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Mar 6th, 2008 at 01:21:43 - Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (DS) |
Final Gamelog
Part 2:
Gameplay:
I played the further into the main game of Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 and I found that the level got much more complex and that new elements were constantly being added. This had both good effects and bad effects. On the plus side the game was able to remain relatively fresh and challenging. On the bad side the more complex and bigger the levels got the harder the game was to control. It was mostly because the entire level could not fit on the screen and you had to tap the sides of the screen in order to scroll over the rest of the level. This made it much easier to keep track of mini Mario’s and mad it much harder to see the overall picture of the stage. In addition it was harder to control when events speed up because the touch screen was not always entirely accurate or responsive. Despite these shortcomings I actually had a better time playing the later levels and started becoming much more addicted.
The addiction I feel was related to each stage being short and moderately challenging. I really like that the stages were brief because I usually play the DS when I am waiting for something, like for a class to start. Consequently I like it when I can actually play a decent portion of the game without having to dedicate a huge amount of time to it or without having to worry too much about quitting it. Also the fact that the levels were not too hard (unless I was trying for a gold medal) kept me playing because I was challenge, but I still had the feeling that each level was doable and I was never very frustrated.
I also played with the level editor and Wi Fi. First, I discovered that there was a very large amount of unique stages to be downloaded online and I well I didn’t actually play many I feel that the feature will come in handy after I finish the regular levels. As for the level editor I found that it was fairly easy to use and had pretty good results. It seemed you could make a near infinite number of possible levels and you could play test the level with a push of a button. On the downside however, you could only save a small amount of puzzles and if you don’t really have anyone to share the level with it really isn’t much fun to play your own level. However, regardless of any downsides, both the level editor and the Wi Fi are good additions to the game.
Design:
One of Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2’s best aspects of design is its ability to create a learning experience. Most evidently, there are new elements being added all the time (like new obstacles) which keep you constantly having to learn and adjust in order to achieve your goal. On top of this the learning curve is not too steep. For example they usually don’t throw more than one thing at you at a time. Also after you are introduced to something new you are usually presented with a basic challenge of the new element first and then once you are used to the element, the challenge level is raised. Furthermore the game offers a tutorial function which you can always reference if you ever forget what a particular obstacle does. This game not only keeps forcing you to learn it also does a very good job of facilitating the learning
Linked to the game as a learning experience is the many ways in which the game challenges you. Most basically you are challenged to get at least one mini Mario to the goal, but the game offers many more optional challenges. For one there are many different ways to raise your score, like never stopping the mini Marios. These many challenges to receiving a high score create somewhat of a proving ground for the better player to demonstrate their skill. Also it is good that the extra challenges are optional because players who don’t care that much about the score can still move on to the next level without having to be stuck on the same frustrating level forever. In this way it is your choice if you want to take on the impossible challenge of getting a gold medal or if you just want to focus on the basics and see what else the game has to offer. This makes the game desirable to a wide audience.
Of course in a way the game does encourage you to take on the more difficult challenges because you are rewarded for completing them. Overall the game offers many types of rewards which help to motivate and engage players. These rewards include rewards of glory like earning medals and high score, rewards of access like unlocking a mini game, and rewards of facility like earning more mini Marios to use in the boss fight.
The level design function is also obviously a very strong asset to the game. There are a wide variety of things to use and an almost endless amount of possible level. The mechanics of the level design could be better, but the DS touch screen does really help because you don’t have to drag and drop things, you can just tap where you want them to be placed. Furthermore the level design does not only spark creativity, but also adds a huge amount of replay value. The Wi Fi features also add a huge amount of replay value to the game. The fact that you can download and share levels adds great replay value to the game and an additional social aspect to the game. Along with this you can say that the social aspect also adds a competitive aspect to the game, because people can compete to see who can make or pass the hardest stages
Finally the graphics and the sounds are a strong point of the game simply because they are executed well. The Graphic are very bright, clear cut, and good looking in general. The sound is also very crisp and good quality. Neither the sounds nor the graphics are very original, but they do a very good job of capturing the atmosphere of Mario.
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Mar 6th, 2008 at 01:20:56 - Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (DS) |
Final Game Log: Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: (Nintendo Ds)
Part 1:
Summary: Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 is a puzzle game in which you use the Nintendo DS touch screen to guide mini Marios to the goal. All the action takes place on a single screen, which contains an environment of obstacles and a number of mini Marios. You use the stylus to start and stop the mini Marios as well as to alter their surrounding environment. The goal is to safely guide the mini Marios to the exit (a door somewhere in the stage). You get more points for completing the goal fast, with all the mini Marios still alive, without ever stopping the mini Marios, and for getting the mini Marios through the exit in a chain.
Gameplay:
I basically just got this game because it was a Mario game, but when I played the game I found an experience very different from any Mario game I had played before. At first I was a little disappointed because the game seemed simple and not very lively. After all, each level was only one screen and all the player really did was start and stop the Marios. That’s when I realized that I couldn’t really expect this game to be like a typical fast action Mario adventure, and I started to see it for the unique puzzler that it really was
The first few stages really were not very impressive and I felt bored, yet it still felt good to get gold medals on my first try. Once the learning curve ended however I began to feel the opposite affect; I was now much more involved and interested in the game, but I was frustrated with not being able to get gold medals. I soon realized that the game was deceptively difficult. On one hand it wasn’t to hard to get past a stage because I only needed to save on mini Mario, but on the other had it was very hard to raise my score. The challenge stemmed from the fact of having to strategize quickly and having to multi task. The strategy came from the fact that I had to figure out the best route for the mini Mario’s to go. Simply figuring out the most efficient route was not very hard; however, the fact that I was being timed made me much more anxious to move quickly. This often resulted in me failing a stage because I had started moving the mini Mario’s before I had a good path planned for them. On top of this was the fact that there were multiple mini Marios and many obstacles and enemies in the stage. I constantly ended up with one a broken mini Mario because I had been focusing on another mini Mario in a different part of the stage. Overall after playing the main game for a while I found my mood going from bored to flirting with frustration.
I also played one boss battle and one mini game. To be honest I was not very impressed by either of the levels. The mini game was basically a pop goes the weasel variant which didn’t have much depth. It seemed like the designers just put the mini game just to make it seem like the game had more variety then it really did. In the boss battle basically you had to rotate a cannon to avoid falling objects and shoot mini Mario’s at Donkey Kong. Similar to the mini game the boss battle was not very deep and also seemed to be trying to add some action packed variety. In contrast to the mini game however the boss fight was a lot harder and had more frustrating controls. Essentially the boss battle and the mini games seemed to have nothing to do with the core game elements, which resulted in it seeming like you could master the essential gameplay and still suck at the boss fights and mini games.
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Feb 21st, 2008 at 01:42:12 - Wii Sports (Wii) |
Game log #4: Wii Sports
Part 2
Gameplay 2
The first thing I played my second time around was tennis. Like the last games I didn’t understand it well at first and didn’t really like it, but the game did grow on me. I definitely have to say that tennis is the simplest game because the gameplay mechanic is based almost entirely on the timing of the hit. After tennis I played boxing. To me boxing was a bit of a disappointment. This is probably because I knew that my brother liked the boxing game and I was expecting more. For the most part I felt that I was just flailing around and that most of my movements were not registered by the sensor. One aspect I did like was that the avatar would lean back or to the side if I did the same in real life. The last new game I played was golf. I thought the golf game was okay, but I felt that the swing usually wasn’t natural, especially when putting. Of course that could just be because I’m a bad golfer and my natural swing wasn’t good to start off with.
After playing the new games I played some mini games related to all the games. These were actually very entertaining. My favorite game was the homerun derby, mostly because I would compete against my brother and my cousins to see who could hit the most home runs. I also liked the bowling games, especially the one where you have to knock down a huge triangle of pins. For some reason there is something very satisfying about wiping out a lot of very orderly somethings, like a fresh piece of bubble wrap. It’s not surprising that my favorite mini games also happen to be my favorite full games, but I also like the tennis mini game and boxing mini games, which surprised me because I didn’t care much for their full games.
One thing I noticed was that some controls seems oddly unsatisfying simply because the Wii remote just couldn’t replicate the feel of using the equipment or playing the sport. Also I feel that the lightness of the Wii remote made some sports like baseball a little dangerous because at times I would move my arms very fast and I was afraid of throwing it out. This is similar to the way that you shouldn’t throw a tennis ball or a waffle ball too hard. Of course I wouldn’t really want a heavy controller either because that would just cause more problems.
Probably the most notable thing I did during my second session was to play the game with other people. Playing with other people really opened up the game play possibilities and I enjoyed the competition. In addition I enjoyed playing with people who don’t usually play videogames, like my parents. Overall the game is fun to play alone, but it is a lot more fun to play in a group, even if you have to take turns.
Design:
One of the games biggest assets is that it is so simple. This simplicity adds greatly to the emergent and social qualities of the game. Obviously it adds to the social aspect of the game because it is open to a very wide audience. More than any other game in recent time Wii Sports has the ability to attract even the most unlikely gamer and this no doubt has something to do with that fact that the game is so quick and easy to play. Furthermore, because the audience is larger there are more opportunities for social play. For example, I wouldn’t play soul caliber with my parents because it is just too complicated; I doubt they could even do single combo. However, I would and have played Wii Sports with my parents because it is very easy to learn and play is very straightforward and short. It also probably helped that the games in Wii sports exist in real life as well. In addition to appealing to a wide audience the emergent qualities of the game also contribute to socialization. This is because any game can play out a nearly infinite amount of ways so that the game feels fresh each time, which adds to its replay value, but also adds to its value as a competitive game. The emergent qualities allow the competition to create large gameplay branches and provide unpredictable and intense gameplay. Almost any game is more enjoyable when it is competitive and competing against someone is certainly a way to socialize. To sum it up, the simplicity of Wii Sports leads to it being a very social game.
On the flip side Wii sports can at times be too simple. It is so simple that in some cases there isn’t much way to get good at the game. It is so easy to play that even if you get better you are still only slightly better than a person you has just started the game and therefore chance can have too strong an effect on a competition. This is great for the beginner because they are not bullied around by an experienced player, but if you are an experience player it sucks to lose to a newbie. Also Most of the games are fairly short and don’t have a lot of depth to them. For example, in baseball you can’t play more than three innings, you can’t switch pitcher, and you can’t field. This is expected because of the arcade like nature of the game, but if you want a serious game then you would need to look elsewhere.
The control scheme of the game has many unique qualities. For one, the control scheme actually factors into the games audience. I would argue that people are attracted to the novelty of the motion sensors controls. In a way this novelty makes Wii sports seem less of a traditional game and essential all players start off with the same amount of experience (as far as controls go). Because of this less experienced players are sometimes less intimidated or put off by the game, and sometimes are attracted to it just to see how the new technology works. Another unique aspect of the controls is that there is more then one way to perform the same action. For example, if you were simply playing as instructed you would swing your controller like a bat to hit a baseball, but if you didn’t have enough room or simply were too tired you could just flick the controller forward and you would get the same result. I would argue that this is a good feature of the gameplay because it allows you to play as you wish and allows for gameplay variation. You could say that not swinging the bat like a real bat would be cheating, but if you really thought that you could just stipulate that the bat has to be swung like a real bat in your particular competition.
One neat feature is that all the characters in the games can be Miis from your system. This adds a much more of a personal touch and somewhat of a story to a game which makes players more attached to it. Most evidently you are more attached when playing the Mii that is supposed to represent you because in some way you feel like you are the avatar. In addition when you are playing baseball all the players will be your systems Miis if you have enough of them. This engages the player much more than just generic characters would because now you know all the Miis and they all have there own personalities and backgrounds. For example, when you hit a home run with a random Mii who cares, but when you hit one with a sibling or friends Mii it has a lot more meaning. It’s hard to resist the urge to tell someone that their Mii was 4 for 4 with an out of the park homerun. Sometimes you almost feel like your friends really are on your team. This could just be my experience, but the fact that you can have custom characters definitely adds to the game and more games should make use of the Miis.
Wii Sports also has an interesting reward system that does some good and some bad things. The good is that you get to earn points and gain rank. This in conjunction with being able to set records keeps you attached to the game and gives you incentive to keep playing on your own. However the bad part is that you can lose points too. For example, the more I played baseball, the more ridiculously challenging the computer players got which caused me to lose more games. This was very frustrating because I would lose points in my overall ranking. This sucked even more in bowling because I could lose points just for not bowling as well as my previous games. This takes some fun out of the game because it causes the player to worry about loosing rank, which detracts from the simple lighthearted nature of the game. An easy way to remedy this would be to allow the option of gaining points or staying even, but not to allow the option of losing points so that players are not discouraged from playing.
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Feb 21st, 2008 at 01:41:30 - Wii Sports (Wii) |
Game log #4: Wii Sports
Part 1
Summary:
Wii Sports comes packed with every Wii console and is sort of a demo of what the Wii controllers can do. It consists of bowling, boxing, baseball, tennis, and golf and some mini games under each. Each game relies heavily on motion controls and uses them to simulate the particular sport. All the games are very simple and easy to play.
Gameplay:
Before playing Wii Sports I watched my brother play, which gave me a pretty good impression of what to do and how stupid I was going to look doing it. In addition to that the game seems to give pretty good instructions on how to play but for some reason despite watching my brother and reading the instructions it still took some practice to get the controls right. I suspect that it is partly because the Wii controllers are so novel to me. For example, with a traditional controller I just have to memorize the control layout and then I’m pretty much able to control the game well; however with Wii Sports I couldn’t just know the button layout. I also had to get used to how fast to move, how much to move, and when to move. Moral of the story the unique controls of Wii Sports created a unique learning experience for me.
The first game I played was baseball because real baseball is my favorite real life sport out of the choices available. At first I was a little discouraged because I had a lot of trouble timing my swing and couldn’t seem to strike a player out. Fortunately these problems were remedied quickly. My swing was able to improve quickly because the game would tell me if I swung too early or too late, which made it a lot easier to adjust than it would have been if I didn’t know. My Pitching also improved, but it turned out the main reason I couldn’t pitch well was because I hadn’t realized that you could pitch inside or outside. In addition my pitching improved when I realized that a flick of the wrist resulted in a much better pitch than a full arm swing. Ultimately I ended up having a lot of fun with it and I started to feel like a pretty good baseball player.
After baseball I played bowling. Bowling was a lot easier than baseball and in some ways it was more fun. One thing that bowling had going for it was that I felt like my movements were more realistic. In baseball all I really had to do was flick the remote and I would swing or pitch, but in bowling I actually felt like I was going through the movement of throwing the ball. Of course another good thing about bowling was that it was not too realistic, as in I didn’t throw a gutter ball every time. Bowling was also particularly fun for me because it could be played multiplayer without needing another remote (which was good because my brother only had one remote). I had a good time competing against the rest of my family and this game was particularly good for playing against the less experienced video game players because all you really had to do was move like you were throwing the ball. In addition it was still fun for more experienced players because they could experiment with throwing the ball at different angles and with different spins. In the end bowling was a fun and simple game that could be played with the whole family.
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