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Thursday 6 March, 2008
Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
Gameplay continues to be extremely fun as the tutorial missions are over and more destructive objectives are given. The story continues to show a government conspiracy style storyline with secret data disks and rebellion against what seems to be the commanding government in space known as the Confederate. A lot of the fun of the game now is building up an army to destroy your enemy in the quickest way possible. The RTS mechanic of the game takes up a lot of time, about 30-60 minutes per mission, but it is worth it to see your opponent crumble against your massive army.
DESIGN
The most obvious feature of the game's level design is the dark color palette which creates a one of “dark times” and of the unknown. Even in the cutscences of the game show very ambiguous and dark activities. The mission briefings and the gameplay itself deliver a great sense of dealing with dark alien creatures as well as rebelling against the Confederate, which is a key mission in the beginning.
Some great designs is how the game only allows you to see the parts of the map in which you are currently in. Having no idea how big the enemy base is and only knowing that you must destroy it provides a huge sense of exploration, especially when you are bombarded by enemy battalions. The way obstacles are laid out across a map provide spacial challenge and force a player to think up new strategies on what units to use to reach the instant goal of crossing the water. Having two interactive gameworld spaces, ground and air, provides expansive spacial challenge as each space can only interact with the other with certain units; such as, firefighters not being able to harm any aircraft.
Being concentrated around resource management, this game provides plenty of emergent complexity. For many units a player must require to have built extra buildings or gather new resources. The reward structure in some missions appeals to me very nicely since at times from destroying enemy bases, I am rewarded with more resources, allowing me to build up, allowing me to continue killing. A happy circle indeed.
Over the past 10 years, it is obvious why this game has still stood the test of time. The biggest intrest-grabber of this game is the network play. It could possibly the sole reason it has lasted so long thanks to the unique games people can create with the Campaign Editor. Although the game is televised in other parts of the world for big competitions, is isn't a Guitar Hero-like spectator sport in which many people may be bored by watching the gameplay. Playing the game for this GameLog has definitely reignited my spark to play this, specially with the incredibly hyped Starcraft 2 which seems like it will deliver.
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