Week 13 - Skyrim

Skyrim (XBOX 360)

Story

• Medieval, high fantasy
• The world is "Tamirel" and this country in the northern part of the world is "Skyrim"
• You play as the dragonborn, a hero who must stop the return of Alduin the world eater and the dragons that have come back after being away for so long that the people believed them to be a myth.
• Skyrim is a harsh place with many aggressive creatures,  people and places.
• There are many different guilds, quests, and tasks for the player to go on. Many of these are expertly written, voice acted and very interesting

Mechanics

• Excellent levelling system that allows players to chose what they want to specialise in, never punishing them for choosing one set of abilities against another (unless that quest prefers it like in the guild quests)
• Natural progression of learn the more you do therefore any player can focus on any skill and make it very effective. 
• Excellent perk system where almost all perks feel like they change the ability and are more than just a statical boost.
• Average combat where the ranged (bows and magic) benefit from a good first person perspective, it is and always will be a bit difficult to use melee weapons in first and third person.
• Great crafting and creation however sometimes players find it too difficult to level these up so they exploit by making multiple of the same item over and over again  
• Although the new interface is good due to the visual and simple approach with this style there is no way to effectively and quickly compare the statistics of large number of items.
• There is also no junk option so the player must carefully only sell or get rid of what they do not wish to carry any more.

Aesthetics

• Great character customization

• Great Graphical Style
• Excellent Draw Distance (If you can see it you can go there)
• Beautiful landscapes

• Much greater variety of voice actors but because there are so many npcs they must reuse the same voices and they eventually become repetitive
• Excellent dragon language
• Excellent music
• Great User interface menu allows players to easily navigate 
• Excellent finsher moves that make the player feel awesome because of how they amplify the players actions.

Technology

• Much better graphical style
• Still struggles in some intense fights
• Prone to many bugs due to the complex nature and combinations that players do things

Week 12 - Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2 (XBOX 360 - Non Edited Version)

Story

• Follow 4 survivors (Ellis, Coach, Nick, Rochelle)
• Trying to escape the zombie apocalypse
• Not much story or character development apart from interesting little back story chatter which is too infrequent to gain a real knowledge or attachment to the characters
• Mainly just stringing a bunch of scenarios together

Mechanics

• Fast paced shooting
• Variety of tools
• Now with close combat weapons such as baseball bats, swords and chainsaws although the difference between them (apart from the chainsaw) is mostly aesthetic they are a very effective addition.

• Not classical slow moving zombies, very fast standard with special infected that have different abilities
• Heavily relied upon teamwork which can be very frustrating and sometimes makes the hard parts impossible in single player
• A good team will lead to success
• Great multi-player with taking on both sides (survivors and infected)
• A.I. partners in single player can range from being very good (always accurately killing the enemy, healing you, and giving you other items) to very bad (Not using the grenades or not reviving you or startling a witch which is an incredibly powerful enemy)
• A.I. Director that can change the location of items and enemies so that each play through is different  is a welcome addition.

Aesthetics

• Nice cinema poster for each scenario

• Excellent gore that give weapons that weighty feel and gives you a feeling of accomplishment after seeing all the dead bodies in your wake (Not in the censored version which greatly diminishes the tone of the game)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH7QCtuaXgI&feature=player_embedded#!

• Great character design, although we don't know much about them they are still likeable, interesting and have great voice actors
• Crazy nature of scenarios gives great locales to be fighting in. 

Technology

• Valves old source engine is starting to show age as the graphics are not up to toady's modern standard 
• Frame-rate can drop and the game can slow down in the really intense action, which isn't that uncommon in this frantic game

Week 11 - MINECRAFT

Minecraft (XBOX 360)

Story

• No story the player is told to simply survive
• There is no other goal

Mechanics

• Mine and gather Materials
• Combine some materials to make tools and other materials
• Place the blocks
• Setting up a simple house to survive
• Be safe for the night as this is when monsters will come and attack also if there is no light
• Never any actual game goals, mainly driven by the player's personal drive to try and create thing.
• Can get very repetitive and boring unless the player sets themselves a goal
• Fun to play with friends
• Some players can become "Griefers" (Deliberately cause trouble) and with the auto save system and no way to go back after it has been saved destroying the hard work that has been achieved.
• Many players have exploited the game to have infinite blocks of whatever they choose as well as playing this on the peaceful that has regenerating health and no monsters. These players simply want to use the games as a system to build with their own goal similar to a digital version of Lego blocks.

Aesthetics

• Very old fashioned, retro graphical style
• Very unique style
• Nice relaxing repetitive music

Technology

• Very dated graphics
• Very frustrating to wait for the game to load areas of the world. Letting the player see an empty infinite void and if they move over to it the game will react violently by shuddering, jumping up and down until the area has finally loaded.

Week 10 - Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 (XBOX 360)

Story

• Set some years after the original game where the first "vault hunters" opened the vault hoping to find treasures beyond their wildest dreams when instead they found a monster. After defeating the monster they went their separate ways.
• What actually happened is that this extremely rare and powerful element called "eridium" was released and it drastically affects many creatures and weapons. 
• Handsome Jack the president of the Hyperion corporation has seized this new material and has used his resources to dig for a new vault and release the Warrior, which will help him cleanse all of Planet of Pandora.
• You play as a vault hunter (Either Salvador, Axton, Zero or  Maya)and must find this vault before Jack and save the people of Sanctuary the last batch of sane humans. 
• Greatly Improved over the 

Mechanics

• Combines excellent minute to minute first person shooting with a fantastic random weapon generation system and an excellent upgrade system that allows the player to customise their character to the way that they want to play.
• "Badass" Rank system that allows you to put minor statistical boosts to things like gun damage and reload speed for completing challenges, these carry over to all character unless the player decides to turn them off.
• Driving greatly improved from the original , very responsive, weighty and fun to drive.
• Excellent co-op jump-in jump-out
• Co-op can vary from being very frustrating to the most fun you can have due to the levels of other players in comparison to the host. If they are too high they will be instantly killing  everything leaving nothing for the host to do and if they are too low then most of the time spent will be reviving them.
• Due to the non-shared/non-level specific loot it if  the other players grab the loot and don't give it up this can cause major problems among the players
• However if you have a good friend that you play with this will hopefully not be a problem and you can share and work together.  
• The new interface and trade system are fantastic.
• The trash/favourite system is such an excellent addition allowing players to quickly and easily sell all their trash and not their prized loot accidentally letting players get back into the game faster.

Aesthetics

• Cel-shaded
• Distinct style
• Genuinely funny dialogue expertly written
• Excellent characters that have wonderful  personalities
• Some character animations are a bit stiff
• No way to access previous dialogues if they were missed 
• Nice character customisation with skins and heads, improvement over the original but not taken to the levels seen in a lot of modern RPG's
• The NPC talking is converted to a radio broadcast as soon as the player leaves the area excellent for players who want to get going as fast as possible.

Technology

• Some texture popping
• Draw distances
• Some frame-rate drops (when it gets really hectic)

Week 9 - Civilization 5

Civilization 5 (PC)

Story

• Follow through some preset historical campaigns
• Take control of a historical leader and create  the iconic architectural and discoveries of that civilization 

Mechanics

• Turn based strategy game
• Usually a single game can go for a few hours  (can be modified though) due to how each research, creation or task assigned to a unit will take many moves. Good because not demanding and able to leave and come back without missing
• Combat has an excellent strategy to it with the bonuses modifying whether or not there will be a successful attack.
• Build up your civilization using the various perks and abilities of your particular civilization
• (Unless pre-modified) there are 4 ways to win: Military (Dominance), Science (Space race), Culture (Win the vote at United Nations) and Economic (purchasing the wonders) 
• Use workers to cultivate the land in the city's territory, settlers to settle new cities and military units to attack and defend against barbarians and  other civilizations
• Maintaining relationships with other cities to get bonuses and stop them from becoming and enemy and going to war. By building specific buildings, units, destroying other nations and gathering resources
• Some units have automated tasks which reduces the need to micro-manage
• Extremely deep - Comes with the "civlopedia"  for the many different units
• Has an excellent help and recommendation system which is completely optional but will mostly lead you in the right direction
•    1 advisor per type of victory each with their own agenda but are very helpful
• Most external leaders make trading very painful by demanding a lot of you.

• Excellent  match customizations options

Aesthetics

• Units have a nice animated cartoonist feel
• Very simple animation in fight with no blood or gore making  it less violent and more strategic
• Able to switch a classic view for veteran players
• Nice UI elements that can be modified at will to suit the player's style
• Able to overlay information on to the game world
• Excellent notification system
• Good narration and historical accuracy and famous quotes for each upgrades.

Technology

• Able to scale well due to the simplistic nature of the graphics 
• Does not require super graphics or speed due to the turn based nature.

Week 8 - Tiny Tower

Tiny Tower (Apple IOS Devices, free-to-play)

Story

• No story just told to keep building higher and higher

Mechanics

• Simple tap to build
• Build buildings
• Get the "Bitizens" a job
• No definite set goal apart from keep building higher
• Based around a time vs. payment system. If you don't want to wait then you can speed up the processes using "Tower Bux" which can only be earned by building a new floor, riding people up the elevators and doing the mini missions

• Very repetitive if played for longer than a few minutes and  the temptation to use real money to buy tower bux to build quickly sets in
• They will work at that job which will generate coins over time which can be used to buy more stock and more floors
• Minute-Minute game play includes: taking people to a floor they want to go to, finding certain bitizens managing the stocking and customizing the bitizens. 
• Best played by playing for a few minutes then continuing with their day and check back on the game every hour or couple of hours to restock and build more buildings
• Entirely possible to play without ever spending any real money
• Can get various VIP's that help speed up the various processes
• A lot of depth for infinite upgrades
• Fun to compare and compete with friends

Aesthetics

• Appealing classic retro design
• Designed well to fit on simplest of devices

• Music - a few catchy tunes that run on a continuous loop
• Lots of little sound effects for purchasing things, as well as the notification system are very satisfying

Technology

• Runs well on even the oldest of devices, however after a lot of floors are created some devices may struggle a little to load everything properly
• Uses a time system that a user can exploit by modifying their dates and this will completely negates the "grind" aspect allowing them to have unlimited money
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZIK7RHdG-s

week 7 - Army of TWO: The 40th day

Army of TWO: The 40th day

STORY

• Pretty average, "been there done that" story of terrorists taking over the city
• Hidden radio logs give more detailed story, but don't play while playing, so you have to sit there and listen to them
• Excellent story/moral choices each having different consequences, encourages re-playability more interesting than the overall story, very interesting notion of mercenaries and their morality
• New city setting of Singapore (different to a lot of games that are set in New York or other American cities) 
• Has a nice goofy edge to some parts

MECHANICS

• Excellent co-op play, "Aggro" system (Whoever is making the most noise is the one that the enemy focuses on) works well and gives great feedback
• Encourages smart tactical play such as flanking, splitting up, using shields etc

• Taking or losing Aggro works well.
• Simple e-motes (positive, negative and rock-paper-scissors) work well to convey the player's expression and feeling on screen
• Excellent revive system, very innovative

• A.I. can't achieve the synergy and fun of two friends
• 
  

AESTHETICS

• Singapore as a city is refreshing and is done well
• Great sense of scale as playing on crumbling skyscrapers
• Bosses look terrifying as well provide justification for having to attack them in certain areas (great amour design)
• Good variety of masks for both characters to wear, to customize and personalize.
• Some areas really stand out (Zoo) while many others look to similar (many of the city streets)
• Goofy alternate attachments that do the same/almost as good as the real thing like soda can silencers and screwdriver bayonets

TECHNOLOGY

• Lacking the graphical finesse of most of today modern shooters
•