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Feb 6th, 2008 at 01:17:14 - Dynasty Warriors 3 (PS2) |
GAMEPLAY
Booting up Dynasty Warriors again, I decided to have a bit of fun. Since in the last campaign, I unlocked the strongest character in the game, Lu Bu, I decided to play with him. Lu Bu doesn't have a campaign of his own, so I was stuck with free play, that is, playing through the levels with absolutely no concern for history. I played the most populous level, Hu Lao gate (traditionally rendered as Hu Lao Pass). Since the real Lu Bu in that level ties up your allies, it is quite easy to get kill counts up around 1000 without much effort. Normally, staying away from Lu Bu is of the utmost importance, as he can easily kill you in single combat, but, being free mode, I just went ahead and challenged myself and won handily. The thing that stood out to me the most playing as Lu Bu was his remarkable difficulty with engaging multiple people for the strongest character in the game. Only with the last hit of his combo does he swing his halberd around himself, making it easy for my enemies to interrupt my combo from behind. That said, his brutal power and range more then made up for his lack of decent combos. In the end, I have determined that only Lu Bu is manly enough to pull off wearing peacock feathers on his head.
DESIGN
The thing that makes Dynasty Warriors stand out so much is its lack of concern over making anything particularly accurate to the period. Players receive radio transmissions from generals and officers on a regular basis, and combo moves often defy gravity in visually appealing ways. For example, Zhaou Yu's combo puts him into a horizontal in-air barrel roll slash that bounces clockwise, and then counter-clockwise for the length of the special move. In addition, the fact that the characters in the game existed along a period off approximately 300 years does not stop D.W.'s writers from putting them together in the same levels. That said, the almost constant war screams around you, and the sound of your halberd crushing masses of conscripts with the whine of an electric guitar playing Chinese-inspired songs certainly makes up for any reservations about the game's accuracy during gameplay. In the case of D.W. the player doesn't need to know that the game is contrived because the played doesn't care: he/she is busy killing people!
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Feb 6th, 2008 at 00:58:16 - Dynasty Warriors 3 (PS2) |
SUMMARY:
Dynasty Warriors is, in every sense, a hack and slash game. Pick your member of the Chinese nobility from the Three Kingdoms period and commence in the slaughter of hundreds of minor soldiers and generals. The game progresses along the traditional story arc of the Three Kingdoms period as laid out by "The Romance of The Three Kingdoms". There are many, many story arcs to follow for each of a wide variety of characters, though, since this is not the expansion, there are no story modes for the more colourful of the characters, such as the absurdly powerful Lu Bu.
GAMEPLAY:
I played the game a bit before this, and had unlocked some of the unlockable characters (since you start out with only a few). I chose my personal favorite character to play, Da Quao, the fan wielding beauty married to Zhaou Yu. Playing as her is always as amusing as it is intense. While many characters have difficulties when surrounded, Da excells in it. Since real world physics aren't a particularly large issue in this game, Da can have her fans circle around her in a spiral shape when she uses her special move. Levels take around 30 minutes to beat, though you're allotted a full 90 minutes on most. As I fight my way through the battlefield, my allied troops push ahead on other fronts. Overall, the feel of the game win screen telling my story in traditional style and listing how many people I killed in each battle was well worth it.
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Jan 22nd, 2008 at 13:52:27 - Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) |
GAMEPLAY
Well, on I go the shadow temple. After dealing with some side quests, I moved into the temple. With invisible swinging blades, undead skeletons, and, even worse, undead disemboweled hands, the shadow temple keeps you on your feet. The level happens to be my least favorite, despite being easier then the water temple. As a kid, it scared me to hell with its crazy, evil atmosphere. The dungeon promenantly features invisible enemies and obstacles, as well as puzzles that must be solved with the Hover Boots: footwear that allows you to walk temporarily on air. Finally, the boss of the shadow temple is, without a doubt, one of the weirdest in the game. You fight it on a giant bongo drum, and the boss itself is composed of two giant hands and a freakish body. Luckily, as soon as you "down" the boss (that is, put it in a mode where it can be damaged (typically with your sword)), you can destroy it quickly with the big-goron's sword, which deals double damage over your normal sword.
DESIGN
There are several notable mechanics in the shadow temple. The most annoying is the Floormaster, a disembodied hand. After killing it normally, it splits into a number of smaller hands. You must kill all of them within a certain time or have to kill the floormaster again. To complicate things, the developers decided to give the little floormaster the most powerful attack in the game (it saps all of your health). The addition of a instant death mechanic greatly annoys me, as there is no real reason for it to be present, especially in a game that stresses the acquisition of additional health by searching and progressing.
Second is the idea of invisible enemies. Although they can be seen with the lens of truth, just their existence is a constant struggle. Unlike the floormasters (who themselves can be invisible at times), I think the addition of these doppelgangers was a good design decision, as they add to the aura of the shadow temple. In addition, there is the miniboss of the dungeon, a weird construction of hands protruding from the ground. Although you have already fought the boss once as a child, the boss's incessant attacks impede your movement, and the general idea of the bizarre cadaver is both stylistically and mechanically astounding. In all, both times fighting the boss were fun, if not actually frightening.
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Jan 19th, 2008 at 14:21:33 - Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) |
SUMMARY
After scrounging around for a little while, I finally found my copy of LoZ, OoT. It's been awhile...a long while, since I played, but, luckily, I have a few save files, so I don't have to start over from the beginning. As you already know, "Zelda 64" is an action adventure game in 3D space. You control Link, a normally green-clad swordsman who, after navigating through overworlds and various minor challenges, must clear a series of dungeons.
GAMEPLAY
I found myself spawning near the water temple. Dang. Out of all of the dungeons in Zelda, I think the water temple is probably the worst. It's less of a dungeon and more of a puzzle, punctuated by the occasional enemy. After about 30 minutes of hopelessly annoying running about, I turned to my trusty computer and got a walk through of the dungeon. Luckily, after I got the long-shot (a sort of spring loaded grappling hook), things got a bit easier. I decided to play all the way through the dungeon, and fought the boss, an giant evil protozoan, which was, as I knew already, quite easy when compared to the dungeon. At the end of my session, I felt tired. Very tired. The dungeon was a pain in the behind, and, even worse, I know that I'm going to be doing the Shadow Temple next, which isn't much better. During my play session, a few friends watched me play, and we chatted about how annoying it was to play the dungeon. The only thing that could have made my time more aggravating would have been if I had been playing the remake of Zelda, Master Quest, which is the same graphics and controls, just with more difficult challenges.
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Hunter.Requiem has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 11 days |
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