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Apr 26th, 2009 at 00:32:59 - Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (PS2) |
Overview:
Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core is a fighting game for PS2 released in 2006. It is the third update to the original Guilty Gear XX released in 2002. The Guilty Gear series of fighting games is known in fighting game circles for its unique character design and its advanced fighting system.
Story:
Unlike most fighting games, the Guilty gear series has a very expansive story. Unfortunately, none of that story is present in Guilty Gear XX: Accent core. The game takes place in the distant future, after mankind has fought a war against bio-organic weapons called Gears.
Character Design:
One thing that makes Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core stand out among other fighting games is its character design. Guilty gear has some of the most unique characters and fighting styles seen in a fighting game. The character Zappa is a man possessed by ghosts. He stands bent over backwards and summons ghosts to help him in battle. Venom fights by summoning pool balls and launching them towards the opponent with his pool cue. A.B.A is a girl who fights with a giant key, and consumes her own blood to make the key more powerful. The characters in Guilty Gear also reference many different hard rock and heavy metal bands. Sol-Badguy, the main character, is a walking Queen reference. (Queen is apparently the creator’s favorite band) Sol wears a headband that has “Rock You” written on it. His real name is Frederick, which is a reference to the lead singer of Queen, Freddie Mercury. Ky has a move called “Ride the Lightning” which is a Metallica album. Ky also has a move called “Rising Force” which is named after a Yngwie Malmsteen album. Testament and Slayer are named after bands bearing those names. Testament has a move called “Warrant” which is named after a band and a move called “Master of Puppets” which is a Metallica album.
Game play:
Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core like the other games in the series, is a fast paced 2D fighting game with an emphasis on chain combos. There are five attack buttons: punch, kick, slash, heavy slash and dust. You have the ability to dash forward or backward in mid-air and double jump. As you fight, the tension meter will gradually fill. Players can use half the tension bar to perform a super. The tension bar can also be used to perform a Roman Cancel. A Roman Cancel allows a player to quickly end the animation of an attack before it finishes normally. You can use Roman cancels to keep from getting hit after a big move or cancel a move to continue a combo. Players can also perform a False Roman Cancel by performing a Roman Cancel at the right moment. Normal Roman Cancels cost half of the tension bar, but False Roman Cancels only cost a quarter of the tension bar. If you are caught in a combo, you can perform a Burst to knock the enemy away and end their combo. You can also use a Burst while not being attacked to completely fill your tension bar. The Burst gauge is full when a match starts and fills as you take damage during a fight. The dust button can be used to sweep an opponent or launch them into the air to perform an air combo. If you want to end a round quickly, you can perform an Instant Kill. Be warned. If you miss with an Instant Kill, you lose your tension bar for the rest of the round. Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core adds Force Break attacks to the mix. Force breaks are powered up versions of special moves that cost a quarter of the tension bar.
Modes of Play:
There are five modes of play available in Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core: Arcade, Survival M.O.M, V.S. and Practice. Arcade, V.S., and Practice are the same in Guilty Gear as they would be in any other fighting game. Survival, however, is much different. Instead of fighting enemies until you run out of health, you instead fight enemies and gain levels as you land attacks on them. When you have gone up 20 levels, you fight a daredevil. The daredevil will be a completely black, EX version of a character with infinite tension. (EX characters have slightly different movesets than their normal counterparts.) If you can defeat the daredevil, you will unlock the EX version of that character. M.O.M mode is truly the odd one of the bunch. In M.O.M mode or Master of Medals mode, different sized medals will fly out of your opponent as you attack them. You must collect these medals to get a high score. As you land more hits on the enemy, medals worth more points will appear.
First Session:
For my first session, I selected survival mode. I chose to play with Ky, my favorite character. I worked my way through survival, defeating enemies without too much trouble until I reached survival level 140. At level 140, you face daredevil Ky, who seems to despise my very existence. I had an epic battle with Ky that involved trading supers, air combos, and even Roman Cancels (not me of course). In the end, I lost. It was a close match though.
Second Session:
For my next session, I selected survival mode again. This time, I chose Testament who is probably my second favorite character. This time playing through survival wasn’t as smooth. I had some problems fighting daredevil Chipp at level 40. Chipp is one of the fastest characters in the game, and Testament is one of the slower characters. It was hard for me to hit him because he was all over the screen. I defeated him and continued on. From then on, it was smooth sailing until level 140 when I fought daredevil Ky again. This time, I didn’t put up such a good fight. He completely decimated me.
Overall, I think that Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core is a great fighting game and one of my personal favorites. Even if you’re only a casual fighting game player, you will find enjoyment in this game.
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Mar 6th, 2009 at 15:42:48 - XKCD The Game (PC) |
XKCD: The Game is a single player game that combines elements of multiple game genres with a humorous story to create a short, but very enjoyable game.
Gameplay:
The game consists of four levels. Each level is of a different genre. The first level is a combination of a quiz game and a shooting game. The objective is to shoot down all of the objects using the mouse and answer two questions. The questions serve little purpose except for comedic value. The next level is a racing game. The player must race against the man in the hat while dodging spiders and avoiding the sides of the race track. If you touch the sides, your character slows down. If you get caught by the spiders, you stop completely. The next level is a beat-em up game. The objective is to defeat the enemies and get to the door at the end of the level. Enemies range from velociraptors to ninjas. The final level is a tower defense game. You must prevent units of enemies from getting into your base. You can set up turrets to shoot the enemies as they try to walk in your base. As you kill enemies, your score increases. You can use your score to purchase new types of turrets.
Story:
The story is told through comic panels that appear after each level. The main character attempts to throw a boomerang, and it is stolen by a man in a hat. The story is full of references to movies, old TV shows, and even politicians. I found the story to be very funny. It is faithful to the source material.
First Session:
For the first session, I started up the game and read the story panels. Afterwards, I began play with the first level. First, I had to shoot the objects as they passed by the screen. It was relatively easy, although I had to double click on the objects to actually shoot them. It seems that the mouse events are a bit buggy. I remembered the answers to the questions from the demo of the game in class, so I had no problems answering correctly. Next, I proceeded to the second level. Of the levels, I think that the second level is the least fun to play. I raced against the opponent for a while and got completely stuck on one of the spiders. The opponent got far ahead of me, but it didn’t matter since we both started at the same place in the next room. By the time we reached the final room, I reached the end before the opponent and won. The next stage was the beat-em up level. This level was very easy. I just walked forward until I saw an enemy and pressed spacebar until it died. To me, this level was the easiest and quickest level to beat. Then, I advanced to the last level. The last level was the tower defense level and my personal favorite. I started off by buying three gun towers. Afterwards, I worked my way up until I bought my first laser tower. After buying the first laser tower, the game becomes pretty easy. Nothing can survive against the laser tower for very long. Finally, the man in the hat appeared, and he stood no chance against my towers. After his defeat, I viewed the last set of comic panels, and the game was over.
Second Session:
For the second session, I started the game and skipped the story panels. I began play with the first level. Like the first time, I had to double click on the objects to shoot them. I answered the questions with ease and proceeded to the next level. While playing the second level, I got completely stuck on one of the spiders. I had to restart the game. I played up to the second level again, and got way behind the opponent. I quickly discovered that it doesn’t really matter if you get behind him. You seem to win just as long as you get to the end. I quickly breezed through the third level. I actually took damage once during the level, but quickly regained my health. The enemies didn’t stand much of a chance. The tower defense level was still the most fun. Like the first time, I worked my way up until I could buy laser turrets. After that, the rest of the level was a breeze.
Final Impression:
I think that this game is a little too easy. I beat the game without even the fear of dying. I think that the idea of having each level as a different type of game was very creative. For me, the selling points of the game were the tower defense level and the funny story. Overall, I find this game to be entertaining.
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Jan 21st, 2009 at 01:30:49 - Starcraft: The Board Game (Other) |
Starcraft: The Board Game is a multiplayer strategy/conquest board game for 2 – 6 players. The game is based on the highly popular real time strategy game of the same name. Players choose a faction belonging to one of three unique races (Zerg, Protoss and Terrans). Each race has two factions, and each faction has its own special abilities, units, and victory conditions. Victory is achieved either by destroying the other players, having 15 conquest points at the end of a turn, or by achieving a faction’s special victory conditions.
Initial Setup:
After choosing a faction, players are given a player card corresponding to their chosen faction. These cards give detailed explanations of the faction’s special abilities, special victory conditions and starting units. Then, each player picks two planets at random and arranges them however they choose. Next, players choose the location of their home base and place their starting units on their home planet. Afterward, players can choose which adjacent planet they want their transport to carry units to.
Placing Orders:
After the initial setup is complete, the players begin placing orders. Orders can only be placed on planets where the player has friendly units or on planets that have transports going to them. Each player plays four orders one at a time in a round robin fashion. Multiple orders can be placed on the planets in a stack. The first order on the stack is always executed first. One player can place an order on top of another player’s order blocking them from executing their order. When the players have placed all their orders, the players execute one of their orders until all orders have been executed. When all orders are executed, the turn is over. There are three types of orders: build, move, and research. During a build order, the player can build a base, new units, or new buildings, which allow players to build better units. During a move order, players can either rearrange units on a planet, move units to another planet, or attack. During a research order, players can look for new technology cards to use during battles.
Victory:
There are three different ways that victory can be achieved. Present on some of the planets are conquest points. Players can build bases on the spaces that have conquest points. If a player has a base on a space with conquest points at the end of a turn, the player gains that number of conquest points. If a player gains 15 conquest points, that player wins. Though highly unlikely, victory can be achieved by destroying the other players completely. Victory can also be achieved by meeting the special victory conditions listed on the player card.
Gameplay:
First Session:
For our first session of Starcraft: The Board Game, we played a game with three people. All of us were first time players. One of us, coincidentally the owner of the game, had played the original PC game. The other player and I had never played the original game before. Since this was the first time any of us had ever played the board game, setup took about 30 minutes. We had to continually consult the rulebook to make sure we fully understood the rules of the game. The game progressed slowly for the first couple of turns. We had to refer to the manual frequently, and we kept putting our orders in the wrong place. I advanced my troops to the nearest planet to try and claim more conquest points, while one player just made troops and held his position. The one player who had already played Starcraft before quickly made heavy ground troops and attacked the troops I had just moved. He easily destroyed my troops. It seemed like he had a huge advantage over the rest of us. The other player just sat in his happy corner and did nothing. Due to one of the player’s special victory conditions, the game ended before anyone really accomplished anything.
Second Session:
For our second session, we played with three players again. This time only one of us was new to the game. Setup and explanation of the rules took only about 15 minutes this time. Even with less inexperienced players, the flow of the game still seemed to drag along. It seemed like the same player who had the upper hand last session, still had the upper hand during this session. Again, due to a player’s special victory conditions, the game ended before anybody could really do much.
Final Impression: I really enjoyed the strategy aspect of this game. But the sheer volume of rules, obnoxiously long set up time, and the slow pace of the game detract from the gaming experience. Both sessions seemed to move along at a snail’s pace until ending abruptly, leaving the winner with no feeling of accomplishment. In my opinion, the PC game is far superior to the board game.
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