Thursday 24 January, 2008

GAME PLAY

Continuing on with gameplay, my emotional state during the game was mostly neutral, or frustration. This had to do with the steep learning curve and difficulty of the game.

On the social front, I can see this being an okay party game, as it is easy to get into a game quickly, and fast paced. I also would be impressed with anyone who gets far into the game (personally) and could see it as a sort of one-upping your friends style competition. That said however, the game required my full concentration to play, so I cant for see any banter really between persons while playing this game.

The powerup system is neat, but later on I can forsee it being frustrating as some sections would be FAR easier with powerups, and each death forces you to start over as far as your weapon powers are concerned.

My over all opinion though is that this game is a fun shooter, and has a few innovative elements, but otherwise is fairly unremarkable and predictable in its gameplay.

DESIGN

The primary innovation in this game is the ability to select a weapon set prior to starting the game. This allows the user greater flexibility in playing style, and adds an element of management to how they utilize the power ups. EG does the user take speed boosts right off, or save them to get missiles a little later for a specific boss/enemy coming up.

That said, otherwise the game is a remarkably generic shooter really lacking in creativity. Visuals are standard fare for the time era it was released in, as are the enemies and style of play. EG dodging enemies that shoot at you, some shoot straight ahead, travel in packs, etc etc. In my opinion it could really have used more color, the visuals were quite drab.

Music was nothing to write home about, seemed neither interesting or complimentary to game play, but nor did it irritate.

A final note is difficulty, the game was very difficult for a novice like myself to approach. This could be alleviated somewhat by perhaps having a player avatar that could take multiple hits, or a slower "ramp up" in terms of number of enemies and game play challenges.

You bring up good points, both in the game's strengths and weaknesses, but you need more support and detail. There were a few typos throughout, so you might want to proofread before submitting your logs.

Also, it's "e.g.", not EG



- David Seagal (Grader)