Thursday, 23 June 2011

Childhood Games

Remember the days in the past? About....i don't know, 10 to 15 years back?
When board and card games were much more popular than the video games of the times.
Kids played more Monopoly than Mortal Kombat and played with more figures and dolls than fiddling with controllers.

With this wave of nostalgia, I'll be remembering all the great games that i played before the digital age changed us all.

And with that a grand total of 10 games from way back when have made their way from memories to this list.(No paticular order)

1.Tag (or aka 'catching' to Singaporeans)

2.Monopoly (Board Game)

3.Hide and Seek

4.Rock-Paper-Scissors

5.Text Adventures (More verbal than text in those days)

6.Game of Life (Board Game)

7.Chess (No Really)

8.Yu-Gi-Oh(Trading Card Game)

9.Pokemon (Red/Blue)

10.Super Mario Bros.


Explaination

1.Tag
If you've never played this in your life, I'd blame something or someone. I'm just not sure who or what.
Tag is simple, you start with someone taking the role of "IT".   "It" must tag (any physical contact) another player. The space in which this is played is decided beforehand and the game can be played anywhere anytime.

What draws us back to Tag is the fact that tag is soooooo simple that a simple addition to the rules makes the game twice as much fun.
Tag has gained unwritten recognition internationally by kids all over the world.
Tag is easily modified to make a whole different game giving it variety as well.

2.Monopoly

Only one way to describe it...Finance and Business toned down for Kids.
The objective of Monopoly is simple, you buy properties, upgrade them and earn big to win big!
Everyone should know the basic form of Monopoly and if you don't, look it up!

What draws us back to Monopoly is that feeling you have when holding on to that pile of notes (Monopoly money). That rush of power inside. The thrill you get when your friend pays you a lump sum when he/she moves their player piece onto your property.

3.Hide and Seek

Hide and seek is an oldie but still a goodie. Same as Tag, we have one person playing as "It"
but this time its different, "It" counts to a certain number (eyes closed) while all the other players rush off to hide.
The big difference between this and Tag is that once you've hidden and "It" begins to search, you cannot change your hiding spot.
The game is fun but unless the area is big and full of good hiding spots it's hard to play at all.

I never played this much in my childhood because Singaporean HDB flats aren't exactly the perfect place for this.
But looking back, the fun part was watching "It"  search for you from your hiding spot, content and giggling inside.

4.Rock-Paper-Scissors

The almighty decision maker. Even now we still use it to settle arguments or to see who goes first.
like most kids games, rules = simple. Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper and Paper beats Rock.

We still play this for any number of reasons but its always there for you to settle anything.
No set-up required just two people, hands and gestures!

5.Text Aventures


Well I think most of you haven't really played this.
I did, back in Primary school. Like a cheap video game but because we were in charge, the games got fun. Ridiculous but still, fun.
There are no preset rules only one person has to decide the game's flow. No story is required.

We won't go back to this game. Unless we get bored to death, but even then we'd now just go surf the net or stare at Facebook or something.

6.The Game of Life

Another board game on par ,in terms of popularity, as Monopoly.
Instead of rolling dice and running circles through the same playing board, The Game of Life is a one way trip through , duh, Life(according to the American lifestyle at least).
You get a job, a salary, get married and have kids.

Not many people have played this anymore.The game's selling point was to have a fun laugh as you play through the crazy events placed in the game and see how your "Life" goes.

7.Chess

8 Pawns, 2 Rooks, 2 Knights, 2 Bishops , a Queen and the King.
This is the size of your and your enemy's army.
Each piece moves differently and this game is an intellectual game.(Actually it's a zero-sum game[look it up])
By moving your pieces, you have to create a situation where the opponent's King cannot move without being captured. The situation is known to many as CHECKMATE.

Though not really fitting for a childhood game, Chess is still a fun game played by all ages.

8.Yu-Gi-Oh

A Japanese made Trading Card Game(TCG) made for a cartoon(anime) series by the same name.
The name translates to "King of Games".
The players each take up a number of life points (LP) and summon monster cards to deplete their opponent's LP.

The game was math intensive, requiring pen and paper or a calculator. But the game brings me back again and again with it's beautifully illustrated card designs and watching your friends cry out when you play your cards right is satisfying.

9.Pokemon

You could say that this was my first RPG video game. Catching Pokemon and sening them out to battle. Back then the story was irrelevant but would be called horrible now.The series is still going on strong with more and more pokemon being added to the series.

The wide variety of pokemon just draws you back to ,truly as they say "Catch them all" and to pit them against your friend's pokemon in a battle was fun.

10.Super Mario Bros.

Classic until the end of time, Mario keeps coming back for more.
Sure to send anyone back on a nostalgia trip, this game was truly the first for many.

Just the nostalgia factor makes you wanna play it again but before, there was no story, no overly complicated leveling system ,no strength points ,no intelligence points. Just a simple platformer.

Sunday, 15 May 2011

My Life as A Game

Ever wondered how your life would be like a game?

That's what I'm gonna talk about for this week.

Not to take too long, I'll just take 5 aspects of my daily life and turn them each into a game mechanic/structure.

Basic mechanics like stats are already part of my life.
(Stats are, for those that don't know, the level of a basic ability such as
 strength(str), intelligence(int) and even luck(luk). A certain level may be required to do a task.For example, you need 20 str to carry this box or you need 40 int to solve this math problem)

They will be:  I.  Skills (eg Cooking, martial arts,instruments...etc)
                       II. Friendships/Rivalry
                      III. School
                      IV. Love/Family
                      V.  Time

    I. Skills
Over the years of your life we all acquire a skill or two. It may be playing an instrument or something easy like cooking/baking, but from then on, we probably try to either hone it or we eventually forget about it and our skills rust away.
1. Acquiring Skills
    Life is hard, especially without any basic and/or special skills. With the internet these days, we can easily learn something with information taken from there. Of course, training in this skill may take much more time than the skill is worth. What matters is choosing a skill that interests you. Skills can be obtained from the internet or taking classes where possible.
2.Honing Skills
   While obtaining the skill is easy, honing it may be much harder. For example, Cooking is easy but making something elaborate that tastes good is very much so harder. The level of our skill increases with the amount of time spent on it as well as the amount of interest you have in it. It can also decrease if we don't practice the skill at all.
3. Special Skills
   People always say that you never forget how to ride a bicycle. That may be true for many skills and so certain skills can be much more resilient to decrease.

II. Friendships/Rivalry
 1. Friends and Relations
    I can consider myself a loner at times but no matter what i know i have friends by my side. No matter who you are or where your from, even if there's nothing you have in common, you could be friends. A line from a movie that was fairly recent went like this: "...back in kindergarten, when you would stand next to some other kid and 10 seconds later you'd be the best of friends....".
No matter what you should have a friend even if you don't realize this yourself, it could be a childhood friend or just that one guy/girl in class who talks to you at times.
2. Impact of Friends and Rivals
   Without a doubt, friends and rivals will change the way you look at some things. With more friends around, loneliness is never there and work gets done faster when everyone helps out. With rivals, you'd work harder to beat them at something. Life at the same time gets much more interesting than it normally would be when your alone.
Friends can cheer you up and work together to achieve more and Rivals motivate you
3. Keeping Relations
   When your away from friends for a long time, you lose touch with them. Their cell phone number changes, there's a new inside joke you don't get or that person has just changed a lot in time. Keeping in touch is important with friends. It's getting easier with things like Facebook and other social networking sites but still you get this sense of drifting apart. Call up a friend, meet up once in a while, keep that friendship going or you'll be depressed later trying to deal with it.
Relations can disappear if you don't maintain it well enough but grow in strength with more time spent together.

III. School
1. Place and Time
   School is the one place you'll find most of your childhood and teens have gone. It's the one place your social life revolves around. Friends gather at school (especially classmates and CCA friends) ,rivals in CCAs and potential friends are continuously around the corner.
Friends are easily made at school.
2.  Place of Learning
  Schools are there with a purpose and that purpose is education. Schools provide many types of education : Physical education, Academic education and Social Studies.
These classes can increase some stats like strength or maximum stamina or intelligence in exchange for some time and stamina.
3. More than Just Education
  Schools have more than just studying and academics, one of the more exiting parts of school life is CCAs(Co-Curricular Activities) . In CCAs, we can gain more friends, strengthen the bonds with existing friends and learn new skills. CCAs can also provide stat increases, for example, sports clubs strengthen your body (str) while culture clubs up your knowledge (int).

IV. Love/Family
   Friends are different from some relations. Your family and love take more or less to maintain than regular friendships. Family will be there for you at any time but because they're always there, you never realize how important they are and may lose them easily.
Love takes friendship to the next level. Certain things that can be said as friends can't be said any more and you'll have to watch yourself when around other people of the opposite sex when your in an intimate relationship. This makes it harder to maintain your love life than other relations.
Falling in love can power you up at certain times while losing love can cause a status effect such as heartbreak.
Not seeing these relations for too long can cause status effects like love sickness or home sickness.

V. Time
1. And so Time moves on
   "Time and tide waits for no man",Life continues on with or without you. This means that regardless of what your doing it takes up time. If your realize it, all of the aspects mentioned, all require Time to maintain.
2. Time Management
   With all the aspects of your life you have to juggle, you need to manage them properly. Will you finish your work before meeting with friends or will you put work aside for family or will you catch a movie with your boy/girl-friend. Choosing when and where you need to go is important in some games. Maintaining your life hinges upon this fact.
3. Energy
   Your appointments are indeed important but you also need time for yourself. You have a certain amount of energy and that only allows you some options for the day. You can't have school then hang out with friends and celebrate a family member's birthday all in one day without feeling the drain. That makes time management all the more important. Energy can be restored by taking a break or going to sleep. Extra energy can be gained from energy drinks or by sleeping early and waking up fresh.

My life may be just a boring game that no one wants to play but i like it the way it is though it could use some spice.
I wonder how other people's live may be like as a game.
I hope you dwell upon this question too.

Saturday, 30 April 2011

Prototype Sucks

By the title you may think that i didn't like [Prototype]

You know what?!

Your right!               

The game's basic premise seems good at first: "Virus gives dude powers"
but the game does a horrible job at making anything seem any better.

First off the game play is ok, smooth controls but idiotic wall running and jump recognition causes you to die more often than not.
The powers all flow together smoothly but there's too few and yet they cost too much each upgrade.
Rather than playing more to gain power you find yourself not really caring unless the power is required or cool (eg body surfing)

                                           Body surfing is fun....but...NOT ENOUGH

The game's graphics aren't bad but not good either, the one thing I want to commend is the effects used in the virus related changes.

                                                Tendrils of cool in a bad game

The game is unrealistic but i guess its not possible to say that with a straight face...
However, the game is just TOO damn unrealistic.
For example, you're in disguise as a run-of-the-mill soldier then right in front of another soldier you RUN UP THE WALL, the soldier just shrugs it off without so much as a "what the"..

Then there's the enemies.

You have the soldiers, they do almost minimal damage, are weak and can be killed easily with a single button press. Are mainly the cannon fodder and a means to recover your health.

Then you have the mutants, they don't flinch from the hits you give them until you get the sword upgrade, usually can send you flying especially when they somehow  manage to swarm you.
Give health and good evolution points but not worth the trouble.

The soldiers mainly give you trouble only when they start to cheat you up but spamming rocket launchers as soon as you get up.

The side-missions are horribly repetitive and you can already expect to see a 100% completion fanatic play through the same mission over a million times.The variety of missions is lacking. The missions all include either get to point a to point b in x amt of time or kill these guys in that amt of time and lastly assimilate this guy without alerting anyone.
3 types that's it...

Finally, the bosses all require the same strategy of hit them till they die but each one just eats the hits you deal like candy and deal damage that may kill you even faster than you kill the regular soldiers.
The boss fights for me have been hit-and-run and eating soldiers for health when i need it.

The game could have done much more in sense of it's abilities and missions. The game "Infamous"
that came out at about the same date was the same open world game but the abilities are more fun and are actually required for many different situations and enemies.In fact, i'd actually play this more if the abilities were better developed with a larger variety of powers.

The cutscenes are good on a visual level but are too short and boring. The game moves through one that basically tells you what you need to know rather than telling more of the story.

The game is available on the PS3 and Xbox 360. I recommend you to waste your money on this game just to see how ugly it is...

Test-Play : This is horrible

This time round its gonna be a test-play where I'm gonna be criticizing a game.
Simple right?
And without any delay the game is : [Prototype]

In this game the players take the form of Alex Mercer who wakes up on a morgue's operating table to find that he has apparently gained powers from being infected with an unknown virus pathogen.

He escapes to search for more clues to who or what he is, eventually gaining more powers through upgrades using evolution points or through the game's natural progression.
Powers include disguises, new bio weapons like an arm blade or hammer fists and even armor forms.

The game itself is under the open-world/ sandbox genre, similar to the ever popular game : Grand Theft Auto.

Over the course of the game, Mercer will deal with soldiers, mutated monsters , super soldiers and even tanks and helicopters.The game also allows you to take these vehicles on a drive.

The game also has many side-missions and collectibles like most open-world games.

Without any spoilers, the game ends with a pretty interesting twist that after playing enough you may realise was to be expected.

Obviously by my opinion, this game is horrible...

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Already?! My bad

Just to say, the tri-theme pics aren't gonna be continued much, I might resume it some other time but
For now it is discontinued...

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Melty Blood Impressions

It in actual fact isn't a very well made game, the game bugs out occasionally and weird stuff tends to happen all the time, but that's not our focus for this post.
What we or at least, you want to know is if it is Fun.

Melty Blood started out an arcade game but was ported to the PC and Playstation 2.
I've played the PC version of Melty Blood(every installment except for Actress Again which isn't even ported).

I am just gonna have to believe that you have read the previous post :Test-Play 1
If you haven't you may not understand what I'm talking about

What was my first impression...
The game was amazing, the characters aren't too unbalanced and provide different play-styles to all types of players.
I, for one like to play as Tohno Shiki and his alternate self Nanaya Shiki.
The fast but weak damage dealt chain together and the win feels that much more satisfying for me.
Pulling off an Arc Drive/Last Arc takes timing and a careful prediction off your opponent's next moves and hitting with one brings with it a stunning attack and a chance for a from-behind-comeback.

 
Screenshot of the character select screen

My friend whom introduced me to the game plays with me over the net often, and we enjoy the way the game sometimes causes something funny or epic to happen.

Main Menu

We have some crazy moments with this game and the music is really catchy that it makes you want to hum it sometimes.
I'm a big fan of Type-Moon's games and stories so it became a must-play at some point.
The game modes are all very typical and not much variety is given but that's how it is with this kind of game.

I actually started playing without much knowledge on the genre and proper play-style but after a few tries i picked up some basics and started beating my friend at his own game.

The game doesn't require any complicated combos unless your aiming to be a professional player.
The usual combos only involve launching your opponent into the air, jumping after him/her attacking ,double jump, attack into an air grab.Not all characters follow this pattern but most do and it's known as a bread-and-butter(BnB) combo. It just means its a basic combo that comes naturally to you.

Complicated combos will include special moves and super moves blending together into a deadly and beautiful instrument of death.Your opponents will marvel at how their health disappears like running water.

My friend doesn't know any proper combos but can often pull out dangerous chains off an ad lib and surprises both me and himself.

                                          Character activating her Arc Drive
                                                 A sucessful Ex-shield


The best parts of the game comes from playing with a friend and that makes the game never get old no matter how long its been since its release years ago.
Even now i still play it when the chance arises.

If you have the time and want to try this game too, Melty Blood Actress Again can be found at the  Zone-X arcades in Ang Mo Kio Hub and Dhoby Ghaut MRT station.