Chapter 1 Review, question 2 asks for a gameplay mechanics comparison between a few games of different platforms discussed in Chapter One. I chose the classic fixed-shooter arcade favorite, Galaga, released by Namco (Japan) and Midway (N. America) in 1981. For PC, I chose DOOM, released by id software in 1993. And for the Playstation 2 console, I decided on Kingdom Hearts, released in 2002 by Square Soft (now Square Enix).
Galaga is your basic 2D arcade shooter with an overhead view of your spaceship at the bottom of the screen and the enemies you're fighting in the upper center. The controls are simple: move the stick left to go left, move the stick right to go right; push the red button to shoot.
The goal is simply to evade and destroy as many hordes of dive-bombing, laser-shooting, enemy space-bugs as you can before losing all of your lives. Each cosmic cockroach kill gives you points. When you clear a level, you move up to a more progressively difficult level. Earn enough points clearing levels and you're awarded a bonus life.
One more interesting gameplay mechanic is getting your ship captured by the enemy for the purpose of eventually getting it back. If you successfully rescue your ship then you can fight with two ships instead of one. All in all Galaga is a genuinely fun game that, as a kid, cost me hundreds of dollars in quarters.
Next up, DOOM. Unprecedented in its time, its realistic 3D graphics engine was far superior to any other real-time rendering engine and is widely credited with putting first person shooters on the map. As a space marine stranded in a Military Installation on Mars, your objective is to kill demonic baddies, find secrets, and get to the exit in as short a time possible.
DOOM, immerses the player in the game through the eyes of the main character. Movement as well as the selection and firing of seven different weapons, ranging from a pistol to a rocket launcher, is controlled by keyboard and mouse specifically configured to your liking. Movements are forward, backward, diagonal, strafe left, strafe right and mouse look. Items such as health, armor, weapons, ammo, and power-ups are scattered around the levels and can be picked up by running over them. Player activated switches to open doors, turn on lights, and raise and lower elevators and platforms are also prevalent in game play.
Not only was DOOM the first multi-player game that could be played over ethernet (the most awesome-cool "nerdy" thing to come about since the invention of the Trapper Keeper) but the game also allowed users to create, modify, share and play their own levels. Maybe that's not technically a game mechanic, but it sure was an awesome feature for its time.
Kingdom Hearts is a third-person, action-fantasy RPG created by Tetsuya Nomura of Final Fantasy fame. The game environment is a surrealistic merging of Final Fantasy characters and game play with numerous characters from Disney World and Disney Animated Movies.
Story and style are a huge part of this game so players must be willing to sit through numerous cut scenes, especially in the beginning. Your character, Sora, who's primary weapon is an over-sized key, called the Key Blade, leads a three man battle party that includes himeself, Goofy and Donald Duck. As you fight from one kid-friendly hack-and-slash fantasy world to another, you collect health power-ups and experience points along the way.
Being PS2, everything is controlled with the DualShock2. Movement in all directions is controlled by the left analog stick. Jumping and attacking are controlled by the four action buttons on top while target selection and camera rotation are controlled by the four bumper buttons on back. Gameplay is easy and the battles are fun. In the end, I found Kingdom Hearts to be a REALLY entertaining video game. Especially for eleven year olds and total Disney freaks.
These three games all very different in more ways than just their platform. Galaga is a fixed, two-dimensional arcade shooter with two control inputs; a stick that controls left right movement and a button that fires the single weapon. DOOM is a fast-paced, action-packed, three-dimensional first person shooter played on PC. It has more than a dozen inputs to control omni-directional movement and attacking with numerous weapons. Kingdom Hearts is a three-dimensional, third-person action-role playing game with heavy emphasis on story and style. Movement, attacking and camera position are all controlled using the PS2 controller.
And yet, while they are all so different, a common theme emerged. Whether it's blowing up fancy-flying, 2D space- bugs, shotgun blasting demonic hell-zombies on Mars, or slashing sinister "Disnime" creatures with Donald and Goofy at your side, in each game we battle through legions of "bad guys" until we finally get to the end of the level. Then, we move on to the next, more difficult, level and do it all over again. Which, if you think about it, may be the very definition of "fun."
