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Feb 5th, 2008 at 15:57:30 - Tomb Raider Anniversary (PS2) |
Log Entry: My Choice #2
Entry# 2
GAMEPLAY
My second hour playing Tomb Raider was even better than the first one because I am more used to the new key dynamics now, and I have progressed from being in Peru to now being in Greece, where Natla has sent minions to track down Lara. Even though the story is something that I am completely used to, I still think the story is great, the pinnacle of adventure games, so much of this game lies on the story for me to make it fun, I really get into the mood of being Lara Croft. It really helps since the graphics are so much better it’s more like being in a real place rather than being in a place with a bunch of blocks for you to jump on. One thing that I noticed that I sort of didn’t like was the fact that after you kill something, the body disappears, in the first one it just stayed there and I liked that better because it made it seem more realistic.
The longer you play this game, the more magical the setting seems to become, the architecture changes according to where you are, and what I neglected to mention in my first log was that in this game you can find secrets, as in the original which are generally just ammo or health packs, but now you also pick up “artifacts” from the location and it tells you a little bit about the item and the civilization it belonged to. I thought that was a great touch to the adventure/archeology nature of this game. I also felt that the new abilities gave Lara a lot more ways to die, she seems to be able to get herself into a lot more tough situations being able to climb and swing from ropes, go figure.
DESIGN
As I have mentioned, I feel like that blending of the storyline into the game is a great innovative element, it might just be the ancient history nerd in me talking, but this series is one of the only games I really feel submerged into the story. There are a lot of great design elements in this game, particularly the game level design which lead to this, they did a really great job of making the architecture and surroundings seem like the unfound ruins of civilizations, even though you often seem to be in some cavern with no light source, you don’t really question it. As I mentioned, the levels are varied thanks to the different locations you are in, and it also becomes more difficult as you must fight not only bats and wolfs, but you must also fight dinosaurs, and humans with guns.
This game’s challenges are really just being able to pay attention to your surroundings and figure out where you should climb or crawl to get to your next task, the fighting element of this game is probably the most weak element of this game, but I am not a big first-person-shooter type person, so I don’t really mind that it doesn’t play an integral part of this game, this game is a lot more about puzzle solving, and emersion into the world of Lara Croft.
This game world quite often feels very large, I think a lot of it lies in that whole driving down a long country road type thing, where it seems like it goes on forever, but it’s quite narrow. They also seem to perform some tricks, like blacking out the sky so it seems like it goes on further than it actually does. I’ve mentioned about the tone of this game world a lot, saying that it is very mystical, and mysterious, I think this is because so much of the ancient world feels that way, even in real life, and they really took advantage of that through their level designs. Eventually you end up fighting mummies and crazy centaur people, so the game progressively emerges you into this amazing fantastic, yet realistic world. The cut screens are also great, because then you can relax for a little while and enjoy the scenery.
Again, the reward system lies in finding “secrets” and “artifacts”, and finding these unlocks secrets you can access from the main menu, I haven’t really looked at any of these yet, but I do think that it’s a pretty cool idea, I am definitely obsessed with completing games 100%, so I sort of have my own incentives for trying to find all the rewards. That being said, I really am enjoying this game and intend to complete 100% of it.
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Feb 5th, 2008 at 12:41:36 - Tomb Raider Anniversary (PS2) |
Log Entry: My choice #2
Entry #1
SUMMARY
Tomb Raider Anniversary is basically a revamped version on the original 1996 Tomb Raider, with a twist. The original Tomb Raider finds Ms. Lara Croft in search for the Scion, a relic from the lost continent Atlantis. She has been hired by Jacqueline Natla of Natla Technologies but soon discovers that her employer my have alternate motives for putting her on this adventure. Rather than being hired for sport, as in the original game, this time Lara believes that using the Scion, which is supposedly a source of infinite knowledge, she can discover the mystery of her mother’s experience. Again, our heroine begins her journey in the mountains of Peru.
GAMEPLAY
The original Tomb Raider is one of my favorite games, I’ve probably played and beaten it over 10 times. I was really excited for this game because I’d always thought it would be cool to see it revamped, and I think Eidos did a great job sticking true to the first game, while adding on some great new abilities that weren’t technologically available in the first one. This game sticks to the same basic cut screens to get the story across, at the beginning there is a particularly beautiful shot of Lara in the snow laden mountains of Peru. It really got me pumped to play. I am a sucker for this type of game because I love ancient myth, and archeology, especially Egyptian, and although I haven’t gotten to that point in the game yet, it still has a very magical mysterious feel to it throughout the levels.
While I don’t think this game is an improvement on the first one, there are a lot more things that Lara can accomplish in this game then the original. In the original pretty much all she had was jump on platforms, shimmy across gaps, and shoot weapons. Now she can climb up ropes, and latters, she can slouch to crawl under things. There are a few mechanics that I had to get used to that they changed, for good reason, but it was a little distressing since I am so used to pressing L1 and having her walk. Oh well. They also changed the format for fighting big bosses, like the T-Rex in level 3, they cut screen and make you push a sequence of buttons (which I was surprisingly bad at) to escape from him, then there is a big fight where he has a health bar and aggravation bar and you have to lead him into spikes when his aggravation bar is completely red, which is definitely more difficult then the Rex in the original.
I really enjoyed playing this game, and had a hard time stopping. There is a definite flow in this game because the game is segmented into levels, and usually there is some sort of big door that you have to open to proceed to the next level. As I mentioned, this game is really a neat spin on the first one, the level designs are very similar, however revamped, and now Lara Croft doesn’t have triangles for boobs! Hurray!
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Jan 22nd, 2008 at 19:10:35 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
Classics List Game #1- Zelda
ENTRY #2
GAMEPLAY
So for this second round of Zelda, I really tried to get the dynamics of the game down, and it ended up being a lot more fun. I was really just trying to kill things as fast as possible without thinking about it before, and this time I realized some things that I didn’t notice before, for example, that as long as you don’t attack a creature your shield will protect you from their weapons (DUH!). I also realized that some of the things that I thought were unkillable, could in fact be killed, so it was really a lot easier to get past the first level. I also got far enough that it saved to a new part, where you get to fight your first boss as well. Again, there isn’t really much narrative progression, that I have seen yet, but this game was still fun.
It also seemed to me the second time around like I was reaping the benefits of killing creatures because I would get more life drops and fairy drops and was getting more jewels. I was actually starting to feel some satisfaction from this gameplay, and I was actually getting quite addicted to it, regardless of the fact that I probably died 5 times trying to kill the darn dragon at the end of the first level! What was nice though, is that I received a new weapon, a boomerang, and I received my first piece of the triforce.
Another thing that I think made this fun was that my boyfriend was watching my play it, and helped me while I was playing it, so we had the sort of “go team” mentality, rather than me just trying to kill things and getting more and more angry every time I died. I would say this game flows because the creatures get tougher to beat, and because you have more weapons to deal with as you continue on. One thing I thought was strange was that at one point, I went through a little tree-portal and it took me to level 2, but I had not beaten the dragon on the first level and received the first piece of the triforce, however I did not investigate this much further, so I think that that also sort of hindered my idea of flow, especially since there hasn’t been any narration.
DESIGN
It’s really hard to say how innovative I think this game is, considering I was born the year that it came out, but compared to other games of that era, like pacman, I would say the fact that there is a story behind the gameplay is rather innovative. I would also say that considering how limited technology was then, the world does actually seem pretty vast thanks to the panning of the screen, especially compared to a game like pacman where you can only stay on one screen. This game is very similar to games that we have now like Spyro (one of my favorites), because you get to level up your character through upgrades. For example, at the end of the first level you get more life meters. However, this also allows for the game to become more difficult as well. I think this made the game interesting because you have more ways to kill the beasts, but not all of them worked, so you had to decide carefully which method you wanted to use.
Even though I was really frustrated with this game, it was still interesting to play because you have incentives. Since you can only buy items from vendors with the jewels that you received from killing beasts, you have the incentive to kill more beasts and continue on to see what other items you can get. They also had little side games you could play, like a game where you can risk 10 jewels to get 50 jewels. I found that I wasn’t very successful with this though, so that just frustrated me more. Again, the large maze-like quality makes this world seem large, even despite the outdated graphics. This game is very light-hearted because it is fantasy-based, you are greeted by faeries and all the “bad” creatures you fight seem less then horrifying.
Again, playing with someone made this game more fun to me because then you really can rally together to try and beat obstacles, and when you are super frustrated you can watch someone else take over for a while, and still have fun watching them. I would say that I wouldn't really change this game, because it’s a classic of it’s time, and while it was frustrating, that also made it interesting because it wasn’t too easy. I would say this game is a good example of something that is simple, but still engages you.
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Jan 22nd, 2008 at 00:25:28 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) |
Classics List Game 1- The Legend of Zelda
Log Entry#1
SUMMARY
The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy, action, adventure and puzzle game all wrapped into one. It takes place in the land of Hyrule, you play Link who’s mission is to rescue the princess Zelda from the evil Ganon. In order to defeat Ganon you must collect fragments of the triforce relic which was hidden by Zelda. There are many beasts and obstacles in Links way, however he gets help from little faeries and wizards and stuff with extra lives, and weapons, each beast you kill also drops gems that you can use to purchase weapons from vendors.
GAMEPLAY
This game has been incredibly frustrating to me in this past hour! I played this game on an emulator on my PC since I don’t have a game console and all the consoles at the library were checked out. I actually had to look on wikipedia for any information on the characters in this game, so the story behind it really was not at the foreground of what I was doing. The game (at least this version) didn’t really give any background into the story, it just starts off with the maze-like play. I remember watching my sisters playing this game growing up so I thought it was going to be sort of nostalgic, but it was really just very frustrating to me.
This game has such simple graphics and commands, so I thought for sure it would be an easy game, but the whole puzzle part of the game and having to start off at the beginning of the puzzle every time I died basically meant that I spent my whole hour in the first level. There are lots of little monsters that you need to kill to move on through each screen, some of which it seems like you could only move, and not destroy. I was able to pick up some bombs, but I found them to be sort of weak as weapons because they disappear after a few seconds if they don't get run into.
I really tried to get a strategy going with this one, although I was so completely frustrated that I kept dying. At first I was trying to kill everything, and get as many jewels and lives as I could, but I think after dying so many times I became so engulfed in killing things quickly that I was getting sloppy. Then I tried to just get as far as I could and just forget about trying to kill things, which got me far, but then the beasts would get harder and I didn’t have any good weapons or anything because I hadn’t collected any jewels. All in all, this game just made me mad, and I’m not really looking forward to playing it for another hour.
This entry has been edited 4 times. It was last edited on Jan 25th, 2008 at 11:38:57.
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JennStrummer has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 9 days |
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