Memorable Designs

      I.         Mario 64 (Nintendo 64):

§  Liked the fact that this game was non-linear. The player was able to solve puzzles in whatever order he or she desired. This was especially important for me because it was the first time I experienced authorship in a game.

§  Disliked & Liked the “Cannon” mechanic for several reasons. When you first encounter the cannon in the 1^st world, players are expected to experiment shooting Mario to different locations. This was a nice inclusion as the first world is fairly open. As you progress and intensity starts scaling, I noticed that cannons start getting put in trickier spots. This really makes me question their worth as levels become more compact and difficult. If you overshoot or even slightly miss your target location you end up dead. You could even argue here and say that this is what makes them fun but I guess that comes down to personal preference.

§  Liked the fact that coins played a big part in the overall games design.
(1) 100 coins earn players a star. Why is this important? Well seeing how most maps where large, scattering coins throughout the map made players have to explore every nook and cranny of the level. On this journey players might even end up finding new challenges. 
(2) Collecting the 8 red coins earn players a star. This is also part of the above statement. Only difference is that these coins are hidden in trickier spots and are worth double that of the yellow coin.
(3) Coins give life back. This is fairly self-explanatory

§  Liked the nice fluid movement that focuses primarily around “jumping”. Here players have to learn the different variations of jumping for use in different situations. In total there are 6 different jumps.

§  Disliked underwater gameplay because of the awkward controls and camera rotations. I also find myself asking the question, “What purpose does underwater gameplay serve?” There is no significant difference from land and underwater gameplay except for the fact that on land players have more utility with combos and movement.

    II.         Champion’s of Norrath (PlayStation 2):

§  This was my first introduction to a Role-playing, Hack and Slash style game. I liked the inclusion of a talent tree, which allowed players to optimize their character based on preference. This along with other implantations (Loot) made players feel ownership over their character. On a side note, I disliked that you couldn’t reset your tree after spending a point. This left me wondering why they wouldn’t allow this, seeing how with progression come new strategies and difficulty.

§  Liked the safe point mechanic, which also doubled as a checkpoint. With this players could instantly dive back into the action, avoiding run-time, resurrection sickness and map confusion.

§  Liked the portal system that allowed players to teleport to key locations. This worked well for players who easily got lost or confused when exploring.

§  Liked the inclusion of damage mitigation when grouped. This was a smart choice seeing how all characters had some form of AOE (area effect).

  III.         Mortal Kombat vs. DC universe (PlayStation 3):

§  Disliked the “Rage Meter” which fills up progressively when players take or do damage. When a player is under “Rage” they can break an opponents guard, deal more damage, avoid being knockdown, stunned or popped up. To fix this overpowered issue, I say only give players “rage” when they take damage. This gives the person who is behind a little leverage. 

§  Enjoyed the Free-Fall-Kombat because it added to the fighting experience. This feature was like a little mini-game where players tried to land combos on each other before they hit the ground. Players that dealt the most damage would land on their opponent, dealing bonus damage.

§  Liked the “Test your Might” mechanic that was incorporated into the gameplay. When players entered this mode they assumed two positions: offense and defense. The player on offense tried to spam his buttons to deal maximum damage while the player on defense did the same, mitigating the offensive players damage. Basically this was like a Tug-of-War.

§  My inner-gamer always comes out when I talk about this next mechanic. What is it you may ask? Come on, what defines Mortal Kombat games. Tic-Toc-Tic, Finish Him! Fatality. This to me is the icing on the cake for fighting games. Players who perform fatalities get that much more bragging right for knowing the hidden combinations. From a developer standpoint this feature had some big cultural impact in the fighting genre.