High Concept

Palling ‘Round with God is a 4 player epic adventure of three heroes who are looking for the all-powerful, radiating orb of infinite shenanigan wisdom…which is covered up by gold coins and $20 bills in a steamer trunk hidden somewhere in the world.  The one lucky buck that gets to play God must defend the treasure at all costs.  Sadly, it’s all that’s left worth saving.  The housing market’s crap nowadays.  Television hasn’t been good since 1959.  And your son hates you.  He had the nerve to stay in bed all day on his birthday last year just to spite you and your festive holiday party plans.  Screw ‘em.  You’re the boss.  Your t-shirt says so.  You guide gloomy buffer angels, dirty devil demon crawlers, and a mega-giant of massive meanness to stop a trio of bumbling schmucks from getting your stash.  The three searchers are lost in a vague world.  Slowly proceeding over an empty landscape where untold riches (actually just about $8,020.17) or fierce tooth-to-toe battles await just around the corner.  Movements are direct and the mission is clear.  Steal God’s thunder fund.  Memory and luck will reward the patient, but be careful of your teammates in this quest.  They can choose to revive a fallen comrade as they lay bruised and confused on the path ahead or they can take an extra long step over the carnage, give a thumbs up sign, smile, and keep on looking for that confounded treasure box thing.  And always remember, far, far above - God’s watching it all.  Reveling in the squabbles and near misses with the loot.  One of the heroes walks mere centimeters away from the loot?  Should God have said anything?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It’s up to God.  But remember, as the result of an old football injury, he can’t move the heavy treasure after initially putting it down.  It’s there forever.  And once it’s discovered - the great big gig’s up.  It’s been fun palling ‘round with you, God, but I’ve got to go!  (fade-up distant angry thunder, wait for electricity to go ou----

Shenanigans!

2 Hours with a crappy camera and what do we do? Make a epic video, enjoy.
 VIDEO LINK

Free Play

Last Scenario

Assignment: download a free game from the site given by teacher, and review it. Well the first thoughts in my head were…well, negative. I told Jon next to me that it’s probably going to be some crappy flash games that we’ll get bored of in 5 minutes.  I’m eating my words now. Browsing through the site a RPG looking picture caught my eye. I downloaded it and gave it a whorl and boy was I impressed.

            Last Scenario is a basic RPG, you start in a small town as a no one and find out that you’re important from some random stranger, and you go off on an adventure and all hell break loose in the world, and guess what? “WHAT!” you’re the only one who can save the world! What’s new?

            -Challenge

The game is on the difficult side once it picks up, like a lot of RPGs out there. You start off killing wolves, and in no time you’re fighting bosses that you are spamming healing potion on yourself to stay alive. All in all it’s a good balance of difficulty and fun level, the challenge is there to keep the game from being mindlessly boring but it’s not diehard to the point that you want to go punch a wall or whatever you do when you rage.

            -Replay Value

I haven’t beaten the game yet, well because it’s a RPG they’re REALLY REALY long most of the time. I’m a couple hours in and I’m still going. So in the case replay value in unknown but the game so far shows potential to be replay ability.

            -Story/Gameplay

The story like I said in the intro has nothing much to it, seen and heard it ALL before. But I honor the attempt to build conflict and problem in the protagonists’ life. The gameplay is what really what sold it to me. It reminded e of FF3 (Jap ver) A LOT. Some people might see that as a bad thing like they copied or something, I say no that’s a great thing. FF3 really set the RPG genre off, with its turn based play style and why fix something that’s not broken?

            -Presentation

The graphic are nice on the eyes. Nothing over the top but nothing so crappy you lose sight in your eyes. The graphics are hand drawn, and done very well. When walking around town and in world map they used a sprite to represent your party, but when battling the hand drawing characters are excellent. The music, like the gameplay, is a kick back to the FF3 days. The music changed depending of the setting, and it was appropriate for the setting also. The first town has a nice rhythmic feel to it, but when I entered the capital prestigious music started to play.

            -Verdict

All in all I’ll be playing this game well after this assignment is over. It’s a great RPG and it long also. It being free just makes it all that much better. The only thing I would change is that I can’t save anywhere, which is a pain when I have to go mid play and can’t seem to find a save stone. But other than that I really enjoyed it and I give it a 7/10 rating

Chapter Two Book Work

FF13 – Minecraft – Gears Of War

                Between these 3 games, they hit most of the spectrum of game design elements. To start off Final Fantasy 13 was a major graphics pusher, I know that’s weird sounding how I put it; but bottom like FF13 pushed graphics beyond what everybody knew. Everyone played a game were they had a beautiful cutscene then it went back to in-game graphics and kind of killed the moment, and the player said “I wish the in-game looked that good” Well that’s what FF13 did. Gameplay wise the linear story kind of killed it for a lot, not much freedom in it but a great game none the less.

                Minecraft was a game to focus purely on game play and addictiveness. I’m not going to take too much time on this since I reviewed it on my blog, but I will say that I am still playing it to date.

                Finally Gear of War, EPIC studios in known for their Unreal Engine; and they put it to use themselves. I put gears of wars under the “technology” aspect of game design elements, EPIC pushed there engine and still are. They produced a great title using their own engine to promote its power and showed that they can make great games, on top of a great engine.

Gameplay & Controls

Game play & Controls

                When I pick up a game, I usually don’t open the little guide they give you and study the controls. I pick up the controller, throw the game in, and start playing. Controls need to be second nature to me; for it to feel right. I want to pick up the controller and push buttons that I expect to do what I want them to do - and they do it. This Tuesday I picked up Halo: Reach. I rushed home and threw the game in my Xbox. I watch the opening cinematic and start up the campaign. As the cadence end and I’m given control of my Spartan, I’m immediately prompted to look around and get use to the camera controls. They throw me off the helicopter and I’m on foot. My instincts kick in, left joy stick is to move, right one to look. The trigger is to fire my weapon and X is to reload, all of these are impulse nothing more. That is what good controls are made of. The controls are of impulse and second nature; I don’t sit forever fiddling with the controls to figure them out. The buttons that I expect to do one thing; do that one thing.

Introduction to the Game Design Document

            Game Design documents can determine a game’s outcome, thus being one of the most important aspects of the design process. It takes the confusion out of the design process, it takes the “was it like this or that” “NO it was like that I swear!” out of the board room. The document is able to help guild the whole team on the right path, shows the intentions of the game. In a big team of designers you would most defiantly need a Game Design document in my opinion. It would be very difficult to keep everyone constantly up-to-date. When someone repeats themselves, it means it’s important what they’re trying to get across. And in this article the author repeats “It’s not a step by step guide, it’s a reference to what the designers want.”  So I’ll be keeping that in my mind.

Chapter One Book Work

Then and Now

Metal Gear solid has to be one of my Favorite series I have ever played. Kojima out does himself ever time.  From the first game till the latest it’s been an epic journey through all. I remember playing the first game and having to consciously keep my jaw closed. At the time the first game released (Metal Gear Solid 1998) the graphics themselves could sell the game. It was new to most everyone who played it. It was no run and gun, it was no racing game, and then what was it? It added an element that not everyone at the time was used to. It added sound into the game and alert AI.  You didn’t want to go guns blazing through the game you would die almost instantly, then again there comes times were you’d have to kill an enemy to get to where you needed go. So you would use the AI to your advantage. You could knock on a wall to attract the attention of a guard, then swoop around and flank him for the kill. For most part the first game was played in a tatical 3rd person view. Another great thing Kojima is well known for that he introduced in Metal Gear Solid was the cut scenes. Kojima took cut scenes to a new height, cut scenes didn’t just help the story it made me want to play more and more. I never wanted it to stop, cut scenes were like movies and Kojima would take that idea onward in his series.

            As the series progressed Kojima added more elements into the fray. These were great additions to the series and added another layer to the game. With the gaming industry starting to grow, Kojima needed to cater to more and more styles of play. In the second game of the series (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 2001) Kojima added a first-person mode for firing the gun. Which in all turned out great, but to make it balanced the AI got a boost also. In the third game in the series (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 2004) Kojima added MORE to their library of features to the series. They introduced camouflage into the mix of stealth options; it does what you’d expect camouflage helped you hide/sneak from enemies. They added positional damage to Snake (main character) if for instance you were to fall a distance your leg might get broken and you would need to use the jungle and what you have to heal/treat it. If his stomach made a noise you needed to get food, it added a HUGE feeling of realism to the game. Finally the fourth game in the series (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots 2008) is by far my favorite game ever made. It is consider by some to be the masterpiece of Kojima. I can go on for HOURS about this game and everything in it. I would probably make this blogs’ sever explode with the amount of information I would have to type out for how much this game has in it. One of the biggest things that this one brought to the table was the cut scenes the Kojima was so famous for. I felt like I was in a movie at one point. Toward mid-game I hit a cut scene that ended up being over two hours long! Yes, I’d suggest you re-read what I just said….2 HOUR CUT SCENCE! Total this game had hours and hours of cut scenes. Some games use cut scenes to add time to the game, but Metal Gear didn’t. If anything I wish there was more cut scenes. They didn’t take away from the game, at no point did I feel that I was missing out on the great gameplay, they did an amazing job on making the cut scenes a part of the game and not “filler”.

            Metal Gear Solid is by far one of the top series in the gaming world and I will be a determined follower for as long as they continue to produce more.

Metal Gear Solid (1998)

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008) 

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)

MineCraft Review

MineCraft

Minecraft were to start? Well first off Minecraft isn’t what most people play these days. So in this review I’m going to go thought each aspect of the game and give my two cents about it.

The Graphics 8/10 Goatees

            It’s a throwback to old school graphics, but that makes it better in my opinion.  The graphics make the gameplay stand out more, and the gameplay is the sweet stuff.  It’s a Block like graphics a 8 bit 16 bit style of art. In the end it works for the better. It has the old school feel which I love. But after a while it will strain the eyes.

The Gameplay 10/10 Goatees

            The gameplay is where it’s at. There is no end goal in this game! Gasp! I know right.  It’s a game were you play to have fun not to get to the end credits as fast as possible. The game is about survival. There is a day and night cycles in the game, in day time you are safe to walk around and collect materials to build …well build everything.  You are able to collect everything you can see. From sand, dirt, gravel, stone, ore, wood everything you could think of. You take these raw materials and form them into useable objects. You can take the wood and make refined wood, then take that and make Rods or sticks. Then you take those rods and add a stone to the top and make a shovel. Now the shovel can be used to collect gravel, dirt, sand much faster. The goal with all these is to use them to make a Base or, well whatever you want. But at night time is where the real fun comes into play. At night enemies spawn and their only goal is to kill you! Dun Dun DUUUUNNNN!! They are relentless. There are Zombies, then zombies that have no arms that explode, Skeletons that have Bows, and spiders that can jump a football fields distance and hit you. For the most part you are collecting during the day, making sure u have defenses, (yes you can make weapons) and surviving the night so you can repeat the process.

The Sounds 8/10 Goatees

            The sounds are on par. They’re what they need to be. I consider this when playing a game if I don’t notice the sounds, and then they are doing their job. Sounds are supposed to so immerse, and if you don’t notice the sounds standing out, then that means it feels natural to you and that the sounds are doing their job. So in Minecraft the sounds differ on the different types of material you are ….hitting, wood sounds like thump and stone sounds like stone.

The Learning Curve and Controls 7/10 Goatees

        The learning curve isn’t much if any for me, but to be fair I had seen videos on YouTube of people who played this game before i played. None the less the curve isn’t hard. The controls are what you’d expect from a 1^st person game. WASD and the mouse is to look around Clicking thing adds or collect materials. That’s it very basic but works well once you get it down.

Overall Score 9/10 Goatees

            Overall this game is one of my favorites. The fact that one guy made this game that has had a snowball effect of popularity. It’s a fresh feeling that a game is not focused on graphics or story but purely on gameplay that is fun. It is though a game where you will love it or hate it; there is not much of a middle ground here. So this review was a little hard, but I’m just showing what I know about the game and what I think about it. I’d say give the free trail a try, it’s not like the FULL game were you collect things and what not, but it does show how the building works and what not.