penryn's GameLog

Weird Worlds (PC) - Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:26:51

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:26:51 CST

GAMEPLAY My second hour of gameplay was very similar to my first, except I didn't die as much. In my first hour, I entered into combat when I was way too weak and flew wee bit close for comfort (and, you know, life) to black holes. I also had my first *really* kick-ass mission: got the hyperdrive (so I could jump quickly from star to star), got all the allies, got all the best weapons. Yeah, I basically beat that star map into submission! Boo yah! Even more than the first hour, I could see where this game could get real repetitive, real quick. New maps each time helps, and I discovered this neat little feature where you can change the name of planets you find, but another hour and I think I will have played 99% of what the game has to offer. The combat system would be a pretty big draw for people into that kind of thing, but beyond getting a really powerful weapon that will kill the aliens quickly and trying to dodge their attacks, I'm just not interested. It's fine as part of the mission gameplay, but I would never play the "Simulator" mode, where you just do battle... Anyway, the solution? Mods! Yay! I didn't actually try any out, but I definitely will in the future. Yay for the game easily supporting modding, too. Oh, wait. This should go into: GAME DESIGN Yes, easy modding. The developer even set up a website with short tutorials on the process. Man, I love this stuff! Customization, creativity, interactivity with the game itself. What's cooler? There's also a great sense of humor in the game, through the items (and of course their descriptions) and the interactions with the alien races. It isn't slapstick, in-your-face funny, though. It's a much subtler "this-is-a-strange-universe" kind of funny that I really appreciate. The look of the game is just beautiful. The background of your little sector of the galaxy is a stunning nebula, of the Hubble ilk. The path from your current star to your next is traced out seamlessly. Each weapon has its own individual firing pattern, some of which are striking. Even the nebula and black holes (the ones you can interact with, I mean) swirl slowly. Two notes on noise: 1) The music is a wonderful ethereal, futuristic, and generative-sounding deal that really fits with the space theme. 2) They have explosions in the combat. As any good nerd knows, there would be no sound in space, but do you know what I say? I say, it's a video game and sound effects help to create a pleasurable experience for the player.

Weird Worlds (PC) - Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:04:45

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:04:45 CST

SUMMARY Weird Worlds is a strategy/adventure game where you play the captain of a ship on one of three missions (science, pirate, and military) to explore one sector of the galaxy in ten to thirty years. GAMEPLAY This game is so, so cool the first few times you play it (still is after that, but slightly less so. I'll get to the reasons why later). First you choose your mission type, size of map, amount of nebulae and enemies, and your captain's name and his/her ship's name. Then, after a short debriefing, which lets you know what you have to do for the mission you picked, you're off! You play by clicking nearby stars and exploring them, sometimes encountering aliens or artifacts, or just a really cool planet. I know I'm a bit of a nerd, but I love to read the descriptions of the stars and planets, which is one of the reasons the game was cooler at first than it is now: I've read all of the different descriptions of yellow stars and toxic planets, seen almost all of the strange and wondrous items, encountered all of the different kinds of aliens (though I'm not so hot with the combat system, yet)... I guess I wish that, just like a new star map is generated each time you play, new descriptions, pictures and items were generated as well. I realize that that's not really plausible, but for a game that has "plausibly implausible" as part of its marketing, I don't really feel bad for complaining. :P Ooo! I just realized I can turn off the debriefing screen, of which is there one variety per mission type, from the options screen. (And there was much rejoicing.) One thing that I love, though, is that even the longest missions, on large star maps that you have 30 years to explore, take less than half an hour to play. This really appeals to my slightly ADD nature. It's just the perfect little nibble of gaming before I can get on with my life. :P

Super Mario World (SNES) - Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:31:20

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:31:20 CST

GGAMEPLAY GRR AND ARGH! I couldn't get the swimming down. I know, ridiculous, right? But first I just kept pressing jump so I could swim and not drown and I couldn't figure out how to get *out* of the water, and then I figured out to press 'up', and somehow my brain translated that as "Don't press B at ALL, oooonly press 'up'!" which, of course, resulted in my dying over and over again. This is hugely embarrassing to admit, but in the interests of Truth and Justice, I admit all. As you can probably tell, my second gameplay session was spent mostly trying to get through Yoshi's Island 4... The first water level. Let me tell you, in case you don't already know, as frustrating as it is to not know what the heck you're supposed to do, it is EQUALLY or MORE frustrating when you *know* what you should be doing and keep on failing at doing that thing. My second gameplay session pretty much looked like this: a. get through Yoshi's Island 2 again. b. Die one too many times in Yoshi's Island 3, c. have to start over from save. Get through 2 & 3 fine. d. Die one too many times by drowning again and again (and, I have been told, that that is an *unpleasant* way to die). REPEAT from 'c'. GAME DESIGN Well, I'm tempted to gripe about the controls for swimming, but I have a feeling that that's mostly my problem... All-in-all, I'd say the controls were fairly intuitive, for a veteran game-player at least. The buttons you press most, "B" for jump, and the left and right arrows for moving horizontally, are super simple. Like I was mentioning in my first post, this game is all about rhythm. Knowing what's coming ahead, knowing the right moment to jump or... well, almost always you want to jump, but on occasion you'll duck or run or use your power. But even if you have a platformer with great rhythm on every level, you still need variety so that the player doesn't get bored. SMW definitely delivers on that count. Each level introduces different obstacles, from the huge freaking bombs to Yoshi, from moving platforms to water, and those are just some of the ones I encountered in the four levels I've played so far. Super Mario World also has tons of secret levels that you can access in different ways, through pipes and vines, for instance. It's really fun for the player to try to find all of these hidden area, and it adds another layer of decision-making: "Okay, so this guy is coming towards me, should I make it down the pipe or just run?" or even more pertinent: "Even if this pipe leads me to a secret area, is it worth it? How hard will it be? How much of the non-hidden level will I be missing?" I think most players choose to find as many of the hidden areas as possible, at least when they don't know what's inside, because most of us are curious people, or at least want to make sure we don't miss something. ;)

Super Mario World (SNES) - Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:45:45

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:45:45 CST

SUMMARY Super Mario World is a side-scrolling platformer, just like the previous Super Mario Brothers games. Like SMB3 (and later, Super Mario 64), the player entered various levels through a world screen. There are many different power-ups and secret levels for this SNES classic. GAMEPLAY Like most platformers, SMW is all about getting the rhythm down. I hadn't played this since I was eight or nine, so I needed a fair bit of refreshing. It took a good half hour to get through Yoshi's Island 1 the first time, though I breezed through it after getting the Yellow Switch Palace, or whatever it's called. (Need to get everything! Must have 100%!) It was a little bit of an adventure remembering all of the controls, and I'm sure I'm still missing something (when you accidentally jump off of Yoshi and he starts running around like a crazy person, there must be a way to get back on, right?), but the controller, oh, how natural and *good* it feels in my hands. Like they were made for each other, crafted from one incredible piece of plastic -flesh compound... Super Mario World, like its predecessors, has really fantastically designed levels. You find yourself (or at least I find myself) bopping my head in rhythm with both my jumping and the music. It really helps when you know what's coming ahead, though, and, again, that's really what platformers, especially these side-scrolling 2D ones, are all about.

Chrono Cross (PS) - Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:49:57

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:49:57 CST

GAMEPLAY Getting a little more used to the battle system now... Aside from the weak vs. strong attacks, there's also a magic system in place that I don't quite fully understand because, well, Serge only has one! >.< From what I can tell, you get these Elements, which you can buy, and equip them to your characters. Then in battle, after you've hit somebody and gained these in-battle levels (that I *totally* don't understand yet), you can use an Element (which is reusable, like materia in FFVII) and it will subtract a certain amount from those in-battle levels. In the second gameplay session I had to go and get these scales from the CUTEST komodo dragons ever! It was a mini-game and I have very mixed feelings about mini-games, especially when they rely on very specific timing and you're stuck for ten minutes trying to jump off of a stupid ledge to land on a stupid dragon so it doesn't run stupidly away from you. Mini-games = awesome when they follow the rules of the metagame, such as the game has to be pleasurable and not insanely difficult. In fact, I'd posit that the latter is even more important in mini-games because often times the poor player just wants to move on to the actual plot! It took me way to long to get those scales, and afterwards I felt kind of disillusioned and then realized I had to hurry the heck up and write my gamelog! GAME DESIGN One of the more unique aspects of the game is certainly the battle system, more with the weak-to-strong stuff than the Element stuff, in my opinion. With a turn-based fighting style, it can be hard to break out of the box, and I definitely feel that the rhythm and focus is different from any other game. Related to the battle system is how you enter battles. Random battles can be great for experience, but they can get really annoying when you're just trying to move through an area, so I appreciated that you could see the monsters and choose to battle them. Except, of course, when they were in my way and to get to the treasure chest or dragon I had to do battle. *le sigh* I love that there is such a huge cast of characters from whom to make up your party. Of course, I didn't get very far at all, but I imagine that that feature adds a lot of replay value to the game, as well as emotional value for the player, becoming attached to specific characters. Every character, whether you could play them or not, had something aaalmost interesting to say. If I was playing the game in my own free time and not under a deadline, I think I would have been more attentive to their babble, but as it was I kind of skimmed most of it. As I mentioned in my first gameplay log, the aesthetics and score of the game are really, really pleasing to me. The bright colors (of this first place, at least) just make me *happy* and the score, while very typical of RPGs, is of the highest, highest quality. In fact, I may just have to get my hands on it!

Chrono Cross (PS) - Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:20:07

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:20:07 CST

SUMMARY Chrono Cross is a Playstation RPG and the sequel to the SNES RPG, Chrono Trigger. Like all RPGs, the characters, plot, and setting are the main draw of the game. Chrono Cross features an immense cast of 45 (according to the Wiki) and has a fairly original battle system. GAMEPLAY Alright, let me first just say that I hate that RPG plot device where you begin as a more powerful character and tra la la go along killing things. Then something dramatic happens, the screen blacks (or whites) out, and you wake up as a weakling boy (inevitably a boy, of course). You've got, like, 1/5 or 1/10 the hitpoints, little or no magic (or "Elements" in the case of this game), and oftentimes you're in your hometown where everything is about to go horribly wrong. I understand the draw of this device, but it had become cliche and for a genre that is more about plot than any other, I wish they'd just give a little more effort into being original. After all, this game was released in 1999, two years after FF Tactics and two years after FFVII (which didn't do the "back in time" thing, but did do the "separated from the people you started the game with" thing, which is the umbrella thing that back-in-time lives under). FFX did it, too, though a year later in 2001, when Titus washes up on the shores of Besaid. I can't think of any others off the top of my head, but if I feel like it's a cliche, it must be one, right? :P Alright, let me actually talk about the game for a moment. The art is very pretty, with really bright colors and graphics that are totally on par for PS1, the music is GORGEOUS, and the battle system a little overwhelming, though less so after the tutorial. Quick, probably slightly misunderstood version is that a. it's turn-based, b. you have three melee attacks weak (1), medium (2), and strong (3), c. in battle, each number will have a percentage next to it, with higher percentages for weaker attacks. So you have to balance having weak but guaranteed attacks with strong but high-miss-chance attacks. I definitely don't have the rhythm down yet, we'll see where I am in an hour. :)

Super Metroid (SNES) - Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:32:33

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:32:33 CST

GAMEPLAY My first gameplay session was pretty awesome: lots of memories, not much frustration. When I sat down to play a second time, though, I found myself pretty much stuck. I backtracked, trying to get into these spaces that I saw were on the map, but I don't think I figured out a single one. The actual play was still fun, shooting things, running around, working on my mad skillz, but it's very frustrating to be unable to progress. I saw Samus die for the first time (since I was a kid) during this session. Pretty cool stuff. It's great to have a strong female lead who isn't really stereotypical, because it isn't about her being female, it's about a main character who kicks a lot of alien butt! GAME DESIGN Super Metroid combines a solid story with both platform and action & adventure elements. At the time, the graphics were state-of-the-art, and though they're not much by today's standard, they are perfectly acceptable. The platform element is interesting, because although it is certainly a platform game (there are 'levels' that you access through doors/elevators where you have to jump onto/over ledges, etc.), it is to some extent an open-ended world. You can go to any level (as long as you have the power-up you need to open the door) and you can backtrack to any previous level. A classic element of Metroid games is to include hidden levels, which gives great replay value. I love the music of this game. Like all good music should, it creates a very specific atmosphere. Combined with the dark colors and often dank looking areas, Super Metroid can be a very creepy game! Like I said, though, I got stuck. I'm not sure if I missed something, don't remember a necessary move, or what. Without knowing what's gone wrong, I can't say whether or not it's the game's fault. A tutorial of some sort might be useful, even if it's as simple as "Hold down B to dash. Press down once to crouch, twice to morph into a ball."

Super Metroid (SNES) - Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:21:12

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:21:12 CST

SUMMARY Super Metroid is the third game in the Metroid series. It is a platform game where your character, Samus, goes around killing aliens and getting power-ups that allow you into new areas (secret and otherwise) where you get more power-ups and kill more aliens. GAMEPLAY Wow, I haven't played this since I was seven or eight! I picked up the controls much better than before. I think that when I was younger I had to play through the thing like four times before I could get out of the lab, which is one of the very first things you have to do! The beginning of the game is blessedly short. Less than five minutes after you boot up you get to shoot something! I had three people watching me play, which surprisingly didn't bother me much. Only one of them had ever played before, but he proved very helpful by reminding me how to turn into a ball. I love the controls of this. They probably feel natural to me because Super Metroid was one of the first games I ever played, but I still love them. For instance, to kneel, you press down. To morph into a ball, press down a second time. To get to the missiles, press select. I also love that the Left and Right shoulder buttons give you a couple of different 45 degree angles to shoot at. Very, very handy! I'm having loads of fun playing this, so I'm going to go back.

Assassin's Creed (360) - Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:29:56

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:29:56 CST

GAMEPLAY My second hour (more like 45 minutes, really) was a little stressful: I was meeting a old friend for dinner and I knew that I hadn't even really finished the tutorial yet and why didn't I go over to my brother's an hour or two before that and blah blah blah. Thankfully my brother and his friend had gone for a walk for the first 30 minutes, so I didn't have that "performance" anxiety. But then they came back. Combined with my frazzled state, I felt a little like I didn't get enough instruction from the game. First there were the fives tries to successfully pickpocket and not get shoved by the basket-weaver. Then there was the practice fight. I couldn't read which buttons to press (an issue of the TV, to be sure, but it's not like that sucker was small. Is it necessary to either know the Xbox 360 symbols *that* well or have a wide-screen TV to play?), so trying to execute the moves was painful. Also, with two on one, I just kept getting hit. Then, and this is a slight matter, there was the jumping off of the view tower, not realizing I needed to jump off of the conveniently placed log into the cart filled with nice, soft hay. I realize that a lot of this can probably be boiled down to the fact that I am not a hardcore gamer, and that of all kinds of games, excluding FPSs & war games, this is perhaps the least likely I am to usually pick up. But I do wish that some certain things had been more explicitly explained. That said, I *did* love riding the horse. Pretty horsie! GAME DESIGN So, one of the best things about Assassin's Creed is that the biometrics of the game are amazing. Altair moves so fluidly and well that it's just fun to watch and play. When he climbs, he grabs a handhold every time, he walks like a person, albeit a kind of sketchy person, like an assassin (why doesn't anybody notice this but meeee?). The horse moved beautifully as well. I just rode around in circles, admiring the horse and the way Altair's robe billowed. Along with that goes the game environments are awesome. The cities look like maybe the game designers studied actual real cities, maybe even modeled them, and based the cities in the game off of them. There's just this organic, real feel to them that is lacking in most video games I've played. Ideas for gameplay: The organic city: odd overall shape (also odd interior shapes), curving windy streets, lots and lots of people (why do video game towns always look so deserted?). One great (and standard) way to introduce exposition is always to have the "newborn" character. AC twists that cliche a little in that 'you' are Desmond, experiencing Altair's memories for the first time. Time to brainstorm other twists for the amnesiac/newcomer cliche! Gameplay-wise, I love the focus of investigation and not out-and-out slash-n-bash. I'm not sure I would want to do a stealth/investigation type-game, but definitely taking the focus away from fighting. That's not to say that there will be no fighting, but it won't be the main point or method of gameplay, I think. (This entry has been edited2 times. It was last edited on Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:33:15.)

Assassin's Creed (360) - Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:41:02

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:41:02 CST

SUMMARY Assassin's Creed is a "third person stealth game" set in two times: modern day and the Middle Ages. The majority of gameplay is with Altair. He is an assassin of an ancient brotherhood and an ancestor of Desmond, the modern day dude. You go around gathering information, killing people, and running away from other people in order to complete missions for the brotherhood. GAMEPLAY I always get a little nervous playing games like this: what if I do something wrong, what if I irrevocably screw up? I know in my head that I can always try again, but I still freak out a little bit. So here I am, trying to assassinate a random soldier in the tutorial and I just keeping thinking, "Am I close enough? Am I too close? Why isn't he dying? I'm pressing the button, why isn't he DYING???" and then I realize I'm pressing A instead of X. Aaanyway... One of the first things I noticed was the amazing graphics. I don't own any of the newer systems (I'm playing this at my brother's place) and so I tend to expect a lower quality than is available right now. But this, this was beautiful! The faces look great (I wonder if they used real faces and just... er... 3D-ed them), the glitches during cut scenes distract me so much I forget to press a button :P, all of the background characters and buildings and AUGH! Just lovely. The second thing I noticed was the voice-acting. Also very lovely. Bad voice-acting always takes me out of the game and I'm so happy to see more and more games having above-par acting. Like I said, I'm playing this at my brother's apartment. I always have mixed feelings about playing video games in front of people (my nerves again: I feel like I have to "perform" well), but it's even worse the first time. Then again, he gave me plenty of helpful tips, gave me some pasta (very, very helpful), and told me that I suck at life. Which is totally not true, I'm just not terribly good at these kinds of video games!