A good friend of mine let me play his copy of Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne telling me how it was a great RTS game and should be played by anyone. I was quite skeptical about it being a great RTS game for the sole fact that you had to gather materials to build anything and overly micromanage every unit. After playing Company of Heroes for so long where you don't have to micromanage materials, I was wondering how I would fare playing Warcraft.

To my surprise I was terrible at it but I fell in love despite its resource gathering gameplay. I came to realize that it takes a whole new strategy to play those types of RTS'. The gold mine you gather resources from depletes over time so you have to make sure you start getting your army built so you can plan on moving your base to another gold mine later on for more resources. Not only do you have that to worry about but the ongoing attacks by the opposition forces are always keeping you on your toes. You can create "hero" units that actually level up during gameplay enhancing their abilities and helping your army.

Some can argue that RTS games that require resource gathering causes the player to believe that the units he commands are expendable and don't necessarily have to care about them surviving an attack or not. This is not true in the case for Warcraft. The game is well balanced so you really want to keep all your troops alive that you can because it always costs more and takes more time for them redeploy. If you're in a losing battle; retreat for the time and get them healed up while building more units instead of having to restart fresh each time and risk being annihilated by the opposition during your rebuilding.

Playing Warcraft 3 has opened my eyes to these types of RTS games that I used to avoid.It might have been Starcraft that shied me away from resource gathering RTS' but I believe Warcraft is done much better. Though I still love Company of Heroes and that RTS gameplay I still love to play Warcraft for the difference in strategy and thought processes that are required to play it. What do you all think? Like resource gathering better? Or a more strategic feel of capturing points like Company of Heroes? Or both? Not necessarily want to start a war between these specific games, just an opinion on the gameplay you prefer.

I've noticed a trend of action oriented games that have a sequence in the game where the player will go into cinematic view and must press a button to perform an attack on an enemy which leads to another button and another attack making the game look very appealing and give the player an acomplished feeling of, "yeah, I just did that".

Whether it's tearing out the eyeball of a Cyclops in God of War or holding up an AT-ST and crunching it with your force powers in Star Wars Force Unleashed; it's one of the coolest features in action games. Including this action sequence of button mashing adds variety to the game so taking a boss down isn't the same as the thousand henchmen you just destroyed getting there. It also makes it feel like the boss isn't just one of the henchmen and slightly larger.

Resident Evil 4 added these sequences to their cutscenes for those of us that think cutscenes can drag on and seem to never end when all you want to do is shoot a zombie. Metal Gear Solid 4 has optional buttons to press during cutscenes to get a different angle or view the cutscene to change things up, I think we all know MGS4 for it's really long cutscenes so it's a nice add on.Ninja Blade is a new game being released soon that has these over-the-top action sequences that got me thinking about writing this blog. Just pressing "A" at the right time and "B" soon after can make the ninja flip two times in the air, grapple on a nearby ledge and do some backflips cutting enemies as you go. You should definitely check the game out, it seems to take from God of War trying to be the most action packed game to date.

I hope in the future we will see more ideas expand on this single button action sequence because it really adds a new level of fun and gameplay to the game and keeps the game much more interesting.

I have another blog on one of those nifty Google blogs, if you are interested follow it, I try to post the same stuff over here but it's usually a little behind and not all of it gets transfered over. Thanks!

http://videogamelab.blogspot.com/

Replayability is a very important factor in creating and playing a video game. You don't want your players to just play it once and throw it in the used games pile never to be played again, games should be able to be played many times and have something new each time.

A lot of games being recently released are having more and more replayablity to their games aside from just multiplayer. Achievements within the game always make the perfectionists (like myself) work hard at the game to get every achievement and unlockable. In my opinion though, having a game with multiple endings always has the best replayability. Anybody remember Chrono Trigger? If I remember right it had about 8 different endings you could get. Different endings are always the most rewarding to learn more about the story and see what the result is if you did something different earlier in game. Getting an unlockable for beating the game on a harder difficulty is not only a good idea but a great challenge for gamers which includes some well earned bragging rights.

Some games have a good guy/ bad guy ending which is ok for having different endings but it can probably assumed how it's going to end. If you played as the good guy and everyone is saved in the land and replay it to play a bad guy you could probably assume not everyone is going to be saved.

Multiplayer is a great addition to games to add replay value but isn't necessarily always needed. It's even better when unlockables from the single player can be used in the multiplayer mode like Rainbow Six Vegas 2 did. In case you don't want to play online you can play through single player and earn achievements as well as new gear for your character. It was well thought out and should be considered in other future games.

This post focuses on the days of the SNES and Genisis with some popular NBA stars getting their own adventure game. Enjoy and reminisce.

Who could forget this instant hit? Michael Jordan rescues his fellow teammates in the "windy city" with fire and ice basketballs. Sadly, it was ranked one of the top ten worst games by Nintendo Power magazine. Sorry, guess it wasn't an instant hit.

Now Shaq needed his own game and apparently his own kung fu name. Shaq wanders inside a kung-fu dojo on his way to a basketball game and stumbles in an alternate dimension. From there he travels to rescue a boy named Nezu. Sadly this game was ranked one of the worst games because of the bad hit detection with your punches and kicks and how they would interact with the enemies; not registering a "hit" when clearly you were on screen.

Finally, a somewhat decent game because Charles Barkley actually made a basketball game, not a fighting game. It was similar to NBA Jam but this included Charles Barkley and other random players playing some bball on the back streets.

Sadly, we haven't seen any sequels to these games or remakes. Now it's all about making the cover on the box of the newest year of NBA game or Madden. I still have a place in my heart for throwing fire basketballs at enemies.

The other blog posts about the Ultimate Game have all been small details that enhance the game but the main idea that makes or breaks the game is the gameplay itself. You can have the coolest sounding game and the coolest sword peripheralbut if all you have to do is swing it back and forth to make it through the entire game, it's going to get bland fast. Many action games have fallen into the bland category with intricate combos you can pull on your enemies and flip around and look cool but in the end you can just click "A" three times for the basic punch-punch-kick combo and beat every opponent you come across. Other games become one sided because of a special move or powers your character can do like slowing down time, super powers or curving bullets. Ultimately ending in boring gameplay after the second level. If done right these player enhancements can be done right. Crysis gives the players enhanced abilities like super strength, cloak and speed. The game has set limits on each of these powers so the player can't exploit it and use them entirely through the game. I also have hopes for the upcoming Wanted game with curving bullets. It seems overpowered to do so but I have heard from developer diaries the player will only have a set amount of times they can curve bullets limiting it like Crysis did for it's enhanced powers. So here's to hoping after the 100th time curving a bullet it won't get boring.
Some games have been known to try and sell a game on licensing for a superhero and make it look totally awesome but if all you are really doing is flying through rings in the air as Superman no one is really going to feel as cool as him (Superman 64). In most Spiderman games, swinging around may be really fun but when it gets down and dirty fighting enemies it becomes very clunky almost as if the developers focused most of their attention on the freedom of swinging around. Gameplay brings everything together to hopefully make the best game you've ever played. It's important to keep the level of difficulty maintained, the player engrossed in the story and combat so it's new and exciting for the player each time.

Art direction is not only appealing to the player to see when they check out the game, it is also a nice change from the usual "realistic" graphics. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker shocked and awed players when they saw the game take a cel-shaded approach rather than a realistic approach that teased us all when the game was first rumored. Some fans were offended by the choice of cel-shading but once they experienced the game most were blown away because it seemed to fit so well in the game. You can see the wind wisp by as you sail the open sea watching the ocean waves curl around your boat, it was simply amazing, not to mention an amazing game.
Okami was another that had an excellent and new art direction. The game seemed like it was straight from an ancient water coloring book. Vibrant colors surround the wolf protagonist as he runs by lush green meadows, soft pink flowers and as you draw with your paintbrush colors burst out at you initiating attacks, create gusts of wind, draw bombs and other various tasks. It's truely a beautiful game and definitely brought something new to the gaming world.
Don't get me wrong, realistic games are also nice. How far the gaming world has come in graphics from the 8-bit Mario is astounding and should be displayed. In Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess the game went for the realistic approach but still had some effects from Wind Waker; how the smoke plumed and a hint of cel-shading shown when Link was in the dark world as a wolf.
Art direction is important in a game to keep things new just as innovation does. I'd like to see more games that switch different art directions during gameplay to keep new levels/worlds new and interesting.

If you've grown up playing video games for about 10 years at least you've probably played 50 WWII games, 30 Sim-type games, 25 Pokemon games, 23 Mega Man games and 34 Mario games. I enjoy storming the beaches of Normandy or playing every sport known to man with Mario and friends, as much as the next guy, but after awhile it gets bland and you need something new.
Innovations, keeping things fresh in the game is one of the most important factors in making a game. You can make the coolest WWII game ever with sweet graphics and explosion effects but it's been done before and chances are some people won't even check it out because the game brings nothing new. You can make Mario Badminton but if it's like Mario Tennis it's not going to attract many players.
Nintendo has tried to always be innovative in their games from the motion control Wii to the touch screen of the Nintendo DS and sure enough Nintendo dominates the sales charts by bringing something new to the table and not just extra buttons on a controller. Nintendo was the first to add the Rumble Pack and now rumble features are built into every controller because it adds that much more depth and innovation to the game.
Innovation is important to keep the interest of the players and isn't just another mindless shooter or adventure run-around game. Let's see something new in Barbie Horse Adventure 3, who knows, more than 1 person might play it.

There are many different factors that make a great game and in part 1 of my mini series "The Ultimate Game" I'm going to discuss a very important factor: sound.
A sound change from moving your character from grass to cement to distant artillery blasts can make all the difference in a video game and largely immerse the player into the digital world. It's important to include these small but effective details in creating a great game. Walking down a busy street in broad daylight is going to sound different than walking down the same street at night and should be well represented in a game. When you ride to the Black Gate of Mordor on your horse to take down the evil of Middle Earth you should be able to hear all those horses riding with you and not just the ones on your side. Playing basketball on the streets of LA should definitely sound different than playing on a court. These small details can make you think you're really there in Mordor or on the b-ball court of LA and make the video game world much more believable.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl is a great example of a game that really knew how to immerse it's players into believing they are there at the nuclear test facility in Chernobyl, Russia. The game had such detail that when it rained in game and you went under a tree the rain actually quieted down like it would in real life. It was quite impressive and I've never seen that much detail put into a game before. Just having good rain sound effects is great but adding in how it affected the with the environment was most excellent.
So the small details of sound are great but so are the more obvious sounds that should be put in a game. Sounds like laser blasts from your Xwing as you fly down the trench of the Death Star or a Bass flopping around your boat you just reeled in Bass Master '08. I always have respect for the sound guys that go out and record the sound from first hand experience, obviously they aren't going to find an Xwing to fly but if they get that exact laser sound used in the Star Wars movies I guarentee the player will feel much more like they are in the Star Wars universe than if they used a laser sound from Tron.
Good sound is essential and good sound should be authentic as it can be. Games are getting better adding more sound and depth, no longer are the days of the generic "dungeon theme" of 8-10 notes played on an endless loop until you get back outside for the "over world theme".
We need good sound! Sound for The Ultimate Game!

Every year there's a new Madden game that comes out that essentially just redoes the stats on each team, maybe add a new game mode and feature. The problem here is that a lot of games are making new changes and adding new features through DLC (Downloadable Content). If they just made one Madden game and each year just had DLC that made the necessary changes to the teams and maybe throw in some new modes to play this would be much easier to distribute to the masses and could probably be sold cheaper to encourage more sales.
Bethesda has always had new DLC for their games over the years such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Fallout 3; adding new levels, new equipment, more quests, minor bug fixes, etc. Valve is also known for releasing new DLC for their games and releasing them for free. They are planning on adding a new mode, more maps, and new versus maps to play on for their popular multiplayer game Left 4 Dead. All for free. Online sales and downloads have been rising especially with Valve's online store service, "Steam".
Other developers are doing more and more DLC for their games so there's no reason why EA can't do this so we don't have to have Madden 2000-2009 filling up our shelf space. It's not just Madden though, all the other yearly sport games do it too, so come on dev's! let the next generation of sport games be DLC available