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Feb 9th, 2008 at 01:26:58 - Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii) |
Gameplay 2:
The next round I played in Brawl, I chose Metaknight. After playing him, I discovered that Brawl has many quick characters to choose from, and that it has much more variation than Melee in that sense. Furthermore, there are many extremely slow characters such as Ganondorf and Ike to complete the spectrum.
Playing as a quick character, I was able to outmaneuver the slower characters and defeat them. This raised the question of balance, which seemed tilted in the agile characters favor. Ultimately, I won the match because I didn't lose as many lives as the more sluggish characters, and against the last remaining player I could almost dance around him, all the while dealing damage, until I could clear them off the stage at a high damage percentage.
Afterwards, I decided to play Ike to see if I could overcome the speed of other characters with brute force. I found this play style to be very exciting, as one powerful swing could clear a slightly damaged opponent off of the stage. I found that timing my attacks on a slow character was effective enough to beat the lighter, yet faster, characters. However, in competitive play, I would still prefer to use a quicker character.
Design:
Overall I believe that Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a very well designed game, and will be enjoyed by many. In multiplayer, the game is constantly challenging because the other players are constantly improving with different and new characters. Furthermore, as I learned the different characters, some moves can work in combination with others, making mastery of the game potentially very complex.
Keeping in character of the Super Smash Brothers series, the majority of the levels in Brawl present hazards. Such levels can add flavor, but ultimately detract from the gameplay in a more competitive setting, in which getting eaten by a fish on the Ice Climbers level would be very frustrating. For recreational play, I believe that dangerous levels added to the interaction among players, because my fellow players and I could laugh at the surprises.
Concerning tone in Brawl, the levels and tones of the gameworlds from which the all-stars came are represented well. I had fun playing on the stages from the characters' worlds, or at least containing the elements and art style of their corresponding gameworlds. I felt in Brawl, they were particularly well represented, and it allowed me to kind of relive Nintendo's other games
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 9th, 2008 at 01:54:58.
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Feb 8th, 2008 at 22:03:43 - Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Wii) |
Summary:
Super Smash Brothers Brawl is the third installment of the Super Smash Brothers series published by Nintendo. Following the style of the other Super Smash games, it is an all-star fighting game based on knocking an opponent off the stage to their demise, rather than depleting an opponent's hit points. Numerous characters with new mechanics were added, while several from Super Smash Brothers Melee were removed, such as Pichu, Dr. Mario, and Young Link. Although a story mode exists where character must progress through various levels, because I was playing the Japanese version of the game (since the North American version will not be released until March 9, 2008) and other friends wanted to play, I opted to try the multiplayer part of the game.
Gameplay 1:
Upon viewing the character selection screen I became very excited about the many new options offered, but before trying someone new I decided to test out one of my favorite characters who appeared in Super Smash Brothers Melee, Marth. I first noticed that the movement of the characters was significantly slower than Melee, but still faster than the original. Being used to Melee, I felt bogged down, but quickly learned to enjoy the new pace of game. I was glad that Nintendo didn't just remake Melee, and that I could learn how to move and dodge effectively in new environments.
Next, it became apparent that Brawl had removed wave dashing (an exploitable mechanic of Super Smash Brothers Melee basically consisting of short jumping and then air dodging into the ground to increase movement speed and to also be able to avoid attacks while still being able to attack) from Brawl. Although useful at a competitive level, I didn't enjoy wave dashing when playing recreationally with friends. Without this mechanic, I was free to enjoy focusing on the timing of my attacks and dodges, instead of having to focus on an exploit to win.
While playing with items on, specifically the newly added smash balls, the gameplay centered around acquiring/breaking open the smash balls to pull off a final smash. A final smash is a unique attack for each character(with some repetitions), that allows the user to dominate the playing field. Whenever one of the smash balls appeared on the stage, everyone would stop fighting to instead chase after the smash ball. While, this was fun in a recreational, care-free match, I expect smash balls to be undesirable in highly competitive games because using a final smash frequently ends in one or more other characters getting knocked out, while being relatively helpless to the player who used their final smash.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Feb 8th, 2008 at 22:30:11.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 02:46:32 - Super Smash Brothers (N64) |
Gameplay 2:
For my second game session, I played free-for-all mode in multiplayer mode with 3 other players. We set the amount of lives, or stock to 5 lives, and played multiple games. We all stuck with our favorite characters throughout the session. I used Fox, and my friends used Link, Donkey Kong, and Pikachu. We only used items the first game, restricting them to only bob-ombs, mines, pokeballs, beam swords, and home run bats.
In the first fight, I stayed in the fray and got killed very quickly, despite dealing much damage. Playing in the fray was fun, but chaotic, as sometimes losing control of the situation with one other player can be due to another character getting in the way. One highlight of this fight was that the person playing Donkey Kong grabbed the Pikachu and committing suicide by jumping off the edge of the stage, killing both the Pikachu and himself. A good player can avoid this happening to them by dodging out of the way of Donkey Kong’s grabs or by avoiding being near the edge of the stage in general.
The next stage we played on, I found some of the other players to be very good competition for myself. The Link would beat me when we fought each other, while the other players were on the other side of the map because the player had very good timing, thus his success was based on his skill with the game and its controls.
Ultimately in the this 4 player mode, standing off in the corner out of the fray, and being an opportunist will frequently lead to victory. The other players fight and kill each other while the opportunistic player takes little to no damage, becoming advantageous for him or her. I could ultimately win the games if I played more defensively and out of the fray, because I would have a balanced or more likely chance for victory in the final clash between the two last players.
Design:
I found the overall experience of playing Super Smash Brothers to be enjoyable. It is a very exciting multiplayer game, and proved to be socially a more constructive activity than destructive. I was able to get along with the other players, and appreciate their well timed and well placed attacks, instead of trash talking them. Furthermore, recognizing characters, items, and levels of other games is fun because players can experience more of the characters of these popular worlds by battling against other all stars in a game that uses the worlds old Nintendo games as the basis for the look and feel of the game.
However, there are some frustrating parts of the game. There is a lack of multiplayer levels without environmental hazards to interfere with players fighting other players. For purely recreational purposes such hazards can be entertaining, but in a more serious matchup being knocked off the map by an environmental hazard is annoying.
Also, throws from grabs are very powerful in this game, making all the other moves of the characters less useful, thus leading to less variation of options for successful play style. On some maps, the distance of a single throw can toss a player off the map, thus expending a life, which a normal quick attack, comparable to that of a melee grab, would produce much less of a knock back effect. So whereas it is frustrating to be repeatedly grabbed and thrown off the edge of the screen, it is also very satisfying to become skilled enough with throws, to implement them against other players.
Basically, the challenge offered in multiplayer super smash brothers is overcoming the skill level of the other human players to knock them off the screen. Having success with this challenge was enjoyable for me, and improving at the game by improving the timing of my attacks and by understanding all the characters' moves and how to respond was also fun.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 26th, 2008 at 02:59:15.
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Jan 26th, 2008 at 01:58:16 - Super Smash Brothers (N64) |
Summary:
For the classics list gamelog, I decided to play the original Super Smash Brothers. This game pits many of Nintendo's most famous characters from its most famous games. The game is centered around fighting each other using the classic abilities of each character from their game franchise, and knocking your opponent off the screen rather than defeating them by reducing their health to zero. As one character is attacked and becomes damaged, they become easier and easier to knock backwards, and off the screen. Their are two main modes of gameplay, single player and multiplayer mode, both allowing the player to play using Mario, Pikachu, Link, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Samus, Kirby or Fox with Luigi, Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, and Ness being unlockable. The single player mode is designed around beating several of the other characters at different stages, along with overcoming other trials in between fights, ultimately facing up against the Master Hand. In multiplayer, 2-4 human players can fight each other, and any number of computer players can be pitted against each other.
Gameplay 1:
I decided to play the multiplayer part of the game with one other person. I found it to be a very entertaining and pleasantly competitive game to play. My friend and I set the game to be basically endless, so there was no concern of one player losing all their lives and instead we would only focus on our in game fighting technique. Super Smash Brothers has many items that can be utilized in the game against other players. I found my favorite items to be the Bob-omb, the pokeball, and the home run bat.
For the first round of fighting, which took place on Sector Z level from Star Fox 64, I chose Luigi and my friend chose Mario. The two seem very similar at first, but I found Luigi less mundane than Mario. The two had a similar set of moves, but a skilled placement of one of Luigi's moves, made with a combination of up on the joy stick while pressing the B button, will launch an enemy off the screen with a low amount of damage being done to them. It is very satisfying to land a move such as this, as it is overpowering and very destructive if successful.
Next I played Link against my friend's Kirby. I found it very frustrating having a ranged, yet slow and risky against Kirby's quick melee range grab. The grab and throws in this game are very powerful. This match we played without items, and I found it to be more enjoyable, as it was a more skill based match up compared to the luck associated with items with whoever getting them having a significant advantage against other players frequently. Despite Link's slow grab, my smash attack using a sword was effective against the light weight Kirby.
Finally in 1 versus 1 multiplayer, I selected Fox to fight Captain Falcon without items. Both characters are much faster than the other characters in the game, with Fox having especially quick attacks. Running around the level with a fast character was more fun for me than using Link or Luigi. Also, it was especially fun to play Fox because Starfox 64 was one of my favorite games for the Nintendo 64, thus I could play one of my favorite characters against my friends and their favorite characters from Nintedo's various game series.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Jan 26th, 2008 at 02:23:46.
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