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Thursday 21 February, 2008
Game Play:
I mentioned that one of the really terrific features about Super Mario 64 was that it was open and expansive. While I still fee that this is a great part of the game I do feel that some of the levels were too confusing and too open. Sometimes looking for that last star or figuring out how to complete that last quest can be really irritating. Another flaw that I saw in the game was lack of story. The reason that I always fall back on long RPG’s is that I like story that keeps you playing and keeps drawing you back in. It is kind of like a good book where you just want to read one more chapter before you go to bed. I think that even standard games can be fun if there is an interesting story tying everything together. That said I feel that after the first hour the story needed to be better. I had played several levels by that time and I was getting bored. I could see picking this game up and playing for a little while but nothing like my 12 hour marathon on Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion. The game play is fun but not completely unique and there is not much beyond that to encourage a person to play it for more than a couple hours at a time if that. Because this game is solely a single player game there is no draw for other people to want to play it with you and once you have gained all 8 stars from a level the only reason to return to it is if you want to shoot yourself out of a cannon just for fun. I think that this is a good game but I feel that in some areas Nintendo did actually use Super Mario 64 as a crutch making certain aspects of the game really good and completely missing others. This makes for a game that is not too well rounded and a burden to play sometimes.
Design:
Super Mario 64 capitalized on the then state of the art aspects of the N64. The 3D aspects of the game are phenomenal and make for a great non linear game that has loads to offer. The challenge of the game is that unlike most Mario games before and since which were very linear this game makes use of the 3D environment to create big open worlds to explore and more than one way to complete each level. This is also one of the drawbacks. With so much free movement and so many ways to complete the level it is often easy to get lost and turned around. Because each level is different each room housing the “painting” that allows access to each room as well as the level have different music suitable to the mood of the level. In the dungeons the music is spookier than it is on the floating level that is wide open and sunny. Also because the rewards that one gains either don’t affect the play of the game or don’t appear often it is often the case that the rewards are not as important as they could be. For example, stars are gained at the successful completion of each level but they only unlock new levels. They don’t have any barring on Mario or his progress in the level. The hats that Mario gains like the wing, invisible, or metal cap don’t appear all that often and even when they do they are often difficult to use well. Thus I feel that the reward system leaves a lot to be desired. This is an ok game from a game play perspective but it is a remarkable game from a design format, for a game of its time.
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