture to find what you need. The objectives are very linear but gameplay is very open ended due to the seemingly limitless possibilities of where to hunt for those freaking Elebits. I gave multiplayer a brief try, and it was practically the same as single player, just with another target onscreen. Having a second player takes up the hectic-level a notch or two, in the heat of the competition objects fly around more, and both players lose control. Its very fun to play but not all that challenging, the winner often depends on luck more than any sort of skill. I only managed to make it through one boss battle today, and it took me three or four tries. Some giant Elebit boss lady breaks through the ceiling of your home and spawns tons of invisible little elebits that need shooting, and to make matters more interesting you have a super powerful gun so furniture goes flying with the flick of the wrist. It might have been my lack of skill but I found the boss battle difficult and frustrating and not in the least beat fun compared to the normal levels. I mean I know thats what boss battles are supposed to be like, but this one was just a chore to get through. I guess thats a challenge of developing a game with very simple straightforward gameplay. Its hard to expand on the concept to make some sort of successful boss battle. DESIGN Lets start by talking about level design. The levels are very small but you continue to unlock new things in the same space as the game progresses. This is a model that Katamari Damacy used very successfully and Elebits does almost as good of a job. Most levels start out with one small room you need to hunt through and then slowly, as you collect elebits and build up your wattage, another room or two is unlocked. I think this is a great design choice because it emphasizes the small size of the elebits. From what I understand elebits are supposed to be small, and the fact that you are stuck in one tiny room turning over pieces of furniture one at a time gives the game a very unique feel, as you get the sense that you are somewhat trapped and surrounded by these little creatures. Having small levels also makes the player get to know the levels really well, which I find is a great way to make a game memorable. When a level stretches on forever you only remember a vague impression of it after you are done playing, but when you keep having to come back to the same play with different objectives, it really gets lodged in your mind, So heres what the player gets to do: point at the screen and hit a button when it sees an Elebit, pick up furniture/objects and move them around. This is a very limited scope of gameplay, but the designers have done a good job getting the most out of it. Compared to other games Elebits is simplistic and not very advanced, but taken by itself it does very well. Shooting objects gets a bit boring after a while, luckily Elebits keeps the player interested by throwing in quite a range of different elebits that need shooting, each with different properties and reactions to the player. Elebits has a fun gravity engine that the designers used to their fullest extent. Moving objects around is an integral part of the game because elebits tend to hide behind things that are lying around. Its always fun to cause mayhem, but as it turns out, it is often smarter to leave a level unsmashed, so elebits have nothing to hide behind. The other thing the physics engine is used for is to solve puzzles. As the game goes on, the player gets to use different appliances which spray elebits, but some puzzles require objects to be put in other objects to activate them. This is quite the challenge with the wiimote, but is refreshingly different aspect of gameplay which gives a welcome switch from pointing and shooting. At this point I don't feel like I can make a fully adequate analysis of game design, because I've only gotten through 1/4 of the game, but I figure its more of the same. Its a very simple but well executed game. They developers took what they were given (a wii with motion sensing technology etc.), figured out what it was good for, and made a game that does just that and pretty much only that. By keeping their standards low and not taking any unnecessary risks Konami put together a fun and well executed game. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:27:30.)Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:09:29 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2129&iddiary=4298https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2129SUMMARY Elebits is a first person shooter for the Wii. The object of the game is to capture small illusive creatures called Elebits who supposedly power the world, and who really enjoy hiding in household objects. The plot is pretty ridiculous and irrelevant, but essentially you are a kid who hates Elebits and you must tear your world apart looking for them and shooting them with your 'Capture Gun'. The game has an amusingly chaotic gravity engine, so you wind up throwing furniture around and totally trashing the levels in your hunt for Elebits. Its frantic and fun fps that takes full advantage of the Wii's control scheme. GAMEPLAY I had never heard of Elebits before about 24 hours ago, when I discovered it was an option for this gamelog assignment. I am always excited for a quirky, well-designed, japanese game, I'm always searching for the next Katamari Damacy (who isn't) and this game seems like it might be up to the title. I sat through the silly introduction movies and about half the tutorial (longer than I usually make it) before I lost interest and skipped ahead to start the first level. At first, as I only had to deal with a few Elebits I tried to be accurate and minimize my shooting, but I quickly learned that the secret is to shoot everything in sight and tear the rooms apart. I quickly thrashed through the first few levels with my roommates as spectators, and we soon found ourselves yelling at the Elebits and racing to find new drawers to rip open and shoot up. I can't wait to give multiplayer a try. At the fifth level or so the game started implementing rules to try and limit the amount of chaos and destruction I was causing. Apparently on the fifth level, if I broke more than 7 dishes I would lose. I could still trash the furniture, appliances, and everything unbreakable, but dishes were off limits. It made me look before I shot a little bit, which made me get into the game a bit more, so I enjoyed the added challenge. Later levels asked me to avoid making sound as well, and trying to keep my destruction quiet was an amusing and somewhat ironic challenge. As I sat and played the game I couldn't help but think of Katamari Damacy, although I was having trouble articulating why. The look and concept of the game is very similar; both games require you to tear apart a house full of random, amusing, and very blocky household objects. The way level design in both games is also very similar. In both games you get placed in a wide open level that you have full access too and as you achieve your goals (growing your katamari or acquiring elebits) you unlock new options in the same space that you could see all along but couldn't interact with. It gives the game a fun feel, you know what your next objectives are, and they sit there, mocking you, so once you complete your goals and move on there is a strong sense of satisfaction.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:54:10 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2129&iddiary=4080https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1665[Gameplay] So, I just beat the game, on co-op no less. Playing this game with another player was a bit of a different experience. Each player is relegated to one character, totally unsurprising, but somewhat frustrating. Seeing as my companion was new to the game and coming in on a final level (all you have to do is plug in a controller and hit the start button to start playing which is a nice feature) I found myself giving him a very brief tutorial and then bossing him around for the rest of the level, because I understood all of the puzzles and level solutions were intuitive for me. I think it would have been a different experience if we had started the game together and played straight through on co-op, but I found playing with another player to be a bit of an impediment in the game, and our social interactions weren't terribly enjoyable for either of us. Although as began to get the hang of it the level of enjoyment increased. I realize now that one of the downfalls of this game is that it is trying to be both a two player game and single player game at the same time. Therefore both gametypes suffer. In singleplayer the AI of your non-active character is totally useless which I feel like is the developers way of hinting that I should be playing with a friend. Yet with two players a lot of game time is spent sitting around while your friend completes a puzzle so you can continue, and while technically you are working together to complete a level it feels like you are just taking turns. As we played we fell into many of the same pitfalls that I had experienced in singleplayer, confusing level design, puzzles that were vague about their goals, and frustrating camera angles (which I'm realizing I neglected to mention in the first post). Overall it was a mediocre multiplayer experience, with a few highs and exciting parts, but mostly similar gameplay to the singleplayer game. [Design] [+] First of all the overall game design is good. The best part of the game is how seamlessly intigrated and amusing the cutscenes are. [+] One decision the developers made was to do away with finite lives and time. Players can die as many times as they want with no consequence. The game is made for completists, you are rewarded if you get through a level quickly, collect all the special objects, and don't die, but if you fail to do any of these things there are no consequences. I disagree with this choice and I found myself getting lazy and goofing off, jumping off of levels for fun, etc. because I knew I couldn't get a perfect score on the first run through, so why bother trying. I understand the decision to get rid of lives, it is clearly to lower the learning curve and the ease of play, but I have a hard time getting into a game with no visible consequences. [+] Most of the mini-games were enjoyable but only because of the setup, art, and sound, not because of the gameplay. Most of the mini-games were meant to be satirical, but when we focus only on the gameplay they come across as hackneyed clones. I feel like more effort could have gone into getting timings right and tweaking gameplay to make it more enjoyable. [+] I thought that the different characters in the game were well balanced but different enough that I would look forward to the change of pace. When playing with Homer and Bart the game is pretty much a 3rd person brawler, but when playing with Lisa and Marge it feels far more like a puzzle game. I think that the developers did a good job making the characters unique and there's nothing I can think of that would have improved that experience. [+] There was practically no change in difficulty the entire way through the game. The first level was just as difficult as the last level (although the last level was significantly longer). I didn't feel like the skills and abilities I'd picked up as I played the game were put to good use and I felt ripped off. The mini-games even got easier as the game went on; the final boss battle was a really bad rythm-game played with the analog pad. It was tedious and frustrating, I would have hoped the game went out on a better note. (Also, it was probably a glitch but none of the enemies on the last level even fought back, but I should probably go back and see if it happens again)Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:20:12 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1665&iddiary=3443