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Feb 9th, 2008 at 02:04:45 - Metal Gear Solid: the Twin Snakes (GC) |
GAMEPLAY
I will admit that in my second gamelog, I spent a lot more than 45 minutes playing through the game. Snake has now been captured by Ocelot, and is sitting in a jail, waiting for me to bust him out. The game has become much more emotional. Meryl, the Colonel's niece, has been fighting side by side with snake for a lot of the game. She was just shot down by Sniper Wolf as a trap to lure Snake out so she can get a clear shot off on him. The game offers the player a variety of emotions. I felt sad when Meryl was shot, and even more concerned about Snake and his efforts to save her.
When fighting Psycho Mantis, he plays numerous unique tricks on the player, something that no other game does. He tricks the player by making the screen go entirely black, with the word Hideo written in the top right. This makes the player think the game console was unplugged. He also criticizes your game style, and then reads your memory card and states other nintendo games you have been playing. Lastly, he tells you to put the controller on the floor, and (by the force feedback), he moves it across the floor. All of this humor, and innovative touch add to the creativity of this boss.
DESIGN
Level design in Metal Gear Solid is broken up into numerous sections, each with their own loading zones. There are also elevators for each section that break it up into floors. This level design works great for this game, especially since when you are seen by an enemy, the caution timer resets upon entering a new zone.
Metal Gear Solid delivers a tone in its gameworld of a cold and dark environment. Many of the walls are metallic. The outside areas are covered in snow. You can actually see many of the enemies cold breath in the air. These small little details help enhance the gaming experience.
Cutscenes occur very often in this game. To some extent, they can be obtrusive because they occur so often and typically last anywhere from 10-20 minutes. Also, the radio transmission messages can also be long, and contain no animation. Metal Gear Solid 2 at least had 3D radio transmissions, and it certainly enhanced this mode of cutscenes.
Although this game is not a multiplayer game, my housemate did sit and watch me play for a good 3-4 hours today. The reason is its cutscenes, environments, and character development make it more like a movie than a video game. By giving a very creative storyline with unique characters the player actually cares about, Metal Gear Solid enriches the players gaming experience and keeps them coming back for more. I was very happy to get as far as I did for this gamelog assignment, and will probably be finishing it later tonight.
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Feb 8th, 2008 at 22:43:15 - Metal Gear Solid: the Twin Snakes (GC) |
SUMMARY
In Metal Gear Solid:The Twin Snakes, you play Solid Snake, a secret agent spy sent into a nuclear base taken over by terrorists on a hostage rescue situation. Originally, your mission is simple, rescue the DARPA chief Donald Andersen and the ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker. However, as you progress further in the game, you realize that the terrorists plan on doing more than launching a nuclear strike, they plan on deploying a large tank like walking robot capable of launching its own weapons...Metal Gear Rex. Solid Snake has had past run ins with Metal Gear in the past, and so it becomes his primary goal to take down the new Metal Gear at all costs.
Metal Gear Solid was originally a Playstation game, and Twin Snakes is a port of it, with updated graphics, gameplay, cinematics, voice overs, and added bonus content. It is a third person stealth action game.
GAMEPLAY
I first played the original Metal Gear game when it came out. I was in Junior High at the time. To date, Metal Gear remains one of the greatest games of all time in my mind, combining great gameplay with an amazing storyline. Revisiting Metal Gear Solid in an updated form floods my memory with reminders of just how amazing of a game it really is. I felt sympathy for the characters again, knowing what was going to happen to them, and what their future held for them. I felt nervous as Snake was wandering the depths of Shadow Moses Island by himself, with only his radio to comfort him. Emotions ranging from sad to anxious overwhelmed me.
One of my favorite elements of the game is the vast array of characters they present, particularly in the bosses. Having only played up to Revolver Ocelot at this point, I remember how amazing of a character he is, and how profound of a character he becomes in Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3. With the ability to use a revolver accurately and precisely, he proves to be a deadly foe. They also presented us to Psycho Mantis, a character who has the ability to read minds and thoughts.
Liquid Snake, the main enemy of the game, is presented in the beginning with very few details. All we know is he is the leader of the terrorist group Foxhound. By keeping the player in the dark during the game about who it is we are actually chasing, they increase the players curiosity and desire to finish the game.
Metal Gear Solid's story is told through a variety of cutscenes and radio transmissions. The cutscenes in this updated version of the game are extremely exaggerated, using a lot of quick cuts and intense fighting scenes. I felt as though many clips were taken straight out of a John Woo movie.
This game relies on stealth as its gameplay mechanic. The player is not supposed to be seen by enemies, nor are they supposed to go on a bloodfest killing everyone in their path. In fact, the entire game can be played through without killing a single enemy. Stealth is key in this game. The player must use all sorts of clever tricks to hide from enemies. For example, at one point, the player has access to a cardboard box that Snake can hide inside of. My heart was pounding when one of the enemy soldiers saw the box, and was curious as to where it came from. Its amazing how profound those types of scenarios can become on a player. When this occurred, I kept silent in real life, thinking that even if I spoke a word, the enemy in the game would hear me.
Overall Metal Gear has an amazing gameplay mechanic, and I can't wait to play some more.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 01:08:58 - Goldeneye 007 (N64) |
GAMEPLAY
For my second round of Goldeneye, I decided to give the single player a quick run through. I started from scratch, and on the easiest difficulty level. Some gameworld elements in this game became obvious. First is the inability to jump.
Although the gameworld can be quite expansive, by not allowing the player to jump, they created a linear pathworld for the game. For the most part, I never really cared about killing every single enemy, and on this run through, I pretty much just ran through almost every bad guy and just kept running towards the final goal.
DESIGN
Goldeneye was praised upon release as being an innovative and unique game. To this day, it stands the test of time as a solid first person shooter, and many people look at it as the beginning of console shooters. There are numerous design elements that make this game unique.
First and foremost, level design is extremely creative. Each level has a distinct setting, and in multiplayer, they are full of tight corridors and wide open arenas.
Movement is also very flexible. While playing, I felt as though the Nintendo 64 controller was designed for this game, which makes is a difficuly feat to pull off. They give the player a wide variety of movement, from strafing to looking up and down.
The game offers 3 levels of difficulty. With each increasing difficulty, the number of enemies increases, their accuracy increases, and the amount of shots it takes to kill an enemy increases.
One of my favorite design elements of Goldeneye is the stealth element. In single player, many levels are easier to complete if you use a gun with a silencer while preventing enemies from sounding off the alarm. This innovative design in gameplay creates a tense environment, and a very rewarding game.
Overall, Goldeneye will forever remain a classic to me. As the father of first person console games, I was very happy to relive my childhood and dust off my Nintendo 64 to relive a classic.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 26th, 2008 at 01:15:47.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 00:17:01 - Goldeneye 007 (N64) |
SUMMARY
Goldeneye is a first person shooter game for the Nintendo 64 released by Rare in 1997. In its single player mode, you control James Bond, and fight your way through a large variety of levels that mimic the movie. This game is better known for its split screen multiplayer mode, which allows up to four player to battle in a large array of levels using an arsenal of weapons from the movie.
GAMEPLAY
I used to play Goldeneye a lot as a kid. Growing up in elementary and junior high, other classmates of mine would let me borrow the game, just so I could unlock the hard cheats for them, which are obtained by running through extensive time trials. Kids in my neighborhood would curse my name, because multiplayer games always had to be 3vs1, with me being the "one"
Coming back to this game so many years later was quite exhilarating. For my first log, I decided to go back to the famed multiplayer, and give it a run through with my current housemates. We started with the proximity mines on facility. Although they are hard to see, proximity mines can be an instant kill, thus making it extremely competitive. Afterwards, we switched to power weapons. The uniqueness in this game is the variety. The vast difference between using proximity mines and power weapons proved amazing, even after all these years.
Just like when I was a kid, I had the sense of euphoria while playing through this game with my housemates. Childhood memories came flooding back, as I annihilated my roommates, just as I had destroyed my neighborhood friends as a kid. My housemates had originally said they wouldn't play with me for very long, but because the game is so entertaining and rewarding, they stayed at it for the entire 45 minutes. I now plan on revisiting the single player mode.
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aparra has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 10 days |
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