Thursday 21 February, 2008

GAMEPLAY

Even though the single player campaign is simply amazing, I felt that where the game really flourished was its multiplayer. Not only is there a basic “deathmatch” mode, but there are also unique settings such as “license to kill” (one shot kills) or “the man with the golden gun” (where only one person can carry the most powerful weapon in the game, the golden gun, and killing him/her yields points). The game play in multiplayer is especially smooth, where up to four players can play simultaneously, in cleverly designed levels . Some of the levels come from the single player campaign, while others were specifically made for multiplayer. Another interesting concept is that you can play from a wide range of Bond characters, not even from the movie Goldeneye, such as Jaws or Oddjob. After beating the game, you can unlock more characters which are all of the enemies you have faced in the game.

Another interesting thing about this game are the cheats. Unlike most games, it is not as simple as “up up down down left right left right A B start” and actually requires some skill. Many of the best cheats in the game (purely used for fun) are unlocked in the hardest ways, such as beating the second level on 00 agent in 2:05 seconds or under (Most people take at least 7:00 minutes to complete such a task). This unlocks invincibility. Basically acquiring cheats becomes a time trial, but instead of just the bragging rights for completing a time trial, you also get game cheats to use for fun as well!

DESIGN

The level design in conjunction with the AI was cleverly thought out in the sense that although the game is of progressive gameplay, the designers managed to put a lot of emergent qualities in it. The AI (for the most part) will act differently depending on what you do as a player, for the levels provide adequate cover and vantage points to make every gameplay experience somewhat different. And the different weapons the player can use are astounding. Even though the weapons are named differently than their real life counterparts, all the guns are in fact modeled after real life weapons, such as the AK47. The designers obviously put some time into making this game as realistic as possible.

Enemy character animations are spectacular. Rag doll physics didn’t exist at the time, so instead the designers animated over 50 death and wound animations. It might sound somewhat masochistic, but the different animations give the game a more “realistic” feel, which makes it much more enjoyable to play. The damage is also location based, so shooting someone in the foot will to a lot less damage by a well placed chest or head shot (even if it is funny to see them hop around on one foot).

Excellent gamelog.

BTW, it's U U D D L R L R B A start, not A B start.

- Ian Rickard, your TA who's a few days behind on grading