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Feb 18th, 2007 at 14:09:07 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
Gamelog assignment from the classics list session 2 due 2/23
Start Time: 9:45am
End Time: 10:40am
As I began my second session in Zelda I realized I remember a lot of the game and I was able to bust through the second dungeon in no time. I think one of the most exciting and entrancing parts of Zelda is the music. I get excited the second I turn the game and hear the wonderful theme song playing through with pride. Also the repetitious music played in the dungeons is so compelling in the sense of spooky and dangerous. The music is major play back of good old times when I played Zelda as a kid. I think the use of the same music over and over in the game would be something frowned upon in games made now days but it also engraves the feeling of the game into a song so that any time you hear it you think of the excitement of the game. Also the sound effects of killing monsters, the boss breathing hard, being damaged, all these sound make the game play even more exciting.
I believe the one thing that all players feel after a session of Zelda is pride. Proud of figuring out the puzzle, proud that I beat the fourth dungeon, proud that I beat the whole game. Unlike most game Zelda doesn’t make players more powerful if they continue to kill random monsters and just ignore the story. The bragging rights come from beating parts of the game, experiencing one of the best designed games of all time. There certainly is a thrill from killing monsters and just exploring the gameworld but the game relies on delayed gratification of getting through short term goals that lead to the ultimate goal of beating the game. I would like to know more story throughout the gameplay just because Zelda is such an interesting game I would like to know what’s going on as I play, but I enjoy the original Zelda better then any of the newer Zelda games that have a defined story so the style of letting the player image what’s going on is very effective.
Zelda is an amazing game in all accounts even though there are major design features missing such as story, instruction, and setting but the game still flows. I believe that even though this is a very analyzed game that came out many years ago, it is a more complex design that in some senses is more evolved than most games that are made in present day. Zelda could teach us a lot about making games that let the player experience rather than showing the player a experience.
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Feb 18th, 2007 at 12:33:31 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
Gamelog assignment from the classics list due 2/23
Start Time: 8:20am
End Time: 9:10am
The Legend of Zelda is a game that defined the adventure genre and even though I have played through and beat the game in the past I found myself drawn to playing it again for this assignment because I still enjoy its style and puzzles. Zelda Is very unique in the fact that the game begins without explanation or tutorial and lets the player figure out the controls abilities and story through playing the game. Even finding the dungeons takes skill or random luck because you don’t get pointed in the direction of the next dungeon after beating the previous one. The whole game lets the player figure things out for themselves. Though this would seem like a bad thing for most games especially with current games that have dozens of bottoms combos and features but in this classic NES game it lets the player explore and learn which surprisingly increases the gameplay experience.
When I started playing again for this assignment I realized how much I enjoy this top down style of game play because it allows for a cool style of fighting and dodging enemies. I found that dodging enemy fire is still hard even with my increased gaming skill from when I last played the game. The enemies are well thought out in the sense of being hard yet beatable. I found the enemies that pop out of the sand hard to deal with but the move back when you hit them so as long as you keep them in front of you its very doable. As for the level design, everything is masterful from the outside gameworld to the perfectly constructed dungeons. The dungeons are especially well done in the sense that there are puzzles that must be done in order and there are secrets to get to but everything is logical and possible for the player to figure out. For example, the player may see there’s an extra room on the map but no door to get there so the player places a bomb on the wall and BOOM! you solved the puzzle. For a game without instructions Zelda is very user friendly.
The core game mechanic is pretty simple: shoot sword if you have full health otherwise run up and stab the monster, find a way to open the door by getting a key or pushing a block, throw boomerang to stop enemy then run up and hit him. The amount of options available continue to grow as the player beats dungeons such as acquiring the ladder to get across small bodies of water. This reward of more items/abilities and more health keeps the player interested because the levels get harder but the items get better thus rewarding the player for continued play. Even though there are a number of rewards then game can still get incredible frustrating because the puzzles get increasingly difficult. The main problem I have ran across is finding the next dungeon which makes it hard to progress the game by beating a dungeon if you can’t find it.
The uniqueness of Zelda is unmatched by any game to date because it allows the player to experience the game for themselves rather than being led through and experience.
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Feb 3rd, 2007 at 23:50:18 - Excite Truck (Wii) |
Gamelog assignment: game of choice due 2/9/07
Start Time: 8:45
End Time: 9:30
The second session of Excite Truck was slightly more fruitful in the sense that I took first place in four tracks during one session which isn’t too impressive but its better then my first game session. On the super excite difficulty the game takes much more driving to get the highest ranking of S grade. Its good that the designers added the boosted difficulty because the game is fast and easy on the excite setting. I was worried that is wasn’t anything more than a more difficult run of the same courses but apparently there is a whole new “platinum” track and another ten new trucks. Once again I see how the developers spent time perfecting what they had rather than mass quantity.
The detail in Excite truck is amazing for the computing power available to the Wii console. The amazing jumps provided me with a view of the whole environment which is huge and preloaded so that you can actually see the whole track at once if you get a high enough jump. I found that the truck models themselves are very detailed and extravagant. When I crashed into trees or other cars the impact would show a meaningful crash. For example, if the front end hit a tree on the right side, the whole side would crumple and the tire would fly off. The whole truck has great collision detection. I notice that the gameworld itself has great detail as well. When hitting a palm tree in Fiji the coconuts fall off the tree to the ground around the truck. The world is very polished, even the snowy Antarctica has it’s own friction issues.
The complexity of the game is more than a usual racing genre game. There is a turbo meter which heats up if you turbo too often but the temp goes down over time or if you drive through water. Sometimes I would go out of my way to drive through a river just to get more turbo. The scoring system is also a change in style where even if you come in first you might not win. The game relies on stars and they are accumulated by doing stunts or by crashing over players. Also, you get more stars if you come in first. The many different venues of playing makes a normal driving game into a motion censored enjoyable game.
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Feb 3rd, 2007 at 22:48:22 - Excite Truck (Wii) |
Gamelog assignment: game of choice due 2/9/07
Start Time: 7:30
End Time: 8:30
Excite Truck is one of the lunch titles for the Nintendo Wii and though most lunch titles are not polished by their deadline, Excite Truck has a great feel that is not only fun but inventive. I find that most racing games do not keep my interest for long because racing involves highly repetitive game play, but excite truck has been very successful at keeping me interested for many reasons including the great control setup. I began playing the game during this session with the goal of getting the “gold” tracks unlocked which requires beating all the silver tracks with a least a B ranking. After playing the second track over twice, because I got too few stars to get a B rank, I stopped trying to complete the track and just go for high scores on smashing the CPU trucks. Its very enjoyable to speed up to another truck and hit it from behind right as its going off a jump and make it fly out of control. Even when I wasn’t preoccupied with smashing trucks I was busy going for the biggest air or long drifts. After playing for about an hour I didn’t even get through the “silver” tracks but I was still completely satisfied with the experience.
The levels in Excite Truck are well designed with every detail thought out. Though I was disappointed with the appearance of only six different levels so far I can see why they choose to polish the already made levels instead of making more that wouldn’t be finished. The levels involve running across exclamation marks in the road that morph the terrain ahead which I though was a nice way to ad in jumps but also reward player for staying on the designed track. These small power style rewards make the development by the designer more meaningful. Since a designer can plant the exclamation mark in the road and make it where you jump into the air where you see the road ahead and what short cuts are available the designer can make the player go where he/she wants the player to go by morphing the terrain. This led to event occurring such as a oil tanker crashing through the ice and hitting the players in front of me as I hit the exclamation point. These new design features added to the already enriched racing.
By far the best feature of Excite Truck is the control which is motion censored using the Wii controller. You hold the controller in your hands and tilt it to steer around turns or to tilt up or down for more air off of jumps. Not only is this kind of control more fun to play with, it also gives the arcade style feeling of having a steering wheel to drive with. The controls add in so much more enjoyment (and sometimes difficulty) to the game it takes a mediocre racing game and makes it exceptional in the genre. The controller reacts surprisingly well and gives more control (i.e control while flying) then normal racing does. The game takes racing and erases the physics and hardcore simulation and replaces it with new and innovating gameplay. I think this change by developers was an excellent move because it also makes players much more active in playing. The more active the players are the more they enjoy the game.
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Garr has been with GameLog for 17 years, 10 months, and 13 days |
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