Week 1 - MDA UPDATE

Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3)

Fantasy - The game is set in a fantasy world where there exist not only humans, but several other races from different worlds. Equally, the places you visit in the game are from a fantasy world often containing a futuristic wasteland, ancient ruins or dead planet like conditions. Using the power of the PS3, unreal is able to simulate a truly believable environment where the player experiences reality.

Narrative - As an FPS you wouldn't expect an elaborate story from a game like this, however in recent years these sorts of games have been accompanied by a single player campaign mode where you still get the classic death match style maps with simple objectives. Unreal takes it a few steps further by keeping you guessing all the time. You're not only required to destroy the other person or team, you often have numerous other objectives such as sabotaging the other team's power source, or a capture-the-flag type mission.

Challenge - The challenge in current FPS games, is that they are very fast paced, and you have to keep up in order to survive in the game. Quick response, precision, strong strategies and patience are needed to complete some of the levels of challenge this game imposes on a player.

Fellowship - Unreal 3 also has a great online multi-player system where you can not only play the campaign mode with other people, but you can do the simple free for all or even team matches as well as several other co-op type levels. Now you no longer have to rely on a predictable team of bots at your side, but you have real people who can work much more closely with a single goal. This changes the nature of the game-play and transforms it into a much more life-like experience. Add to that the ability to talk to each other via voice chat and messages and you have a solid team experience.
Mechanics
The game is consistent with other first person shooters utilizing the WASD configuration for movement and mouse for aiming/firing. There are a couple races to choose from at first, and there are more to unlock later in the game or through cheats. What's different and cool is that every weapon has a secondary fire. This usually results in a charged shot, slower but stronger. On weapons such as the sniper rifle, the secondary button acts as the scope for zooming which is pretty standard. One feature that was new to me was that the game did not force you to respawn after a death which is something that annoyed me with other FPS games where you cannot pause. For example in Counter-Strike:Source, if i had a phone call, i would have to exit the server or my character would keep respawning and lose points.

Dynamics
There are also power-ups such as shields, health and ammo packs as well as weapons that when stepped over will be equipped if better than what the player is currently using. This can be annoying if you're in the middle of a fight as the character would momentarily stop shooting. Thankfully they've allowed the option to disable this. Another good implementation was a hoverboard for larger maps since it makes it much faster to get around. The hoverboard also allows you to latch onto moving vehicles with a tow cable. The spacebar acts as jump, and it allows you to press it twice at your desired timing and this lets the player change direction in mid-air confusing the other players while dodging shots.Visuals and sounds in the game are all high definition, which for me was a minor problem since everything looks so real. Playing on a standard display will be a challenge since all the textures and dynamic lighting are so convincing that you can't always see your opponent until he's firing at you. The sound is multi-positional which help immensely in determining the direction from where your opponent is firing from.

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Guitar Hero II (360)

Sensation - This game is designed to please the ears and eyes. The constant stream of fretboard flying towards you leaves you with warped vision once you look away from the screen. This can't be great for your eyes, but it is kind of a cool feeling the first time. The music of course is a sensation itself where if the game is played correctly is pleasing to listen to but when wrong notes are hit it produces unharmonious noise.

Fantasy - Guitar Hero allows many to play out the fantasy of being able to play guitar, or being a rock star. Completing harder difficulties and songs gives the illusion that the player is actually playing music and have real musical skill.

Challenge - The challenge in this game is to have impeccable timing and precision so that you can keep a streak of notes going to earn maximum points. A player's lack of coordination or timing is the biggest challenge to overcome. Other times the game is ridiculously hard and expects you to execute a flurry of notes that are far apart on the controller but close in timing or weird combinations.

Discovery - For those with no musical background, this is diving into the realm of playing an instrument at its most basic level. Although you don't need to learn an instrument, you still must get comfortable enough of looking at the screen knowing that your hands will guide themselves to the correct buttons.

Expression - Guitar Hero's controller lets the player express himself by stylizing how he plays. One way to do this is to use the whammy bar to give vibrato to an otherwise lifeless note. This allows every player to play the song in their own way whichever is most comfortable to them.

Mechanics
The basic rules of the game are to press the 5 colored buttons on the controller corresponding to what is shown on the screen, while hitting the pick attack button to make the note ring. If you are able to keep a streak of correct notes going, the game will start to multiply the worth of each note. The maximum multiplier you can have is 8x. As a result of correct notes, you can also have whats called star power. This makes notes worth more and is good to be used if your rock meter is running low and are about to lose. If you have an 8x multiplier and use star power, you can max out the rate of points coming in.

Dynamics
Much like real guitar, if notes are next to each other, the game allows you to do a "pull-off" which lets you press multiple notes with just a pick attack on the first note. This technique helps with faster sections. After you hit a note, you must hold it as long as its shown on screen or you will lose the note streak and it counts as a mistake. As the difficulty of the game increases, you will be introduced to "chords" or multi button combinations.

The addition of the 5th colored button will appear in a harder difficulty, and this confuses people since they have to shift their hand position or stretch to hit it. The game will give you feedback by playing the guitar track if you are doing well. If you hit incorrect notes, the game will produce bad guitar noises and the guitar track will stop playing. Also, you will see a rock meter on the right that tells you how well you are doing. If a player misses too many notes, the meter will start to go down, and in the case that it goes to its lowest point the crowd will boo you off stage and you lose.

Week 12 - Resource Management

Unreal Tournament 3
Sources - As an FPS, the sources in this world come into existence wherever the level designer intended for there to be an item. A well designed level has health packs, armour and other power ups placed throughout the map to create a sense of balanced game play.

Drains - The sources are used by the player in a variety of ways. If it is a source of armour, the player will have the item for a timed period before it returns to it's spawn point for other players to have an equal chance at attaining. Health and ammunition packs are permanent, that is until they are used. It is possible to get over 100% health, and by getting hurt by an enemy weapon, or out of your own stupidity your health can be drained until 0 when you die.

Converters - The increased damage and extra armour could be considered converters because they take the item and give you something in exchange, which is more protection or the ability to cause more damage to other players.

Production Mechanics - In certain maps there are spawn points which act as factories for weapons and vehicles. When you destroy or use up an item, or in worst cases die, these objects will reappear. If you do not use them, they will not produce more.

Tangible/Intangible - I would say the most of the items, if not all, are tangible. You must touch health packs to get them. You must walk over ammunition to get more. With that sort of logic it would also make sense to drop those items if you were to use them or lose them upon death. Unfortunately this doesn't happen with health or weapons.

Static and Dynamic Equilibrium - Resources are in a constant state of flux. Players will find ammo, health, or power ups but it may be under a different circumstance in each occurrence. For example health packs are readily available to everyone, as they keep re spawning. Increased damage is also available and does re spawn but it only allows one person to have the item at a time. As players consume ammo, they will need to reload their weapons with more ammo from their inventory. If players let the weapon drain itself out, the weapon will reload itself from the player’s inventory after an attempt to fire when the weapon is empty, resulting in a dynamic equilibrium.

Guitar Hero II

Sources - In this game, the sources are notes which are in effect notes when they are attained by playing the note. Also, unlike most games, you can generate a source of more points which is called a multiplier by having a successful streak of notes without mistakes.

Drains - Drains occur when you miss notes. You will never have less points than you currently have, but the ability to gain more can be considered a drain. The other type of drain could be star power which allows you to gain more points. Once you initiate this mode, it will run out in a matter of seconds.

Converters - It is possible to convert star power into a mechanic which will increase the number of points coming in as well as minimize your losses.
Production Mechanics - The game itself just produces notes for you to hit. Whether or not you are successful in hitting the notes is not the point, they will go off screen and be destroyed. In its place, new notes will be created and sent down until the song is over.

Tangible Intangible - The whole game deals with tangible sources. The notes you have to "touch" or hit in order to provoke a response. The star power will collect in a tube which you must release. As a result of your actions, you can increase the flow of points by creating new types of sources.

Feedback Loops/Deadlocks - There are no feedback loops in this game. Each level is independent to each other. If you start a level and don't play, you will lose from too many errors. If you play the level, there is no way to run out of items. The only limit is the maximum times your points can be multiplied.

Static and Dynamic Equilibrium - Players are able to statically increase points in this game because you can never go down in points. The rate of points coming in is a form of dynamic equilibrium since it entirely depends on the player's ability to keep a note streak going. There are several multipliers to go through to reach the maximum. Once this is reached the points will be coming in so fast that the star power meter will fill up, since that is the last step for expansion. Star power can be stored until ready to use. Upon using the rate of points will increase once more temporarily until the meter is drained.

Week 10 - Thief III Comparison

Thief III

Thief III falls under a different genre than Unreal Tournament 3 or Guitar Hero II although I suppose they share some abstract models between the three games. Thief is mainly a stealth based third person game. Unreal Tournament is a first-person shooter and Guitar Hero is a music based game.

Unreal Tournament 3
In Unreal, the first thing I noticed to be the same were the style of lighting. Both games feature low lit environments, while Thief pushes the envelope for dark environments. From what I can tell, Unreal has a better layout in terms of heads up display. I can understand why thief doesn’t show as much as you don’t need to have a read out of everything at all times. It also helps to be in a third person view so that movements are more precise. Unreal is set in a first person view to have a better view at your target. One of the similarities found in both games are the use of an overlay to show position such as a map or compass. The art in the game also have a striking resemblance to each other. While thief is set in what looks medievil times, unreal also has surroundings that look very rustic or of the same era.

Guitar Hero II
Guitar Hero II is in almost no way similar to Thief. The gameplay is totally different, as is the genre. The lighting style, music, mood, the nature of the game is entirely different. Off hand, I cannot think of any similarities between Thief III and any of the games in the Guitar Hero series.

Week 9 - Lighting Design

Unreal Tournament 3
The lighting found in Unreal 3 is setup to give a cinematic experience. While most games are colourful, Unreal 3 actually desaturates some of the colour from the game to give a more dark and film like look. The lighting usually gives off some sort of tint to indicate team bases (red or blue). In regular maps however the lighting is mostly image based from the beautiful and panoramic sky textures. There are some maps where the sky is present in a day time setting. Other times the sky is red on a desert planet. Also some levels are set in space where light comes from the planet below and glowing items found on the space station. Although it is a dark game, there is no real dramatic or overly moody lighting found in games such as F.E.A.R where you are literally lurking in the shadows. Since custom maps are aplenty for this game, it entirely depends on how people want their levels to look. Many maps are created to resemble worlds from other games such as Halo or Quake III. In addition to main lighting, light is also emitted from weapons. A shot with an energy weapon can easily light up a room, or at least a good surrounding perimeter around the character. Items that glow, such as health, or boosts can add illumination to parts of the level. The guide arrows in the game are also semi-transparent and glow so that its easily noticeable. Through the use of lighting, the overall look for this game is designed to be a cinematic experience.

Guitar Hero II
The lighting in Guitar Hero II is used quite heavily. The lighting experience provided coincides with a typical arcade game with super bright lights and colours. In fact, it's so bright that playing for extended periods of time causes eye fatigue. In any case, the very bright colours represent the notes coming towards you that you must hit. When the notes are successfully hit and held, they will glow and get even brighter. Not only do the notes glow, but so does the background stage lighting as well as the various meters found in the HUD. That about covers it for the in game experience. In game menus, the lighting is quite different. It looks like the low level lighting found in dingy backstage bathroom found in concert venues.

Week 8 - Puzzle Design

Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3)
There aren't really elements of gameplay that are identifiable as puzzles in this game, however there are certain types of games within the shoot em up style of play that could be considered puzzle like. One such example is on levels where you have to capture an enemy node which usually means several enemy nodes. It is your job to capture a number of nodes and not allow the enemy to capture them back. This is difficult, as it takes time to destroy the protective shield around the node each time, and the second problem is that while you are capturing another node, your enemy is trying to steal one of yours! I would categorize this under "Trial and Error" puzzle types. There is no straightforward way to solve this puzzle except to create a strategy that will allow you to be successful.

Guitar Hero II (360)
Puzzle Types: There aren't really any "puzzles" in guitar hero II, but certain elements could be considered similar to a puzzle.

Code/Configuration: this game is all about button combination. The game is played by pushing the correct buttons at the correct times to produce the right sounds. When the player is successful at meeting these requirements they gain points that brings up their score and score multiplier. The better players do in a song, the more fans they get and as a result they are able to earn more money, unlock new items, etc.

Cause and Effect: Pushing buttons on the controllers causes certain things to happen on screen. By tilting the guitar shaped controllers upward the player uses star power and this in turn helps them by making notes worth more point wise.

Week 6 - Level Design

Unreal Tournament 3

Lighting
The lighting found in Unreal 3 is setup to give a cinematic experience. While most games are colourful, Unreal 3 actually desaturates some of the colour from the game to give a more dark and film like look. The lighting usually gives off some sort of tint to indicate team bases (red or blue). In regular maps however the lighting is mostly image based from the beautiful and panoramic sky textures. There are some maps where the sky is present in a day time setting. Other times the sky is red on a desert planet. Also some levels are set in space where light comes from the planet below and glowing items found on the space station. Although it is a dark game, there is no real dramatic or overly moody lighting found in games such as F.E.A.R where you are literally lurking in the shadows. Since custom maps are aplenty for this game, it entirely depends on how people want their levels to look. Many maps are created to resemble worlds from other games such as Halo or Quake III. In addition to main lighting, light is also emitted from weapons. A shot with an energy weapon can easily light up a room, or at least a good surrounding perimeter around the character. Items that glow, such as health, or boosts can add illumination to parts of the level. The guide arrows in the game are also semi-transparent and glow so that its easily noticeable. Through the use of lighting, the overall look for this game is designed to be a cinematic experience.

Colour and Contrast
Although a part of lighting, the colour and contrast were a big part of the look in Unreal 3. As i mentioned previously, the colours were sucked out to get a desaturated dark film look. This is best demonstrated in outdoor settings where the sky is bright. After the colour has been bumped down a bit, the contrast is cranked up high to make blacks blacker and whites whiter. Rather than resorting to the next-gen console techniques of yesterday, "bloom" was not abused but contrast was instead to get a hi-definition feel as well. The main colours in this game are black, red, white. All other colours are quite depressed or contain those main three colours in various shades. All of these things working together create a highly stylized look.

Scale
Creatures and characters in this game are all roughly the same size. They’re all humanoid lifeforms and so although there are big guys, and slender women, there are no overly large or small characters. While the designers could have gone crazy with characters that were enormous to fight, it wouldn’t be a balanced game since this is mainly a multiplayer or team based game. The main characters are easier to relate to and provide a more lifelike experience, while the alien characters add an element to fantasy so that we know that we are not on earth, but on some earth like planet or space instead. Environments in this game are alike. The paths, archways and stairs are all relative to the size of the characters. They even have stylistic elements that can be compared with ancient Chinese architecture.

Structure and Architecture
Getting around in Unreal 3 can be a daunting task depending on the level. Some levels are designed to have close quarters combat for fast paced action. These structures are usually constructed as a balanced and often symmetrical map with few big open areas and lots of connecting hallways, jumping platforms and stand multiple levels tall. The textures range from futuristic, to abandoned ancient structures blended with organic life often times. Larger maps are more life like in a way that its more explorable, vehicles are around to help you to get to where you want to go and natural phenomenon occur such as wind and dust storms. The architecture of the game is similar to previous Unreal or Quake games. It’s a fantasy world with lifelike structures. These worlds are full of items and strange, and sometimes familiar designs to interact with the player. There are also futuristic technologies such as teleporation, boots or pads that let you jump very high and far and alien items that enhance human ability.

Narrative
You as a player are led through different environments and worlds to advance the plot. Now, while the order of levels isn’t entirely linear, this doesn’t really effect the outcome. Much like Starfox, a player is able to play some maps out of order. In any case, players will find them selves in a few training missions at the beginning to acclimate them to the game. The protagonist, his family/team are the last line of humans and are seeking revenge on the one who wiped out their kind. Level to level, you gain valuable techniques that will help you to defeat the enemy at the end. There are no real twists and turns, it’s just a straight shoot ‘em up game with tonnes of action.

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Guitar Hero II

Lighting
The lighting in Guitar Hero II is used quite heavily. The lighting experience provided coincides with a typical arcade game with super bright lights and colours. In fact, it's so bright that playing for extended periods of time causes eye fatigue. In any case, the very bright colours represent the notes coming towards you that you must hit. When the notes are successfully hit and held, they will glow and get even brighter. Not only do the notes glow, but so does the background stage lighting as well as the various meters found in the HUD. That about covers it for the in game experience. In game menus, the lighting is quite different. It looks like the low level lighting found in dingy backstage bathroom found in concert venues.
The lighting found in Unreal 3 is setup to give a cinematic experience.

Colour and Contrast
Colour and contrast are huge in this game. I cannot stress the importance of colour enough. Without it, the game would be quite confusing to play if you were hit with a flurry of notes and were unable to differentiate between the buttons. It makes use of red, green, blue, yellow and orange appears also in harder difficulties or songs. For contrast, the flying fretboard is a dark brown colour so that there is no mistaking a note for part of the board. Similarly, the floating menus and meters are situated above the background in terms of Z depth, although the background colours usually don't interfere with the level of contrast it takes to keep the meters legible.

Scale
Scale is quite fantastic in the guitar hero series. First of all you have human characters, a stage scaled accordingly to people, the crows is also people and so the bar or venue is sized to people as well. Guitars and clothes also are sized for people. This is where the lifelike scale stops. In a song, the first thing you will notice is a giant fretboard flying towards you. This is out of scale. The notes on the board are also quite a bit smaller as to not cram the fretboard. Considering Z depth, there can be a lot of notes placed between frets, and is unrealistic in terms of real guitar.

Structure and Architecture
Structure and Architecture are a bit unusual since this game is not your typical game world. You go from venue to venue playing gigs with your band. The venues are never shown except for the stage you are playing on. Since every stage looks pretty much the same, even if it was different you would have a hard time noticing since most of your time is spent staring at the notes. The structure of this game is mainly built around the notes, how they appear and how the react when a player does something. While the rules remain the same, new songs bring on new notes and patterns to get used to.

Narrative
There's not much to say about narrative in Guitar Hero II. You choose a character, name your band and suddenly you have a band. You play the guitarist in your band, and must travel the country playing songs. You are rewarded with money and praise if you do well, you are booed and fined by the venue owner if you do poorly and cause a riot. People add to this story by setting personal goals for themselves. People often want to beat each other's high score, or try to get a perfect score. The fun in this game continues to exist because of these personal goals.

Week 5: Formal Abstract Models and Drama

Unreal Tournament 3

Intention – The intention in Unreal is to increase your strategy and skill to not only beat a map, weapon or character but to master it. This becomes apparent when playing a tournament with others online or bots. Players quickly discover what it takes to win. As a first person shooter, players know what to expect from this genre as far as rules and gameplay are concerned. There are main goals to achieve as well as secondary ones. A player may decide to beat the game level by level which would be a short term goal. A long term goal on the other hand would be to master the use of the sniper rifle while jumping or something like having the best kill to death ratio.

Perceivable Consequence – is notable in the game at all times. Whether it be single player or multiplayer, a player can see direct results of his actions. If he shoots explosive projectiles beneath him, he will hurt himself. If he gets close to a player, he will injure him. If he shoots right at the person at hits him, he well cause more damage. Similarly, when playing bots, you will start to notice patterns. Not only do they have preset paths to follow, they also like to jump around and teleport. A player with enough experience can predict where a person or bot will land after a jump. A well placed shot will ensure a victory. All of this applies to the player too, since he or she must be wary of others using this against them.

Negative Feedback – in Unreal is present always. The simplest form is during gameplay when you are getting hurt, the player will grunt, your health meter goes down, the screen flashes to indicate pain. If you finally die, you can see your own dead body but it doesn't show you the person that killed you, so that you may take revenge. Of course it reads out that player 1 killed player 2 using x weapon but in a level with hordes of players, its impossible to track down one player and kill him. In menus, negative feedback is produced by a negative buzz or an error sound if you try to do something that is not allowed. Sounds are probably the largest indicator of negative feedback in this game. Players or bots can also insult you when you kill them. This can be considered negative feedback but it could also make a player feel good since they know they are making the other player frustrated. The negative feedback, although annoying adds balance to achieve more realism i believe. Although it might be a fun mod to have no force feedback, or recoil when firing weapons, it would defeat the purpose of a player developing the skill to use a certain weapon or technique.

Positive Feedback – The best positive feedback in this game, is that you know what is happening all the time. Your missions are simple, and explained to you with video walkthroughs. Your level objectives are simple, and are guided when the game detects that you are confused. I dont know too many games that can do that. When you spawn in a level, you hear a distinct whoosh sound that lets you know that your character is ready to go. Visuals also help such as the very large numbers and simple icons in the HUD. As stated previously, players receive feedback from preset voices of bots or players that will praise you or insult you when you kill them. One thing i miss in this game is that the computer voice would periodically praise the players that were doing well by saying things like “Killing Spree!” or “Unstoppable!”. This motivates a player to do better since they know they have a streak going.

Escalation - Unreal begins to peak in action or drama when more of the story unfolds. You are trying to avenge the wiping out of your family from an alien leader. In the final level you are faced with the leader in a 1 on 1 battle. Her AI and awareness are more aggressive than anything you’ve ever encountered throughout the game so far. This presents a challenge to the player and may take many tries to overcome. This sort of escalation is not only limited to the final battle, but occurs in every level. You are always experiencing the same kind of drama when the level is almost complete, or if time is running out and the winner isn’t clear.

Hidden Energy – Hidden energy in this game comes in the form of items. When certain enhancement items are picked up in the game, they are automatically used. This can be a health pack, health boost, shield, extra damage, anti gravity boots, armor, or even some special moves. When a player is equipped with one or more of these, he is temporarily stronger, faster, or more deadly. This is completely unrelated to a person’s level of success in a match. An expert player has just as much of a chance as getting and using these items as a novice. The only difference being that a novice will most likely not know the terrain or the location of these items and will most likely stumble across them by chance. Secondary function of all weapons is also a hidden energy. You are not told that weapons can do two types of damages. Another hidden energy is a weapon you use when all of your ammo is spent in your other weapons, which is more or less a device you use to ram into another player for an instant kill. This is considered a difficult kill, because you have to get within point blank range and kill the person without being seen. Also comparable to a knife kill in other games.

Inevitability – Players are faced with multiple forms of inevitability. Sometimes they are limited by time. Other times they are limited by items, such as vehicles in some levels and another in others. Things that are always the same is the amount of ammo in a level. Once ammo runs out, a player needs to pickup more ammo wherever it respawns in the level. The same applies for health and it is possible to charge the health to 150% while starting with 100. There is no real ending to this game, since there are always characters to be unlocked, different difficulties to beat as well as the multiplayer component to continue the game online.

Guitar Hero II

Intention – The intention in Guitar Hero II are to become well, a guitar hero. You do this by beating each song, on each difficulty to the best of your ability. A player must try to minimize mistakes and really go for accuracy and even throw in a little style. Players are meant to make use of realistic guitar techniques in order to play some of the harder passages the game throws at you. While this doesn’t teach you how to play guitar, it certainly does train one to be able to play along in sync, or in time with music which can certainly be applied to a musical instrument in reality. The ultimate goal in this game is to get a perfect score in all of the songs. Short term goals are completing the songs in any way and earning money to buy new equipment and accessories.

Perceivable Consequence – is the basis of this game. While you are rewarded for doing well in a song, you are also punished for doing poorly or missing notes. If it isn’t known, a player will discover this quickly within the first couple seconds of playing. A player must complete a song not by meeting a certain percentage or number of points. Instead he must keep the rock meter above zero in order to not fail. The game may confuse players as well since they show the current stream of notes as well as future ones. If one gets too focused on what is to come, they may screw up the group of notes before them currently.

Negative Feedback – is quite good in guitar hero. While a player is playing poorly, the game will replace the bad notes with guitar noises to indicate that the notes are not being hit correctly. If a player stops playing, the guitar track will stop. Also if a player does not do good overall, the crowd’s cheers will turn into booing. Some visuals also add to the feedback. Familiar colours such as green and red have a role in this. While the rock meter is in the green it is good, and similarly when it reaches red, it means that the player is in trouble and needs to start playing better or he will fail the song.

Positive Feedback – is similar to the negative feedback, but reversed. While a player is playing well, the game will regularly play riff noises which are different to the noises played when notes are missed. Notes will begin to glow, and the star meter will being to grow. The crowds will chant for you, and from time to time major milestones will be displayed above. For example a 50 note streak occurs, and it will display the text and trigger a riff sound. After a song has been compelted or failed, the game breaks down your score into a star rating, note streaks and hit percentage of each section in a song so that you can improve.

Escalation – occurs in gh2 when solos are approaching in a song. This is usually the deciding factor between a fail and a completioin of a song. The colour of the rock meter going into a solo should be perfectly green and the star power meter should not be empty. Solos are generally difficult to pull off and mistakes should be expected. By having a multiplier, star power, and a high rock meter you can use those elements to ensure that you will still hit the majority of notes, and the notes missed will not effect your meters too much.

Hidden Energy – would probably be the star power. To fill this meter, you must keep a steady streak of notes coming in. Another way to quicken this process is to wiggle the whammy bar during long held notes. Star power allows you to increase the worth of every point coming in. Combined with a multiplier of 8, star power will allow the maximum number of points.

Inevitability – Players are not faced with a time limit overall, but rather an alloted time for each note or group of notes. Once the given time has passed, it is impossible to go back and hit notes. In that sense, this time based game will come to an end of each song. But this game really never ends if you are constantly trying to better yourself and others. If you do well, the game will undoubtedly reward you and vice versa.

Week 3: Motivation, Rewards,Punishment, Feedback

Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3)
Motivation
Players are motivated to play the game due its endless fun factor. Other than moving from level to level in death matches like Quake III, the designers of Unreal Tournament 3 decided to change it up, and have a story mode where the player needs to do a variety of different missions to further the story. Now, granted that all the missions involve killing and there are no real objectives to contribute to the story, except maybe where your character currently is. There is still something fun about uncovering the story. The designers built the game to guide the gamer to make their own choices in terms of which levels to play next. Players get to control a lot in this game, from character customization, game mode, controls, levels and even change rules of the game engine if they wish. That, combined with the great online experience is what motivates players to keep playing the game. One thing that isn't implemented that well is seeing which friends are playing online from within a game. It has its own separate menu outside a game and is difficult to organize friends to play the same game. This sort of thing can really bother a gamer who loves to play online with his friends and even discourage a player or kill motivation to play the game.

Rewards
The visuals in this game are a reward in itself. It is easily one of the best looking games out right now for any gaming system. The environment is highly detailed in complex models, 2k texture mapping and excellent dynamic lighting. In game rewards include finding better weapons and the ability to use them. For beating the game, you can also unlock different races to play with which are also highly customizable. Another rewards a player gets is that his skill greatly increases by the end of the story mode, so that he will have greater advantage in online matches. Although not clear, there is a ranking board for you and your friends to see who has better stats.

Punishments
While picking up weapons and having the ability to use them was a reward the punishment is that if you die, you will have to find those weapons all over again. This encourages the player to maximize their strategy and get good enough to kill more people and die less themselves. This however does not matter in the long run since every level you start with the default weapons and anything you use in the level is localized to the current level. Although not typical of a FPS, it would have been interesting had the designers intended to have a player collect weapons throughout the story, and then lose them if a player were to die.

Feedback
Feedback in Unreal 3 is very dominant. When you are shooting for example, you can see the recoil of your weapon fire. Also, you can see whatever projectile is leaving your gun very clearly, whether it be bullets and shells, or lasers. The animation is very smooth and the models are built to take advantage of this. The cloth simulations are excellent, and it is apparent when moving left, right or jumping. There seem to be sound effects for almost any different move you can pull off in the game. Add to that multi positional sound, and there you have a tool to detect your enemies without seeing them, and this also helps to pull you into the world. The music in this game can only be described as "epic" which is funny since that is also the name of the game studio. There are lots of ambient noises as well, but it depends on the level and setting. You can get lots of feedback when you pickup a new weapon since it will trigger a sound, when it switches. When you're out of ammo, you may hear a few clicks before it switches to the next gun. This way, you never have to keep track of what you have and how much of it, and allows the player to keep his eyes on the target.



Guitar Hero II (360)
Motivation
The objective in this game is to unlock all the songs, characters, and guitars in this game. Secondary objective is to get the highest scores possible. This is where the real fun in the game lies. This game is designed to be fun when played with a friend or group. Unlocking everything in all difficulties is time consuming, but quite easy. The desire to shatter your friend's record is the motivation to play this game over and over again. To make the game more interesting, you can visit different venues, customize characters and choose your own guitars. It feels like you are in a band, at a gig playing a live show. The ability to download new tracks, keeps the game interesting and gives you a new bunch of songs to master and conquer. With design choices like this, the Activision group that made this game were very conscious that they would need to keep the game interesting by updating it through xbox live.

Rewards
The main rewards in this game are unlocking new songs. As you complete a set, you will be asked to play an encore, which will in turn unlock a new set. Additionally, if you do well in a song, the crowd will be cheering for you which can make you feel good. While you do good in a song, you will get points, and a long streak of uninterrupted notes can get you a points multiplier and also star power which will multiply points even more. As you get better, you will be able to play on higher difficulties which again is a reward, since you now possess better timing or hand-eye-coordination than before. When played with another person, you can show off your new skills in a pro-face off. The game is also visually pleasing to look at.

Punishments
Punishments occur during a song. If you start to do badly, your rock meter will begin to drop and once it reaches the lowest, you will fail the song and have to start it from the beginning. If you do poorly in a song, you will not get star power often, or at all. This will minimize your points intake and if you finish the song, you will not have a good star rating and will make you want to play it again to do better. On expert, some songs are nearly impossible to complete because of extremely difficult solos. They can bring your rock meter down very fast, if theres a lot of bad notes hit or missed. Star Power can save you in these situations, but if you've been doing poorly the whole song, you won't have any to rely on.

Feedback
Feedback is very obvious when playing guitar hero and was designed well to allow that. If you are playing the game correctly, and doing well you will hear the main guitar track, the crowd cheering and periodic guitar slides. Similarly, if you are not doing good, your rock meter will start to go down, the cheers will turn into booing and you will fail. You will also see your star meter flashing blue and growing. Another thing you will see is your points multiplier changing colour and getting intense as it gets higher in number. A meter, will tell you if you are doing well or not. If its in the green, it means you are rocking. If it drops to the red, it's telling you that you are about to fail and that you suck. After the completion or failure of a song, it also provides you with some statistics. Longest note streak, rating out of 5 stars, total points, and a break down of each section of the song in percentages. Outside the game, you will most likely receive feedback from your friends while the congratulate you on your success or mock you for your failure.

Week 2: Game Genre and Formal Elements

Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3)
Game Genre
First Person Shooter

Unreal Tournament 3 has many elements to it which make it a great game. First there is the offline single player campaign where you play as a character named reaper, along with his sister, and two other sidekicks. It’s a simple but weak story where you are the last of your kind because somebody wiped everybody else out for some reason. I guess Epic thought this was good enough. I had a hard time paying attention to the story since i spent most of the time trying to skip scenes to get to the action. After a while the story becomes unimportant as you just tend to go level to level wanting to kill things. After all, i assume this is why people buy a game like UT3. This campaign can also be played online as co-op mode which makes the game more fun, knowing that somebody else has to sit through the lame story and cut-scenes. There are some other game modes for both offline and online play such as deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, vehicle capture the flag, warfare and duel. Unreal has always had a large modding community, and Epic has really provided great support and tools to help people tweak the gameplay to their idea of “a better game”. This is achieved using custom characters, maps, or scripts called “mutators” which can alter how the game behaves in any number of ways. A mutator can simply lower the strength of a weapon, or make a player jump twice as high. It can also break game rules that make the game easier for added fun or add new ones that make the game more challenging.

Formal Elements of Games

Players:
This game is designed to have up to 16 characters almost any type of match. Sometimes this only has one human player and all bots, or online can all humans or even a mix of the two. Players don’t have specific roles in this game, but their size and speed can set them apart. This can be an effective strategy online in a team based situation, because the lightest and quickest character may be chosen to capture the enemy flag. There are a variety of player interactions in this game. There is single player versus game, Multiple individual players versus game, player versus player, multilateral competition, cooperative play and also team competition.

Objectives:
Objectives in UT3 are a mix match of the different game modes. There is an overall map which shows a path with all the levels you are supposed to visit. Generally, the order doesn’t matter as more than one map may be unlocked by beating a previous one. Also the order you choose the levels has no effect on the story in any way since the story doesn’t really matter in this game. I suppose the real objective is to beat the game at different difficulties to unlock all the characters for online use. In between levels, a cut scene will play with the next mission briefing. When beginning a new level, the game usually gives a quick tutorial on what the player specifically has to do. This is done by quickly showing the player where to go while verbally communicating something like “the first team to capture the flag three times will win.” Sometimes you must capture the flag, go one on one with a difficult bot, or have a deathmatch. Generally you are trying to earn 20 kills as an individual to pass the level, it’s really a no brainer. However there are some game modes that take getting used to. Such as the warfare mode where a team must invade an enemy base and take over their power source by destroying their safeguards and converting their power nodes. This is tricky since both teams are attacking each other, and each time has multiple nodes. It is difficult to keep hold of your own and the other teams nodes simultaneously.

Procedures:
starting action: When starting the game, the player is asked to login which can be set to auto for convenience. He can then choose instant action for quick match against bots, continue campaign online or offline, or choose a multiplayer game.
progression of actions: The player starts off playing a simple deathmatch style game to get him acclimated to the gameplay. Then newer styles of play are introduced throughout the different levels such as one on one, capture the flag, vehicles, teleporters, new weapons.
special actions: Sometimes the player is able to use a hoverboard on larger maps, other times its vehicles. You can also get a translocater which allows you to shoot an object and where it lands is where you will appear. This teaches the player a new tactic to avoid being shot and surprise the enemy.
resolving actions: Once you’ve beaten the game once, you will unlock something. This says that you’ve beaten the game, try again to unlock more.

Rules: Players will quickly learn through experience what can and cannot be done in Unreal Tournament 3. There are a few things to discover that are really up to the player to use, and is never essential but can give a huge advantage. A player can double jump, teleport, use vehicles and many other options. The main rules are that all players are equal, but they can boost certain specs of their character by getting power ups and special items that make the game more interesting. The game also provides support if it thinks that the player is getting stuck by guiding them using a path of arrows. There is no limit to how many items a player can carry. Some items will wear off in time, others will remain until death. Items that can disappear after time, usually only used by one person at a time so a player must race to get those items to get the upper hand. Weapons have different strengths and firing rates. It would be unfair to have a sniper rifle, the strongest weapon, shoot as fast as a weaker machine gun. The designers also made choices to balance the game in certain modes. For example, when a player is using the hoverboard, he cannot use weapons at the same time and is therefore vulnerable. Similarly, if a player captures an enemy flag, he can bring it back on the hoverboard, but not in a vehicle since that would provide too much protection and speed. The game supports controllers as well as mouse + keyboard. Online, there are servers which allow either one, or both. If you use a controller and join a server that allows both, there is a clear disadvantage there.

Resources: include health, weapons, armor, time, power ups and items. A player has infinite lives and a default of 100 health and can be increased to 150 by picking up small health packs. Additionally, a player can get armor which will add even more protection. There is also megahealth which will for about half a minute before it goes back to it’s place in the level. There is also a time limit in the game where the player must complete objectives before the clock reaches zero. However, after this point if there is no clear winner, the game goes into overtime until somebody gets a higher score. Timing also plays a role in how often a powerup or item takes to respawn. If they were to reappear instantly, a player could stay there and keep his health up.There are several different weapons to choose from. The weaker ones tend to have a faster rate of fire and are easier to come by. Strong weapons such as the sniper rifle will generally be located in one part of the map and can be picked up once by everybody. Accuracy and reloading times are also a huge factor in the weapons. Other items that cause more damage to players will last around half a minute, but can be used by only one player at a time. The player also gets to use vehicles, hoverboard, translocator and jump pads. Another resource is the geometry of the level itself. Many map designs allow for quick cover during reloading or for hiding.

Conflict: Conflict arises when you try to stay alive while killing as many opponents as you can, since they’re trying to do the same. Using a mix of strategy and skill, a player must know where all items are, how and when to use them to be able to get a good kill to death ratio. This will help him reach the score limit and win faster. In vehicle capture the flag, by not allowing transporting the flag in the vehicle, the game forces the player to use other methods of getting the flag back to his base.

Boundaries: The main boundaries in this game are usually the arena, playing field or an agreement such as snipers only where no other guns will be allowed. Armour can only be upgraded to a certain limit, weapons have a limit on max ammo.

Outcome: The end of a level doesn’t show a player much about their progress. It displays number of deaths and number of kills and a score. It would be nice to know hit percentage, and where the shots landed. For example: headhots, body, etc. There is nothing interesting here. Your character doesn't upgrade in any way, if anything its the player that gets better.

Avoid dominant strategies
This game limits the amount of ammo per weapon the player uses and forces them to switch to a different gun until more ammo can be picked up. The easiest way to kill people is to find a good place to camp and shoot people that pass by where they are weak, in the head. Killing campers is easy, since they don't move around much. Getting constantly shot with a sniper rifle will teach them to move around. Player strategy is what make them harder to kill than others. Some people like to jump a lot, which make the difficult to shoot with conventional guns. If a rocket launcher is used, you can predict where the person is going to land and a well placed shot will teach them to not jump around in the future.

Reward
There aren’t any rewards for killing enemies other than getting another point added to the score. It would be cool if the player could pickup all the items that the enemy drops when he dies but that just isn’t so. A player would also be more likely to play the game again, if there were specific accuracies or times to achieve to unlock a better character.

Overall progression
The game is designed to be played at all levels to start with and the intensity can be cranked up by having the bots do unhuman techniques which makes the game seem impossible sometimes. And if that becomes too easy, you can increase the number of bots in the game. The game is really quite intuitive and allows for instant action without lengthy tutorials. You get to know the strategies people like to use very quickly and makes you a much better player in a short period. The great thing about the game is although there are no checkpoints, the character will respawn with exactly the same number of points when he gets killed. This saves frustration on the player’s end.

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Guitar Hero II (360)
Game Genre
Rhythm/Music

Guitar Hero II is a popular rhythm based game where a player uses a guitar like controller with 5 coloured buttons which don’t always respond as well as we’d like. The point of the game is to play through the songs and completing them without failing and trying to get the highest score possible.

Formal Elements of Games

Players: This is either a single or dual player game. With either configuration, the players are able to play through the song list as a competition, or as a cooperation with joint points. The player earns more songs by playing through the game in single player “story mode”. Single player is more than enough to take turns playing with a friend to beat the game.

Objectives: The objective is to unlock and play through all the songs trying to get the highest score possible on the highest difficulty by making use of the system rules. Secondary objectives include earning more money by playing good shows. You can do that by making less mistakes during a song. Another objective is to get a perfect song. Using the money, you can buy more guitars and different outfits for your characters.

Procedures:
starting action: You must start by making a band. This is done by setting a band name. This will effectively act as your save profile. Then you choose your difficulty, character, and a guitar. Then you start off at the first venue with 5 songs available. You must beat 4/5 songs to get the encore song.
progression of actions: After completion of those songs you will unlock the next set of songs and must do the same thing, only these songs will be slightly harder.
special actions: When your star power meter is high enough, you can tilt the guitar up and the points will become worth more momentarily. When the meter runs out, the points system returns to normal. You can also use a whammy bar for an effect but it also helps to fill the star power meter up faster. The game allows for special techniques where not all notes are needed to be strummed, this helps immensely on fast songs.
resolving actions: You can either pass or fail a song. If you fail, you must start the song over again. If you pass, you will see your score and an optional display of the hit percentage at each section of the song so you know where to improve.

Rules: The system keeps track of the number of notes hit. If you keep a streak going, you will start to multiply your points by a number. The multiplier will double each time. This allows for 8 times the score. If you miss a note, you will lose the streak and multiplier and have to build it up again. The more streaks you can keep, the easier your star power meter will recharge. This allows for the special action of making points worth more. This can save you if you are doing badly in a section and are about to fail. If you hit too many bad notes in a row, you will fail the song. The system gives feedback by playing the regular guitar track while playing correct notes with periodical messages such as “great!” or “you rock!”. If you start at a higher difficulty, you cannot earn money by playing easier ones, so it is best to start at easy.

Resources: You get an infinite number of tries, but each try must be from the beginning of the song. There is a health, which is the rock meter. If you hit good notes, the health meter will stay up or go up if its low. If you hit bad notes, the meter will go down. It is much easier to get the meter down than it is to get it back up. As a result of getting note streaks, you will get power ups known as star power which when used make points worth more and can save you from failing a song.

Conflict: The main conflict is the person’s own ability which limits his success in the game. Sometimes the controller does not respond to the player’s input which results in frustration. Some songs are no longer original and have an added solo just for the game which is there like an obstacle to make you fail, this is highly annoying as well. Some songs are thrown on the game designed to be nearly impossible to get perfect, but still beatable.

Boundaries: Boundaries in this game are well defined. There is a fretboard with 5 columns of notes. Once they’re off screen, they’re gone. You can’t really go anywhere, and you must play what is shown on screen, nothing else.

Outcome: Money is earned for each song played. If you play a song flawlessly, you will earn more money. Similarily, if you suck, then the crowd will boo you and you will have to pay the venue for damaged properties and such. Songs will also get a rating out of 5 and a score to beat. If you get perfect, you will get a gold star.

Avoid dominant strategies
In multiplayer, you may get matched up with an expert level player and you might be a beginner. To avoid him totally destroying you, you have the option of choosing different levels of difficulty each. Of course, the expert player could just as easily choose an easy difficulty and beat you anyway, but this player would be next to you and you are free to do to him as you please.

Reward
Rewards in this game include more songs and characters to unlock. High scores and ratings, and bragging rights. On Xbox 360 you can also get gamer achievement points which can get you extra downloadable songs if you have enough points. This is incentive enough to beat the game multiple times on all the difficulties to try to get as many points as you can.

Overall progression
Guitar Hero II is a really easy game to pick up and play. From song one to the bonus content, the game will only leave you wanting more songs to play. It will be hard for some to get the coordination and timing down right, which is all part of the challenge. This game never gets old when played with a friend. You can try to top each others’ scores for hours on end. Believe it or not, it becomes a test of endurance after a certain point when you play an entire set and then are faced with the encore of playing “Freebird”, a nearly 10 minute long song. Although very simple in design, this is a challenging, highly addictive and entertaining game.

Week 1: MDA Framework

Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3)

Fantasy - The game is set in a fantasy world where there exist not only humans, but several other races from different worlds. Equally, the places you visit in the game are from a fantasy world often containing a futuristic wasteland, ancient ruins or dead planet like conditions. Using the power of the PS3, unreal is able to simulate a truly believable environment where the player experiences reality.

Narrative - As an FPS you wouldn't expect an elaborate story from a game like this, however in recent years these sorts of games have been accompanied by a single player campaign mode where you still get the classic death match style maps with simple objectives. Unreal takes it a few steps further by keeping you guessing all the time. You're not only required to destroy the other person or team, you often have numerous other objectives such as sabotaging the other team's power source, or a capture-the-flag type mission.

Challenge - The challenge in current FPS games, is that they are very fast paced, and you have to keep up in order to survive in the game. Quick response, precision, strong strategies and patience are needed to complete some of the levels of challenge this game imposes on a player.

Fellowship - Unreal 3 also has a great online multi-player system where you can not only play the campaign mode with other people, but you can do the simple free for all or even team matches as well as several other co-op type levels. Now you no longer have to rely on a predictable team of bots at your side, but you have real people who can work much more closely with a single goal. This changes the nature of the game-play and transforms it into a much more life-like experience. Add to that the ability to talk to each other via voice chat and messages and you have a solid team experience.
Mechanics & Dynamics
The game is consistent with other first person shooters utilizing the WASD configuration for movement and mouse for aiming/firing. There are a couple races to choose from at first, and there are more to unlock later in the game or through cheats. What's different and cool is that every weapon has a secondary fire. This usually results in a charged shot, slower but stronger. On weapons such as the sniper rifle, the secondary button acts as the scope for zooming which is pretty standard. There are also power-ups such as shields, health and ammo packs as well as weapons that when stepped over will be equipped if better than what the player is currently using. This can be annoying if you're in the middle of a fight as the character would momentarily stop shooting. Thankfully they've allowed the option to disable this.

One feature that was new to me was that the game did not force you to respawn after a death which is something that annoyed me with other FPS games where you cannot pause. For example in Counter-Strike:Source, if i had a phone call, i would have to exit the server or my character would keep respawning and lose points. Another good implementation was a hoverboard for larger maps since it makes it much faster to get around. The hoverboard also allows you to latch onto moving vehicles with a tow cable. The spacebar acts as jump, and it allows you to press it twice at your desired timing and this lets the player change direction in mid-air confusing the other players while dodging shots.

Visuals and sounds in the game are all high definition, which for me was a minor problem since everything looks so real. Playing on a standard display will be a challenge since all the textures and dynamic lighting are so convincing that you can't always see your opponent until he's firing at you. The sound is multi-positional which help immensely in determining the direction from where your opponent is firing from.

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Guitar Hero II (360)

Sensation - This game is designed to please the ears and eyes. The constant stream of fretboard flying towards you leaves you with warped vision once you look away from the screen. This can't be great for your eyes, but it is kind of a cool feeling the first time. The music of course is a sensation itself where if the game is played correctly is pleasing to listen to but when wrong notes are hit it produces unharmonious noise.

Fantasy - Guitar Hero allows many to play out the fantasy of being able to play guitar, or being a rock star. Completing harder difficulties and songs gives the illusion that the player is actually playing music and have real musical skill.

Challenge - The challenge in this game is to have impeccable timing and precision so that you can keep a streak of notes going to earn maximum points. A player's lack of coordination or timing is the biggest challenge to overcome. Other times the game is ridiculously hard and expects you to execute a flurry of notes that are far apart on the controller but close in timing or weird combinations.

Discovery - For those with no musical background, this is diving into the realm of playing an instrument at its most basic level. Although you don't need to learn an instrument, you still must get comfortable enough of looking at the screen knowing that your hands will guide themselves to the correct buttons.

Expression - Guitar Hero's controller lets the player express himself by stylizing how he plays. One way to do this is to use the whammy bar to give vibrato to an otherwise lifeless note. This allows every player to play the song in their own way whichever is most comfortable to them.

Mechanics & Dynamics
The basic rules of the game are to press the 5 colored buttons on the controller corresponding to what is shown on the screen, while hitting the pick attack button to make the note ring. Much like real guitar, if notes are next to each other, the game allows you to do a "pull-off" which lets you press multiple notes with just a pick attack on the first note. This technique helps with faster sections. After you hit a note, you must hold it as long as its shown on screen or you will lose the note streak and it counts as a mistake. As the difficulty of the game increases, you will be introduced to "chords" or multi button combinations.

The addition of the 5th colored button will appear in a harder difficulty, and this confuses people since they have to shift their hand position or stretch to hit it. The game will give you feedback by playing the guitar track if you are doing well. If you hit incorrect notes, the game will produce bad guitar noises and the guitar track will stop playing. Also, you will see a rock meter on the right that tells you how well you are doing. If a player misses too many notes, the meter will start to go down, and in the case that it goes to its lowest point the crowd will boo you off stage and you lose.

If you are able to keep a streak of correct notes going, the game will start to multiply the worth of each note. The maximum multiplier you can have is 8x. As a result of correct notes, you can also have whats called star power. This makes notes worth more and is good to be used if your rock meter is running low and are about to lose. If you have an 8x multiplier and use star power, you can max out the rate of points coming in.