Critical Analysis – WoW: Legion

April 9, 2017 by Casey Bampton Leave a Comment

Total Time Played: Approx 38.8 days (37 days 18 hours at max level + approx 24hrs to level from 100-110)

Completed all Current Content: Yes; Current endgame raid completed at Heroic difficulty

These days it’s hard to talk about the MMORPG genre without mentioning World of Warcraft (WoW). The MMO monster has been at the top of the food chain for nearly 13 years and with the release of its current expansion, there are no signs of that changing anytime soon. Legion has brought with it a large complement of significant changes to the game’s that have breathed new life into what was quickly becoming a stale, been-there-done-that experience.

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Zombie Defense Midterm Update

April 3, 2017 by Casey Bampton Leave a Comment

As predicted by many after our Initial Pitch presentation, the implementation of a quality Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Zombies mod is proving to be a more difficult endeavor than our group originally expected. Our biggest challenge thus far has been acclimating ourselves to the development environment of Radiant Black. Through the use of Youtube tutorial videos, I (Casey) have gained significant knowledge of the environment and the essential objects and containers needed for the game to run properly, the road to which resulted in multiple new maps after making catastrophic mistakes during design.

Another major hurdle in our quest to make a new style of Zombies map is the considerable time constraint. Our plan to create new game rules such as a winnable ending and creation of unique buildables is still in effect, as well as other features such as Air-drops and bosses are also still planned to be implemented at the time of the alpha demo. One sort of “mini project” as we referred to it that will likely be out of scope due to time constraints is the inclusion of an RPG style class system, which would allow the user the ability to use different items, weapons, and abilities to escape the zombie horde. [Read more…]

Compare and Contrast: Mischief Makers(1997) Vs. Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition(2015)

March 3, 2017 by Casey Bampton Leave a Comment

Mischief Makers

Time spent playing: 4:41:56

Campaign Completed: Yes

All Gold Gems: No

All S rank: No

Platforms: N64

Released in: 1997

Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition

Time spent playing: 3:54:42

Campaign Completed: No

Completion Status: 33%

Difficulty: Normal

Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox360 (playtest completed using PC version with Xbox360 controller)

Released in: 2015

Mechanics and Gameplay

Mischief Makers

Mischief Makers is a side-scrolling platformer whose core gameplay mechanics are centered around four main abilities. The first is the ability to grab objects. The player can walk up to most objects in the game, be it statues, floating balls (known as clanballs), NPCs, bombs, flowers, and weapons.

Once the player grabs an object, they have the choice to either shake the object or throw it. Shaking different objects can reap different outcomes. The object can drop gems used to restore health, pay for hints, or pay for continues. It can also drop items like weapons, or unlock hidden clanballs or warp gates which take the player to new areas. Alternatively, the player can choose to throw the object. Just like with shaking, throwing different objects reaps different outcomes. Clanbombs can be thrown into glowing red block walls to destroy them. Grabbing and throwing NPCs will kill the NPC. Grabbing onto a clanball and using the throw command while pressing directional buttons will make the player jump from that clanball in the desired direction. This is used in many of the game’s zones where the player will need to chain jump from clanball to clanball in order to climb upwards on the map. [Read more…]

Initial Pitch – Zombie Defense

February 27, 2017 by Alexander T Mulvey, bll5239, Casey Bampton and Nathan Smith 1 Comment

Zombie Defense (CoD: Black Ops 3 Zombies Custom Level)

Our group will be using the Call of Duty: Black Ops III Mod Tools to create a new multiplayer map for the Zombies game mode, however unlike current zombies maps we will be implementing some new features and elements. First, the level will follow a linear story for to which the main objective will be collect helicopter parts in order build the helicopter and escape the level. This differs from the standard Zombies mode in that the main objective in the standard mode is to simply see how long/how many waves of zombies the player can defeat before being overrun and killed. This wave mechanic will still be in effect with the new mechanics being implemented alongside it. As a result, the senses of fear ,anxiety, urgency, and panic remain with the player while they continue moving through the story. We will also be including Boss encounters who upon being defeated will drop a key needed to unlock the next area of the map. Additionally, we plan to incorporate RPG elements in the form of weapon experience. This creates a more dynamics experience from player to player based on the type of weapon they have chosen. When the player kills an enemy, their weapon will gain experience and it’s power, accuracy, and magazine size can increase. Players will also have the ability to discover weapon mods throughout the map, which add things like laser sights and stocks to the weapon and grant a large amount of weapon XP. [Read more…]