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Thursday 6 March, 2008
Game Log Entry #2:
Game Play 2:
After another two hours of playing this game, I couldn’t help but obtain a slight addiction to the game. Getting Mario through the levels over and over again, sometimes performing better, sometimes worse, and sometimes even discovering new rooms within a specific level is really exciting. There’s also the cute graphic and music to motivate me on too. I have finally reached the big castle in the first map and have even unlocked a few of what I call “Mushroom Toad Super Houses” to play the little side games and gain rewards of sustenance to aid me through the levels.
Having introduced my roommate, who has pretty little background with videogames, to the original Super Mario Brothers before, I was curious to see what she thought of the New Super Mario Brothers game for DS. We’ve developed a weird social interaction with the game where we both related to the frustrations of completing each level. We also found enjoyment though our verbal outcries and descriptions during the game. One of the comments she made about one of the levels that got me laughing was, “Whoa…colorful mushrooms! This is LSD land!” when Mario got to a level that involved giant mushrooms and brightly colored backgrounds, then pondered on what type of person could come up with such…bright colored mushroom-filled fantasies. I found it particularly amusing how when we encountered a swimming level where the screen scrolls, she exclaimed, “Nooo! How can that be possible?! He died being pressed against the screen! This is illogical! On top of that, how come he falls off the screen every time he dies?” In a way, we have developed an odd social connection and amusement with Mario through the lack of logic and the weird oddities the game has. I cannot wait until we play Katamari Damacy and hear her comments about it as well.
Design:
There are certainly new designs and featured innovated from the original that I enjoyed immensely in this game. My favorite thus far is the introduction of new power ups. I grew a personal fondness to the blue turtle shell that Mario is able to slip himself into and spin around furiously, annihilating all enemies in the way. There’s also the impenetrable and protective use of the shell that adds as a definitely plus. Despite which, the game doesn’t fail to create a challenge by giving that wonderful blue shell the horrible flaw of incontrollable spins, where Mario is immediately deflected from bumping into solid objects that are not enemies, like walls and pipes, making it easy to go off track and fall off a cliff. Mario also walks slower with the shell on, which only makes sense, and is limited a little bit in his jumping abilities. Another aesthetically pleasing power up that I enjoy is the giant yellow mushroom, where it makes Mario into a GIGANTIC Super Mario, walking through and crushing everything in his path. Like all good things, good things never last where the mushroom has a limited time use, which stinks, but hey, there's that aspect of challenge that can't be neglected in game design.
Another addition to this Mario game is the feature of what I call the “butt slam” (sorry) that Mario is able to perform. Rather than always going under platforms to jump and collide with the bricks or boxes, Mario can also just jump on top of it to trigger the same thing! There's definitely more flexibility enabled in the game, Mario can also jump off walls too, which gives the player a lot more freedom to reach higher places.
The new designs and features were very pleasing to play with. The visual image of the game was also fantastic. Though the artwork is 3D and definitely has higher quality graphical imagery than the past 2D Mario, overall the game works in very similar ways with a 2D path of right, left, and jump. It’s a new and improved version of Mario that still retains its classical feel.
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