Retro Game Review - Attempt 1

Here is my work in progress Game Review

Enjoy!






Retro Game Review

I am going to be doing a retro game review on Zaxxon, this was originally released as an Arcade game in 1982 by Sega. It was hugely popular on release as it was one of the first games to try and create a 3d look rather than a top down 2d approach.

The purpose of reviewing a retro game is they are fairly basic which will allow me to examine the core mechanics of the game without getting carried away with the complex Aesthetics’ which are more predominant in current games.

To start with I think it will be a good idea to explain the basic concept of the game, The player controls a spaceship and must navigate their way through an isometric castle world, whilst doing this the player must defeat numerous enemies, dodge attacks from turrets and shoot fuel canisters to replenish their fuel level, on top of all this the player must adjust their height so they don’t fly into any obstacles, there are small breaks in between different sections where the player would be put into a space shoot out and must struggle to stay alive against hordes of enemy ships. The game is over when a player has lost all their lives (by dying, for example being shot, running out of fuel, crashing into a wall)

Intention

“Making an implementable plan of one's own creation in response to the current situation in the game world and one's understanding of the game play options.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

My understanding of what Doug Church has written is that a player must have everything presented to them, so they know what they are and aren’t capable of within the game world, Zaxxon does this fairly well, upon first playing it is obvious that you continually move forward on your own and that you must control your height and your movement left to right. The player will either realise this when they see the height level metre on the left hand side of the screen, or when they crash into the first wall and die. I believe the first part of the game was created like this so that the player learns quickly what options they have open to them and so they can therefore advance through the game.

Perceivable Consequence

“A clear reaction from the game world to the action of the player.” (Doug Church, 1999, Page 4)

I like what Doug Church has written and I think it is one of the most interesting points in his article, a player must understand when they do something correctly that it was correct, also they must understand that when they do something wrong that it was wrong and it has a negative effect on their ability to play the game. Some things in Zaxxon are very clear on effects they have to the game play, a player will quickly find out that when they get hit by an enemy that they will die and lose a life, this is obviously a negative effect that the game is presenting to the player as if to say “don’t let that happen”

Story

"The narrative thread, whether design-driven or player-driven, that binds events together and drives the player forward towards completion of the game"(Doug Church, 1999, Page 5)

Placing Story into something like Zaxxon is slightly difficult however thanks to Doug Church’s description of Story I believe I can explain it, there isn’t a Story in the sense that character’s say dialogue and the game plays out because of this, that would be Design-driven story, it would be built into the game, however Zaxxon has a more player-driven story, the decisions the player makes alter how the rest of the game will play out, so the story in Zaxxon is the enemy that are killed, the path that the player takes and the way the game unfolds because of the actions of the player.



Challenge

“challenge is created by things like time pressure and opponent play” (Robin Hunicke, 2004, Page 3)

My understanding of what Hunicke has written is that a game doesn’t have challenge, it has elements and mechanics which add challenge to a game, for example in Zaxxon challenge arises from controlling your fuel level, killing your enemies and getting the maximum amount of points that you can. To remove something such as the mechanic of fuel level would remove a lot of the challenge of the game, the player wouldn’t have to decide whether they should go for this fuel canister and miss out on killing the enemy or they could opt for skipping the next fuel canister in order to kill X amount of enemies and get more points.

Bibliography

Author: Robin Hunicke

Article Name: MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research
Year of Publication:  2004

Author: Doug Church

Article Name: Formal Abstract Design Tools
Year of Publication:  1999