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Sunday 13 January, 2008
[Gameplay]
So, I just beat the game, on co-op no less. Playing this game with another player was a bit of a different experience. Each player is relegated to one character, totally unsurprising, but somewhat frustrating. Seeing as my companion was new to the game and coming in on a final level (all you have to do is plug in a controller and hit the start button to start playing which is a nice feature) I found myself giving him a very brief tutorial and then bossing him around for the rest of the level, because I understood all of the puzzles and level solutions were intuitive for me. I think it would have been a different experience if we had started the game together and played straight through on co-op, but I found playing with another player to be a bit of an impediment in the game, and our social interactions weren't terribly enjoyable for either of us. Although as began to get the hang of it the level of enjoyment increased.
I realize now that one of the downfalls of this game is that it is trying to be both a two player game and single player game at the same time. Therefore both gametypes suffer. In singleplayer the AI of your non-active character is totally useless which I feel like is the developers way of hinting that I should be playing with a friend. Yet with two players a lot of game time is spent sitting around while your friend completes a puzzle so you can continue, and while technically you are working together to complete a level it feels like you are just taking turns.
As we played we fell into many of the same pitfalls that I had experienced in singleplayer, confusing level design, puzzles that were vague about their goals, and frustrating camera angles (which I'm realizing I neglected to mention in the first post). Overall it was a mediocre multiplayer experience, with a few highs and exciting parts, but mostly similar gameplay to the singleplayer game.
[Design]
[+] First of all the overall game design is good. The best part of the game is how seamlessly intigrated and amusing the cutscenes are.
[+] One decision the developers made was to do away with finite lives and time. Players can die as many times as they want with no consequence. The game is made for completists, you are rewarded if you get through a level quickly, collect all the special objects, and don't die, but if you fail to do any of these things there are no consequences. I disagree with this choice and I found myself getting lazy and goofing off, jumping off of levels for fun, etc. because I knew I couldn't get a perfect score on the first run through, so why bother trying. I understand the decision to get rid of lives, it is clearly to lower the learning curve and the ease of play, but I have a hard time getting into a game with no visible consequences.
[+] Most of the mini-games were enjoyable but only because of the setup, art, and sound, not because of the gameplay. Most of the mini-games were meant to be satirical, but when we focus only on the gameplay they come across as hackneyed clones. I feel like more effort could have gone into getting timings right and tweaking gameplay to make it more enjoyable.
[+] I thought that the different characters in the game were well balanced but different enough that I would look forward to the change of pace. When playing with Homer and Bart the game is pretty much a 3rd person brawler, but when playing with Lisa and Marge it feels far more like a puzzle game. I think that the developers did a good job making the characters unique and there's nothing I can think of that would have improved that experience.
[+] There was practically no change in difficulty the entire way through the game. The first level was just as difficult as the last level (although the last level was significantly longer). I didn't feel like the skills and abilities I'd picked up as I played the game were put to good use and I felt ripped off. The mini-games even got easier as the game went on; the final boss battle was a really bad rythm-game played with the analog pad. It was tedious and frustrating, I would have hoped the game went out on a better note. (Also, it was probably a glitch but none of the enemies on the last level even fought back, but I should probably go back and see if it happens again)
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