Saturday 26 January, 2008

Entry 2

Gameplay

After playing it a second time, shadow of the colossus made me question why it is known as one of the best games to come out on ps2. The graphics are without a doubt amazing. I like the way you can go almost anywhere you can see on your map. The world is beautiful, if not a little barren.

The story is pretty basic, and never really drew me in. Outside of killing the colossi to save your girlfriend, we are not given very much. I was able to fight the second colossus in my second session, and it didn't dissapoint me. This game would have been much better if it was constant battles against the colossi. I feel like i waste to much of my time running around the large world trying to find the monsters.

Design

This game has some design flaws, but i think it is a well designed game. My biggest complaint about the game is the camera movement, and the horse controls. It seems like the designers probably put a lot of time into designing the world you travel through, which turned out very nicely, and not enough time into making the controls user friendly. One thing that was done well was the camera controls during a colossus battle. While battling a colossus pressing L1 will automatically face your character towards the enemy.

If i were to just critique the game based on the boss battles, i would have a much higher opinion. The way you climb the colossi like a puzzle, and find their weak points was very innovative. I like the way the designers left it to me to find my route up the colossus. I even found i could climb colossi multiple ways.

If the boss battles weren't so fun, i would have no motivation to play this game. The world is giant, but the game does not make use of this space. The dead time while hunting for colossi hurts the flow of the game, and makes me think twice before turning it on. It seems like if there were more enemies to fight in between boss battles the game might be more interesting.

This is a fine GameLog, with good description of gameplay and an analysis of design. One thing you complain about is the lack of fighting in this game, but I'm wondering if the devs really wanted a lot of fighting in their game. Considering what the devs were trying to do and if they accomplished that might be interesting. From what I hear, one of the things people liked was how the world felt large and empty, which you didn't seem to agree with. It might be good to ask yourself why people might feel this way, and why you feel differently.

Amy Leek (grader)