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Mar 5th, 2008 at 19:20:42 - Spyhunter (GC) |
ENTRTY #2
GAMEPLAY
So I continued on level 3, which turned out to be fairly entertaining. Set in the the canals of Venice, it provided all sorts of carnage and wild jumps. The timer actually is fairly short for each level, usually about 6-8 minutes, so everything is really fast paced and chaotic. This chaos is a main theme of the game design. The first time you play a level you experience this huge onslaught of information and necessary actions that create a very frantic gameplay pace. You must be aware of several different mission objectives at once, avoid dying to swarms of enemies, be careful not to kill civilians, and on top of all that you must do it under the time limit.
Of course, once you have played the level a few times (which is usually required to complete all the objectives) this overwhelming chaos becomes manageable and the levels become fairly repetitive. I had to play level 3 three times, then replay level one (the horrible training level) to get one more objective to unlock level 4. Despite this, Level 4 was almost ,worth the wait as it was a wild swamp level. However I never could complete enough objectives to advance to level 5.
DESIGN
The narrative discourse of this game is pretty underachieving. The first level starts with a poorly rendered movie of a bunch of men in suits talking about their satellites the "Four Horsemen." The heads of a huge evil corporation, these men represent your enemies and you must single handedly destroy thousands of enemies and structures to thwart them. As of level four, which is roughly a third of the way through the campaign, there are no story updates, except small level blurbs that come during the load screen.
The level design is interesting. The designers cram tons of enemies, destroyable props, and interactive objects into the levels. There are always jumps, ramps and secret passages. The levels are fairly linear, which helps with completing objectives, but definitely cuts down the replay value.
I feel this game is extremely limited, and that probably contributed to its relative lack of success. The system of rewards/punishments is extremely painful, it is like instead of making new levels they just decided to make you play each one SEVERAL times. Not the best idea, in my opinion. There isn't a whole lot of emergent complexity or complexity in any form, really.
Overall this game seems like a poor arcade game at best, and at worst like a torturous experience. Ok, so it wasn't that bad.
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Mar 4th, 2008 at 18:06:20 - Spyhunter (GC) |
SUMMARY
In Spyhunter, you pilot an all-in-one vehicle in fast pace levels, completing a series of objectives.
GAMEPLAY
Having never played this game before, I started on the first level, which turned out to be an extremely difficult training level. Game progression is dependent on a series of objectives that you must complete during the level. For example, for the first level there is a main objective (a slalom course) and five more objectives like minimizing civilian damage, destroying certain targets, etc. In order to unlock the second level (and additional weapons), you must have completed at least 4 objectives. While this method (which is common in such games as the Tony Hawk series) can provide some amount of replay value and player options, I found it rather frustrating. It took me almost 30 minutes just to satisfy the first "tutorial" level since each run through took about 6-8 minutes. Things can get extremely repetitive when you are playing whole levels only to miss a certain jump and fail a mission you need to advance.
Once I passed the training level things started to get a bit more fun. The second level only took me one try to complete all but one of the objectives. The level was very fast paced and consisted of destroying a helicopter. I found the life system fairly forgiving, this is how it works: Once your car (the main form of your spy vehicle) is destroyed from it emerges a motor cycle, and once that is destroyed you die. However, there are repair trucks throughout the levels that take you back to a full health car. This also applies to the water form of your vehicle except instead of a motorcycle you get a little wave runner. So dying and finishing within the time limit were not much of a challenge, but missing objectives that are often hidden or difficult to reach is frustrating. Playing entire levels over is rarely a design method that I feel encourages the player to continue. So thats the first two levels, hopefully in the next session I can progress farther.
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Feb 20th, 2008 at 17:23:33 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
So starting where I left off yesterday (nobody had erased my game overnight!) I continued level two and eventually finished level three as well. I find that the more new things one discovers during the course of a game the better the game tends to be. Now this is not always applicable, but I found myself pleasantly surprised at the amount of complexity and depth in this ancient classic. I continued discovering new ways to approach level movement and enemy management. Although the way to kill bosses are basically all the same (you suck in what they throw at you and spit it out at them) I feel it didn't really detract from the overall feeling of surprising complexity.
One aspect of the game I really enjoyed were mini games between levels. Each level world has a few different mini games to play between stages that helped me get lives (which I was going through rather quickly). And this leads me to the life system. I found it so much more forgiving and friendly than Mario. You get five health bars, with health packs throughout the levels, lots of lives, and you can jump forever! It may be an illusion but I felt so much more like I was the one responsible for my own death rather than some cheap level design trick or unlucky slip.
DESIGN
So here is where things get interesting. Since my team is making a platform game with weapons, I paid very close attention to the game design. First and foremost: the weapons system. Normally Kirby can suck an enemy and spit them out, blow air at them while jumping, or perform a sliding kick across the ground. However, if you hit down while you have sucked in an enemy you receive their special powers (i.e. fire, lasers, swords, tornadoes, etc.). This makes the fighting aspect of the game very entertaining. The designers did a very good job at keeping relatively simple enemy battles engaging by providing a consistent reward system of seemingly endless different weapons. Once you kill a boss you can suck them in as well, providing you with insane super powers. If you lose a health bar, you lose your power up, so I found myself with a new power every couple rooms.
In my humble opinion this blows away Super Mario Brothers 3. There are endless possibilities and the design even goes so far as to incorporate small level puzzles based on powerups. For example, during level three there are some rooms where you must first have some sort of ranged power up (laser, ray beam etc.) to shoot a switch that then destroys bricks letting you pass. So this leads me to the level design. Very fun and varied backgrounds, as well as a fairly open feel concerning level design. Since you can swim and fly, there is a lot of vertical movement as well as horizontal, something that I feel is vital to any platform game. There are different ways to complete rooms and levels, and it certainly conveyed a sense of player control or "emergent" aspects, which is always helpful in a relatively linear genre.
Overall a stellar performance on design. Way more engaging, replayable, entertaining, and challenging than I first thought. So what have I learned? Design is everything. Well, almost.
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Feb 20th, 2008 at 03:16:53 - Kirby's Adventure (NES) |
SUMMARY
Kirby's Adventure is a bright and playful platformer featuring an innovative weapon system and several different challenging worlds.
GAMEPLAY
So without any delay or narrative introduction I found myself on level one and ready to spend the next hour in blissful platform madness. I was immediately struck by the simplicity of the control system, and yet as I played more I was impressed at the variety of movement options available to the player. I progressed through the first level with relative ease, and was at first worried that the game might either be too easy or too short or both. However as stages of level one progressed it became apparent that this was not going to be an issue. The infinite jumping (or floating) provides some interesting gameplay aspects and helps gives the level a more open feel. Maybe its just me, but I am not fond of platform games that require precision jumping. So this was perfect for me.
Upon reaching the second level, rather than being bored like I thought I may be, I found I was more engaged than when I had started. I found myself wondering how Mario beat out this game for the platform king. The level design is fairly simple, but the bright and varied background design keeps interest from level to level. Also you can go underwater and fly! The fact that there are multiple ways to get through a level and multiple doors within levels provides at least a vague sense of freedom in the very rigid world of platform games. Overall, a fun hour, and it is easy to see why Kirby's Adventure is on the classics list. There are many interesting design features of this game that I will discuss tomorrow after my second session on my second log.
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TheVillage has been with GameLog for 16 years, 10 months, and 8 days |
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