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.
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.
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