Unreal Tournament

Concept and Storyline
"In 2291, in an attempt to control violence among deep space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-barred fighting. Liandri Mining Corporation, working with the NEG, established a series of leagues and bloody public exhibitions. The fight's popularity grew with their brutality. Soon, Liandri discovered that the public matches were their most profitable enterprise. The professional league was formed; a cabal of the most violent and skilled warriors in known space, selected to fight in a Grand Tournament. Now it is 2341. 50 years have passed since founding of DeathMatch. Profits from the Tournament number in the hundreds of billions. You have been selected to fight in the professional league by the Liandri Rules Board. Your strength and brutality are legendary. The time has come to prove you are the best. To crush your enemies; to win the Tournament." { From the game video introduction. }

This is a first person shooter that can be player in single player versus "bots" mission oriented games, multiplayer deathmatch or cooperative mode games. "Bots" is short for robots and are game characters driven by game AI.

Spatial Arena
There are many different spatial arenas from distant moons orbiting distant planets, a spaceship flying through hyperspace to city sky scrappers and heavily fortified fortresses. My favourite is orbiting above the Earth.

Goal

In deathmatch mode generally kill everyone in sight before they kill you with awesome weapons that go bang in the night. The rocket launcher is one of my particular favourites.

Core Game Mechanic
Dodge and move using a combination of mouse and keyboard and keep firing at whatever gets in you way.

Challenge

Human players are the most devious opposition as their tactics always evolve to counter yours. "Bots" can be set to inhuman levels of skill for those masochistic enough to try and beat them at this level or if just for honing your skill set.

Overall Impression
This is a great FPS game. The sound effects are fantastic and this adds to the immersion in the game. The explosions when you blow things up and get blown up are good too. Multiplayer team matches are extremely tactical and truly enjoyable when having a LAN party. To win a deathmatch is legendary and to win regularly places you on a pedastal above the unwashed. The game is responsiveness and the physics makes the game enjoyable, playable and challenging and as the difficulty increases.

My Rating
15 out of 10 stars. (Yep it is still that good.)

Zork I

Concept and Storyline
From the leaflet found in the mailbox:
"ZORK is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortal man. Hardened adventurers have run screaming from the terrors contained within! In ZORK the intrepid explorer delves into the forgotten secrets of a lost labyrinth deep in the bowels of the earth, searching for vast treasures long hidden from prying eyes, treasures guarded by fearsome monsters and diabolical traps!"

Spatial Arena
I managed to explore the forests and the house.

Goal
Solve puzzles and find the hidden treasures lost in the bowels of the earth and consequently score points.

Core Game Mechanic
Use keyboard command to navigate through the ZORK world and interact with objects and enemies.

Move Command	Action
north	Move north
south	Move south
east	Move east
west	Move west
northeast	Move northeast
northwest	Move northwest
southeast	Move southeast
southwest	Move southwest
up	Move up
down	Move down
look	Looks around at current location
save	Save state to a file
restore	Restores a saved state
restart	Restarts the game
verbose	Gives full description after each command
score	Displays score and ranking
diagnostic	Give description of health

Item Command (Argument)	Action
take (item)	Removes item from current room; places it in your inventory
take all	takes all take-able objects in room
throw (item) at (location)	Throws the item at something
open (container)	Opens the container, whether it is in the room or your inventory
open (exit)	Opens the exit for travel
read (item)	Reads what is written on readable item
drop (item)	Removes item from inventory; places it in current room
put (item) in (container)	Removes item from inventory; places it in container
turn (control) with (item)	Attempts to operate the control with the item
turn on (item)	Turns on the item
turn off (item)	Turns the item off
move (object)	Moves a large object that cannot be picked up
attack (creature) with (item)	Attacks creature with the item
examine (object)	Examines, or looks, at an object or item or location
inventory	Shows contents of Inventory
eat	Eats item (specifically food)
shout	Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
close [Door]	Closes door
tie (item) to (object)
rape (item)	Dismisses command as an "ehem, strange idea"
kill self with (weapon)	Humorously commits suicide

Challenge
Puzzles get harder and a thief apparently randomly steals your possessions.

Overall Impression
Unfortunately for me the game mechanics did not promote the experience eluded to in the leaflet found in the mailbox. Given enough spare time (and beer) I possibly could enjoy this game but for me I found it a little to problematic to navigate. I found it annoying that you could not retrace your steps by moving west after moving east for example. This removed a lot of the simple and expected control and consequently detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

My Rating
2 out of 10 stars.

Robot Unicorn Attack

Concept and Storyline
You are a robot unicorn and you are running through a treacherous mountainous landscape. The story is the continuous life and death struggle of surviving your environment trying to reach your lost love so that you can live in harmony.

Spatial Arena
Treacherous mountainous landscape full of chasms, rocky outcrops and star shaped obstacles. Nice 3D depth effect created by rocky background filled with waterfalls and rainbows.

Goal
Score as many points as possible by surviving as long as possible. Collect the fairies and destroy the stars obstacles for for extra bonus points.

Core Game Mechanic
Use the "Z" key to jump and double jump. Use the "X" key to evoke your rainbow attack which enables brief horizontal super speed combined with star busting force.

Challenge
Mountainous terrain moves faster and becomes more dangerous and tricky to navigate as the game progresses. Eventually magical dolphins appear too so how good is that.

Overall Impression
This is a great 2D game. The sound effects are fantastic and this adds to the immersion in the game. As you are galloping along the lyrics and music makes you feel like a hero rushing headlong into inevitable death with martyrdom your most likely reward but you do not sway from your goal of finding your lost love. The explosions when you crash and blow things up are good too. The game is responsiveness and the physics makes the game enjoyable, playable and challenging and as the difficulty increases.

My Rating
10 out of 10 stars.

Adventure

Concept and Storyline
A quest game based on castles, dragons, keys, sword, magnet and a chalice.

Goal
Find the chalice and return it to the castle.

Core Game Mechanic
Move your player up, down, left and right to explore the maze and collect and move items.

Challenge

Work out a path through the maze. Find the correct key so that you can open the corresponding castle gate. Avoid the dragons protecting the keys. Use the magnet to put the key and the dragon in a tactically suitable position. Kill the dragons with the sword.

 

Overall Impression

Game although simple graphically was enjoyable to play. Most enjoyment came from figuring out the puzzle and completing the quest.

My Rating

5 out of 10 stars.

Analysis of the 4 Elements of Game Design

1. Mechanics - You move your character around using the 4 arrow keys. Your movement is restricted by walls and gates. Dragons will attack your character so you must avoid at all costs. You can pickup the sword, keys, the magnet and the chalice but you can only carry one item at a time.
2. Story - You must complete each stage in sequence otherwise you cannot get through the locked castle gates. In the first stage your must get the gold key to open the gate of the gold castle. You can use the magnet to help you accomplish this. You must get through the gold castle gate in order to get the sword. You need the sword to kill the gold dragon that pursues you, the green dragon protecting the black key and the red dragon protecting the chalice. Once you get the chalice you can return it to the gold castle and complete the quest.
3. Aesthetics - Graphical representations of dragons, keys, castles, sword, magnet, and chalice help complete the story.
4. Technology - The interaction of picking up items and running and fighting with the dragons and the grahical representation of the objects especially the mazes in the story is provided by the computer system. The sequence of events in the story is also maintained by the computer system.

Donkey Kong

Concept and Storyline

Classic story of King Kong, the beautiful but helpless maiden and the hero, Mario, who will save her from the beast. Donkey Kong makes rescue difficult by throwing barrels at you not to mention all the other dangers and pitfalls.

 

Spatial Arenas

Building girders with interconnecting ladders, elevators and moving conveyor belts.

Goal
Climb the girder maze and rescue the maiden. When she is rescued she will be overwhelmed by your heroism so who knows what the prize may be. Also score points by jumping barrels and smashing everything with the hammer.

Core Game Mechanic
Move hero up the girder maze towards the maiden whilst avoiding and jumping barrels and obstacles. Use the space bar to jump, left and right buttons to move player left and right and up and down buttons to climb up and down ladders.

Challenge
As game progresses it gets harder to climb the girder maze due to the types of obstacles and the frequency of barrels and other objects coming at you. Some barrels land in fire and start burning and chase you around the girder maze. Get the hammer and you can smash all the things trying to hurt you.

Overall Impression
This is a another classic 2D game. The Flash version shown is a good representation of the original version. The sound effects are good. Many other clones and games in the Donkey Kong genre attest to the games core game mechanics and concept popularity. From my perspective using the console joystick makes it better to play.

My Rating
8 out of 10 stars.

Asteroids

Concept and Storyline
Space ship stuck in aseroid belt fighting aliens. Destroy all the asteroids and alien before they get you.

Spatial Arena
Black meaningless space surrounded by giant rocks which you need to disitegrate bit by bit. So simple yet so effective.

Goal
Destroy everything in sight and score as many points as possible.

Core Game Mechanic
Use the space bar to fire your missiles, up arrow to fire your rocket thruster and left and right arrow keys to rotate your ship and hence control the direction of your thrust and hence the position of your spacecraft. The shift key teleports you to a random spot. Use this facility when death is immenient and note death usally follows soon after due to the new precarious position you usually find yourself in. Most important destroy everything.

Challenge
As game progresses it gets harder to avoid asteroids because they are everywhere and moving fast.  Aliens become more ferocious, faster and their missiles become more accurate. No chance of for a peace treaty with the aliens so they must be destroyed.

Overall Impression
This is a great 2D game. The Flash version is as good as the original version. The sound effects are fantastic and this adds to the immersion in the game. The explosions when you crash and blow things up are good too. The physics in the game are fairly realistic and that makes the game, for me at least, enjoyable and challenging with zero frustration levels. In summary after all these years I still love this game. My final comment is don't forget to destroy everything.

My Rating
10 out of 10 stars.

Lunar Lander



Concept and Storyline
Flight simulator for a lunar landing craft. Land on the moon with out crashing.

Spatial Arena
Black meaningless space and the foreboding an ominous terrain of the moon. Simple yet effective.

Goal
Navigate the terrain and land on the landing pad with a safe velocity before you run out of fuel.

Core Game Mechanic
Use the space bar to fire your rocket and generate thrust. Use the left and right arrow keys to rotate your ship and hence control the direction of your thrust and hence the position of your spacecraft.

Challenge
As game progresses it gets harder to land on the next pad before your fuel is expended and you consequently crash. This version also allows you to select higher gravity environments which increases the challenge also.

Overall Impression
This is a good simulation albeit simple and 2D. The sound effects worked fairly well and this adds to the immersion in the game.  The explosions when you crash are good too. I have a recollection that some of the earlier versions had some feedback in terms of the ships velocity and altitude in the game interface. The physics in the game are fairly realistic and that makes the game, for me at least, enjoyable and challenging with zero frustration levels. In summary after all these years I still like this game.

My Rating
5 out of 10 stars.

Pong

Concept and Storyline
Almost certainly a digital version of "Table Tennis" which is also known as "Ping Pong". No storyline although with a little bit of beer one could probably extrapolate to the eternal struggle of good against evil.

Spatial Arena
Black meaningless space.

Goal
Make the computer miss the ball and score points.

Core Game Mechanic
Serve ball with a mouse button click and then you can only move your paddle up and down via the mouse and prevent the ball from going out behind your paddle.

Challenge
Try and hit the ball with a moving paddle to put on some greater angular deflection.
(Or was that my imagination trying to reduce my boredom.)

Overall Impression
Pong! What a classic or did it really stink. It was the best for it time or more accurately it was all we had. I found myself initially amused but I quickly became frustrated yet again. A little bit annoying when mouse pointer not over Pong Java application as mouse input is not sent to application. I remember it being more enjoyable with original joystick hardware and the graphics were definitely larger albeit slower. Sound effects although simple definitely add another dimension to this game. I also remember the ball would serve itself after a certain time not that you could gain an advantage with your serve. Two player version was more fun than playing the computer. I hope to play this game again in another 10 years.

My Rating
3 out of 10 stars.