Game List:
1. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Overview
I have spectacular news! Not only am I going to be updating the blog with at least (no less than) 2 blog posts a day, I don't have a choice! What does this mean to you guys who read the blog for new content? It means that because I lack the choice to do this or not, you will be guaranteed new content everyday. I am doing this for a school assignment this month, so here is what I have to do.

Every day, for a whole month, I have to post my gaming experiences into a word document and I was given permission to blog them as well. When I post about my gaming, I must include what I liked about the game, what I did not like about the game, and then what I would change about the game if I were the game designer for it.

Isn't this amazing news, everyone? I get to play video games for assignments, then write about them from a designer's point of view. On top of that, everyone who wants to read my thoughts finally gets a chance! Let's hope this encourages me to type more and interact a little more. Wish me luck everyone!

Let's cut the BS though, we all know that I can't keep up with 2 games minimum each day...so I will most likely (as I am right now) pump out 2-4, maybe 6 analysis in one night and then post them all at one time. This will usually result towards the end. Good thing for deadlines though, so this has to be done no matter what! :) I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I will be writing them, lol.

You can find the links to the blog and my website here:
http://www.radethproductions.com
http://radethproductions.blogspot.com/

PS - There is already an analysis up on the blog. :)
PSS - And I am going to try and post all of the posts here in case you don't want to travel all the way to another website. :)

Yours truly,
Joshua Long (RadethDart)

1. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
(Xbox 360; Action-adventure; Single-player Only)


Overview
I played this game for nearly 6 hours straight. It all started with a trip to the doctor’s office to find out what was wrong with my eye. On my way back from the doctor, I said to myself, “I need a video game to play that is going to last me quite some time.” I remembered that I had this awesome analysis project to complete, so I stopped by a random game store figuring I could find something cheaper than GameStop had to offer. I had no idea what I wanted to play, and I wanted something I never heard of before! Boiling down to it, I found enslaved, put the game in, and played for 6 hours straight! I only reached chapter 7, but that is alright because I plan to play some more.

Positives/Gameplay Successes
+ The movement system came off as increasingly spectacular. At first, I didn't like the movement due to the feeling of an action -adventure Gears of War feeling. Throughout the story progression, the movement became a little more familiar and easy to maneuver. You can jump over objects in your way by vaulting them, you can walk/run/sprint, you can climb like a monkey (ironically, the lead's name), and best of all, if you use the movements in quick succession, you are able to pull of fluid movements through the environment.

+ The combat system uses a variety of fighting moves off one item, which was neat. You can use the same stick you use to fight with to fire energy bolts. Having the fighting option to change from hand-to-hand to range is very intuitive.

+ In chapter 1, as you first get the hang of the game, they provide combat, movement, and puzzle tutorials. These are effectively placed throughout the level by pausing the game as you are about to perform the new move, and tells you what to do. Some games make this effect annoying, but Enslaved used it effectively by not interrupting the gameplay. The tutorials usually popped up right as you were going to ask, "Wait, how am I supposed to do that?!" They planned the tutorial integration very smoothly.

+ While maneuvering through the environment, you do not really pay any attention to your health, so it might come off as a surprise if you have been playing with low health. The positioning of health is spaced perfectly to give the player a smooth transition of gameplay.

+ Most action games use the entire controller, but Enslaved really utilizes the controller by combining button holds to perform a variety of moves. When you hold down the right trigger button (Xbox 360), you now have full control of ranged fighting.


Negatives/Gameplay Failures
- The camera angles proved to be very close at times, which made the gameplay not as much fun. Other games that have this camera angle (almost all other games) make up for the bad taste in angles through stunning gameplay. This is one of those games, but the camera angles being too close, or too far while running into a room or next to a wall made it distasteful.

- With the action fighting style of the game, not being able to lock-on to an enemy made the successful hits very difficult. Enemies constantly surrounded me where I would attack one at a time, but each hit would land on a separate enemy, making battles last longer.

- The game implemented what seemed to be a squad-based movement option for the other character in the game; I did not find this fully developed, and it messed up fluid controls. When you opened the menu to tell the girl what to do, it almost seemed pointless whereas the game would have been fine if she just did things on her own to help you out. This option could have been a last minute choice to cut costs rather than having a full AI developed for her.

- When shooting at range with your staff, I found it very difficult to make successful hits on enemies.

- Ranged weapons, such as the energy blast, or the stun blast, really took away from the fast-paced gameplay, and would benefit without it.


Thoughts (not necessarily likes or dislikes, but instead noteworthy brainstorming)
~ I had to force myself to sit down and play a game I have never heard of before, and then within 10 minutes of playing the game, hours went by and the next thing I knew, I was calling up my brother and telling him how amazing this game really was!

~ When I first had the option to climb up a pipe in the first level, the game brought me back to the Assassin's Creed engine feeling, and I really liked that!

~ The game handled just as expected when I started walking around. I expected basic attacks and other movement just as in any other game.

~ The third person adventure style really gave off the Gears of War vibe at first, and it made sense knowing the same game engine was used to create it. I could see this game created in a completely different engine to give it more of the feeling the company probably wanted.


Would Like/Fixes
* Although the environment was destructive for the most part, I would have enjoyed a little bit more crumble when something hit the walls and/or the different objects in the environment.

* The boss battles rather sucked. The introductions for the bosses was intense and very scary, but when you realize all you have to do is smack them in the head with a stun and then beat them up until they die, you laugh in their face (I played through at least 3/4 bosses and this was the same for all of them). If the boss battles had more interaction, that would make up for even the camera angles! Adding some timed button presses and interactive fighting to the boss with a little bit of puzzle would change my mind about laughing at the boss battles.

* You have all these enemies standing around and watching you beat down on the other enemies, which you would think would be kin or friend to them, right? Enemies who reacted to you fighting their pals would be awesome, especially since they are robots already! Smarter enemies, which is all I am saying here...

* When you are beating down some enemies, at least one robot stands to the side and has a 20 second (I think it starts at 30 seconds) counter above them telling you that they are going to call in more enemies...I am so scared. Adding faster reaction timing and reinforcements would make battles intense since you would react to kill everyone faster. Moving the timer down to 5-10 seconds and making it less visible would add some quick reactions and more challenge.

* Above, I talk about dumb enemies a lot. If the enemies could actually fight, all of the awesome skills you can do would not go to waste! Think about all of the parkour/freerunning moves you could perform if you had an enemy rushing you with their head down! Having different style-of-fighting enemies would be a definite plus!

Conclusion
After playing this game for the first time, I would say I enjoyed it more than I would guess to begin with. I took a leap of faith (Assassin’s Creed reference there) and bought a game I never heard of. I might not do that too often in my time, but there was nothing wrong with it since I had to write an analysis on the game nonetheless. If it turned out to be a bad game, then that would have been my bad game for the month, but it holds number one position right now on my list of games played in a lifetime. I was very impressed with all of the gameplay mechanics within the game, and how they were executed.

2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
(PC; Massive-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG); Online-Only)


Overview
I played WoW for exactly 1 hour and 28 minutes from the beginning, using a level 1 Dwarf Paladin. While I played for my hour, I completed 12 quests, killed roughly 134 enemies, killed 6 innocent bunnies, looted nearly 3 gold worth of items, looted 4 chests, learned 6 different skills, used only 2 weapons, and gained 6 levels. So, I ended with 4 silver, 4 usable skills, and the total level of 7.

Positives/Gameplay Successes
+ The key mapping is nice, but confusing at first due to the unobvious menu-buttons such as using "O" to open up the friend's menu. Other than some obvious button choice confusion (which is 100% customizable to the player), the other buttons for movement are straightforward with the arrow keys to move and right mouse-click to attack. You can also open your backpack with the "B" key. The option to use “hotkeys” 0-9 is very useful when obtaining more skills.

+ The looting feature is very useful and so intuitive that most online role-playing games have gone to the same method. Pretty much, you right-click on a dead body (whom you just killed) using the mouse, an interface menu pops up, and you left-click on the items you want to take using the mouse. It is a simple method, and World of Warcraft made excellent use of it. This is one of the features that has not been touched since the first release.

+ The aggro AI for the monsters is very simple, yet effective. I like how you can run by a high-level mob at a low level and they will run after you from a sickening distance, whereas they will stand at attention if you are 5-8 levels higher than they are. Simple, yet effective when it comes to staying around mobs your level.

+ The talent system developed while this game was still new mastered the ease of distibuting points into customizing your character. You leveled up, you gained a point, you opened a menu with talents, you put your point in a talent that you thought might benefit you in the long run. If you did not like the "build" you created, then you are able to pay a small in-game price and start over. This makes customization dumbed down for players who just want to play.

+ The quest system is pretty standard when it comes down to it, but I really like how the quest log gives you detailed information along the lines of the storyline for the quest as they give you strict details on where you need to go in order to complete the quest. The strict details are then laid out for you so you know exactly where to go, who to kill, what to collect, and who you need to talk to next.

Negatives/Gameplay Failures
- When the enemy dodges one of your moves, you must wait for an entire attack phase to swing again. This makes for long battles of healing with my character since he is using a two-handed mace for attacking. If I miss at all, the enemy has more of a chance to hit me twice before I can swing again.

- Walking is really slow and it makes getting around to complete quests take forever. Unfortunately, most of my time was spent walking around and talking to NPCs.

- When you run around in circles around an enemy while attacking them, nothing changes. This is really irritating to the player as you would expect running around frantically would make the enemy have a much more difficult time attacking you. When you fight an enemy, it does not matter which way you are running to them, but as soon as you turn your back, a message pops up and says that you are facing the wrong way. I would expect the same from an animal you just recently ran around would not be able to attack you; the enemy is stuck on always facing you, always doing the same attack until either you die, run away from their small aggro radius, or kill them.

- Travel times, on top of the walking, is ridiculous! I know that as you progress, you gain mounts to travel faster, but the world is so big that an option to teleport would not be so bad. When you use the flight system to go across the continent, you spend most of that time getting a snack from the fridge because it takes so long. This might be a technique to keep player anticipation high, but I do not like it.

- Player versus environment (PvE) is really lame. Although the newer end-game bosses have cool strategies involved with beating them, most (if not all) mobs are the same fight over and over. They have a name for this, and I do not like to grind. If the enemies were a little more "active" in the fights, it would add some overall strategy to the entire game.

Thoughts (not necessarily likes or dislikes, but instead noteworthy brainstorming)
~ I noticed that gathering quests and killing quests were pretty evenly distributed during my gameplay. This was a nice feature, now that I think about it.

~ When you are focused on killing enemies one at a time for a quest objective, you get lost in the traveling and end up near the next place you need to go. The only unfortunate thing about doing this is the quest-giver is back where you started from, so you do have to walk back either way.

~ At lower levels, not many people like to interact with each other. You are kind of on your own until you start running through instances (dungeons), or other party-driven quests since you can handle a lot of the lower-level mobs alone.

~ Weapon drops are significantly lower than useless crap that even vendors have a hard time giving you money for.

~ Speaking of vendors, I noticed that prices do not vary between cities and towns. This could be very helpful when it comes to predictable costs, but it does take away any challenge you were hoping for in a bartering economy.

Would Like/Fixes
* I would LOVE to see better mob fights. I am big into the interactive fighting in games. When you have enemies acting all crazy on you, it makes you want to play more! This is one of the reasons I play against other players (another brain-powered character you can fight against), I love making people work for their glory in-game. I like the challenge behind it.

* Less walking, more story. If they could find a way to keep all of the features and gameplay time without all of the walking, the game would be awesome! I understand that battlegrounds and fights require all of that, but during the quest lines, I could use a little faster travel (even if they kept the grinding).

* Balancing classes would make the game a little better, but every class can do their deal of damage and/or healing in the long run. I think that finding the balance of weapons and gear makes any player good/bad, but it does take skill to create a character so good to make people think you are cheating.

* I would not mind seeing the amount of classes come to a limit. For instance, if they made more than just the Death Knight class be unlockable, you would see more players putting quality time into their characters rather than creating the best of the best right away and taking away challenge.

* As an RPG, this game would benefit from a SOLID main story line for avid role-playing gamers. A single player side of the game would make me buy it up in an instant all over again.

Conclusion
After my ventures of playing WoW for an hour, I was not able to come up with this huge list. Instead, I have been playing World of Warcraft since it first came out. I have seen the development of the game, I have played the different builds, and I have experience the game from the baby stages. So, I draw some of my complaints/findings from years of playing. I do not play as much now, but I can say that I am not satisfied with some of the directions they went. Overall, this game somehow kept me playing for years, so they did something right, at the very least!

3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3; MULTIPLAYER REVIEW
(Single Player Campaign; Online Multiplayer; FPS)


Overview
I love the franchise that started the entire Modern Warfare journey. When Modern Warfare came out (also known as Call of Duty 4), my dad and I would spend at least an hour a night taking turns going against people online. Not only did this create some excellent father-son time, it got me into the first-person shooting games as a whole! Now, Infinity Ward just released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 this past November (2011)! I play this game day in and day out. Here is what I think about the game from the online perspective.

Positives/Gameplay Successes
+ With running around the map as my number one most irking feature, MW3 takes care of the problem aspect of running around by making maps smaller and having more players on a map at a time. Since I spent my time playing free-for-all matches, running around meant a kill nearly 5-10 seconds apart from each other. Getting kills (or killed) this fast keeps your mind away from running around and more focused on killing enemy players.

+ The player versus player system went through three years of changes, and they finally came to a common fighting ground in MW3. I love how you can shoot from a distance, throw explosives, plant explosives, and throw other weapons and melee the other players using a knife. All of these combined features make every player different, and I would adjust my fighting skill for each match.

+ While aiming down the sights of a gun, you walk ever-so-slightly slower in order to set up a better shot on an enemy. If you are a fast twitch gamer, then there is a perk that allows for faster moving while aiming down the sights which I like to use. Having this option makes the pace of your side in the game fast/slow depending on the use of the perk or not.

+ The option to use different "strike packages" really changes the battle for everyone in the game. I really like being able to choose a custom style of rewards for killing enemies in succession. You can choose to get your rewards as you kill people during one life, you can get the package that includes rewards as you kill people that persist through death, and you can choose the package that gives you extra perks as you kill enemies in succession during one life.

+ Changing classes while in-game is a nice feature the entire franchise kept throughout the game. Having the option to change my class allowed me to instantly change my gaming style mid-game.

Negatives/Gameplay Failures
- When I try to knife someone, I sometimes miss and they kill me almost instantly by blindly turning around and throwing their knife around. This flaw turns me off from the game mainly due to the fact that a random knife can result in you dying without knowing how it even happened.

- I am really big on the destructive environments, and MW3 lacked in almost every way in this field. I was disappointed that pretty much the only thing that blew up was cars.

- Weapon swapping annoys me. I find that running out of ammo in a gun fight is the death of you while you have to switch to a secondary. In that long time of switching weapons, you usually end up dying.

- Reloading takes too long as well. When you are in the middle of a fire fight, there is not a single moment you can waste. Out of my 10 matches, I died every time I reloaded my weapon in the middle of crossfire.

- While testing out all of the different weapon customizations, I failed to notice any difference in performance of the guns when switching between a kick reduction and a steadier aim.

Thoughts (not necessarily likes or dislikes, but instead noteworthy brainstorming)
~ I enjoyed the strict focus on gameplay mechanics over a variety of "fun" features in the game. Having a tone down from less serious games is a plus.

~ Other players dominated me at first as I was warming up, and I would say that probably stemmed from them playing a lot.

~ As each round progressed, the amount of kills per second started increasing greatly.

~ More deaths followed as the rounds started to end. I noticed this might be my fault for automatically running around in circles after I would respawn.

~ I do not see a difference in my performance (character-wise) when I achieve all the specialist perks. It says I get a specialist bonus, but I never notice anything change in my character.

Would Like/Fixes
* I can see the need for a better hand-to-hand combat system. If knifing could be blocked, or parried, then that would even be an improvement.

* More visual performance changes to the weapons and armor after customization would make players feel a little more in control of their creations. I did not feel as though any add-ons to my weapons made a difference in the weapon's performance.

* The option to have more players in a FFA match on the larger maps would make those large-map rounds go by faster without depending on the time to run out before the max kills are reached.

* More as a training purpose, it would be nice to see the availability of bots to fight against in player matches.

* A variety of weapon carrying choices during battle would make the fights initially more interesting. If you could carry two rocket launchers or two knives that would be really fun.

Conclusion
Overall, I enjoyed the game more than the other 2 games. With Modern Warfare 2 as my all-time favorite, Modern Warfare 3 steps it up one level and takes my heart ascending with it. I enjoyed every moment of the multiplayer features, and could not ask for a more competetive game in the FPS genre that would suite my needs. The gameplay features come together smoothly whether it be calling in airstrikes to aid your care packages or a Hind to help with rewards, and I love nothing more than a smooth-playing game.