Monday 14 January, 2008

Gamelog Entry #1

Summary:
Rock Band is a musical game that allows up to four players to engage in a fun alternative instrumental simulation. Although the game has a single player mode, the most addicting factor is the multiplayer world tour mode because it creates a sense of comradery between "band mates".
Gameplay:
I invited a couple buddies over to play; after our initial three hours of non-stop practice mode trials, we felt ready to start a band and go on tour. When starting our band, named Rome's Revenge, we spent nearly an hour designing our characters to truly capture our alter ego looks. Once the creation process was over, we played our first gig in a small Roman theater and got a five star rating, the highest you can receive.
We were hooked to this game: the more we played, the more unison we felt as band mates. For instance, in a couple songs my friend always failed out at the same point in the song. I knew to keep my "energy" up, by hitting the perfect notes, so after he failed out I could revive him and continue with the song.

Gamelog Entry #2

Gameplay:
Rock Band is probably the most addicting local area multiplayer game I have played, and that is saying a lot since I’ve played plenty. My friends and I are so addicted that we spent eight hours playing the first day and this past weekend I received knocks on my door from them asking to play more.
Rock Band is not a quiet game, as people throughout the dorms had no trouble hearing me pound on the drums, but most just came to my door to watch not complain. It is surprisingly a good spectator game; people piled into my single dorm room to cheer-on the actual players, not necessarily needing their own chance to play. For this overwhelming popular response, it is quite an unusual experience for playing a video game.
Small elements, like designing a personal band logo and unlocking band transportation and security, help the game really succeed in keeping the tour mode goal-orientated and exciting. The song list is addicting in and of itself, since many of the songs we continue to play again and again. Rock Band has become one of my favorite games because of all these addicting factors.
Design:
Rock Band is definitely a game that is popular due to its core gameplay rather than graphical beauty. The game does have an appealing art style; however, when it comes to graphics, it doesn’t surpass last generation consoles. This may sound like a complaint but its actually not, the gameplay is so amazing I haven’t heard one negative comment about it. If I did have a complaint, however, it would be that it was not released for the PC or Wii.
I am very satisfied with the evolution of Harmonic’s music games. Guitar Hero was extremely innovative whereas gamers got a sense of feeling that they could rock out as their favorite rockers did. I cant stress how excited and thankful I am that they didn’t just stick to that title and they formed a whole new musical gaming experience. The price may be quite hefty to get a full band going in Rock Band, but it is definitely worth every penny.
The world tour mode is perhaps the most fun I have ever had while playing video games with friends; it always draws us back to play more. The key to this mode’s success is the bond players get after playing small gigs on the easy difficulty and working their way up to playing in huge areas on the hard or expert difficulty. Even after playing some of the songs hundreds of times they don’t get old because the whole band get perfects and it feels like we actually preformed those songs. The union Rock Band makes players feel and experience together will always draw people back for more, even for years to come.

While a good review, this isn't really what we're looking for. What is the actual gameplay mechanic? You mention players failing out and reviving them using perfect notes, but without context this is meaningless detail. In your design section, you should concentrate more on what design decisions were made, and if possible speculate as to why.

- Ian Rickard, your TA

(the following is included on all my first-round gradings, and should not be taken as any commentary on your writing.)

If you're interested, I'm happy to provide additional nit-picks of your writing. However as this course is not considered writing intensive, lapses in spelling and grammer of the type I would critique will not have any affect on your grade and so you really needn't worry about them. If you're interested in this type of feedback, email me at inio@soe and I'll provide it privately.