SGD125-01 Essay Topic 3

What is your favorite game of all time? Why?

My favorite game of all time is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It is for the Super Nintendo system. It is a role playing game in which you are an adolescent boy who must rescue a princess (actually several princesses) from several different dungeons across the land of Hyrule and the Dark World, which is sort of the evil twin parallel universe of Hyrule.

The product description from Nintendo is as follows.

Category: AdventurePlayers: 1 playerRelease Date: Apr 01, 1992
Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo
Article source: Nintendo PowerReturn to an age of magic and heroes! The elegant Princess Zelda calls for Link's help to restore the Triforce and defeat Ganon. When Zelda learns that Ganon has acquired a piece of the Triforce, she hides the remaining pieces in an effort to save Hyrule. Thus, the adventure begins!Link's mission to restore the Triforce and search for Princess Zelda allows him to venture into twisting mazes, dungeons, palaces, and shadowy forests. Link precariously maneuvers his way through eight dark dungeons. During his search of Dark World labyrinths, Link gathers magical items and mighty weapons. He must also fight against evil enemies and big bosses. Special items like the power glove, hookshoot, and magic flippers allow Link to be clever and crafty in his quest. As Link, you must prevent Ganon's evil plot from shattering the peaceful Hyrule.The Legend of Zelda offers a rich adventure for all gamers. Whether you are a young knight, heroine-in-training, or a seasoned warrior, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past will delight!

There are a few screen shots at http://www.zelda.com/universe/game/past/.

There are several reasons that I found this to be such a great game. One reason is that you are part of a story with a definite purpose. You have something to achieve and are praised for accomplishing tasks. There are town’s people that you interact with throughout the game as well as the princesses that you rescue of course.
Another reason is that you attain better tools/weapons/power as you progress through the game. Enhancement of your abilities is rewarding and increases the factor of fun as well as giving you something to look forward to, as opposed to more of the same. This is one way that the flow of game play is controlled. Specific items or abilities are required to reach any given dungeon, flippers to swim through water for example. Somewhere in each dungeon is hidden a new tool or weapon that is needed to defeat the dungeon.
Another quality of the game that I find to be excellent is that much of the game involves problem solving skills. Many of the dungeons are various forms of puzzles and require you to find new ways to use a combination of your acquired tools and skills especially featuring the most recently acquired of those. Sometimes you have to change something in the room directly above or below you (lighting or move a statue) to proceed from that room.
There is plenty of physical action and fighting enemies with your sword and other tools. It does require a certain amount of timing, strategy, and skill; however I found the game to be a challenge without being impossible. Some other games, in contrast, are nearly unbeatable or require such a large amount of chance that they are very discouraging and frustrating. This was not the case for me.
I have some of the fondest memories of playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for hour upon hour. This game just sticks out in my mind as being the best.

What is your favorite current game? Why?

My current favorite game is Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. This game is made by UBISOFT and I have played it for the Xbox platform. The following link is for a trailer about the game.
http://media.ubi.com/emea/scpt/videos/SCPT_release_trailer.wmv
You are highly trained covert military agent sent in when there needs to be no trace that you were ever there.
The main aspect that impresses me about this game is the exceptional use of a couple of features of current technology that are usually completely irrelevant in most games I have played. This is light levels and noise levels. Your gear is equipped with a sensor that lets you know how much noise you are making when you walk and more importantly how visible you are based on how much light is hitting you. Most of the time you cannot let yourself be seen and are not allowed to actually kill anyone. You have to quietly and invisibly sneak up on people and knock them out. Then you must hide the body in a dark corner so that someone else won’t find it and get suspicious.
As with the game I listed as all time favorite, this game involves a decent amount of problem solving. You have to figure out how to overtake the enemies based on their position and the light levels. You can shoot out some lights with a silenced gun without drawing too much attention to yourself in order to increase the area that you can access without being seen. This game has a plot in which you are a main character as well. You have specific missions and tasks.
Another impressive feature of this game is the visual settings at your disposal. In addition to regular vision you can use night vision goggles or heat sensing lenses. Both can be used to cleverly overcome many obstacles throughout your missions, especially since the shadows are your friend.
This game does involve killing and violence but there is there is a lot of intelligence required to complete each task and not just a trigger happy finger. There are some screen shots of the game at http://www.gamershell.com/pc/splinter_cell_pandora_tomorrow/screenshots.html.

Resources Used:
http://www.zelda.com/universe/game/past/
http://www.nintendo.com/gamemini?gameid=m-Game-0000-572

http://www.splintercell.com/us/splintercellpandoratomorrow.php
http://media.ubi.com/emea/scpt/videos/SCPT_release_trailer.wmv
http://www.gamershell.com/pc/splinter_cell_pandora_tomorrow/screenshots.html