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Thursday 21 February, 2008
Entry 2
Gameplay:
For my second round playing Super Mario 64 I found that I was having just as much fun, if not more than the first time. The gameplay continually developed throughout the levels to create more complex ways of earning stars. Some levels had me scratching my head at first as to how I was supposed to get certain stars. There were switches scattered everywhere which did various things such as raise and lower the water level. These types of challenges have always been what has drawn me to platform games. I love the puzzle aspect created to get through levels because it requires more thinking than your typical shooting or racing game (that’s not to say I don’t like those games as well).
Although I had an immense amount of fun playing Super Mario 64, I still found a couple things in the game that bothered me. Firstly, just as in Super Mario World, I thought the bosses in Super Mario 64 were too easily beat. The same idea was used which was: hit the boss three times and you beat him. Beating a boss this easily just doesn’t seem to make sense to me; a boss battle should be challenging. Secondly I would have liked a more responsive camera behind Mario. This seems to be a common problem in platform games of this generation (N64 and Playstation) that has started to get better in later platform games such as Ratchet and Clank.
Design:
I thought the design of this game was amazing. The levels are particularly intricate which lent themselves to fantastic gameplay. Each level has several objectives to be completed. Because of this, the player is constantly compelled to return to even the earliest of levels to grab those stars they may have missed the first time around. For example, in the very first level there is a star to be found by launching Mario out of a canon onto a distant platform. There are many places to explore beyond the linear path which one must follow to find the “main” star for each level. Although the storyline is interesting I think the extra stars and the complex level design are what make Super Mario a fantastic game to play and make for great replay value.
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