Saturday 9 February, 2008

GAMEPLAY
The units I had at my disposal were very customizable. New legs, arms, weapons, and more could be bought from a store with the money I earned. My squad gained experience and leveled up from destroying enemies, increasing their skill with weapon types, dodge chance, etc. There was an arena in the towns that I could enter and bet money on. It was with this that I figured out how to gain as much money as I wanted early on in the game. All a did was pick an opponent I could beat a lot and win a decent amount of money and in 15 min. I had so much money I bought all the best stuff for my units and had plenty left over.
The story line isn’t the greatest, it just ties the missions together as best it can. There’s some evil, super-powerful guy who “killed” the love of your life and you want to get revenge. There’s not much else. The other characters in your squad have even less background. They have some personality, but it’s not enough to make me care about them. There one other thing that’s been bugging me about this game. The characters look like they were taken from a French fashion magazine. They’re all really pale, long and skinny, and they have this pompous, aloof look on their faces. Not the kind of people I think of fighting in a war.

DESIGN
The fact that I could kind-of cheat and get a lot of money quick and easy was a big flaw in the game. The value of the money to me in terms of effort needed to get it was near nothing and I could have got much more satisfaction from the money rewards of the missions and from buying new gear for my units. They should have put a limit as to how much money I could earn in the arena or something like that, in order to prevent this.
I didn’t like the four life bar system very much with little control over which bar damage went to. It just decreases the skill of combat and increases randomness. I would have preferred one life bar or more control over the what bar is damaged.
At the start of the game I thought I would specialize each of my units by giving them certain parts and weapons for a certain job, like long range attacks or close combat, damage absorbing units, but the game doesn’t provide parts that allow for much specializing. Usually, there is just a certain part that is the “best “ part of its type and there isn’t any reason not to get it. This led to all my units having the same gear. That’s just boring. They should have made parts that were meant for a fast, agile unit, and parts for a slow tough unit, and so on. At least then there would be some variation in my units.

This is all right, though it feels a little short and shallow, especially on the design section. It might be a good idea to look over the questions provided on the class page and think about those next time.

While an acceptable Gamelog, it is also very average. Please try to go more in-depth next time.

Amy Leek (grader)