Tuesday 15 January, 2008

SUMMARY
This game is about a plucky young girl named Jade, who lives in a small yet futuristic town on the planet Hillys. The planet is under attack by the Domz, an evil group of monsters from space. Jade must defend her home and all the poor orphans that live there from alien bombardment. How? By taking pictures with her camera, of course! And beating up things with her staff.

GAMEPLAY
The game starts with a few short cutscenes about the war with the Domz to give some backround info, then gets right to the fighting. After the first five minutes I had mastered the simple combat system. Aim in the direction of the bad guys and push the x-button a bunch is all it takes, but I guess it is the start of the game, so it should be easy. I was joined by a pig-man ally of mine named Pey'j. together we fought a boss that required I use a charge attack to break its defenses.
All that was the intro to the battle system, so I had hoped that enemies afterwards would pose more of a challenge, but all the enemies I fought could be dispatched quickly by the x-button combo over and over. I used Jade's dodge move on a couple enemies to try it out, but it was never actually needed. Pey'j could help Jade againts some monsters with a super ground pound, making those baddies even easier to destroy.
I had more fun with Jade's camera, which is used to take pictures of any animal species you find on your adventures. You get rewards for every new species you find, so I liked searching the pretty fantasy environments like glowing caves and and rocky islands for all the litte buggers. Some required a trick to get a good shot of them, and others (like a spongy section of ground) didn't seem like animals. The camera had to be zoomed to the right distance for an acceptable shot, increasing the difficulty. Even the bosses can be photographed, giving you a hefty bonus if you manage to capture them on film. Its a nice touch and I wouldn't mind seeing more games with this enjoyable distraction.

What's here is good, but where's part 2? Some mention of what genre the game is would be good.

- 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.