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Feb 8th, 2008 at 22:47:59 - Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (PC) |
ENTRY #1
SUMMARY
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a first person shooter in which you control a character called Wayne in another world called E.D.N. III. You must shoot your wat through gigantic hostile bugs called the Akrid. All the while the player must keep himself alive by keeping the Thermal Energy Level up.
GAMEPLAY
The most noticable thing about Lost Planet is it's heavy emphasis on the plot and story. About 20 of the first 60 minutes of gameplay lend themselves to deeply informative cut-scenes. The main character which the player controls is Wayne. Being part of the new wave attempt to colonize the planet E.D.N. III you are confronted by a giant creature refered to as Green Eye. As the story and gameplay progress in the introduction, I felt confused as to what excatly to do while being chased by this gigantic creature. The controls do not seem very natural to the keyboard and they seem to be a cheap transition from the Xbox360 control scheme. Set-up of the controls was irritating and took a good 10 minutes out of play.
Ofcourse the game has majesticly amazing graphics, which of course lead to about 15 minutes of just configuring what would work best with my system. Once the tweaking of settings got out of the way, the rich gameplay bgins. It was fun to see yourself enter a Vital Suit (VS) robot suit and attempt to even harm the giant creature known as the Green Eye. I did feel flow during this game, but it was more of flow of the story as once the introduction was done there was easily about 5-10 more minutes of cutscene time. The cutscenes added to the interest I felt about exploring the snow covered tundra plains.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 00:38:50 - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) |
Entry #2
SUMMARY
As I progressed more in the game, I could not help but feel disturbed by two things. One, the fact that these Colossi fell in such an immersively sad manner still made it feel wrong that they were being killed for the sould of the girl. Two, the black string of aura that comes out of the Colossi and stabs you after you take them down still makes no sense other than returning to the main palace area.
GAMEPLAY
As I have mentioned, my feelings were mixed between the epic feel of the game at a whole, and the sadness of the death of each Colossi. With no new characters, the story seems to stay the same. My compassion for the character Wander deminished as the game progressed. Although the rising challenges involving how to take down the Colossi make the game deeply interesting.
The vast open areas of the game along with the style of the graphics give an expansive artistic feel to the story. Although the story itself does seem to lack some, well, story telling, the game stays deeply entertaining. The way the environment, the patience you must have, and the puzzles you must solve convey a great feeling for the game as a whole.
This leads to the style in which the game uses. The style of having the Collosi have part of the environment be part of the Colissi themselves creates the challenge of identifying what areas to target. The space blends with the Colissi taking great advantage of the abilities the player learned to do from the environment. Although that would be one of the small changes that I would make to the game: add more challenges other than the Colossi. While it is part of the style of the game to just have those few elements to it, adding some extra challenges to the overall environment would open up the game to a wider variety of players.
While this game is great, specially if a cinematic feel in video games is appreciated, it still is not very inviting to a wide variety of players. It is amazing to play it with friends adding to the extactic feeling of defeating a Colossus, but it does not create a complete social experience. Shadow of the Colussus does ramain an amazing game that will satisfy the player seeking to finish it, which is what I plan to do
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Jan 25th, 2008 at 23:38:35 - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) |
Entry #1
SUMMARY
Shadow of the Colossus is an adventure platformer in which the player controls the character Wander. The storyline of the game is of Wander trying to retrieve the sould of a girl called Mono. He is commanded by a voice in sky to defeat giat Colossi in order to retrieve the soul.
GAMEPLAY
Shadow of the Colossus surprisingly brought out strong emotions in me. At the start of the game, compassion is felt for Wander as his mission is to restore the soul of Mono. As the game develops, my thoughts on Wander started to change. The first Colossus I brought down made me feel an even stronger compassion for the gigantic creature of nature. The ambigous story hides the truth of how Mono lost her soul, making me think: What fault do these otherwise harmless creatures have?
The fragile way that the character Wander walks gives off a feelin of weakness in the character. Almost as he should not be doing what he is doing. The sword also develops a character that many player may no seem, but it is your guide. As well as the sword, the horse is your main transportation and seems to stay loyal to Wander.
As the actual fighting of the game started with the first few Colossi, it is excillirating to be such a small person defeating these enourmous creatures. It is almost as an interactive puzzle to discover which points to hit in order to bring the creature down. The size of the Collosi in comparisson to your character gives an epic feel to the battle in whic you must engage.
The epic look that the game conveys through open spaces and at times a strong bloom effect certainly keeps you, the player, engaged. An unexpected social interaction happened when the people watching me play cheered for me and yelled what to do as I fought the first Collosus. The game engages those around the player in the struggle that happens with each battle.
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Jan 14th, 2008 at 22:40:42 - Portal (PC) |
GAMEPLAY
--Spoiler Warning--
After an extensive second round play of Portal the game's complexity in both story and difficulty significantly increased. The last couple of puzzles of the supposed nineteen are slightly more time consuming and require more thinking before using the portal gun. The small turret robots add the enemy aspect to these levels as well as clever dark humor such as "I don't blame you" as they are knocked off by a slight push. Timing when and where to make your portals are part of the increased difficulty in the later levels. Then you pass the last level and you get to have cake, which is actually, death!
So having never played this game before, reaching the fire pit of death at the end of the level was an extreme turning point in the somewhat calm puzzle play. Navigating through the last level was definitely the funnest and most challenging part of the game. The you feel of escape and rule-breaking is quite a rewarding experience. The end to the game was mildly challenging and had a somewhat ambiguous ending. I have heard that this game is supposed to tie into the Half-Life games, but having never played those games it is hard for a new player to identify with the ending.
DESIGN
Portal is an impressively innovative game from the use of the portal gun being the only "weapon" and tool you use through the whole game. Being a short game, having only a couple of hours of main gameplay, Portal provides an easy to pick up and extremely fun way of playing. With simple controls and no solid storyline it is easy for anybody to start traveling through the game. In addition to an easy pick up, just messing around with the physics of the game can lead to fun distracting activities (such as the mentioned endless falling).
The conflict in this game mainly rises from the computer that seems to always be talking to you with a flat-line dark humor that is hard not to enjoy. Hidden areas throughout the game invoke a suspicion as to what exactly it is that you are doing. Finding blood written messages and a deep emotional expression for the companion cube, specially in the last level, make you paranoid as to the whole experiment you seem to have been part of. The use of space in the levels exploit the paranoia you will feel. A clean, scientific, testing lab instantly gives you the disturbing feeling of a lab rat.
With the completion of the game there are 6 bonus levels that allow you to choose from a heightened difficulty or limited time, footsteps, or portals. These extra levels lend themselves to a rewarding feeling if completed, but do not add much replay value. It is a definite worthwhile game with an extremely unique concept of gameplay. After playing this I will look into the other Orange Box games and hopefully find a connection as well as more great games.
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aKiller has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 7 days |
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