Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=552https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3065GAMEPLAY: I first bought 2006 FIFA during the actual World Cup in 2006 and it really added to the gameplay experience. The release of the game couldn’t have be timed better, because as I was watching the World Cup with my friends over the summer, after the real games were finished we could replay and recreate the games on the ps2. After Italy unfortunately beat France in the real World Cup, we recreated the game multiple times, turned fouls off and each time injured Marco Materazzi as much as possible for being a ass to Zinedine Zidane in the actual game. I’m still bitter about that game. Plain and simple game is much more fun when you play with other people. There are multiple modes of play, and you can choose to play with or against your friends. Most of the time we just play exhibition games against one another with our favorite international team and whoever wins gets bragging rights till they eventually lose. Or you can choose to play together and play through the entire world cup as your chosen team. All the way from qualifying, to the group stage, to the final 16, to the quarterfinals, through the semi finals, and then to the big show. It is a long process but you can save and come back to it at another time. One mode features 40 classic moments in world cup history that you can play through, either experiencing history or recreating it. This is pretty fun but you have to do it using today’s teams and players instead of the players from the actual classic moment. This kind of detracts the feeling that you’re in the past but its still pretty fun. The coolest aspect is the shootout mode. Its really exciting and takes some skill and lots of luck. As a shooter you just pick a corner and decide how hard you hit it, and as a goalie you just have to pick which direction you want to jump. The mode by itself is really fun but I really adds to the gameplay when it happens in one of the actual games. It gets really intense and allows for some exciting moments. DESIGN: One of the cool features of FIFA is the rosters and star players. Higher ranked teams will generally have a better scoring percentage and are faster than lower ranked teams. Then there are the superstars on the team marked by a little star that highlights them when you play as them. These players will have some aspect of their game that is much better than normal players. For example Christiano Ronaldo has amazing dribbling skills that allow him to hold on to the ball better, there’s Thierre Henry who has a laser fast shot, and Ronaldinho who is just all around good at everything. The star players add to more excitement in the game and can change the balance in a game. Another cool feature is the juking and moves you can perform with players. You can do fakes, spins, fast dribbling and more to confuse and get past your opponent. The star players will be better at this and less likely to lose the ball performing these cool moves. There is also some great replay animations of plays during the game that let you see the action from lots of directions. Its fun after you score to see a replay of it 5 times and shove it in your opponents face. The commentary in the game is also really accurate and enjoy able. Commentators Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend call the game and have some interesting things to say. I sometimes quote their catchphrases in everyday life. “clyde tyldesley and andy grant here. They’re calling this a friendly match..ill believe it when I see it.” 2006 FIFA World Cup is a solid soccer game that has fluid gameplay, multiple difficulties and game modes and lots of teams to choose from. It’s a great game. Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:37:07 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3065&iddiary=5756https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3065SUMMARY: 2006 FIFA World Cup is a soccer game that is exclusively based during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It features 127 International teams that you can play as and 12 of the stadiums actually used in the World Cup. Available to play at various difficulties and different game modes, FIFA is a fun and exciting soccer game. GAMEPLAY: FIFA has a very solid gameplay and the action flows really well. The player speed in easy and normal difficulty mode is sped up a little faster than realistic movement but this leads to faster and more exciting gameplay, since it doesn’t take forever to get up field. There are 3 main game play modes, semi pro being the normal difficulty and world class the harder. As the difficulty setting rises, your players movement slows down a little bit and seems as though your opponents are much faster. The 2 main aspects of gameplay are pretty solid. The player passes are, for the most part, very accurate easy to execute by just pointing with the control stick toward your intended target and press the pass button. The shooting is a little shaky but I suppose is somewhat realistic. You have a power meter for both passes and shooting and the more power you use the farther it goes but the accuracy will be significantly suffering. You can shoot from too far away either because if you shoot it too soft the goalie will make an easy save, and if you shoot too hard it will sail far above the net. Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:36:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=3065&iddiary=5755https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2820GAMEPLAY: Another cool feature of Wii Sports is being able to play as your customizable Mii’s, an avatar you can create of yourself or others using certain pre-made physical features. And although there is a limited amount of physical features you can use to create the Mii’s, they can still be pretty recognizable to the real person. After playing as our own Mii’s we created celebrity Mii’s which was a really fun way to keep the game exciting. We created a David Letterman, Michael Jackson, the entire cast of Arrested Development, and even had a boxing match with the Mii versions of Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. There are endless things you can do in Wii Sports to keep yourself and your friends entertained. There is also a Wii Fitness Test that according to how well you do in some randomly selected sports task; it will give you an estimate of your fitness level in the form of an age. Ages range from the 80’s, if you score terribly in all the tasks, to the teens if you do well in everything. The thing is you can only take the test every 24 hours, so you have time to practice before you do it again. I scored around a 60 my first time through because some yelling jerks kept messing me up. But the next day, after playing the whole night I scored a 32, which was considerably better. This is a cool feature that doesn’t take much time to complete and will keep people coming back to play. DESIGN: This is a really well designed game that is fun for everyone and has lots of replay value. It doesn’t need fancy graphics that are ultra realistic for it to be fun, in fact the Mii’s you play as keep the game fun and lighthearted. The Mii’s are very simplistic and don’t have any appendages, and the games backgrounds are simplistic keeping your focus on the gameplay. The sports themselves are very fun to play because you have to mimic their actual movements with the Wiimotes. This is sometimes harder than it seems because slight alterations in your movements can lead to disastrous results in the game. For instance in golfing a steady follow through will put the ball right down the middle but any jerking around will having you slicing it in the rough. This sensitivity of the controllers can sometimes be frustrating, especially when the games on the line and you have 2 outs, bases loaded and you completely wiff on what you are sure would have been a homerun. But other than that this game is really well made and extremely fun to play.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:15:35 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2820&iddiary=5251https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2820SUMMARY: Wii Sports is a multiplayer sports game that you get when you buy a Wii console. Up to 4 people can play by using the Wiimotes to mimic the actions of the 5 different sports in the game including, tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing, and golf. GAMEPLAY: My friend got a Wii for Christmas and despite all the other titles that are out for the console, Wii Sports is the one we still play the most. It’s a fun game for any age or videogame skill level. There are 5 sports in the game including tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing, and golf. My favorite is probably golf just because I dominate my friends when we play it. For this particular session 4 of us were playing the multiplayer mode where, each person takes a turn doing a certain task per sport, and whoever cumulative does the best wins. This is especially fun due to the fact we all have our strengths and weaknesses at the certain sports. While I’m good at Golf, I’m terrible at boxing compared to my friend, so the competition is always pretty close and exciting. Something we always do is talk a bunch of smack to each other to throw everyone off their game. Of course smack talking is applicable in pretty much all multiplayer videogames, with the Wii’s physical aspect to play a well timed shout or insult during someone’s turn in bowling can result in a hilarious gutterball.Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:14:59 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2820&iddiary=5250https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2478GAMEPLAY: Me and my 3 other roommates created a band and have been playing for the past couple of days. I’ve stuck mostly with the guitar because I’m used to it but I have branched out. The drums have 4 colored pads and a bass pedal. Compared to the other instruments in the game the drums definitely that the most skill, coordination, and rhythm. Unfortunately I have no rhythm so when I was trying to hit the pads and the bass pedal at the designated times I would only be able to hit one or the other. One of my friends who used to actually played drums was considerably better and was playing expert songs by the end of the night. The microphone is also pretty cool. Similar to karaoke games, the microphone measures the pitch of your voice, which is shown as a horizontal bar at the top of the screen. The lyrics of the songs are scrolled past and you have to match the pitch of the song, and a small arrow show how much higher or lower you are compared to the desired pitch. Singing was fun for songs you know the lyrics to but a little more of a challenge for ones you’ve never heard before. On easier modes you can pass by just humming the right tune when you don’t know the lyrics. DESIGN: The game while basically the same as Guitar Hero, offers some cool features that make it unique and still fun to play. Rock Band has “Overdrive” the equivalent to Guitar Hero’s “Star Power”, which is a meter that fills up when you successfully hit special notes. Once the meter fills up you can tilt the guitar up to, or in the drums case do a small solo and hit a final note correctly to unleash the overdrive and get a score booster for a limited amount of time. And for the microphone you just have you make noise when the vocal bar turns yellow. And if everyone saves up there overdrive you can release it all at once to get a huge score multiplier. Another cool aspect were the stars you collect throughout the game. In each location around the globe there are 3-4 venues where you can play your songs and depending on how well you play you earn a certain amount of stars. When you get enough stars you unlock new locations around the globe and various things you need for a tour like roadies and a private jet. It is a cool feature that makes you want to keep doing better so you can get cooler and cooler things. Rock Band is a game that has a lot of replay value with the large amount of songs and downloadable content in the future. It’s a great social game and always more fun when playing with other people.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:41:34 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2478&iddiary=4729https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2478SUMMARY: Rock Band is a musical multiplayer game in which up to 4 players can use controllers modeled after instruments, including the guitar, bass, drums, and microphone in order to simulate playing in a rock band. The player must hit scrolling notes by simultaneously hitting the corresponding colored button on the instrument. There 58 playable songs in the game and downloadable content will be available in the future to add more songs. Throughout the game you try to obtain multiple stars by playing songs well in many venues across the globe, getting new fans, and making money, all in order to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. GAMEPLAY: Rock Band is essentially the same game as Guitar Hero…just bigger, and way better. It is made by Harmonix, the original creators of Guitar Hero, and has the same general story and gameplay. You use your instrument to hit notes that scroll down on the screen, except in Rock Band instead of just guitars there is a 4-padded drum set and a microphone as well. You start the game as a upstart band playing gigs in smaller venues eventually working your way up to stadiums and reaching eternally rock glory. One cool aspect in the game is the ability to create your own band member. You can choose the face, body type, and wardrobe of your character, and as you get more famous and get more money you can buy cooler clothes and cooler instruments to make your character the ultimate rock star.Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:41:06 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2478&iddiary=4728https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2081GAMEPLAY: After playing through three of the temples as child Link, Princess Zelda transports you 7 years in the future and gives you the magical ocarina. At this part of the game you change into adult Link, who is bigger and has the ability to use much better equipment. And with your new magical ocarina you can transport yourself back to your childhood, to various spots around Hyrule, change from day to night, and from sunny to rainy. This gives an interesting aspect to the game by giving you the ability to control your environment and give you multiple options of how you travel through the world. I really like being able to move freely throughout Hyrule without being committed to any one thing. There are numerous mini games for you to explore aside from the main temples in the game. And the temples are very fun to go through. There are lots of puzzles to figure out and enemies to kill, and interesting boss battles. You could spend a lot of time going through the game and trying to find everything hidden in the detailed world. The game is really fun and kept me entertained for hours with the various things you can do in Hyrule. DESIGN: This is one of the most addicting and immersive games I’ve ever played. It achieves this through its open world format and the detail crammed into every part of game. I really like the third person perspective because it gives you the ability to see all around yourself and make you more aware of where your enemies are. This is also helped by the targeting system, which makes killing your enemies much easier and more convenient, especially in the games many temples. The Temples are really well design, giving you multiple puzzles to figure out and numerous levels to the temple, making it more expansive. In one temple you actually have move through the different levels by changing the water level. And after each temple you are given more health points in the shape of hearts. You also get different weapons throughout the game adding to your arsenal. These upgrades give you incentive to keep playing and to keep improving yourself. The look of the game is beautiful, with large landscapes and semi realistic character models that always keep your eyes entertained. There is so much to do in the game it would take 10 + plus hours to get through everything. Ocarina of Time is entertaining, exciting and really fun to play. Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:30:34 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2081&iddiary=4329https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2081SUMMARY: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a 3D Action/Adventure game for the Nintendo 64. In the game you follow Link, a quiet young boy from the Kokiri Forest, who has set out on a quest to defeat the evil Ganondorf. Equipped with multiple weapons and a magical Ocarina, Link travels to the far corners of the land of Hyrule to stop the evils Ganondorf has unleashed upon the land. The game, released in 1998, features a third person perspective on the controls, which at the time was very innovative for video games. It also has an open world for the player to explore, and a cool targeting system for combat. GAMEPLAY: You start the game in Kokiri Village as you are awoken by the fairy Navi, your companion throughout the story, who says you must talk to the Great Deku Tree. Before I talked the Deku Tree I ran around exploring the village, reacquainting myself to the games controls. The game is in the third person perspective yet in a 3D environment, which was completely amazing for its time since people were all used to 2D environments and side-scrolling type games. Being able to run around a 3D environment is in itself a very fun thing to do and in the game you can do as much of it as you like, because unlike the linear games of the past, Ocarina of Time has a completely open world for you to explore in. The game also features a unique targeting system introduced to you in the village called “Z targeting”. By pressing the Z button on the controller, the camera automatically locks its focus onto the nearest target, allowing you maneuver around without losing sight of the target. This comes in very handy when faced with multiple targets or just one very speedy enemy. Another wonderful part of the game is just the sheer amount of detail included in it. You are able to communicate with all the people in the game and there are numerous cut scenes to expand upon the story, which is one of the best in videogame history.Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:53:04 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=2081&iddiary=4020https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1719GAMEPLAY: After playing the campaign mode for a while I switched to the multiplayer mode on Xbox live. There are a variety of modes to play in, but I chose to play the normal team deathmatch. The teams are limited to 4 per side, which at first seemed a bit small but after playing multiple games, it is an adequate number for the size of the maps. Getting cover in multiplayer is even more essential in multiplayer as the people you play against will waste no time taking advantage of you being in the open. This definitely gives an advantage to teams that can communicate with one another and provide cover fire and out flank the other team. Still with all the different kind of weapons and chainsaws the outcome of the match is always unpredictable. And the good part about having only 4 people per team is that if you die early on you only have to wait for 3 other people to die till the next round. DESIGN: This is without a doubt one of the best action shooter video games I’ve ever played. The cover system that is essential to the game is very intuitive to use. By pressing the “A” button near a wall or barrier the character will press itself up against it. Pointing the movement joystick one way and pressing “A” again will make the character swap to another nearby piece of cover, and just pressing “A” will take the character off the wall. There is also a sprint your character can go into by holding down the “A” button. This feature starts a tunnel vision that while enabling you to run faster limits your maneuverability and vision. The only problem with all this is that all the features rely on the “A” button. While it may be simple to remember, I often found myself sticking to a wall when I wanted to sprint around a corner, or swapping to another wall when I wanted to get off the wall and run forward. The game also has a cool active reloading feature that rewards your accuracy. When you want to reload you just have to press the right clicker a line will move along a bar and depend on when you stop the bar again you will be rewarded with a damage bonus for your next couple of shots or a jammed gun. Despite the games short campaign, the multiplayer more than makes up for it, and is sure to be the games main appeal to most players.Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:55:48 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1719&iddiary=3555https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1719SUMMARY: Gears of War is an innovative third person shooter for the Xbox 360. In the game you follow Marcus Fenix, and his squad of uber macho "Gears" who are out to destroy the Locust, an alien army that is set on ending the human race. The game includes an exciting but brief campaign mode, and multiplayer on Xbox live that is sure to keep people playing long after they beat the campaign. GAMEPLAY: I played this game briefly a couple of months ago when I visited home. I have since played it and it is as amazing if not more so than I can remember. First off, the graphics in this game are absolutely beautiful in depicting the gritty landscapes and grotesque antagonists you encounter throughout the game. But good graphics don’t make games great, good gameplay does, and thankfully this game had both. As Marcus Fenix, a hulking, foulmouthed soldier, you command a squad of equally huge and foulmouthed soldiers that are on a mission to find the center of the underground menace, the Locust, and destroy them. And destroy the Locust you do. The game is gloriously gory, as each bullet that hits your enemy, rewards you with a burst of blood. The most satisfying of method of carnage is definitely the chainsaw bayonet, which is attached to the standard assault rifle in the game. With the chainsaw revving, all you do is run up to your enemy, connect saw to flesh and watch as you shred your enemy in half with a spray of blood that splatters all over the screen. One of the essential parts of the game is the cover system. This isn’t a run and gun game where you jump around shooting anything in sight. If you don’t find cover in this game you won’t last very long. Fortunately there are copious amounts of concrete blocks and crumbling buildings to hide behind. The hide and shoot aspect of the game is a different from most shooters but this works perfectly and makes combat feel much more intense. The story is simple and pretty linear which may be a downside for some, but for a shoot ‘em up game like this I could care less about story. The characters don’t have a whole lot of depth to them aside from the occasional witty remark and Marcus’ history is briefly touched upon but again, the story isn’t the driving aspect of this game.Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:55:21 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=1719&iddiary=3554