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.