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.
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.
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.
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