Sam mortimer game article

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Visual styles and gameplay mechanics in Games


Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 uses cel-shaded as its visual style. This makes the game look very carCOD Ghosts toony. This art style works with the gameThe Call of duty franchise uses a very play of borderlands as it is very jokey and photo realistic visual style, this allows the has an enjoyable feel to it, which is accomgame to look very realistic and means that panied by the cel-shaded art style. the player can relate to the scene a lot more and will feel more immersed. This works well with Call of duty as the game as it is a first person shooter in which you play as a soldier who is supposed to complete objectives depending on the game mode.

One good gameplay elements of borderlands 2 is the ability to get thousands of different guns. This allows for variety of gameplay between everyone who plays the game. Each weapon also offers a unique ability that may come with the class of weapon or just that weapon itself. E.g. Tediore weapons are thrown when they need reloading and then exploded on impact with enemies, once the weapon has exploded a fully reloaded gun will spawn in the players hand The game also has a skill tree, which can be progressed by gaining experience during the missions and killing enemies. This skill tree allows the player to upgrade certain skills such as their special attack, reload speed, fire rate and melee strength. This allows the player to build on there character and therefore make the quests and levels easier for them in the future. The enemies however will progress in levels as you progress through the story. So it won’t make it easier for long.

One gameplay feature of call of duty is the ability to call in kill streaks in the online gameplay. Kill streaks are earned by killing people in succession without dying. This can make the player feel awarded for doing well in the game. Another gameplay is the levelling system. This also rewards the player by giving them new and improved weapons when they progress through the levels. This allows for new gameplay as the player uses new weapons.


Gears of war 3

The gear of war series uses a very exaggerated visual style. This means that the characters are very overly muscular making them very large. There movements are also very exaggerated E.g. there attack styles. One gameplay feature of Gears of war 3 is the fact that the game is in a third person view, this emphasises the fact that the characters and the unit are very good and using cover and tactical manoeuvres.

The game also has a levelling feature like COD:Ghosts where you can gain experience from completing certain tasks and killing opponents. This levelling system allows the player to gain special characters and character skins and also gain new and more powerful weapons.

Geometry wars Geometry wars used a very abstract visual style many abstract games use a very bright colour pallet and geometric shapes. E.g. Squares, triangles etc. This is very much the same as geometry wars as it is a game where you have to survive large waves of brightly coloured enemies in a very angular space ship made of triangles. One gameplay feature of Geometry wars is whenever the player reaches the next increment of points (every 10,000 Points) the players primary weapons will change to a new weapon which will be an improvement of the weapon the player previously had. This allows the player to clear the every more difficult wave of enemies easier whilst still making it hard as there are more enemies and harder enemies each wave.


VIsual Styles Characters The charatcer in Borderlands, COD:Ghosts and gears of war are human character. But in Geometry wars you play a space ship. In borderlands they have there 4 characters that you can choose to play as. All of these characters have there own special abilities which add to there character and gameplay.

Where as COD:Ghosts is all about kill count. It is a typical first person shooter with no real goal other than to kill people and complete the objective in the gametype you are playing on E.g. Demolition. Gears of war however has a third person view to it but has roughly the same style of gameplay to COD:ghosts as it is about killing people and completing the objective of the gametype you are playing.

Geometry wars is very different to these game however as it is a 2d birds eye view game. which is about travesing the level by In both COD:Ghosts and gears of war there destroying asteroids and enemies to gain is only one character that you can play a score. the objective of the game is to get as. In Gears of war the Main characters the highest score you possible can without personality is expanded on more as in dying. COD:Ghosts you dont really learn about the main character as much. In geometry wars the character is not expanded on atall as there is not much to know as it is a spaceship that is just there to shoot comets and enemies ot progress in the levels.

Perspective Both borderlands 2 and COD:Ghosts use a first person view which is the best view for teh type of game. this is because they are both first person shooter. However they have very different stlyes of gameplay as borderlands is set in a ficticious world set far in teh future in which teh palyer has to complete quests to achieve a final goal.

Full motion video

Full motion video (Cutscences) is used in nearly all the games i have talked about except Geometry wars. These cutscenes add to the gameplay by expanding on the and gameplay by fleshing out ideas that are explaind briefly during the game. Cutscenes are used alot in the campaign of COD:Ghosts and Borderlands as they also add to the imersion of the game allowing the player to be more connected with the characters in the game.


Feedback INterface

Depending on the platform that these games are being played on allows the game to have a diffent level of feedback interface. All these games give a visual feedback interface E.g. Screens bluring or turning red when being hit or when you are low on life. They also offere a physical feedback interface E.g. Shaking controllers. This is only really on console platforms or if you connect a controller to a pc to play.

Gameplay Interactive Model The interactive model of Bordelands, COD:ghosts and Gears of war human character. This characters can be related to heros as they are there to save the day or stop a situation. In Geometry wars though you play a space ship which you used to clear waves of enemies and comets which if not destroyed will destroy you.

Player actions The plays actions in Borderland, COD and gears of war is to shoot and kill enemies to complete pbjectives or just gain the highest scores. this is much the same in Geom-

etry wars but the enemies that you are shooting at are not controlled by other players they are just objects that are controlled by game code. The main objective of this game is to achieve the highest score possible.


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