Journal 3

The Walking Dead 2

The Walking Dead was just as i thought it would be, interactive decision making. Ironically, the first Telltale game i played was the Jurassic Park game (which was questionably decent), but while playing TWD, it reaffirmed my trust in Telltale. The first thing i learned was to be extremely observant on whats going on on the screen, because i missed the prompt to feed the do and payed the price by having to put him down which i really didn't want to do. It also made it extremely obvious that choices mean a lot whether its showing two basic options, save yourself or save others. Overall, I would defiantly recommend this game to others as well as get the game for myself because the story interests me and i'm curious how many different outcomes can happen for situations.

Portal

When i first heard of portal it was from the second game, Portal 2, so my expectation for Portal was a bit skewed, i figured it would be two player in some sort of form, but i was not disappointed by a single player game. I really had to think about how the portal interacted wt the environment to figure out some of the puzzles which i really appreciated the challenge rather than to breeze through a level but not to the point where you rage quit a difficult level. As i advanced through the levels, I could tell a distinct and growing disdain from Glados, the ai, I figured that she didnt really care about my characters life and viewed me as an experiment. (Also, i figured the whole"the cake is a lie" meme)

Dota 2

As i figured with this game, it was point and click on a busy screen, with so many different option but with surprisingly little reaction from your character on screen. The movement ingame was tedious and took way too long to move across the map, if we could directly move our character, but unfortunately its controlled by point and click. Quickly i noticed my interest in playing this diminished quickly due to the odd controls and uninteresting game play. Overall, I have no clue why/how people enjoy it apart that they enjoy frustration.

Game review 3

Jurassic World

Jurassic World the game, is a (mostly) FTP mobile app game that encompasses Jurassic World. When the game was first released, it was about 1 or 2 months ahead of the movie, because of this players got a very vague experience of the story through the game's mission's chapters, although the actually missions were more focused on adding or moving things around your park. Also opon starting the game, players are introduced to the battle system (Although since then, ALOT has been added.) 

As you can see here, the battle system in rock, paper scissors style with the creature with the type advantage gets a 50% attack boots and the creature with the disadvantage gets a 50% nerf to their attack. And as the image above shows, they recently made an integrated battle system with both Land an Cenozoic creatures, however upon meeting their stats will be at base. Also, the creatures have a rarity that dictates their stats, blue is common, bronze is rare, silver super rare, gold legendary. And each creature can be bought by using DNA

Also, some creature the player can combine to create hybrids, although you can only fuse them once the 2 needed creatures are at lvl40

Lvl 40 Indominous rex, base creatures needed are a maxed tyrannosaurus and a maxed velociraptor

When the game first launched, in originally only had land creatures, since then we've gotten aquatic and ice age animals, which are kept in separate areas from the main park.

Base park

For the aquatic area, you tap on the lagoon, it becomes unlocked once the player reaches a certain level.

The galcier are is located in a large building to the left of the screen, and also you can see that the player and jump into the creatures enclosure where players can feed them to level them up an "pet" them.

So, over all, the game is very fun and addicting and the devs are activly updating the game with new feature and creature and modes, such as pvp (Against bots), events, tournaments, community boss raids, and daily battles. 

Journal #2

Journal Review #2

Minecraft

As has many gamers, I've heard and played Minecraft and actually like it for a short amount of time, well with the vanilla game, i never managed to do mods for mine so i feel i've missed out on the full minecraft experience. However the simplistic design of the game makes it unique in comparison other games (and also makes it run pretty good) Also because of its design it reminds me of playing with LEGO's as a child which brings out my inner child which i really appreciate.

Farmville

As a person who does play mobile app games, Farmville was pretty decent until you get stuck wait for crops and other items timers to run down which severely halt game play which can get irritating (Although i know its there to pace game play but doesn't work as a game you play for more than 10-20 mins a day) In comparison to a similar game, Jurassic World, whoms base is the same, in where the goal is to gain coin, food, special currency and other resources, for FV it being land, animals and decorations, for JW dinosaurs, DNA, and other items, whoever when comparing them, JW had a battle feature where you can fight against a bot which gives the game more that you can do while you wait for timers to run down, FV however doesn't have such a feature. Because of that, FV falls short of enjoyable to me because it lacks depth that alows us to pass time ingame.

Katawa Shoujo

Personally, Kawata is different from most games as it has very limited interaction with the main characters decisions and most things are automated/ randomly chosen. For example, it is suppose to be a dating game in sorts, but I never really saw the option to choose the girl I wanted to go after. Eventually the game itself just became boring to me and quickly lost interest as it became simply press spacebar to go through dialogue.

Warframe

I honestly cant say much about Warframe considering i never got the game to run due to an overly problematic login system. However, I did look up a few videos of gameplay, while watching i never really stopped to ask about the gender of the characters that is because of their armor covers them as armor should, and whats under the armor doesn't really apply to the game as important even thouh the armor themselves have a gendered shape which questions what the developers were trying to get the players to conceive.

Left 4 Dead

Out of most of the games that we played, L4D was by far my favorite as it incorporated survival and working together with a team which are my preferred types of games so it was very enjoyable to play this for the first time. What made the game fun is how the levels are designed, its done in a way that looks open but in reality is actually linear, as often I found myself exploring however always eventually getting to the safe room. I also appreciated that you couldn't lone-wolf the level as the special infected are powerful enough that you cant take them on alone. So all in all, I will definatly will eventually get the game myself.

Journal #1

Game Journal

Limbo initially I wasn't to sure about its game play, as i'm more of a fully 3D person, however while playing it, I slowly became more interested as I learned the mechanics that made the game work. As i progressed through the levels I could easily see as the obstacle difficultly increased as well as the margin of error between a correct jump or death. 

When it comes to the games artwork and atmosphere, its perfectly executed with black and white dark, dreary scenery. It gives the player a sense of urgency when controlling the young boy through the forest and eventually civilization, which brings a point that, when progressing through the game, the environment gets more modernized, leading from a forest to a village, to farmland to sewers and so on. Overall, Limbo is a game that from looks alone i probably wouldn't play, but after playing it a bit, i feel compelled to continue the journey.

Street Fighter IX unlike Limbo, i knew about and have played a few times with friends so i knew a bit about it beforehand. Overall, its a good game that's best played with real people as the computer isn't the best of an opponent once you understand the fighting mechanics.

Overall the game play of each character felt unique and different from each other that it was easy to find one that suit you play style, for me personally M. Bison was the one  felt i did best with. 

As for story, it honestly gets away without have one pretty easily considering the core game.

Toy Solders, like Limbo, i haven't heard of nor would I have taken the initiative to buy it for myself, however the game play of it had me captivated with keeping my base safe till the waves ended. While playing the first mission i quickly pressed random buttons looking for some sort of prompt, and soon afterwards, i was manning a turret gun myself. After a few minutes i could notice a pattern with the allied AI and their weapons where they had a max radius before they started attacking enemies.

The aesthetic of commanding toys and protecting a toy box brought back memories of my childhood playing around with plastic army men and different animals and it was quite relaxing until the first boss apeard where i actually felt heavily pressured to take it out.

"The Isle" Game review

DeJon Horton

COM 3342

Hall

1/26/17

The Isle - PC

When this game was first revealed, not much was known about it apart that you could play as dinosaurs and that it was multiplayer. As of now, the game has been release for a bit over a year and there has been a tremendous amount of work that's been put in it since then. 

Initially, there were only 6 playable dinosaurs, (Tyrannosaurus, Carnotaurus, Austroraptor, Shantugosaurus, Gallimimus, an Pueretasaurus) and as of now there are 24 playable species (Velociraptor, Herrasaurus, Allosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Baryonyx, Suchomimus, Spinosaurus, Psittacosaurus, Dryosaurus, Maiasaurus, Diabloceratops, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Therizinosaurus, Utahraptor and the original six, not to mention mercenaries and tribal's are nearly done as well. 

Also since the release of the game there have been many new mechanics that refine it, such as progression over sandbox (Sandbox being you join a server and select any dinosaur you want, which normally ends up with a bunch of top tier dinosaurs in giant packs which is very problmatic) So what is in at the moment is a point based progression where you start of as either a velociraptor (Carnivore) or psittacosaurus (Herbivore) and work your way up to a larger dino via progression points. Herbivores earn them by eating blue progression plants that are scattered around the island. Carnivores earn then by the minute. For example, to get a rex, you need 30pts as Velociraptor, -> 120pts with Herrarasaurus, -> 120pts with Allosaurus, -> 180pts with Acrocanthosaurus -> Tyrannosaurus (7.5hrs). Now at first glance that may seem a bit extreme, however, if you were to go onto any nearly full server (50 or more players), there is going to be at least 4+ rexs, 5+ Giganotosaurus and 7+ Spinosaurus (Because atm spino's damage is bugged with its weight class making it do more than it should) The other way to get progression points is by nesting other players in and raising them to sub-adulthood (.8 scale) at which the "parents" will get a massive amount of points. (Eventually points can also be used to upgrade you dino or humans stats (Aka, Stamina, Damage, Bleed, etc)

Pros: 

Dinosaurs!

Graphically gorgeous

Time absorbing

Very fun with friends

Updates nearly everyday

Passionate Devs

Have to work to get a top tier animal

Highly Immersive

Cons:

Whiny community (Some)

Time consuming

Early Access

(Click pictures to view them if they don't show up)

(Albino Tyrannosaurus)

(Austroraptor pack)

(Shantungosaurus)

(Quetzalcoatalus)