Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=545https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3084Entry #2 GAMEPLAY: Devil may Cry 4 is a very fun game to play because of its combat and stylish ranking systems. Whenever you hack and slash at an enemy, you are given stylish points for the battles, which helps your overall ranking for the level. In order to get a high stylish ranking you need to use a variety of moves; if you use the same move over and over your stylish rating will go up at a very slow rate. This gives the player incentive to try new moves and keep combat from becoming dull by using the same move over and over again. The combat itself is challenging enough to keep the player interested and the graphics during combat are dazzling to watch. Another cool thing about Devil May Cry 4 is its ability buying system. If you beat a level in a short amount of time, collect a lot of orbs and get a high Stylish ranking for a particular level you obtain a large amount of skill points. These skill points can be spent at the beginning of each level and sometimes within the level through special shrines. You spend the points on new moves for your sword, charge ups for your gun, grappling for your demon arm and other movement abilities such as dodging double jumping or enemy hopping. DESIGN: What makes Devil May Cry innovative is the ranking elements. A long term goal in the game is to get the highest ranking possible and performing the levels to the best of your ability. On the short term the game has stylish ranking within the level to maintain the players interest and keep the game innovative. All in all players strive to accomplish these goals not just for bragging rights but because it also acts as a reward of facility by allowing you to choose more abilities the better you perform. Although this idea of performing well to gain access to skills that help you perform even better is not a unique quality of Devil May Cry 4, it does this in a very smooth and captivating way. The level design for Devil May Cry 4 make the game a lot of fun. First of all the graphics look great even when a lot of things on screen are in motion, making for good eye candy. The layout of the levels is linear but revolves around solving puzzles, so it doesn’t allow you to get too bored too fast. All the levels I’ve played have a good amount of enemies and the enemies are well placed in the level to keep the game challenging and interesting. The bosses at the end of some of the levels are practically levels within themselves because they have so many different moves and ways to counter attack that it becomes a matter of solving the puzzle. The tone of each level is mysterious and creepy which suits the game’s themes very well.Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:20:12 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3084&iddiary=5746https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3084Entry #1 SUMMARY: Devil May Cry 4 is a hack and slash adventure game in which you play as Nero, a young demon slayer unraveling the mysterious within a corrupt religious community. The object of the game is to kill all the demons and save the world. GAMEPLAY: I love the Devil May cry series, so I had high hopes when I bought it. The 40 minute required installation on the Playstation 3 seemed a little unnecessary, but it gave the background story during the installation which was convenient. The intro cinematic set up a good tone for the game as Nero defies physics slashing through demon minions making his way to the church while his female friend is singing surprisingly enjoyable opera. The new main character Nero is an oblivious young badass and is pretty likeable aside from some of his cliché dialogue. All in all I would say that the game made me feel good and successfully catered to my high hopes. So far the storyline is pretty interesting. Right from the get go you know there is something fishy going on with the church because Dante, the main character in Prior Devil May Cry games, is attacking the church and assassinates the high priest. Oblivious as your character Nero is, he goes into battle with Dante and you finally gain control of your character. This initiates the first level which deserves referencing because its probably one of the coolest tutorial levels I have ever played in a game. During the level, you spend time learning the different combos while fighting your old Devil May Cry main character, which is pretty unique. In the midst of this tutorial there are more cutscenes revealing your character Nero’s true power, his demon fist. Normally Devil May Cry is just swords and guns but Devil May Cry 4 implements a new grab attack which very well may be the coolest action your character can perform.Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:19:37 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3084&iddiary=5745https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2829Entry #2 GAMEPLAY: The combat mechanics have been radically redone in FFXII. Instead of choosing actions for each character each turn, FFXII implements the gambit system, which allows you to predetermine the priority of abilities each of your characters uses in combat. If you want Vaan to use cure when an ally reaches 50% health but you want him to attack in any other case, then you literally place the “heal ally 50%” gambit on top of the “attack enemy” gambit. The system is useful for allowing your party to free roam as they fight as well as making combat much faster paced. However, I think the main flaw in the gambit system is that it lowers the players interactivity. I could literally move into combat, go make a sandwich, come back, and my gambits would have done all the work for me. I won’t minimize the system so much to say that you could do this for any battle, boss battles tend to require you to change some gambits around and perhaps use some clutch items whose gambits you never bothered to purchase (you have to buy or randomly find your gambits). DESIGN: Final Fantasy XXII tries to be innovative by having a detailed storyline but fails to entice the player into the fantasy world. The story itself is shallow and cliché, you play as the fool of the game who by chance gets involved with the fate of his hometown. This storyline has been done in many other RPGs and even in other Final Fantasy titles, but FFXII just doesn’t deliver the drama well enough. The way FFXII keeps the player interested in the game is by having a wide range of abilities to choose from. The game has a very well mapped ability tree that you can manipulate in any way you want with each character. The abilities you can get are very interesting and worth playing the game longer to unlock, but the fact that the characters aren’t unique means that there is no benefit for going a certain direction in the ability tree. This is a god example of how if you don’t limit the player then they may lose interest in the game.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:36:50 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2829&iddiary=5276https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2829Entry #1 SUMMARY: In Final Fantasy XII you play as Vaan, a spirited young citizen of the kingdom of Dalmasca, who finds himself apart of a quest to restore peace to his city during troubled times. GAMEPLAY: When I first started playing Final Fantasy XII I was excited because of the reputation of the Final Fantasy titles. By the time I got through the tutorial portion of the game, it had me thinking, “Ok, now when is the Midgar bomb going to go off? When is Kefka going to poison the river? Is the city going to be consumed by Sin?” I was waiting for the ultimate drama found so commonly in prior Final Fantasy games. I’ve played 90% of the game so far and despite there being beautiful cut scenes and spoken dialogue, these story-telling mechanics are wasted on an empty storyline. At this point I don’t care to end the game, because the game hasn’t yet begun. FFXII offers virtually no playable characters that you can be emotionally attached too. Furthermore, there are only 6 characters to choose from, which would have been fine if they were deep characters that the player could connect with like in FFX but FFXII characters are just plain flat. Also, on a more mechanical note, the characters aren’t very unique. All characters can choose from the same map of abilities and none of them have character specific abilities.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:36:27 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2829&iddiary=5275https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2462Entry #2 GAMEPLAY: The storyline in Diablo II has been very compelling. Learning about Diablo, his demonic brothers, and their wrath on the different villages in each act keeps me wanting to unravel the story further. It also motivates me to progress through the quests and exploration to have a showdown with bosses such as Mephisto, Diablo’s brother, because they’ve caused you and the NPCs so much grief throughout the quests. Diablo II’s main flaw is that the gameplay gets a little repetitive. I find myself fighting the same monsters in different colors, only to obtain more items to destroy more monsters. It would be better if there were something else to do in the game, such as making your own weapons and spells, having to gather items for those creations. Regardless, Diablo II’s simplicity adds to a very smooth game flow which is enough to keep any player interested enough to beat the game at least once. DESIGN: Diablo II doesn’t have a copious amount of complexity in its design, but what it does it does very well. The customization of your character’s stats and skills keep the game innovative enough to want to progress through your skill tree and unlock new abilities. The storyline was designed to get the player attached to the gameworld and it does a good job of that making you seem like humanities only hope. The levels in Diablo are well designed; the landscape can be very detailed at times and there tends to be just enough monsters laid out so that you aren’t overburdened but you can always find a fight. Every level was made linear so that it’s almost impossible to get lost or not know where a quest is. Although this is nice for progression it certainly takes away from the free will of the player. I found the multiplayer to be especially well designed. You can always find a game that satisfies your quest needs, creating an even faster pace than the single player mode. It adds a little diversity to the gameplay because now that you know you will be playing with other players, you can customize your character in ways that will benefit an entire party. Multiplayer keeps the game compelling and innovative as well as creating a way to interact socially with other people.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:04:05 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2462&iddiary=4658https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2462Entry #1 SUMMARY: In Diablo II you choose one of five distinct characters to fight the dark forces of Diablo. You complete quests for townsfolk while customizing your characters fighting style and unraveling the storyline Act by Act. GAMEPLAY: From the get go, playing Diablo II made me feel important. The intro sequence involving Diablo’s dark minions burning down then tavern made the situation seem dire. Afterwards, when you take control of your character inside the rogue encampment, a man tells you that there has been a lot of trouble near town and seems relieved that you are willing to lend a helping hand. Everyone in the town has a similar reaction to your presence, hoping very much that you can drive away the demons that have infested the surrounding lands. This narrative made me feel like defeating all the monsters in the “Den of Evil” and putting a corrupted rouge sister to rest was a truly significant act. Each quest gave me a great sense of accomplishment. The general gameplay of the game is an addictive action based rpg. You start of with just a weapon and some basic “stats” and level up by smashing demons until your experience bar is full. This sounds pretty generic for an rpg, but I like the way Diablo II implements it because it is especially fast paced; there is really no downtime unless you want to sell some of your items in town. This makes leveling up fast and easy allowing for a wide variety of character customization early in the game. Every character type has “stats” and “skill trees” to chose from, in my characters case (the sorceress) there was fire, cold, and lightning trees. Skills within each tree become available as you level up and most new skills require a lower level skill to acquire, so you have to spend your skill points strategically because you only get one per level. You also get 5 stat points every level, which you can spend, on strength dexterity vitality or energy. These stats pretty much dictate how well your character performs his or her skills. If you want to use a lot of elemental spells you need a good amount of energy to do so, if you want to spin around with a weapon in hand, you’re going to need a lot of strength for damage, energy for usability and dexterity for accuracy. The strategic nature behind placing these stat points and skill points makes for a fun and diverse gameplay experience.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:03:36 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2462&iddiary=4657https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2005Gameplay: Having played the game for another 2 hours I should probably mention the best part about the game -- the Colossi. After admiring the beauty of the landscape, I had high expectations as I followed the light of my sword to the first colossus. After all, the only characters in the game so far are a dead maiden, the hero, and his horse. As I climbed the cliff leading to the first colossus and triggered the cinematic, I was amazed at how perfect the colossus fit into the game. In fact all the colossi I've seen so far are as beautiful and vast as the gameworld. The colossi are so enormous that calling them giants belittles them. I really liked their ancient features and their slow moving mannerisms; I felt it added to the mystical tone of the game. In addition to their aesthetics, the challenge of taking down a colossus makes Shadow of the Colossus worthy of the greatest hits title. When fighting a colossus, you can only really damage them by hitting them in their vital points which can be reveled by the light reflecting off of your sword. After finding out where these points are on the colossus, getting to those points can be quite an obstacle. All the colossi I have fought so far have had some sort of hairy area that you can climb on to in order to reach the vital points. Whether it be stabbing one's calf in order to bring it to the ground or standing on top of your horse and jumping off onto one's tail, the game requires a significant amount of puzzle solving thought to climb the colossi. This puzzle aspect plus the limited amount of grip stamina you have while grabbing makes for an extremely fun and challenging boss fight. Taking down a colossus is very fulfilling and I find myself anxious to see the next colossus the game has in sore for me. Design: Shadow of the Colossus is surprisingly innovative for a game with a minimal storyline and only 16 enemies. The fact that the designers made the colossi so challenging and unique really adds to the fulfillment of bringing one down, keeping the game innovative. Each boss fight is practically a level in itself, a very unique quality that keeps the player glued to game. If visuals alone could keep a game innovative, Shadow of the Colossus would do it, for a ps2 game he environment is very enticing. I felt that the challenges and flow implemented in the game made it good. The puzzle aspect of figuring out how to climb the colossus varies from boss to boss. The time limit challenge of the boss fights from the limited grip is another challenge that makes the game more complex. Until I played this game I didn't realize how great it is for a video game to have so little gameplay breaks. It's hard to remember that there is a world outside of Shadows of the Colossus because of the lack of loading screens. The tone of the gameworld is mystical, lonely, and epic. The epic tone is created by the enormous size of the landscape and colossi as well as their ancient features. Shadow of the Colossus relies on emptiness in the world as a way to instill a lonely and mystical tone. The spiritual portion of the game involving the gods and a quest to bring a maiden back to life start the game off to a very mystical start. I expect the end of the game to be equally as epic and mystical but, in hopes that you can actually bring the maiden back to life, less lonely. Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:25:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2005&iddiary=4145https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2005Summary: In Shadow of the Colossus you take control of a sword-wielding hero asking the gods to bring a young maiden back from the dead. In order to bring her soul back, the gods ask the hero to destroy all of the colossi in the world. As the hero you must seek out these colossi and bring them down one by one. Gameplay: The game starts out giving you a very vague storyline and narrative. We know that our hero wields a special blade, lives in a vast empty land, and is trying to save a girl. When you gain control of the hero, you are told to follow the light of you sword to find the colossus you need to defeat, a cool way to find your way around without the generic mini-map dot. The narrative after the startup is minimal. After you kill a colossus the gods tell you to defeat the next colossus so on and so forth, but no deeper insight of the story is revealed. This vague explanation of the story sets a mysterious tone for the game. So if it's not the storyline that keeps the player hooked on the game, what is it? The environment. Shadow of the Colossus has the one of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen in a video game. The gameworld is enormous and you are not limited to where you can go even at the earliest part of the game. when I first started playing I found myself scaling the world across mile long bridges and gasping at the sight of a Niagara Falls type scene. There are no loading screens or pauses throughout the world until you defeat a colossus when it bring you back to your starting location. The lack of load screens and the ability to see into far distances make for a great game flow. (This entry has been edited1 time. It was last edited on Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:56:36.)Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:49:00 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2005&iddiary=3928https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1708Entry #1 Summary: Kirby's Dreamland 3 is a side-scrolling adventure game in which you play as Kirby, a round pink ball with a seemingly endless appetite. Kirby has taken on the task of saving his star-shaped planet from the evil doings of King Dedede and his minions. Kirby eats his enemies, gaining their powers and using them to progress through each level. Gameplay: Initially, Kirby's Dreamland 3 felt like a simple game that didn't use its fun qualities to their fullest potential. Running through each level eating different enemies and seeing what powers you could get was fun but after completing the first 6 levels, the game leaves you wanting something more. One of the biggest problems I found with the first few levels was that you don't actually need to eat your enemies to beat the level. There were some items such as one ups and life replenishments hidden behind blocks that could only be reached using certain powers, but these items are usually out of the way to obtain and don't enhance the gameplay in any way. What makes Kirby's Dreamland fun is the variety in which Kirby can destroy his enemies. Adding to this variety, Kirby's Dreamland 3 offers the help of Kirby's animal companions in each level. Different animals help Kirby do different things, such as fly, swim, or wall-jump as well as offer different ways to attack Kirby's foes. So far none of these animals have been necessary to complete a level, making them a fun but unnecessary addition to the game. Perhaps my least favorite of Kirby's companions is Gooey, the blue blob that Kirby can summon at the cost of some health. When gooey is summoned he attacks enemies at his own will often destroying foes whose powers you wish to devour. Gooey comes off as more of a disadvantage than a helping hand. Kirby is an instantly lovable character who's unique attributes keep the player interested in the game. Gooey aside, Kirby's companion characters are very cute and fun to have with you on your adventure. The enemy characters get a little repetitive, but the boss characters like the well-known "Whispy" tree are unique and fun to fight Entry #2 Gameplay: After playing the game for another 45 minutes, the storyline has yet to play a significant role on how the game develops. After beating an entire world Kirby has still not gained any information about the giant dark being that attacked his planet. The enemies Kirby has encountered so far seem unrelated to the main conflict of the story. The later levels don't seem to get any more challenging and you still don't need to have any powers to complete the levels. However, I have found that there are side quests to be completed in every level that do require you to obtain items only accessible by having specific powers. I have yet to find out the advantage to completing any of these side quests. While playing he game, a few people who were in the same room as me overheard the game's soundtrack playing and decided that I needed to play with the volume off. It's no surprise that you never saw the Kirby's Dreamland 3 soundtrack on shelves at your local department store. The music in the game is consistently annoying in each level, although it does compliment the dreamlike theme of the game. Design: Kirby’s Dreamland 3 has its pros and cons. The dreamlike setting makes the game creative and fun to look at while going traveling through different levels. Kirby’s chameleon-like qualities serve as a good premise for a fighting style and it’s exciting to see what new powers Kirby can digest. The various enemies that Kirby can eat keep the player wanting to progress through each world in search of new enemy powers. However, because the innovation of the game is so largely based on Kirby’s ability to absorb new powers, the game lacks variation on a level-by-level standpoint. There are at least 20 levels, but only 8 powers that Kirby can mimic. Although the enemies change slightly from level to level, they still give Kirby the same powers, some no powers at all. The biggest problem with Kirby’s Dreamland 3 is that the goal of the game has little do with what makes the game innovative. The goal of the game is to beat each level, get to the boss, and move on to the next world, but the fact that you don’t need powers to do this makes the game less fun. The game fails to use its fun aspects to their fullest potential but creates a path for newer Kirby titles to further emphasize these aspects.Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:19:55 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1708&iddiary=3653