On Planets and Portals

Yeaaah, I missed last weeks post since I've been pretty busy with organizing my work.  I finished a major music project and got a little lazy, but at the same time started to work even more since I realized how much more I still have on my to do list.  So 2 weeks ago, I was supposed to beat Genji: Days of the Blade as part of my "1-game a week" mission in hopes of learning more about the design of games and the industry.  Well, I didn't finish and instead got caught up in other things:

[Zanac - Music Mix Project]

So I've planned this project out since I was in Jr. College but never found the time to do it.  And since I've improved on using music programs and have a greater knowledge in music, I decided to start and complete it within a week.  It was a grueling week with technical problems, sound balance, incompatibilities, and difficulty in finding appropriate instruments causing many hours just listening back loops in search of mistakes.  But I finished and it ended up being 8 minutes long.  I plan to make a gameplay footage of the original game and then match it up with the music so I can present it out to the internet.  I'm going to start building a portfolio of my work from here on out and see where it takes me.  I'll post it up here when I'm done.

[Lost Planet Colonies - Capcom - PC]

This was a satisfying game.  It wasn't long, nor did it feel too short.  The story, despite its bad voice acting and awkward 3D animation gestures and expressions, was quite captivating at a certain point and got me really into the game.  The open level battles was an interesting design choice that worked well for easy mode (which is what I played), but I can't imagine how players can survive in harder difficulties when the enemies are capable of constantly attacking the player the second they get up.  The gameplay was a little slow at times mainly because of large areas and the inability to run (faster, since he is running, but very slowly).  I don't want to spend too long on these reviews so here's the quick run down:]

Graphics: 8/10 (Though, not utilizing the greatest render and capabilities of the current generation systems for the environment, the enemies are very detailed and creative in their design and nature.  Those enemies were fun to kill~)

Audio: 7/10 (Sound effects were pretty good and really added to the chaos that occurred during a large fight.  Music was forgettable, except for the menu screen theme.  The voice acting was weird, and was not believable.  The overall experience in terms of sound was satisfactory.)

Gameplay: 8/10 (The game was ultimately fun in the end.  It starts out very easy and was a bit slow for my tastes until it gets to the boss battles.  The boss battles were really fun, especially when it got challenging.  The mix between puzzles, action, and shooting brought the game to life and had something that stood out from other action games.  But the levels themselves didn't get interesting until half-way through.  It makes sense to have the developer ease players into the game rather than throw them into the game, although Demon's Souls does that (dies in the tutorial boss...).  Controls were a little heavy, but bearable.  Running is slow, to me...using a VR (robot mechs) was pretty fun, but there were some reliance on them.  Dying was perfectly okay to me, haha.  It wasn't frustrating, but rather a learning experience.  Battles weren't particularly challenging if strategies are planned out, and it just didn't feel like Golden Axe or Genji when you died in those games.  But yes, the game was satisfying and I enjoyed it.)

Replay Value: 7/10 (Mmmm, not that I wouldn't want to play it again, but it's taking up a lot of Hard drive space, and I don't have much purpose into playing it again except for harder difficulties.)

Overall: 7.5/10 (I think it's worth playing through one time, but there isn't much afterwards other than multiplayer.  With its clunky controls and slow speed, I'm not sure if death match is such a fun multiplayer mode for the game.  Also, I'm sad there wasn't co-op on it.  2nd one does, and I'll probably try it soon.

[Portal - Valve - PC]

(Note: Song does contain spoilers, but it doesn't make sense till you play the game.)

I heard so much about this game and didn't play it since it was a short game that came with a few other games.  Got TF2 sepearately from a friend, then Half-Life 2 from another friend, and then with Valve's compatibility of Steam with Macs, Portal was free for whoever downloaded it.  I beat it and enjoyed it.  Played a bit of the first part again to listen to some of the commentary and found it to be very resourceful and interesting in learning about level design and making tutorials.

Graphics: 10/10 (Graphics were beautiful, clean, beneficial to the gameplay, and well designed).

Audio: 9/10 (All the audio had a purpose in the gameplay of Portal and served as a indicator to what the player had to do, what to look out for, and cues of what to do next.  The music wasn't memorable (except for the incredibly, well written score for "Still Alive") in the game, but it added to the environment and mood of the situation of each event).

Gameplay: 9/10 (It was puzzle heavy and didn't have too much action, but I didn't mind too much.  The game was enticing with the "what's next" method of progression and its underlying storyline was pretty captivating as well adding to the player experience.  The later stages of challenges where it became open-ended made it even more interesting since I started to experiment with many different methods of solution.  It was a gratifying experience).

Replay Value: 7/10 (Honestly, I would only play it again for the commentary so I could learn from it.  I like the puzzles and all, but I think I would prefer to play Mirror's Edge again.  I guess I want more action?)

Overall: 9/10 (A must try game, though I wouldn't necessarily say a "must buy" because of its length in game play.  My sister beat it in one sitting at night at a friend's house, so it's very possible just to borrow the game or play at a friend's house and be done with it.  I enjoyed it).

[New bought games:]

I actually bought quite a few lately and didn't even realize it, haha.

Blacklight: Tango Down (PC)

Remember me going off on how excited about I was on this game?  50% off on Steam for $7.49 and I immediately bought it.  I do not regret it; however, there are not nearly enough players on.  The gameplay is challenging in both mission mode and competitive modes, the graphics and futuristic and unique, the sounds and animations are pretty impressive for a cheap priced game, and the replay value is quite high.  I like the leveling and customizing as I spend a lot of time changing parts, looks, and stats of my load outs.  But it's very sad that I can't even play a simple death match since no one plays the game.  I got into a few full games twice and it was a wonderful experience, despite the amount of times I died.  I am mainly playing the game solo on Black Ops (mission mode) to level up and get more weapons and parts.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC)

I bought it during the 33% off sale with DLC packs for 50% off.  Finally got the game!!!  Amazed of how small the community for the PC has gotten compared to this spring and now.  Do I have to talk about how awesome this game is?  C'mon, you guys know this is an awesome game.  I mainly bought it for its multiplayer.  If you say multiplayer is super BS, I can't argue with you.  But it's part of the game, and BS sometimes happen for you too.  So its broken parts kind of (try) to balance it out for everyone.  I enjoy it, despite getting spawn killed 32 times in a row...

Okami (Wii)

Not sure when I'll ever get around to beating this game since I have a huge list to finish, but I did try it out a bit and was captivated by its artistic feel in the gameplay and visuals.  I'll be sure to finish it one day.

NBA Jam (Wii)

Bought it this past Saturday.  This game is HARD!  The developers did a good job of making smart AI computers, and even a better job of revitalizing this lost treasure amongst the masses of realistic basketball games out in the market.  I don't own any other Basketball game since I don't find a need to buy over 20 iterations of one, but NBA Jam was a golden game back in the SNES days that provided awesome summers I had with my sister playing sports games on our SNES.  This game definitely brought that same charm and over-the-top gameplay into our current generation console (sorta, it's Wii) and still made it fun.  There's so many unlockables and plenty of game modes that I think I'll be playing this game for a while.  I also really needed another multiplayer game on Wii, I have too many one-player games.

Vanquish just recently came out and it looks amazing.  I saw it at E3, but lines were too long so I didn't get to try it out.  Reviews are looking positive so far.  I'll probably buy it in the future, but for now I need to finish some uncompleted games.

Hmm, I don't remember what else I wanted to say.  I'm working mainly on these things this week:

-Beat Genji: Days of the Blade (PS3)

-Beat Half-Life 2 (PC) Maybe?

-Arrange the piano versions for the Zanac Soundtrack

-Pratice Body form in Drawing

-Start up gaming blog

-Learn the rest of a piano piece (Waltz 64 No.2 by Chopin is what I'm aiming for)

-Finish reading one Book (It's very hard to start reading, and just as hard to stop reading...)

-That's already a lot, but finishing up some game projects would be nice.

That's about it, cya later~

To Blog or not to Blog?

I've been wondering if I should start a public blog that concentrates on Videogames in its every aspect: as entertainment, art medium, business model, the industry, influences, etc.  If I were to start one, who would read it?  There's already hundreds of blogs dedicated to videogames already.  The difference would be that the blog would have my own opinions and insights to them.  But it also arises the question of "who cares?"  It's a troubling debate, but I believe it would be a good way for me to continue improving my writing and prevent it from deteriorating from not being in school and from my unstructured writing here on this blog.  It might also help me get a job as a game reviewer?  Not sure, but I write so much on videogames that I feel I should start that new blog.

Medal of Honor didn't receive as grand of a review from critics and gamers as EA had hoped and landed an average of 7/10 on all 3 platforms (PS3, Xbox360, PC).  The many trolls, haters, and fanboys had downgraded MoH by comparing it to the upcoming Call of Duty and past Modern Warfare games.  I haven't gotten a chance to buy the game and play it myself, but this is what I think from the open beta:

[Medal of Honor - Electronic Arts - PC Open Beta]

The game blew away all expectations I had on this game.  The graphics are amazing, the environment immerses the player into the situation with realistic sounds, smooth gameplay, and unique multiplayer experience.  The multiplayer is fast-paced, but is very team orientated.  This is both refreshing and the bane to the experience.  The gameplay demands that you work cooperatively with your team mates in order to fulfill the objectives.  Most all First-Person Shooters do not have this element within their multiplayer, despite it being a team-based game.  Even in Modern Warfare 1 & 2, people will most likely run off on their own to get kills and brag about how they had to carry the team without working with the team to capture points.  Well, in MoH you have to work with your team if you even WANT to get kills because of the way the level was designed.

This can also be a problem.  The level is designed so that there are very few options of which path to take and it can be very open ranged.  So if the opposing team played the game enough and memorized the spawn locations, it's possible to fall into a infinite loop of spawn kills.  This happened a few times when I played, and I could not do anything about it.  It also doesn't help if your team goes off on their own and keep getting killed.  When I'm playing a good game, the team is in a line pushing forward carefully and strategically.  When both teams are playing well with their team mates and there isn't server lag, the experience can be more exhilarating than many other FPS games out there.  Besides lag, poor design choices for spawning, and the reliance on good team work, the biggest complaint I would have on the multiplayer for MoH would be the limited amount of customization the game allows the player to work with.  I think I mentioned it before in the last post, but there's only 3 classes with only 8 levels on each class making a total of 24 customizable parts and weapons.  Compared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the amount of content is very shallow and kills a bit of the replay value from the multiplayer.  Many gamers have expressed their hatred of EA copying CoD:MW2 in MoH.  Well after playing the game, I can't say I agree.  The gameplay feels distinctively different from MW2 as strategies change and gameplay is utilized differently during a fire-fight.  In MW2, you want to keep moving and press on forward.  In MoH, players will take cues from their team mates when to move up, when to support, when to cover, when to attack, etc.

Because I haven't played the actual game yet, I can't give a concrete score or opinion of the entire game.  But given the chance to play open beta multiplayer, I will possibly buy the game in the future because of how impressive the experience was.

You can check the critic reviews at Metacritic.com.

Anyways, I've been reading news a lot more recently.  Sure over 75% of those news are related to videogames, but it's a chance for me to learn more about the industry.  The amount of changes and the pace the world moves at shows the prevalent evolution of technology and modern living (or at least the deterioration of our lives).  Some quick news:

-Vindictus went Open Beta today.  Sucks I don't have enough Hard drive space for it.

-Dynasty Warriors Online goes Closed Beta tomorrow.  I already downloaded it.

-DotA 2 officially announced by Valve:

Need I say more?  I found it funny and strange right from the beginning when they copyrighted the term "Dota" just recently.  Pendragon and Guinsoo (who worked on DotA and then went to Riot Games to work on League of Legends) expressed their concern over the copyright and how it might affect the community.  I understand what they're saying and how it might affect the modding community of DotA, but perhaps it's time for DotA to evolve.  Valve is well known for embracing the modding community and bringing those games to greater heights, making them better (Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat, Killing Floor, etc.).  Along with bringing all the original 100+ Characters from DotA, the game will be enhanced and the limitations of the Warcraft 3 editor will be taken off as Icefrog (one of the original developers of DotA and work on Heroes of Newerth) now has the resources and know-how to create the dream creation of DotA he had always hoped for.  I hope I can one day do something of that nature and lead a game project of my own.

That's about it for short news I think...I read an article about story writing in videogames!

While reading through comments about the issue of Valve's copyright over the term "Dota,"  I found out about two games:

[Gang Garrison 2 - 2D online version of Team Fortress 2]

The gameplay is similar to games like Soldat, Gunster: Rain of Bullets, and Booster Trooper.  I downloaded it, but I haven't had the chance to try it yet.

[Monday Night Combat - Xbox Live Arcade Game]

It's supposed to be a word play on Monday Night "Football" where the game scenario is like a sports game in a futuristic, Team Fortress 2-like setting with influences from DotA where the two lanes of computer AI attacks the other side with players attacking the other team while defending their main base using towers.  So it's a mix of Team Fortress 2 and DotA.  I gotta say that it caught my attention, but too bad it's not on PC.  I'd probably buy it if it was, haha.

Lastly, despite the arguments between Infinity Ward and Activision and the rivalry between EA's Medal of Honor with Activision's Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Black Ops certainly looks impressive and is a step up from Treyarch's last CoD: World at War.

The graphics look so clean and slick!  The customization is limitless, even compared to Modern Warfare 2.  I'm going to have to resist buying it though since I already have a large amount of FPS games within my library of games.  As someone who's going into the industry, I should really balance myself and play a wide range of genres (which means I should really play those PS2, Gamecube, Wii, PSP, DS, and PC games that are just sitting there untouched...).

I've been overworking so much that I end projects and work at 10PM or later now.  I'm about to do some drawing right now too since I didn't the past 2 nights.  I know I can't do everything, but I would really like to.  Doing my best then, now, and in the future.