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Apr 25th, 2009 at 00:42:16 - Cricket 2005 (PC) |
Introduction: EA sports Cricket 2005 game provides the essence of real cricket game. The gameplay is really similar to real cricket. There are two teams with 11 players each. In single player mode, you can select one team and the opponent will be the AI. In multiplayer mode, two players can select opponent teams. The first team bats, while the second team bowls. The batting team tries to make score as high as possible, while bowling team tries to bowl them out. After one inning the teams changes their roles. Now the second team bats and tries to beat first team’s score, while the first team tries to bowl them out. At the end whichever team has more score wins. All the aspects such as players-out, scoring etc are done the same way as the real cricket.
Design: The game is all about timing. You can hit any shot or bowl any ball, but until the timing is not right, there is no good news. While batting, the same shot can fetch 6 runs and same shot can get you out, with a different of one-tenth of a second. Similarly, while bowling, this difference of time can turn a ball from fast-ball to a no-ball with penalty. The concept of confidence for batsman and bowler is an innovative concept. The batsman can build his confidence by playing more soberly at start and once he has enough confidence he can play aggressively. Similarly, the bowler can gain confidence by throwing no-run balls and after getting enough confidence, he can try special balls. The graphics are pretty neat. The physical body modeling of players is superb and actions of players almost exactly match real players. The sound effects are pretty fair with audience ambience noise and commentary.
Interaction: There are lots of possibilities for type of shots while batting, or type of balls for bowling. An innovative element of this game was the modeling of shots or bowls to key combinations, which are easy to execute. However this easiness in executing actions in complemented by timing to execute that action. Also very less keys are used for any action (Just two keys each for bowling and batting).
Level design: The level design is implemented based on different opponent teams. There are two game modes International and Domestic, which are further divided into tournaments etc. The tournament usually starts with a weak team as opponent and progresses towards more difficult teams as you win the games.
Conflict: The conflict is created by the aim of scoring more then the other team or bowl out the other team
Problems: While the batting is easy to do, the bowling carries a lot of variability. In multiplayer mode, the batting can really beat the balls, however in single player mode, when AI is batting; it is very easy to bowl them out. Most of the people I know who play this game prefer batting and leave the bowling to autoplay. The bowling physics needs to be improved. It is correct for context, but not intuitive. The bowler must have the ability to bowl any type of ball, irrespective of his confidence (That’s how it works in real world). The commentary part is also not correct. Wrong names, wrong shots, repeated dialogues, wrong score reporting etc. all are present in the commentary, which breaks the flow of game and distract the player.
Overall this game does give cricket game experience. It is very addictive. However getting the timing right does takes some time and patience (Don’t slam your PC if you can’t win first 20-50 game). Ultimately, after learning the timing, this game is a real FUN.
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Mar 6th, 2009 at 13:18:33 - Circle Pong Extreme (PC) |
The game is fun once you manage to start it correctly. My first session had to be started seven times. Every time i started this game, the ball will fall back through the paddle (towards right side of screen) and it will show Game-over with new high score as 1. With time, i managed to learn how to start it correctly. The trick is to let the ball fall through the paddle towards right first time, and while it is still falling, move the paddle to some other location. This will again bring game-over screen, however this time when you restart it by pressing F2 the paddle will start from the same position where you left it before game-over. You can then just click and game will start. It may be caused by some bug at start position, for other positions it seems to be working fine.
About game play, It is indeed a fun game, with lots of power-ups. For my first session, i manage to collect 36804 score. I got "Sticky" power with "multi-ball" power, and at one time i had 17 balls stuck to my paddle. The whole time i was just trying to keep all the balls on paddle and not worrying about any power-ups (Statistically they had to come anyway). However after sometime paddle started shrinking and ultimately ended as me loosing the ball.
Second session was not that much of a fun. with some weird power, the ball size increased to almost 8 times. It may be considered good but after some time, paddle size reduced to almost 1cm. With my good luck, i got the "Slow-the-things" power, and managed to keep the ball. Once that power was gone, it was just fight for survival. To make things worse, it appeared as if ball went right through the paddle for some reason, and i lost it. There seemed to be some other object-intersection bugs also in the game. for example, to get a power, the ball must go through exact center of the power, otherwise no show.
I tried to play it on laptop with default mouse-pad control, which actually is very difficult as, the paddle will move to the direction, where the mouse pointer is with respect to center of the screen. While moving, it takes shortest circular route. It means even if you try to go under the center, sometimes just a pixel error can cause it to go above the center. You have to move mouse pointer in circular route (really far away from center) to keep it more intuitive experience ( Well that is what a circular pong is supposed to be). I personally think an Ipod kind of control would be perfect for a circular game.
Overall this game is fun to play (Of course when you learn to start it)
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Jan 20th, 2009 at 12:12:20 - Twelve-Branches (Other) |
Bara-Tahni (Twelve branches) is an ancient Indian multiplayer game played by two people. It can be seen as a variant of the Chinese checkers game with more restricted moves of one's pieces.
The objective of this game is to kill opponent's pieces by jumping over them.
=Players=
Only two players can play at one time.
=The Board=
The board consist of 4 X 4 grid with a square diamond shape and a cross. The diamond joins mid-points of all four sides, while the cross joins ends of four sides to the center of the grid.
Each player has 12 marbles with separate color for each player. The marbles can have any shape however all the pieces for one player must be of uniform color.
The marbles for both players are placed on all the line-intersection points at opposite ends of board, with one empty place in center.
=Game Mechanics=
The aim of the game is to kill all of the pieces of the opponent. The players take turns to move the marble. In every turn, the marble can either move one step or it can move one or more available jumps. In one normal step, the marble can move one adjacent position out of 3,4,5,8 available positions depending upon its position on board.
In one jump, marble can jump over an adjacent marble of opponent's, to the next unoccupied position, along same direction as the opponent's marble. However from this position marble can jump to other available positions in same move, killing opponent's other marbles. Jumping over more then one marble is not allowed.
The main strategy of this game is to attack by finding the longest jumping path, which can kill more then one opponent pieces. On the receiving end, the strategy is to block, by preventing the opponent from killing your pieces. There can be some situations to exploit where sacrificing one piece can make you able to kill more then one of opponent pieces.
=Game Play=
I played this game with my friend who has never seen this game before. The rules were pretty simple so it was very easy to play.
First Session: I started the game. At start of game it usually happens that one piece from each side is killed in first two moves. After certain moves of attack and block, i made a mistake that resulted in loosing two of my marbles at the price of one of opponent's marble. This mistake was more severe then it looked at the time, and costed me that session.
Second session: After being beaten by a novice, it was a matter of pride. I started second session cautiously. My opponent was playing good, but he made the most infamous mistake of being a near-sighted. He placed his marbles in a vulnerable stage by killing one of my marbles. Moment of glory at last !!! I killed 3 of his pieces in one move. After that, there was no chance for him and ultimately i won the game with 5 pieces alive.
After playing game I got a trick about this game. There in an advantage in keeping one's pieces on the corners and sides of the board. The more your pieces stay there, more safe they are as, it is not possible to jump a piece when it is at corner. This strategy also increases the chance of killing the opponent's pieces as you can attack from all sides.
=Overall=
Twelve-branches is an interesting strategy game. Sometimes it can be time-consuming as chess but ultimately it results in fun and excitement.
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