Friday 12 January, 2007

I started playing again today with the intention of figuring out how to rescue those five blind Mudokons I'd been struggling last time, but after twenty minutes of getting ground up and wandering around, I simply couldn't figure it out and decided it was time to move on. Oh, well. At least I didn't outright kill them.

I got killed a lot in Mine 5 because of the motion sensors setting off the alarms, so I got in the habit of Quicksaving after every step I took, just in case. Disarming the explosives was pretty easy--it's easier to do it by sound than by sight since every three beats is when it's safe to turn them off anyway. After being shot or blown up a couple of times (I liked this mine because it was challenging enough to be intriguing but not so challenging as to make me want to bash my head against the wall), I finally made it to the mine car and got in and started wreaking havoc. At this point, however, I didn't know how to get out of the car--either through neglecting to read the little info scroll or just because I didn't realize--and ended up killing at least three Mudokons accidentally. Oops. I didn't want this to mar my record, so I eventually figured out how to escape the mine car and got myself shot so I went back to my last Quicksave. This time I got farther without killing any Mudokons before quitting to go to dinner.

One thing that really stood out to me this time while I was playing was the importance of sound in the game--I noted in my last log how useful the speaking is within the gameplay, but the little things in the background noise (mine noises and whatnot in this level) really add to the atmosphere of the gameplay. The tense moments in the game when Sligs or Slogs are alerted to your presence are accompanied by appropriate music that really heightens the anxiety of the situation; I found myself really getting too much into the game and having to pause and minimize it for a moment so I could distance myself from it. Abe's Exoddus is, if nothing else, really effective at sucking one into the gameplay and making one "be" Abe.

The point I stopped at had me a little stumped, because I couldn't figure out a way to kill the Slig and get out of the mine car without killing the Mudokon present, so I'll have to work that out next time. (That, or try and finally interpret one of those internet walkthroughs for myself.)

Excellent log entry. The best things about this entry is the fact that you concentrate more on the game itself including your surroundings. These entries are to get you to look at the game as whole not just what your doing at the time. You did very well drawing the game parallels with the music and sounds. Sound is essential in a game and it is good that you picked up on that. Continue to look at every part on the game and you will continue to do well. You don't have to write about every aspect of the game, just what sticks out. Such as if you play Black and White you could talk about the really nice AI system with the avatars. You can also talk about visual effects anything that is really important to the game itself.