P2 - G - Platforms

New Super Mario Bros 2

New Super Mario Bros 2 was sold for Nintendo 3D’s devices, both on disc and on the the Nintendo online e-store. The game has sold over 30 million copies worldwide and is the fifth best-selling games for the 3DS.

Official Nintendo Magazine gave the game 90% out of 100, however, heavily criticized the game for its 3D effects and lack of progression in the Mario Bros series, summarizing that "New Super Mario Bros. 2 is the very definition of bitter-sweet, giving with one hand and then taking away with the other. By default it's the best side-scrolling platformer on the 3DS and yes, it's even better than the original New Super Mario Bros. But that came out six years ago now, and in that time we'd really expected the series to have progressed a little further than just a 3D effect and Coin Rush mode."



That Dragon Cancer

That Dragon, Cancer is available to play on PC, Mac and iOS platforms, which includes iPad and iPhone. It can be purchased on the app store to download onto iOS platforms, which costs £3.99. However, users are also able to purchase the game from the main website which is encouraged by the creators as they place certain donations onto the price to help raise money for cancer charities, from the main site the game costs £6.49. The game can be purchased on a site called ‘Steam’ also which allows the user to download the game to their PC, on ‘Steam’ the game costs around £5.49, however the site will take a portion of the profit before the game creators/developers get their share.


Gone Home 

Fullbright that was founded by Steve Gaynor, Karla Zimonja, and Johnnemann Nordhagen as "The Fullbright Company” develped and produced the game Gone Home. The three had previously worked together at 2K Games like BioShock 2: Minerva's Den.

A developer commentary mode was added to the game in October 2013. On 4 March 2015, it was announced that the console version of the game had been canceled in the midst of its publisher's financial troubles. Despite all the troubles, nine months later on the 7th of December 2015 it was announced that the console version of the game had finally been scheduled for a release in January 2016 nearly 3 years late for the consoles PlayStation 4 and Xbox.

Gone Home console edition, had been said to include features like enhanced graphics and audio, and was ported from Unity 4 to Unity 5 for maximum performance and look. Additionally, the Console Edition has been given enhanced controls especially for controller use, as the original PC version was created for keyboard, and not as well playable with a gamepad.

The game was made one of the selected PlayStation Plus games for the month of June in 2016. The game was made free from June 7 until July 5 for all subscribers to the service, available to keep as long as the subscriber has an active subscription.

Grand Theft Auto 

Grand Theft Auto V was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the 17th September 2013, this was the first copy of the game that was available to the puyblic. Just over a year later it was released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2014. The Microsoft Windows version was further released on the 14th of April 2015

The game went on to become the highest grossing day one and week one release on Xbox Live. As of May 2014, the game had generated over $1.98 billion in revenue and as of August 2014, the game has sold in over 34 million units to retailers for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game had shipped 45 million copies to retailers, including 10 million copies of the re-released version for eighth-generation consoles in 31 December Finally in May 2016, the game had hit 65 million shipped copies across all platforms.

P3 - A - B - C - D - E - F - G

Red Dead Redemptions

A) Genre

IGN said that Read Dead Redemption was a “Western American” game. While the telegraph makes a bold statement in saying “Red Dead Redemption is the best Western ever made for a console and easily one of the best video games of this year.” This suggests they are in agreement with IGB over the fact that game is in fact part of the western genre. The telegraph also compares the game to Grand Theft Auto when it says “t's tempting to chalk Red Dead Redemption up as simply the Wild West entry in the Grand Theft Auto franchise.” This help to put the genre in place for users who know what GTA is like; an open world action adventure series created by the say company, Rockstar.


B) Target Audience

Gamesradar+ stated that in their own censor rating the game gained a “mature” rating. When explaining the storyline IGN tell us that if you “Walk through town and you might see a drunk assaulting a prostitute” This suggests that the target audience for the game is not children and more so adults. Further evidence to suggest this would be when the telegraph review states that “Red Dead Redemption contains several impressive action set pieces, involving cannons, Gatling guns and quick draw shoot-outs.” This further shows the game has a violent side to it which would be considered only appropriate viewing for adults.


C) Narrative/Storyline

IGN states that the storyline of Red Dead Redemption “will take you all over a vast swath of countryside that straddles the border between the U.S. and Mexico and along the way you'll meet, assist, and spill blood with a fantastic cast of supporting characters as Marston attempts to set things straight.” Along with comments made by the Telegraph “the player is dropped into its note-perfect Wild West environment.”


D) Characters

IGN states that “Red Dead Redemption puts you in the shoes of the relatively neutral John Marston.” This suggests the game is played form his point of view. Further more they go on to say how “the characters are wonderful with top notch dialogue and voice acting all good enough to make you feel a part of the world.” However, despite this they make a critique when the criticize the main character, “If there is any criticism I could level at the story, it's that Marston occasionally feels divorced from the action, his motivations muddled as he is all too willing to help anybody that asks for it despite his own pressing matters.”


E) Gameplay

The game play is described by IGN as captivating when they suggest “players keep coming back to the game for months and months due to something called Free Roam.” They later go on to explain this free form gameplay “This is the multiplayer lobby of sorts, but the concept has been cranked up a notch to be an entire game in itself. Free Roam lets up to 16 players join into one world and then explore the entirety of the single-player map. You can form posses and take part in little skirmishes, simply shoot each other in the face, assault bandit hideouts and forts as a team, or just ride across the countryside together while taking part in hunting and gathering challenges.”

Gamesradar+ makes the connection between previous titles made by the same company when it sates that the games gameplay “all plays out like GTA except in 1911.”


F) Platform

Red Dead Redemption is available on Xbox 360 and PS3, this is stated by The Telegraph. However, a comment made at the start of the IGN article “With Red Dead Redemption finally being added to the Xbox One backwards compatibility list today”

This suggests that the game was later added to Xbox One after its release.



G) Personal Recommendations
There are many reasons as to why Red Dead redemption is a successful game some include its connections to the very popular series GTA. This game series took off due to its open world gameplay something which Red Dead features and is one of the reasons it vows so well wit that side of the gaming world. Its uniqueness, is another reason why I think the game is successful this includes the environment and the story to which the game is played in. Not many games that are set in the wild west can be compared to and Top some of GTAs sales. I would recommend that the game is aimed towards an older audience just based off of the violence involved in parts of the storyline.

Article Source used;
 http://uk.ign.com/games/red-dead-redemption/xbox-360-14320288 

http://www.gamesradar.com/red-dead-redemption-review/           

P4 - A - B - C - D

Pokémon GO! Game Review

Graphics; 25%

The graphics are standard for a game of its type; mobile game. However, they are still of poor quality compared to most games in this generation, putting in to consideration we are in 2016 and there should now be a way to develop great graphics for a low cost.

Gameplay; 87%

The game play is basic but intriguing for the audience, they are able to play the game in real time as well as in real life i.e. walking around to find Pokémon. This is what makes the gameplay fun however it can quickly become tedious and boring.  

Accessibility; 93%

Pokémon GO is one of your pick up and play kind of games even if you don’t know much about gaming. This is due to the simplistic controls the game has, also prior knowledge into the Pokémon world is not necessarily needed and the game concept can be easily picked up.
 

Lifespan; 63%

Great for the first few weeks but it lacks change and new layers to intrigue an audience for a longer time. As for now, Pokémon GO is the top of its kind for now but the game doesn’t have nearly enough depth to support itself in the long term.

Innovation; 98%

The kind of technology used within the game AR is highly intuitive as it is newly developed technology and in my opinion why the game took off in the first place. There was simply nothing else like it on the market.

Main Review


B) Narrative/Storyline

Pokémon Go is the game that has brought back the 90’s craze of Pokémon, a franchise managed by The Pokémon Company in Japan. The general concept of Pokémon has always been to collect creatures and train them in the aim of fighting them against others. Pokémon GO is a modern version of games that are available to play Pokémon on form the 90’s, and its added to the long list that have aimed to bring this concept to life. However, what makes this game different is that it actually works. In conjunction with its ‘real-life’ concept Pokémon Go literally allows you to merge the real world with the Pokémon world as it takes you on hunts around your city to find and capture Pokémon.

A) Genre
Furthermore, Pokémon GO its self is considered to be under may genres like action adventure, puzzle and role-playing due to its new diverse out look on gaming life. Another bracket of genre that Pokémon GO fall under is Augmented reality, AR for short. This is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real world environment were elements are enhanced or improved by computer generated sensory inputs such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. This is newly developed technology and in my opinion why the game took off. There was simply nothing else like it on the market.

Firstly, before beginning to play the game you have to create an account, this means that the can can not just be downloaded and played straight away. However, the game is still considered to accommodate the pick up and go kind of casual gamers due to its simplicity to play. The account that has to be made is called a ‘Trainers account’ once this is set up you choose an avatar will be the character you operate under. You can choose clothing, hair colour and other adaptations for your character to personalise it.

Once this is complete you are ready to start collecting Pokémon, this is how the main storyline/narrative plays out throughout the game. The games aim is to collect the Pokémon and this can be done by either waiting for them to come to you or you can walk around the streets until you stumble upon one. Once you have found a Pokémon it will pop up on your screen and you have to do is click on it if you wish to capture it. Then the screen will switch to a first-person view with the Pokémon in front of you. From here the aim is to use your screen in a swiping motion to throw the Poké Balls to try to catch the Pokémon. There are no extensive controls like D pads, analog sticks and A, Y, X buttons to use, which means really why anyone can pick up the game and play it.

There are several factors that affect your chances of catching a Pokémon and this is what makes the game challenging. The Pokémon’s CP level; the higher this is the better the Pokémon and the harder it is to catch. The type of Poké Ball you used; in further levels there are options to use different Poké Balls which can help to increase you chances of catching one. Finally, your throwing technique if this is not accurate it could take you a while to capture on in which it may have run away.

If this wasn’t enough the game is made even more diver when players have to search for local PokéStops to collect Poké Balls as obviously you don’t get given everlasting amount. This is completed similar to collecting Pokémon were by you have to literally walk in search of your nearest PokéStop, another part of the games diverse gameplay.
C) Characters

Each Pokémon that is capture is different even if it has the same name it will mostly have a different CP; combat power. Some of the character/Pokémon that can be captured include, Magikarp; this is a water based, fish like Pokémon, Caterpie; this is a Pokémon that look like a caterpillar, Zubat; this character appears like a bat, Rattatat; this is a purple raccoon character. In total there are over 200 hundred different types to collect.

When it comes to fighting your Pokémon the use of gyms comes into place and players choose a team to be a part of, Yellow, Red or Blue. Majorly the game is a single player however when it comes to this section it can become a multiplayer as you have to have someone else’s Pokémon to fight which requires another gamer to play with you.

The graphics for the game are standard, not great but there is no real need for them to be top of the range. This is simply due to the game being a mobile game, if it were to somehow develop onto other platforms in the future I would expect the graphics to be significantly upgraded.

The target audience for the game was originally for 18-24-year-old as theses were the generation that grew up with the Pokémon world. On average most of the games players are around 25 based off of a survey completed by the magazine Heavy. One the game took off and had massive success which has led to people worldwide playing and enjoying the game.
D) Platforms

The main formats it can be played on are IOS and Android as the devices need to be portable for the real life role playing part of the game to work. The app is free to download and therefore the app itself can be very stuttery, crashy, and performs inconsistently. There are updates that are aimed to help with this, but it’s often frustrating when it keeps happening. Personally I have lost the chance to catch Pokémon to theses random, annoying crashes that struck during crucial moments in the gameplay, though sometimes those seemingly escaped Pokémon show up as caught once I reload after the crash.

In conclusion Pokémon GO is a can’t-miss social experience currently and due to the gameplay being very innovative, the games quality is mediocre however as this new technology increasingly seeps into the main stream of the gaming world we will see its flaws, like with any game. However, for now Pokémon GO is the top of its kind for now but the game doesn’t have nearly enough depth to support itself in the long term.

Click below to see my review in magazine form!