 |
|
Mar 6th, 2008 at 01:15:41 - Wii Sports (Wii) |
Entry 2:
Gameplay:
By the time the second game began everyone from experienced to beginner was on the same page. Everyone had a firm grasp on how to play the game and so the competition heated up. I found it particularly interesting that after playing for a while, people had figured out how the Wii responds to their motion and had therefore decided where they need to throw the bowling ball from on the screen. The game gives the player the ability to move his or her stance from the left to the right, shoot from an angle and even move in closer. Now that everyone seemed to be playing with a degree of skill the room got much, much louder. Friendly taunts were passed from person to person and someone from upstairs even came to let us know we were being “a little too loud.” We were having a great time.
A couple of frames into the second game I figured out how to throw a consistent strike. One after another I was knocking down every single pin with a small flick of the wrist. One strike, two, three, four strikes all the way up to seven in a row. The feeling I got from this accomplishment was amazing. My friends were cheering me on and exclaiming how they had only seen a performance like this once before. The room was dead silent every time I stepped up to the Wii. I am confident that even if I hadn’t done as well as I did, this game would still have been extremely fun. The fact that one can have their own bowling ally right there in their room is really cool, in fact I have already made plans to play again tomorrow.
Design:
I found the design of Wii bowling to be a bit funny, but not in a way that had a negative effect on the game. The avatars that represented each character were people with rounded cartoony features; they looked almost as if they could be balloons filled with air. The graphics of the Wii do not allow for extreme realism in its games but once again this does not have a negative effect on the game. The emphasis for the Wii is not on its look but the social interaction it creates between its players.
I felt that the controls were very well designed. In my experience, there were no problems with the Wii reading our hand motions with the remote (if there were any, they were minimal). Players can really throw the ball how they would in reality, adding spin or even lofting the ball. The simplicity of the controls allowed the player to focus on the motion of their throw without getting caught up with what buttons they needed to push. I really loved the dynamic of playing with four people and had a great time for the duration of the time we played.
read comments (1)  - add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Mar 6th, 2008 at 01:14:42 - Wii Sports (Wii) |
Entry 1:
Summary:
The game Wii Sports has no story, therefore it is a bit difficult to summarize. There are various sports packaged into this one game, including: tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing. For the sake of the game log I played only one sport, bowling. Because this game is on the Nintendo Wii, the controls are very unique, each player holds a motion sensor remote, which they move around in order to control their avatar on screen.
Gameplay:
Bowling starts off with each person choosing or creating his or her own personal character, which is cleverly called a “Mii”. I am left-handed and thought this may be a problem if the controls were set up for right-handed people. Nintendo left no one out and made it simple to change the settings of your character to left or right-handed for each individual sport. After me and the three other people I was playing with chose our characters, the game began. Spirits were high and competitive energy surged throughout the room.
What I found to be a key part to my enjoyment of this game was that there is a very small learning curve, just about anyone could pick up a remote and start having fun. For the first few frames of the game I was not doing very well, but my friends were supportive and assured me this was just a “practice” game. Although it was just a practice game the energy level was through the roof with shouting and gasps after each and every shot. The social interaction is what makes the Wii and Wii Sports particularly addicting. Even though I had come in dead last after the first game of bowling we played, I was still extremely eager to get on to game number two.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Feb 21st, 2008 at 01:06:32 - Super Mario 64 (N64) |
Entry 2
Gameplay:
For my second round playing Super Mario 64 I found that I was having just as much fun, if not more than the first time. The gameplay continually developed throughout the levels to create more complex ways of earning stars. Some levels had me scratching my head at first as to how I was supposed to get certain stars. There were switches scattered everywhere which did various things such as raise and lower the water level. These types of challenges have always been what has drawn me to platform games. I love the puzzle aspect created to get through levels because it requires more thinking than your typical shooting or racing game (that’s not to say I don’t like those games as well).
Although I had an immense amount of fun playing Super Mario 64, I still found a couple things in the game that bothered me. Firstly, just as in Super Mario World, I thought the bosses in Super Mario 64 were too easily beat. The same idea was used which was: hit the boss three times and you beat him. Beating a boss this easily just doesn’t seem to make sense to me; a boss battle should be challenging. Secondly I would have liked a more responsive camera behind Mario. This seems to be a common problem in platform games of this generation (N64 and Playstation) that has started to get better in later platform games such as Ratchet and Clank.
Design:
I thought the design of this game was amazing. The levels are particularly intricate which lent themselves to fantastic gameplay. Each level has several objectives to be completed. Because of this, the player is constantly compelled to return to even the earliest of levels to grab those stars they may have missed the first time around. For example, in the very first level there is a star to be found by launching Mario out of a canon onto a distant platform. There are many places to explore beyond the linear path which one must follow to find the “main” star for each level. Although the storyline is interesting I think the extra stars and the complex level design are what make Super Mario a fantastic game to play and make for great replay value.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 21st, 2008 at 01:07:26.
read comments (1) - add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Feb 21st, 2008 at 01:06:15 - Super Mario 64 (N64) |
Entry 1
Summary:
Once again, the short, mustache sporting Mario is on an adventure to save Princess Toadstool from the evil Bowser, only this time he’s in 3-D. Playing as Mario, one must access a series of worlds through the princess’s castle. In these worlds are enemies to be punched, objectives to be completed, and bosses to be defeated. The goal of the game is to obtain as many stars possible in order to advance through the game, defeat Bowser and save the princess.
Gameplay:
One thing that Nintendo was always very good at doing with its games (the Mario franchise in particular) was creating a silly, fun and welcoming atmosphere. The first thing I noticed when I started playing Super Mario 64 was the goofy character carrying the camera through the simple cartoony world outside of the princess’s castle. I then proceeded to jump my way to the front door of the castle to begin my journey, with Mario making funny sounds the entire way.
As a kid I didn’t have an N64, so I had only played this game for short periods of time in the past. Having experience with platform games I found Super Mario 64 extremely easy to get the hang of. Once inside the castle I wandered over to the first door without a number on it and jumped through the painting on the wall. For an early 3-D platform game, I found Super Mario 64 to be a surprising amount of fun. I noticed that a lot of the old characters from Super Mario Word for SNES could be found in the first level with the only difference being that they are 3-D characters in a 3-D environment. This gave the game a familiar feeling although many of the game mechanics and aspects of the game itself are much different.
After playing for about twenty minutes I had earned a couple of stars, therefore unlocking several doors containing more levels. A couple of levels into the game I began to notice that there are multiple stars to be earned per level. This seemed like a very cool idea to me. The way in which stars can be collected is by achieving tasks for characters in the game, finding secret stars, collecting all the red coins and defeating bosses. Having so many options to earn stars gives the player multiple ways to play the game. I personally liked completing objectives or tasks given to me by characters in the game. For instance in the second or third level a giant blue penguin has lost her baby and has left it up to me [Mario] to find him. I liked searching the level and carrying him back to his mother. It gave me a sense of achievement and I was awarded with a bright yellow star to add to the rest on my way to defeating Bowser.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
|
 |
| R2D2's GameLogs |
|
R2D2 has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 10 days |
view feed xml
|
| Entries written to date: 9 |
|
