As much as you might think I would write about part 2 of roach patch notes, I realize that the new patch changes a bunch and therefore my old dislike against the 2 food roaches is rather out of date. Needless to say, Overseer's are super buffed and I believe will become really useful in zvt and zvz play.
I'll get back to Starcraft 2 later, but now to the actual post. One thing I noticed while playing certain games and certain websites is ineffective design. This can influence the difficulty of games as well as the effectiveness of websites, sharing information, and so on. when a game is difficult, it can be difficult because of two things:
1)The gameplay itself is difficult
2)the design of the game makes the game difficult
An example of the 1st one is a Touhou game. The game gives you the options and ability to complete the game, score high, and beat insanely tough levels. The UI doesn't take away from the game and displays information in an effective manner.
While large, the sidebar doesn't interfere with game play. Also each characters maneuverability, while different, are all able to beat each level. This means that the game play itself makes the game hard instead of the controls and design of the game. While you can argue they are essentially both designed, one is on purpose and one is coincidental.
An example of the second is Assassins Creed 2. In the game as you play you run into special puzzle dungeons where you have to clear the area using various free-running abilities that you have. While these puzzles are fun, these areas are frequently made harder by bad game design. In the game, the puzzle areas tend to force certain camera angles on you. This is to reveal and help show where you are supposed to go from a certain part, but more frequently it just causes you to mess up. One such part is shown in this video:
If you don't expect the camera to change it is very hard to recover from it. This is an example of a game being more difficult by design than by gameplay.
Of course there are anomalies of these, which I like to call Starcraft. In this game, the flaws in the design actually ADDED to the game depth instead of taking away from it. Mutalisk Stacking, worker AI, pathing, and so on added an extra challenge to the game which allowed more advanced tactics to be used as gameplay and the skill of the players evolved.
One things that games do that most education websites do not is centralize information. All the necessary information for a game can be put on one screen for easy use and browsing. Most online courses, however, fail to do so. Admittedly there is much more information in a course than in a game, but the accessibility of that information is as important in an online course as a video game. Many times schools will only use their established means and not develop effective software to make a solid or easy experience for the user.
Basically, my rant is very simple: If a player or user of a website/game has to ask them selves (assuming that this isn't part of the experience)"how do I manipulate the game to do what I want" which causes them to try and break the game, there is something wrong with the design.
I'll get back to music posts, but I haven't really been listening to anything new or different since the Circa Survive latest album. I'm sure there are plenty of fun new albums to explore, but right now I don't have time to do so.
Showing posts with label Assassins Creed 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assassins Creed 2. Show all posts
May 25, 2010
Oct 28, 2009
[Games] awesome stuff! and Windows 7
Many awesome games are coming out. Some I would like to talk about.
Game 1) New Monkey Island Game. I'll be installing it this Friday, though I probably won't get to it for a while as there are Halloween parties in which I shall take part of. However, I believe it shall continue being a great series, as it is funny and great stories.
Game 2) League of Legends. League of Legends is a free game that has just started open beta. It is based off of the stupidly popular "DotA" Warcraft 3 game, but is much better. First of all, Guinsoo, who origionally made the First dota for RoC is on the game, which means the character design and everything is pretty unique. While you still see some hero similarities of War3's DotA in the game, it is much more friendly to new people than the current War3 iteration. Did I mention that it's free?
The only problem I see is that the popularity will drop off when Starcraft 2 comes out. I don't mean that AoS players play RTS games, but I do mean that when SC2 comes out there will be an okay AoS for Sarcraft in say, about a month after release. Crappy AoSs will come out much, much earlier. Basically I hope the appeal won't fall out in favor for a game with a larger budget and a larger company.
Game 3) Assassins Creed 2
It seems that many people disliked or found the original Assassins Creed repetitive. While I can see their point, I don't think it should have received the butchered reviews that came with the game. I'm replaying the game myself and am enjoying it immensely. The only problem I have with it is that sneaking through the game is too slow and near the end their are too many guards looking for you.
Assassins Creed 2 I am really excited for, not for the extended game play, more in depth story, or the new mechanics, but that it's set in Italy. Hopefully I'll be able to play the game in Italian with English subtitles. Also, having gone to Italy, I really hope that we'll be able to run the rooftops or Arezzo. So far Florance is a confirmed place, so I don't think Arezzo is too big a stretch. We shall see.
Game 4) Starcraft 2
Starcraft 2 is also on every blizzard fanboy's game list. It looks pretty good, zerg are apparently STILL imba because of the queen's injection ability, and so on. The one thing I really hope this game will do is change the game enough so that new strategies will be devised, and that much of the old gameplay won't be seen the same way.
However, I think that the game will be much easier. Many of the reasons for high apm in starcraft games: small selection groups, a/patrol moving, stacking, worker shenanigans, bad pathing AI, no smart casting, etc. will be removed. Half the reason people needed to have 200+ apm to be C or better is because of all these gimmiks that you need to be able to pull off in a normal game. Many, if not all of these things will be removed. I think starcraft players will no longer be able to say that warcraft 3 is easy mode in comparison now that the gameplay has been really simplified.
As for Windows 7, I'd say it's better than Vista, still a bit worse than XP. This will change as they patch some issues for it though. This review is on an AMD/ATI computer. I also have it installed on an Intel/Nvidia computer, but I havn't used 7 at all on it.
-It does crash occasionally, or I should say programs that I run crash occasionally. This is because there isn't enough software support for windows 7 yet. While most all programs run fine on it (so far starcraft is the only problem, being all weird colored. In game works fine though) they can have a tendency to crash. This will change as it becomes a larger section of the PC market, and as windows team gets patches out.
-Battery life is extended from Vista. I get at least another half hour to an hour on power saver/balance mode.
-Boot times is MUCH faster. I think it is at least on par to mac, if not better.
-Instillation is pretty easy, if you do a clean install all your old files are put in a folder for you to save or delete. Hopefully the switched the DL file so that it's an ISO (disk image) instead of it's original version. When I downloaded it, I had to:
1) unpackage file
2) use a command line to turn files into an ISO file
3) burn to a disk or USB drive
Not too difficult, but time consuming.
I think that's it for now. I would add links and stuff but I'm too lazy at the moment.
Game 1) New Monkey Island Game. I'll be installing it this Friday, though I probably won't get to it for a while as there are Halloween parties in which I shall take part of. However, I believe it shall continue being a great series, as it is funny and great stories.
Game 2) League of Legends. League of Legends is a free game that has just started open beta. It is based off of the stupidly popular "DotA" Warcraft 3 game, but is much better. First of all, Guinsoo, who origionally made the First dota for RoC is on the game, which means the character design and everything is pretty unique. While you still see some hero similarities of War3's DotA in the game, it is much more friendly to new people than the current War3 iteration. Did I mention that it's free?
The only problem I see is that the popularity will drop off when Starcraft 2 comes out. I don't mean that AoS players play RTS games, but I do mean that when SC2 comes out there will be an okay AoS for Sarcraft in say, about a month after release. Crappy AoSs will come out much, much earlier. Basically I hope the appeal won't fall out in favor for a game with a larger budget and a larger company.
Game 3) Assassins Creed 2
It seems that many people disliked or found the original Assassins Creed repetitive. While I can see their point, I don't think it should have received the butchered reviews that came with the game. I'm replaying the game myself and am enjoying it immensely. The only problem I have with it is that sneaking through the game is too slow and near the end their are too many guards looking for you.
Assassins Creed 2 I am really excited for, not for the extended game play, more in depth story, or the new mechanics, but that it's set in Italy. Hopefully I'll be able to play the game in Italian with English subtitles. Also, having gone to Italy, I really hope that we'll be able to run the rooftops or Arezzo. So far Florance is a confirmed place, so I don't think Arezzo is too big a stretch. We shall see.
Game 4) Starcraft 2
Starcraft 2 is also on every blizzard fanboy's game list. It looks pretty good, zerg are apparently STILL imba because of the queen's injection ability, and so on. The one thing I really hope this game will do is change the game enough so that new strategies will be devised, and that much of the old gameplay won't be seen the same way.
However, I think that the game will be much easier. Many of the reasons for high apm in starcraft games: small selection groups, a/patrol moving, stacking, worker shenanigans, bad pathing AI, no smart casting, etc. will be removed. Half the reason people needed to have 200+ apm to be C or better is because of all these gimmiks that you need to be able to pull off in a normal game. Many, if not all of these things will be removed. I think starcraft players will no longer be able to say that warcraft 3 is easy mode in comparison now that the gameplay has been really simplified.
As for Windows 7, I'd say it's better than Vista, still a bit worse than XP. This will change as they patch some issues for it though. This review is on an AMD/ATI computer. I also have it installed on an Intel/Nvidia computer, but I havn't used 7 at all on it.
-It does crash occasionally, or I should say programs that I run crash occasionally. This is because there isn't enough software support for windows 7 yet. While most all programs run fine on it (so far starcraft is the only problem, being all weird colored. In game works fine though) they can have a tendency to crash. This will change as it becomes a larger section of the PC market, and as windows team gets patches out.
-Battery life is extended from Vista. I get at least another half hour to an hour on power saver/balance mode.
-Boot times is MUCH faster. I think it is at least on par to mac, if not better.
-Instillation is pretty easy, if you do a clean install all your old files are put in a folder for you to save or delete. Hopefully the switched the DL file so that it's an ISO (disk image) instead of it's original version. When I downloaded it, I had to:
1) unpackage file
2) use a command line to turn files into an ISO file
3) burn to a disk or USB drive
Not too difficult, but time consuming.
I think that's it for now. I would add links and stuff but I'm too lazy at the moment.
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