Wednesday 6 February, 2008

Entry #2

Gameplay:

After a few hours of playing, the game can get repetitive. After all, all you do is shoot and find stuff. The part that keeps me going is whenever I find an upgrade which brings me back some excitement. It is still interesting to play because I enjoy exploring, but my excitement to play is slowly decreasing.

As I progress further into the game I was able to find a few more weapons to add into my armament. I got a few new type of beams. Each beam had its own unique graphics design and effectiveness which was fairly cool. As usual, you don't really know much of the story unless you piece together background text, but you just know you progressed further in the game cause you killed a few more bosses, and your map GPS system becomes bigger as you explore more areas. The background text does hint something Samus may be a hero of a legend that comes to save the world.

Design:

I think the best element that Nintendo added into this game is the HUD display in this first person shooter. It gives player a grasp of feel of what is it to be like behind a suit and a helmet.I can lock on to things and scan new objects which gives me a description of it. I think Nintendo wanted player to get imbedded into this suit that Samus wears.

The bad part of this game is how poorly the progression of the story is. I literally had to scan every object in the game to piece together puzzles in order to figure what happened in the past. This can get irritating. Good thing Nintendo made it that you can receive secrets unlocked if you scan a certain percentage of things in the game as an incentive. Even then I still become lazy to scan stuff or just simply forgot. Another bad thing is that even though the game has a lot of secrets, they are all well hidden. You may require a guide to figure out where to go or else you're not going to get very far in the game because things do get harder to kill.

The map level of the game was designed quite brilliantly. There are 5+ big zones, each with its own unique terrain, and they are all puzzle-like basis. The game was made so you won't be able to clear out an entire zone in one sitting. You will eventually have to go back in each zone to unlock further secrets and stuff to progress further in the game.

The game created interesting challenges by making players jump over variety of obstacles and solve puzzles. You must also go through many mazes that are filled with creatures that you have to kill to get to your destination. Then there is also bosses that you must kill with variety of strategies.

Overall this is a fun interesting game to play. I try to view Metroid Prime as a classic adventurer game where I must explore a whole world by myself. If you do enjoy exploring and don't care much about the story, then this is a game for you.

This is perfectly acceptable. You do an all right job of both describing gameplay and of analysing the game's design, though the analysis could stand to be a bit deeper. Still, good job.

Amy Leek (grader)