Homework 6: Analyze two games

1. Halo: Combat Evolved

Official Website URL's of the Game: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo-combat-evolved
Original Release Date: November 15th, 2001Developer: BungiePlatform(s): Xbox

Original Cover Art for Halo: Combat Evolved

When it comes to thinking about a game that I like amongst the first to enter my mind is Halo: Combat Evolved. It was a game for myself that took me on an epic crusade through space, and at the same time introduced me to the wonders of playing a game with friends like no other game had done before.

1) The Tetrad:

• Story: Starting this game's campaign I am immediately thrust into a world of conflict, one with mysterious new enemies, futuristic equipment and machinery, new planets, and places I have never journeyed too. This game's story immediately captivated me in the exhilaration of the fast paced story. The story also introduced me to the mechanics properly, the aesthetics of the alien worlds, and was better told using the strong graphical technology of the Xbox to show me places with a new depth and attention to detail.
• Aesthetics: The games aesthetic was one that felt both familiar in the beginning by taking inspiration from other sci-fi stories like those from the movie "Alien", while at the same time expressing new worlds and technology that I have never seen before over time during the story telling. The human weapons and armor all had a familiar aesthetic but the worlds I journeyed too had a new aesthetic, one that was mysterious and attracted me to continue through the game to discover more about it. 
• Mechanics: Over time the mechanics were introduced to me through on screen prompts, explanations from character AI, and an intro tutorial. As the game's story progressed I was also introduced to new vehicles that provided immense strength, mobility, and the power of flight. These new mechanics introduced over time were what captivated me so well and made me fall in love with the gameplay. 
• Technology: The power of the Xbox was unparalleled at it's time. It supported fantastic graphical capabilities, similar to that of a very expensive computer at the time. Through this graphical power the worlds I explored featured an immense amount of depth. The battles felt immense, and at the same time I could play the entire game's campaign with 4 friends together, something I could previously not do. On top of this the Xbox featured LAN capabilities like a PC. This allowed me for the first time to be able to play a game with up to 16 people in a versus mode. I knew that this wasn't a new concept, but at the time I could not afford a computer that could play any video game. Even running the original Diablo gave me problems on my Dell Dimension with 256 kb of RAM. The Xbox, with it's technology, and Halo, allowed me to experience large scale LAN for the first time, while also being an affordable piece of technology compared to an expensive PC powerful enough for gaming.

The setting of Halo, a Ring shaped structure floating in space

2) Balance:

This game exuded Balance constantly. It was always fair in it's ability to teach the player, through trial and error, and in versus modes provided all players with the exact same abilities and weapons at the start to always allow a fair start to a match. Challenge was provided through various difficulties that were rewarding, difficult and varied in many ways. Also if the player selected a difficulty that was far too challenging and they could not progress, the game would even prompt the user the option to lower the difficulty. The game always made me feel like it provided me with the tools to succeed, while it also never felt like it held my hand through everything. Skill was determined through my weapon choices  when it came to using plasma weapons or human weapons against various AI, and also knowing their weakness'. Chance was also a factor in the game, especially in PVP game modes. Taking a chance to go for a certain weapon placed on the field was always risky, but if you succeeded you always felt properly rewarded for doing so by claiming a powerful weapon for your arsenal. Cooperation was also something that was balanced well in campaign. Depending on how many friends I played the campaign with determined how many enemies we would fight in various scenarios to always keep a good difficulty. The length of the game also felt just right. Depending on the chosen difficulty would also determine how long it would take for me to triumph. Playing the game again to master the biggest challenges was also a great aspect of this game. Never did I feel confined in the environments as exploring was something that was encouraged in order to better prepare for combat, and the landscapes were always believably confining.

An environment on Halo

3) Emergent Properties:

While progressing through the story properties or strategies that arose because of simple actions that the player took were whether the player would choose to take certain routes over others, or to use various tools and weapons to succeed. For instance in one level the player is introduced to stealth cloaking technology to go through a close combat area stealthy, or they can proceed through an area that is filled with far more enemies but they have a tank to succeed. Both of these options provided various strategies and new ways to interact with the game not previously introduced.

A general interest curve demonstrating the overall trend in Halo for myself

4) Interest Curves:

In Halo the game immediately starts off in an exhilarating and engaging scenario of escape. Then the game slows down and gives the player time to learn how to interact and explore the new world theyre in. Constantly this game provides a form of ups and downs in an interest curve. This provides the player with new things to hook them with and then time to play and master that gameplay mechanic until they get to the next exciting vehicle/scenario. Constantly this creates a gradual increase in interest to find out what the next new vehicle, enemy or weapon will be. The game ends on an amazing finale that once again involves an escape much like the beginning. The exhilaration also comes from the fantastic musical score in the finale that hooks the player into a deep focus to escape a an alien planet about to explode.

5) Overall the reasons written above are why Halo: Combat Evolved is a game that I hold dear to my heart. I felt like it did everything right when it comes to crafting a brilliant game, and it is the reason as to why this game had so many sequels, some good and some not so good, created for over 14 years. The game's constant hooks, it's ability to provide constant challenge and a sense of accomplishment, and the ability to share all of this with my friends through cooperation and competition, are some of the many reasons as to why I love this game.

2. Destiny

Official Website URL's of the Game: https://www.destinythegame.com
Original Release Date: September 9th, 2014
Developer: Bungie
Platform(s): PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360

When it comes to thinking about a game that I dislike, the first to come to thought is Destiny, a game I was immensely looking forward too. It was developed by the same Game Development Studio that created one of my favorite games, Halo: Combat Evolved, but this time I did not enjoy the game they created.

Cover art for the game

1) The Tetrad:

• Story: This adventure began in a world of conflict, and mystery. One with new aliens but in the setting of earth and other local planets within our own solar system. The largest problem with this game's story telling was that it never provided any sense of reward or explanation as the player continued throughout it. New things were shown but never was there any explanation given to the player to want to continue the journey, and the player also wasn't provided a menu or codex in game to learn more about the story. Rather the developer opted to tell the story of the game through an online codex on the game's official website. 
• Aesthetics: The games aesthetic was fairly beautiful and similar to that of the other Halo games that they developed, as our heroes were futuristic super soldiers. Magic was something new within this game's aesthetic, and the environments were very beautifully designed to create a sense of a space fantasy.
• Mechanics: In this game the mechanics are introduced to us almost all at the very beginning of the game. The player can purchase weapons and unlock weapons overtime that they can use. All the weapons vary in rate of fire, and damage but other than that do not provide new mechanics for defeating foes. 2 vehicles exist within the game to learn how to use but overall the mechanics never grow from what was introduced in the very beginning. All foes are defeated with the same mechanics introduced to us in the beginning so their is no room to want to learn new mechanics to succeed. Magic is a new mechanic in the game that is introduced to us in the beginning as well. This was good for the introduction but as the story progressed we never learned to use our powers in various ways. 
• Technology: Newer game systems with powerful processors and graphics cards provided this game the option to have very beautiful graphics. Also this game introduced an immense amount of online gaming capabilities for co-op and pvp gaming with dedicated servers, but lacked the ability to chat online and to play local multiplayer.

Three players on the moon

2) Balance:

This game struggled with balance in my mind more than most games I have played. The difficulty in the game was not based on the way AI acted but rather their health and how much damage you do to them. If you wanted to play the game on the hardest difficulty at times you could not if you were not the proper level to deal enough damage. This did not create a good sense of balance at all. The  challenge was also non existent if your character was a higher level than some enemies. Skill in this game existed solely through players accuracy and ability to predict enemy movement. Chance existed in this games PVP mode, in which random weapon and ammo drops would occur in certain areas. If you are in that area then you could get that weapon before someone else could and vice versa. Cooperation was not balanced well as the more people you played the story missions with the easier it was to succeed since they could revive you and the enemy count did not change per level depending on how many allies you have with you. The length of the game was very short at around 4-5 hours. Playing the game's missions again wasn't to master the biggest challenges since the only change is the damage and health of enemies but rather to unlock more powerful weapons. Many invisible walls also prevent the player from exploring the entirety of planets rather than providing environmental landscapes to prevent player exploration. Overall balance in online PVP was also very little. Since all players customized there starting weapons and powers, everyone started off differently. Some weapons in the game were always better than others, and not everyone started off with balanced skills to combat each other.

 Once your supercharge meter would fill you could use your magical power

3) Emergent Properties:

While progressing through the story properties or strategies that arose because of simple actions that the player took were power unlocks. These were unlocked by gaining experience points through defeating enemies and completing missions. The power unlocks changed player damage, health, and changed some elements of the characters magical power. For some these unlocks are very engaging but for myself they did not provide enough variance in strategy to engage me. Rather they felt like milestones meant to extend the playtime of the game.

4) Interest Curves:

In Destiny the interest curve started off very strong for myself by thrusting me into a new world of immense mystery. This world had new alien life and aesthetics new to me. I was intrigued to learn more about the world around me and was also ready for an engaging story to progress me throughout the game. Rather I was constantly provided with more and more questions and a lack of variance in combat. This constantly declined my interest in playing the game. Also the game lacked any form of local multiplayer. This severely disappointed me since not all of my friends can play games with me online or they have a different gaming system than I do. I did't have anyway to play with others I knew and so after completing the game's story I had no reason to return to play the game again.

5) Overall Destiny was severely disappointing for me. I began interested and the gunplay felt very good at first. The lack of variety in the guns, the enemies, the worlds, and a lack of many various vehicles is what made me lose my interest. It failed at providing a strong interest curve, the game had very little emergent properties throughout, and a poor sense of balance in the online gameplay. The technology was primarily focused on graphics but not on features to bring me together with my friends to play together.

Game Design Update:

Currently I am working on adding AI to our Beat-em-up game and to add a hit reaction animation. I uploaded all my AI data and blueprint information to source control so that we as a team can all work together on the same project files, and I am now updating our main project file to have the AI that I have been working on with movement and following of the player.