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Apr 26th, 2011 at 19:38:33 - Spyro the Dragon (PS) |
Spyro the Dragon is a platform game that was for the Playstation. Released by Insomniac Games in 1998, the game features a 3-D world with 2.5 dimensional play, as the protagonist is able to jump as well as glide in the world. The game is single player, and ends with narrative exhaustion: two endings can be achieved, one simply by completing the game, and the other by completing the game and acquiring every collectible item: Namely, gems, dragon eggs, and trapped dragons.
= The Story =
The five dragon worlds lived in harmony. In an interview with the Artisan’s world, one dragon made fun of Gnasty Gnorc, who then froze all of the dragons in green encasements. Spyro, due to his small size, evaded the spell, and now must travel to all five worlds, free all the dragons, and collect all the dragon eggs and gems Gnasty’s henchmen stole.
= Gameplay =
To reach Gnasty Gnorc, Spyro must travel through all five dragon worlds. To continue to the next world, he is usually required to retrieve a number of dragons, eggs, or gems.
Spyro travels by hot air balloon to all of the worlds: The Artisans, the Peace Keepers, the Magic Crafters, the Beast Makers, and the Dream Weavers. Each main world has many different worlds Spyro can enter by jumping through a portal, and one level where Spyro has endless flight ability and must collect items within a time limit.
Spyro’s health is measured by his sidekick, Sparx the dragonfly. Sparx is at full health when his color is gold. If Spyro gets hit, Sparx turns blue, then green, then disappears. After Sparx is gone, Spyro instantly dies if he is hit by an enemy. Sparx also helps Spyro pick up gems nearby, so you must walk over to a gem to retrieve it if Sparx is gone.
= Abilities =
Our protagonist has several useful abilities because he’s a dragon. He can jump, double glide, flame enemies, and charge and headbutt enemies. Although Spyro can fly, he cannot swim, and touching any pool of water takes away a hit point. Spyro also keeps these abilities through the entire game, and does not learn any new ones.
Spyro can flame small creatures such as sheep or frogs in every level. Killing these creatures releases butterflies, which Sparx eats to go up a color.
= Collectible Items =
Eighty trapped dragons are stationary and placed in various areas in worlds as well as sub-worlds. The dragons’ locations range from being placed in your path to areas that I practically had to look into a walkthrough to figure out how to reach to free them.
There are twelve eggs in total scattered throughout the world. Each egg is held by an egg thief, an enemy wearing a blue turban and robe, and you must charge down the egg thief. Once you hit him, he disappears and the egg is added to your inventory.
There are twelve thousand gems scattered through the worlds and sub-worlds as well, and Spyro can achieve gems by picking them up, defeating enemies, or breaking open treasure boxes.
Finally, Spyro can gain lives by collecting silver dragon trophies. These trophies can usually be found in treasure chests.
= Overall =
Spyro the Dragon is a great game for beginning gamers. I would recommend playing to complete the game, not collect all the items as then the game becomes tedious and absolutely frustrating. Strategy is involved including trust-falling and gliding all the way to the other side of a building one is standing on to retrieve the hidden items, which one probably would not find without the help aid a walkthrough. Otherwise, I highly enjoyed this game; in fact, I used to play it for hours on end! Spyro the Dragon receives a 4 out of 5.
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Mar 29th, 2011 at 00:54:02 - Banjo-Kazooie (N64) |
Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64:
Banjo Kazooie is a platform game created by Rare. Released in 1998, the game features a 3-dimensional world with 2.5 dimensional play(with exceptions due to a flying ability learned later in the game), single-player mode, and a secret ending through obtaining resource as well as narrative exhaustion. the adventures of a bear and a bird on a quest to obtain one hundred jigsaw puzzle pieces. I played and finished the game in my elementary school years, and now return to review the game with a more extensive vocabulary, more common sense to refrain from using un"bearable" puns, and the same admiration I held back then playing from start to finish.
= The Story =
Gruntilda the green witch is enraged when her cauldron tells her there is one girl more beautiful than she: Tooty the bear. The witch then sweeps down from her mountain lair and looks for Tooty, planning to capture the bear and steal her pretty looks. Tooty is standing by her brother Banjo’s house with Bottles the mole, waiting for her brother to wake up so they can go on an adventure. Gruntilda’s mountain lair is visible from Banjo’s house, and Gruntilda quickly swoops down and kidnaps Tooty. (Who in the world would live right under a Witch Mountain Lair is beyond me. If you ask me, the heroes really should have seen this coming.) So now, Banjo the bear and his friend Kazooie, a bird who’s willing to reside in his backpack the entire adventure, must travel to the very top of Gruntilda’s lair and save Tooty before the witch takes her beauty.
The characters are full of witty humor, shown in dialogue such as when Banjo introduces the odd bird in his backpack to Bottles...
Banjo: And this here's my buddy Kazooie!
Bottles: Sure is a strange looking buddy Banjo, can it talk?
Kazooie: Better than you can, Goggle Boy!
= Gameplay =
To reach the top of Gruntilda’s Mountain Lair, Banjo and Kazooie must travel through nine worlds located within the Mountain. Each world contains ten jiggies, golden jigsaw puzzle pieces that our heroes must collect through aiding inhabitants in that world, beating often-timed puzzles, or saving magical creatures called jinjos. New worlds are accessible only through collecting a sufficient amount of jiggies to complete world maps displayed in various areas of the witch’s lair as you progress. As if puzzle collecting wasn’t enough, each world also contains one-hundred music notes. Doors through Gruntilda’s lair contain the number of notes you need in order for them to open.
Worlds get more and more bizarre (in a good way) as you progress. The first accessible world is Mumbo’s Mountain, complete with village huts and giant termite enemies. The next world is Treasure Trove Cove, a tropical island complete with pirates, giant crabs, and a surprise-attack shark (Scariest thing in the game, I promise) that eats you if you fall into deep water. Later worlds include Mad Monster Mansion, a haunted mansion complete with ghosts and tombstones that attack you, and Click Clock Wood, a forest you can enter in all four seasons deciding on the entrance you pick. Click Clock Wood is the most complex of the courses, as things you do in earlier seasons result in changes in the later seasons. One way to obtain a jiggy is to feed a baby eagle worms from spring through fall; the eagle grows and flies away in the winter, leaving a jiggy in the nest for you to collect.
= Abilities =
Banjo and Kazooie learn various special moves through the game from Bottles the mole. If you walk to any of his molehills throughout the courses, he will pop out and show you how to use special items conveniently located near his appearance. For example, he teaches Kazooie to cough out projectile eggs and how to fly from special launch pads.
Banjo can also transform into various creatures in worlds the hut of a shaman called Mumbo Jumbo can be found. If you pay him with enough mumbo tokens once, he can turn you into a specific creature for the rest of the game without future payment. The creature you are turned into depends on the world the hut is in; for example, you become a termite at Mumbo’s Mountain, a walrus at Freezeezy Peak, and a pumpkin in Mad Monster Mansion. Creatures have specific abilities that let you get to places you would not normally be able to access; for example, being a pumpkin lets you squeeze into small places, and being a walrus lets you move without consequence in frigid waters that would otherwise quickly deplete health.
= Collectible Items =
As mentioned earlier, Mumbo tokens can be collected to turn Banjo into different creatures. Collecting bear trophies results in extra lives. Empty Gold Honeycombs are hidden throughout worlds, and obtaining six gives you another slot on the health bar. Full Honeycombs can be obtained by defeating enemies or breaking open beehives (and consequently running from angry bees after you collect the health!) Each full honeycomb replenishes a health slot.
There are items you can only carry so much of in your inventory that can be used against enemies and for obstacles. For example, Banjo and Kazooie can only carry ten golden feathers (any more collected will not affect the amount in your inventory.) After Bottles teaches how to use golden feathers, you can activate the ability anytime to have invincibility for up to ten seconds (Each golden feather lasts one second.) Other limited-amount items you can carry include up to one-hundred eggs, which Kazooie can fire from her mouth or have plop out of her rear, and up to fifty red feathers that give Kazooie a boost when flying. Later on, the amounts of gold feathers, eggs, and red feathers can be doubled if you find Gruntilda’s abandoned spellbook, Cheato, who will gladly give you secret locations and codes for increasing your items as retaliation for Gruntilda’s negligence. (I wonder if there’s some implied message here for all the dusty university textbooks I have lying around and never use…)
= Endings =
The game has two ending cutscenes, a game over cutscene and the final cutscene that plays when the storyline is finished.
Banjo Kazooie was the first game I ever played with a game over cutscene, and for a little bit I was convinced that once the cutscene happened, it affected the rest of the game (Luckily it doesn’t, or you would have to fight Tooty as a final boss...) The cutscene is supposed to occur if Banjo and Kazooie run out of lives, but it also occurs if you select "Quit Game" on the pause menu. The game over cutscene goes as thus: the camera pans in on Gruntilda’s lair. After mocking Banjo and Kazooie about their death, Gruntilda uses an electricity-powered machine to transfer Tooty’s beauty to herself. After Gruntilda steps out as a complete supermodel, Mumbo(the two-timing creep) offers her a flower and a date. The game over cutscene ends with Tooty, now an ugly creature, creeping out of the machine.
The actual ending cutscene occurs after you free Tootie. You make it to the top of Gruntilda’s tower for the final battle, and with the help of the jinjos you originally freed from the worlds, you finally manage to defeat Gruntilda. She falls to the bottom of her mountain and ends up being pinned under a boulder. Banjo, Kazooie, and their friends visit the beach in a well-earned vacation, and the game ends… Sort of. Here, the ending cutscene splits into two. If you did not collect every single jiggy, Mumbo tells you that if you do, he will let you in on a secret. If you did get all the collectible items in the game, Mumbo reveals the locations of two of six secret eggs and an ice key. The items were supposed to be able to be transferrable to the sequel Banjo-Tooie, but the feature was never implemented in the sequel.
Regardless of whether all the jiggies were collected, after the beach scene, one last cutscene returns to the bottom of Gruntilda’s lair. Klungo tries to remove the boulder burying Gruntilda, and the witch swears revenge on the heroes.
= Overall =
Banjo-Kazooie stood out on its own as a unique game. It was the first video game I played simultaneously controlling two characters, and the controls were so fluid I did not even think once about how complex it might have been to develop them. The game does get tiring when you play it to collect every single music note, especially since the music notes re-appear every time you leave the courses, so I do not recommend doing this. Luckily, not every single item needs to be collected to reach the end. In conclusion, this game was full of surprises, fun in exploration of every new world, and hilarious, especially when characters picked on each other. I would recommend Banjo-Kazooie for any gamer, especially beginners, as it is as fun for me now as it was when I first picked it up, and has proven to be a time-standing classic. We give two paws up and two talons up for this game, and a bonus achievement to you for reading a game analysis that might have been chock full of beary terrible puns. =)
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Jan 24th, 2011 at 21:08:22 - Clue: Discover the Secrets (Other) |
Clue: Discover the Secrets: Friday, Jan 21st (Games One and Two)
Clue: Discover the Secrets is a multiplayer board game for 3-6 players competing against each other. The game’s theme is a murder mystery: Players must discover who the murderer of a party host is by examining rooms and accusing other players of being the murderer in that room with a specific weapon. There is a chance that the murderer will kill players if they do not discover who he or she is in time. This game is set in a luxury mansion, and the players are cast as upper-class rich and famous party attendees.
= Players =
Each player is a character represented by a different-colored game piece: Jack Mustard(Yellow), Victor Plum(Purple), Jacob Green, Elanor Peacock(Blue), Kasandra Scarlet(Red), and Diane White. One of the characters (and thus, possibly one of the players) is the murderer.
= The Board =
The mansion board keeps the same layout throughout the game. Players roll a die to see who goes first. The player who goes first then rolls two dice to determine how many spaces he or she can go. The player’s goal is to enter a room, then make a guess at who the killer and weapon are in that room. Upon guessing, the accused and weapon pieces are also moved into that room. After making a guess, the player gets to see a rumor card from another player on the immediate left that disproves one of the killer’s details. If the player to the left does not have a card that can disprove anything, the next player to the left shows a card only to the first player, and so on. Afterwards, the next player rolls two die, and the process is repeated. When a player thinks he or she has the killer and the correct details, that player heads to the pool to make a final guess, then opens the confidential envelope to see if he or she is right. If the guess is right, the player wins the game. If the guess is wrong, the player must sit out the rest of the game. Players can only travel vertically or horizontally, not diagonally. If a player lands on a space with a question mark or rolls a question mark on a die, he or she must pick up an intrigue card.
=Character Cards=
Each character also has a special ability, activated by using a character card. For example, White may teleport to any room that does not have a secret passage once per game. Once that character card is used, it is turned face down and may not be used for the remainder of the game.
=Rumor Cards=
Rumor cards show a room, a weapon, or a character. One of each type is put into a confidential envelope: this envelope holds the real killer, weapon, and location where the host was killed. All players get an equal amount of the rest of the rumor cards, and one remaining rumor card is put face-down underneath the rumor card at the pool to increase players’ chances of getting the killer’s information wrong.
=Intrigue Cards=
Intrigue cards are shuffled, then put face down. Any player that rolls a question mark on a die or lands on a space with a question mark must pick up an intrigue card. A player who was accused of being the killer, for compensation, may also pick up an intrigue card. Most intrigue cards contain beneficial abilities that can be played once during the game, such as “move anywhere,” but the intrigue card stack also includes eight 8th Hour Cards. A player who picks up an 8th Hour Card has been killed by the murderer, and must sit out the rest of the game as well as lay out all of his or her rumor cards for the other players to see.
= Game Play =
First Session: The first session consisted of four players. I chose Plum for my character. The rules took about ten minutes to understand, and questions were asked consistently through the game, such as, “Am I able to accuse a player in a room I am not standing in?”
Near the end of the first round, we had all lost track of much information because we did not realize the game required so much memory work. The killer ended up being Plum with the poison in the dining room.
Second Session: We played the second session right after the first session, adding in one more player for a total of five. Things got more interesting here, as now that everyone had learned the ropes, the game play was much more strategic. Someone stated we would finish the game in twenty minutes, but it ended up taking over an hour to complete. Near the start of the game, I rolled a question mark. I drew the 8th hour card so my character Plum died, so I had to sit out the rest of the game.
Diana was ready to make a guess thirty minutes into the game, but she rolled a question mark, and also drew the 8th hour card. She looked at the cards in the confidential envelope, and lamented that her guess had been correct.
Near the end of this round, players were starting to ask for cards that they had to trick others into thinking that those cards were still possible cards linked to the killer. Players also mentioned cards others had to eliminate those from being called out again. In the end, Derrick won with the guess that the killer was Plum with a knife in the spa.
The game did not mention whether or not ghosts could kill people, so we left it at that and decided the second session was over.
= Overall =
Clue is a fun game that requires at least a spare hour or two to play. The game gains more meaning the second time around when players understand how to manipulate cards and play mind games with other players. I would recommend playing only one session at a time, as the game gets quite lengthy, and interest may dwindle near the end when players start being eliminated from the game.
This entry has been edited 3 times. It was last edited on Jan 24th, 2011 at 21:15:27.
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