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Jan 31st, 2007 at 14:37:23 - Katamari Damacy (PS2) |
I have logged some more time with this game now and the initial feeling of shock at the game's "weirdness" has begun to fade. Actually, it hasn't so much faded as it has blended into the background.
The character design in this game is, for lack of a better word, eccentric. From the King of all the Universe with his rainbow spewing mouth to the protangonist with a cylinder shaped head, these characters reflect every bit the strange atmosphere intended to be conveyed by this game. The dialogue in the game is also verbose and to a small degree doesn't make sense.
The level design in this game is interesting primarily for the reason that a game of this type has, to my knowledge, not been tried before. There would more or less be nothing to compare or draw reference from. The large variety of objects the katamari can pick up is in fact a large part of the fun of the game. I found myself being motivated to keep playing and make my katamari bigger if for no other reason than to get big enough to be able to pick up some ridiculous objects as a cow.
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Jan 30th, 2007 at 17:16:37 - Katamari Damacy (PS2) |
The first thing that comes to mind when playing this gsme is the sheer amount of, for lack of a better word, "weirdness." From the moment you boot up the game, you are immediately greeted with imagery and sound that introduces the player to the game's unusual atmosphere.
The core gameplay of the game is fairly original, at least to the extent that nothing like it has been released in recent times. The story matches the gameplay with that expected amount of absurdity.
I think the designers of the game did an excellent job with the control scheme for this game. Instead of the standard left analog stick for movement and buttons for actions that is dominant in most of today's games, this one opts to use both analog sticks together to control the player's character.
At the end of my first experience with this game, I find myself a little unsure about whether or not I enjoyed it, but I'm leaning towards yes. More than anything, however, is that I find myself asking the question of exactly how the designers came up with a game like this.
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Jan 19th, 2007 at 16:23:24 - Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) |
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EDIT: Apparently GameLog has some issue with longer entries. This is part 2 of 2. The last paragraph was posted as a separate entry in order to get around the problem.
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One very aspect of the game that I personally found very enjoyable was that the game rewards the player for careful attention to detail and for innovating solutions. A puzzle may have more than one solution depending on what the player noticed was in the previous rooms or what was on the wall.
The combat system in the game is a lot like the puzzle system in that it is designed for a wide variety of audiences. The combat in the game is designed to be simple enough that even young players can defeat enemies without too much difficulty. The caveat is that some enemies have a certain behavior to them which makes them vulnerable only during certain times or against certain tactics. This, like the puzzle system was designed to challenge the player just enough so that success would reward the player with a sense of achievement. Unfortunately, unlike the puzzle system, the combat in this game is often times too simple; though I must admit that this particular opinion may be influenced by the abundance of combat oriented games with more complex options and higher difficulty that people are used to playing.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Jan 19th, 2007 at 16:29:15.
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Jan 19th, 2007 at 16:21:29 - Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) |
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EDIT: Apparently GameLog has some issue with longer entries. This is part 1 of 2. The last paragraph was posted as a separate entry in order to get around the problem.
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I've gotten some more play time with this game and have come to notice some of the elaborate details involved in the design.
Continuing from my last entry, this was the Zelda franchise's first vemture into three dimensions and I believe an often underestimated obstacle in making this transition is the control scheme. The control scheme for this game is such that it doesn't take long to pick up and is fairly intuitive. The designers decided not to give the player the ability to "free jump" and instead focused on an environment dependent system to determine whether or not the player should jump. This design choice was probably made to enabled the level designers to have more control over how they wanted to player to procceed in walking and in finding solutions to the game's many puzzles.
The puzzles are an integral part of this game as they actively engage the player; controlling the player's progression through the game. The puzzles for the most part are not terribly difficult to solve but are hard enough to cause most players to stop and think for a few minutes before arriving at the solution. This greatly adds to the enjoyment of the game, giving the player a sense of accomplishment for solving the puzzle. The puzzle design was probably very difficult considering they had to cater to a wide audience but being that they could expect a certain amount of people to have played the own Zelda games they could probably put in a few hints.
This entry has been edited 5 times. It was last edited on Jan 19th, 2007 at 16:29:02.
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jaen501 has been with GameLog for 17 years, 10 months, and 9 days |
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