Friday 18 January, 2008

I was late in enrolling in the class.



Session 1


SUMMARY


In Crash Bandicoot for Playstation One the player controls a character by the name of Crash. Crash was developed by Doctor Cortex. The game follows Crash trying to halt his masters plan of global command.


GAMEPLAY

Playing this game was really interesting. I remembered seeing all those commercials when I was kid, but never to got to have the ‘crash’ experience. As far as the story, it’s a little corny, but for their aimed audience it is appropriate. Crash is a good example. He is a marsupial and is an attractive choice for the younger players.

At first I was a little bewildered on the pace of the game. It turns out it is a pretty easy game to pickup. With simple controls and easy jump maneuvers, Crash was fairly easy to control. In the game you try and get all the boxes and apples. Once you get 100 apples one more life is given to you and the counter restarts. There are also various bonus stages for extra apples. The game goes on to encounter various predators and using the simple spin move to kill them.






Session 2


GAMEPLAY

After returning to Crash Bandicoot I became excited, it had a lot more to offer than I originally thought. In some boxes there is mask that protects your from predators but not from holes. I also noticed if you spin near the apples they fly away, which is looses you points.



DESIGN

The level variation makes the game much more entertaining. Each level has a new obstacle to offer, but not as hard to achieve. In one level, Boulder, the screen does a 360° and Crash gets chased by a boulder running towards the screen. With all the variation, the game gets slightly addicting.

Crash Bandicoot also has side missions along with the main theme of the game. At the end of each level they count how many boxes you missed. If you achieve 100% of the boxes than you open up new levels. Overall Crash being so simple is yet so entertaining.

You've got the right idea, but you need to be giving us a LOT more details in all the sections. In the summary, you should be talking about what kind of game it is - is it a platformer, an RPG, an FPS? Similarly in the gameplay section, talk specifically about what the game mechanics are and how they make the game fun or not fun, etc. See the website for a complete list of questions to give you an idea for what to write about. You certainly don't need to answer all the questions, but you should be writing more than this. Aim for a solid paragraph in the summary section, and between 2 and 5 paragraphs in all other sections. It might help to make each paragraph be an answer to one of the example questions on the assignment. Pretend you're writing about the game to someone who enjoys playing games but may have never seen this particular one.

-Gillian Smith (TA)