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Naveen's Upgrade (PC)
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| [February 5, 2012 06:18:17 PM]
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So, I played upgrade again over the weekend and to my horror, when I started the game, I realized my save system did not work. I’m not sure if the cookies accidentally got deleted or something but I was now left to start again at level 1. However, as I knew how the game worked now, I quickly got through to level 10( where I had left off ) in about 15 minutes. After another 20 minutes or so of bullet spamming, I had got through to level 20 and completed the whole game. Below is my reflection from the second day of playing Upgrade.
This time around I had unlocked ( bought ) two more features to the game, the progress bar and the achievements list. The progress bar tells you how much of the game you still have to explore in terms of upgrading, level completion and such and the achievements bar sets specific achievements for you to complete such as completing a certain amount of upgrading. However, I was unsure of the function of the achievements bar as you did not seems to gain anything from completing any of the achievements. I guess it is there just to give the players a sense of accomplishment.
However, I did not particularly enjoy my second time playing the game. For one, the gameplay is very routine. Once, you upgrade your weapons to more powerful ones, the game just becomes a case of pressing down the shoot key and spamming the bullets. The novelty of discovering how your upgraded weapons work had also worn off as all the upgrades worked just the same, your weapons just got more powerful without any features being added to them. They even looked the same even after upgrading. Hence, I think more variety of weapons could have been introduced as the levels increased to keep the player captivated. Another problem was that that I could not direct the missile and lighting attacks. these are done automatically and sometimes they did not target the enemies I wanted to. Better AI for this could be implemented.
The game should also introduce more types of enemies. Maybe ones that can shoot back at the player as well. Then the player would have to concentrate on shooting as well as on dodging enemy bullets. I would also give more reward to the player for completing a level as the upgrades are very costly.
Also, I feel the graphics could be better , even though you can upgrade the graphics as well because even at the highest level of upgrade the ships look suspiciously like they were drawn by a six- year old.
There is not much scope for emergent complexity in this game as it is a pretty simple one where your only action is to shoot at the enemy and the only outcome is that of the enemy being destroyed- or your bullet missing the enemy. As such, there are no advanced tactics or strategies to learn or think of in gameplay. As this game is a single player there is no interaction with other players as well. The makers of this game could introduce a multiplayer option where two player would either work together to destroy the enemies or go up against one another. This could make it more interesting than just challenging the computer whose AI is very basic.
There is some flow to the game while playing it as the enemies become more and more difficult to destroy and more numerous in number. There could have been a story-line added with a mission to add more flow to the game. This would enable the player to feel as if destroying the enemies had a higher purpose and so the feel more flow to the game as he progresses through the levels to goal of the mission.
However, for all the shortcomings, the game still seems quite successful as evidenced by the large number of players to have played it and the development of a sequel (Upgrade Complete 2 ) to it. The main idea of the game- that of upgrade is one I can use in my own games. This idea of upgrading I feel keeps the player more interested in the game as they will be keen to see how the new upgrade will function.
As a whole , I think the game has an innovative core idea which could have been implemented much better. The sequel could be worth playing if it has corrected some of the issues in the first game.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 5th, 2012 at 18:19:43.
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| [January 29, 2012 12:23:33 AM]
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Upgrade is a free online 2D scrolling shooter that i came upon while browsing some game sites. The game title seemed interesting and i decided to try it out. After playing for a while i found the game interesting and continued on. Below is my gamelog from the first day of playing this game.
The gameplay of Upgrade is very simple. The player is in control of a main ship and the aim is to shoot down other ships.If all enemy ships are destroyed, you progress to the next level. Where this game gets interesting is in the concept
of upgrading. Virtually everything in this game has to be bought or "upgraded", including the preloader, the title screen and even the menu buttons which give you the option of playing the game (You are given a small amount of money at the start to buy all these). Even the graphics can be upgraded. You start out with stick-figure-like ships that can be upgraded to look presentable. The money to upgrade all these comes from destroying the enemy ships. Each enemy ship gives off a coin upon getting destroyed which the user's ship has to catch.
I start off the game with my basic ship which consists of two level 1 guns and fail at the very first level. However, the good thing is that the game does not penalize you for being a failure and you can fail any level any number of times without any consequences. Shooting down some enemies has given me some money though and i use that to buy another gun. The game also gives me the option to build the ship however i wish to and i place my new gun in the middle of the other two to maximize shooting range.I get past level 1 and progress through the
other levels.In the process, i have added a lightning arc, a speed panel and a missile to my ship. I have also upgraded the graphics of the game( this costs a lot of money ) and it no longer looks like i'm stuck in the stone age.However, i also make the mistake of buying background music. If you are planning to play this game, please don't do this. The in-game music seems like something used to initiate seizure attacks and i play the rest of the game with my volume turned down to avoid a trip to the physician.I progress through to level 10 and that
is where i decide that i am done with upgrading for today and save the game for playing later(you have to buy the save system as well of course).
After the first day of playing Upgrade, I feel that the the whole game being based around the concept of upgrading is very innovative and the most
interesting element of the game.Although this is certainly not a new feature as
you can draw a parallel to games like age of empires where you can upgrade your civilization and weapons as the game progresses, the whole game being dependent on this idea of upgrading is certainly unprecedented.The main incentive for me
to carry on playing the game was finding out how your new upgrades will function/look rather than to complete the levels.
The controls for the game are very intuitive and require no time at all to learn.The arrow keys move the ship while spacebar fires bullets. The main ship can only move horizontally and not vertically.It may be an addition to the game to enable vertical movement as well, but in truth it is not necessary as the game is easy as it is and adding vertical movement will only make it easier.
There is a good diversity of weapon choice in the game from the guns which you can aim where to fire at to the lightning arc which automatically drains the health of nearby enemies.There are also other accessories to add onto the ship such as the speed panel which enables your ship to move faster and the coin magnet which attracts coins towards you.The ability to design your own ship is also very interesting for me. This is probably the only place in the whole game where you need a bit a strategy as if you place the weapons too close together or all to one side, your shooting range narrows. Thus, you need to manoeuvre the weapons around to find an optimal place for all the weapons which will maximize your shooting range.
This is a very short game. There are only 20 levels and progressing to the tenth level took less than half an hour. I guess this is a good thing as i was getting a bit tired of all the shooting and just wanted to progress through levels as fast i can and obtain the money to do the upgrades.
There is not much replay value to the game as like i mentioned before, my main interest was in finding out how my upgrades would look/function. Once i discovered that, there is no incentive for me to go back and play the earlier levels.A good idea would be to introduce some sort of difficulty level to the game as i do not find it to be much of a challenge.The added difficulty could be in the form of more/stronger enemies or more intelligent enemies.Right now, all enemy ships just drift to the bottom of the screen. It would definitely make the game much more interesting if the enemy ships tried to avoid the bullets being fired at them.
That is all from my first day of playing Upgrade. The link to the game is below.
http://armorgames.com/play/3955/upgrade-complete
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 29th, 2012 at 00:25:27.
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Naveen's Upgrade (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 28 January, 2012
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This is the only GameLog for Upgrade. |
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