Games Review

Matthew Battison

msb1@bolton.ac.uk

matts-games-reviewing.blogspot.com

Word Count - 249

Games Review

Pong

Well, what can I say about Pong. It’s where gaming started, but how it started out life is more complicated then you might think.

Back in 1972 Atari was founded, and its first release was Pong. It was a huge success when it was first released as an arcade game in a small bar. Within two months Atari was producing hundreds of Pong arcade machines and then went on to produce Home Pong. This is when a problem arose; a man named Ralph Baer claimed to have the patent to pong. He claimed that one of the founders of Atari had seen his idea at a trade show. If the case had gone to court the damage would had been huge to Atari, but they settled out of court, paying $700,000 for the license to the game.

Pong is simple to play. On the screen there are, two paddles, a ball, and that’s it. You take control of one paddle and the idea is to bat the ball back, by moving your paddle up and down, and get it past your opponents paddle. If you do, then you score a point, and if your opponent does the same to you, then they gain a point. There are no 3D graphics, and its all in black and white, and that’s all there is to it. So put down your latest game with its 3D graphics, and go back to where gaming started, with a game of pong.

Games Review

Matthew Battison

msb1@bolton.ac.uk

matts-games-reviewing.blogspot.com

Word Count - 237

Games Review

Minesweeper

Minesweeper is aimed at the casual gamer, and is mainly played just as a quick fix of gaming.

The idea of minesweeper is to discover all of the mines on the playing field in the quickest time, without actually uncovering them. If one of the mines is uncovered then it’s game over.

Minesweeper offers different modes in which the game can be played, beginner, intermediate, expert and custom. The custom game allows you to customise the playing field, by adjusting the height and width, and amount of mines in the playing field.

To play minesweeper you have to uncover the squares on the playing field, to do this you click a tile with your mouse. This will either have a mine under it which means its game over or it will have a number under it, this is a clue as to where the mines are located. If it has a number under it, then that is how many mines there are in the eight tiles surrounding it. Minesweeper also gives you some useful tools to locate the mines. If you suspect that under a certain tile there is a mine, you can put a flag on that square to mark it by right clicking the tile; if however you are not sure about a tile then you can place a question mark on top of it by double clicking the right mouse button.

Games Review

Matthew Battison

msb1@bolton.ac.uk

matts-games-reviewing.blogspot.com

Word Count - 248

Games Review

Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero was developed by Harmonix Music and published by Red Octane and released on the 4th July in Europe for the Playstation2 priced at £49.99 (Including Guitar). When you purchase the game you get a controller in the shape of a guitar, which consists of five coloured buttons, a little flipper which is used for strumming and a whammy bar.

Guitar Hero is a rhythm game, the idea is to hit the coloured buttons when they move up the screen. There are four different difficulty modes, these range from easy to expert. The game consists of 30 different songs to choose from which range from old Black Sabbath songs to modern day songs e.g. Franz Ferdinand.

There are three different gameplay modes, in career mode the idea is to complete songs and move your character through different venues, as you complete songs your character is given money, which can be used to unlock new characters, new songs and new guitars. In quick play you can pick any song that you have unlocked and play it. Multiplayer allows you to compete against another player. The game has good in game graphics, while playing a song, your player is joined on stage by a vocalist, a bass player and a drummer as well as a crowd, which react to how well you are playing the song. So with 30 songs, unlockable characters and an expert mode to master, there is plenty to keep you occupied.

Game Genre Definitions

First-Person Shooter

In a first-person shooter, you see the game world through the eyes of the playable character.

Third-Person Shooter

For this type of game you see the character that you control. The camera is usually set behind the playable character. The camera is usually moveable within the player’s environment.

RPG

The player takes control of a character, which is usually created by player themselves. They then guide this character through the story. In RPGs there are normally many different ways of completing the story, and it is up to the player how they do this. As the player moves through the story, they will gain some kind of experience points, which will allow them to upgrade their character.

Simulation

This sort of game normally places you within some sort of higher power, in which decision have to be made to determine the outcome of the game. E.g. Football Manager, this allows you manage a football team.