Facebook game - Candy crush

Candy crush was extremely popular a year or two ago. Everyone who had Facebook account was crazy about it. People around me played the game, even strangers in public transport played the game too. After receiving game notifications on Facebook, I was tempted to play it too.

Candy crush game basic rule is to clear the candies in the level by matching the 3 same coloured and shape candies. This is how the basic level begins. As level progresses, challenges are started to be added on to it. Different levels have different goals.

Most of the objectives and goals in the game is to complete the level in specific number of move. Initially, the number of moves seems generous till the player hits the more challenging level. From then on, the amount of moves provided would seem equivalent to the number of moves it requires to complete the game. If you make few wrong moves because you thought that would help, you end up losing the game.

“Wait player could restart the game and be careful next time?” Sure. It’s called live in candy crush. Once you run out of it, you can either wait till your lives fills up (there is a timer that last more than 30 minutes) or you could simply whip out your card and purchase a live so you could play the game.  Another way to get live is to send notifications to your friends on Facebook to get help.

Is Candy Crush is a good game? Well, in my point of view, I feel Candy crush is not a good game. Yes, it is addictive. Players are guided slowly throughout the first few levels. It makes the game seem easy, it gives a sense of achievement to a player.  Players feel confident about the game, the fact that they could go pass the levels with ease and it is highly addictive. The challenges are progressive too. When a new element is added in to the level, the players are guided through on how to get pass the level.

After that, players learn how to play it. So, here is the problem. Learning how to play a new element, versus unable to complete the new element due to the game is a different sector. Basically, candy crush has the ability to put you in a situation, where you are expected to spend some money. If you don’t want to spend, you have to go through the hard way. If you want to spend, there will be boosters and other useful “cheats” that helps you get pass the level.

I always believe that a player should only fail a level due to their own abilities and not because of a game.  To put it in a clearer term, a player should only lose because they are unable to compete with the challenge, and not because they need to pay in order to go pass next level.

It’s a good game because of how it guides the player that allows the game to be easy and encourages the players. However, this whole pay to go on with the game concept just makes me feel negative towards the game.

The graphics, the colours, the animation, the sound effects are fantastic. Even the amount of levels available can be shocking, but all that does not exactly makes it up to a good game.  Once the players are “cornered” to buy power ups or boosts due to the increased level of difficulties, it just makes it a bad game.

Overall,  I can conclude that candy crush is a fantastic game adaptation (which is extremely similar to bejeweled), with a huge flaw. 

Serious Sam HD

I have to talk about this game called Serious Sam. Before, I rant on about this game, I just want to clearly state that my gaming background isn’t very great. It started off with board games, followed by free online games. All these type gaming only started just when I enrolled myself in polytechnic.

I remember cringing when one of my course mate asked out loud. “You mean you never played Super Mario before?” Yes. Sadly, I am from the small pool of group that wasn’t allowed to play video games. So with that being said, we can now jump into serious sam.

I bought Serious Sam on impulse. Just like my other purchases. It was on sale, the game trailer was acceptable and I was like why not? So, I bought it and didn’t play for few weeks until one day I decided to just give it a try.

Initially, when I started the game, I didn’t really had much impression of it. My impression changed only after experiencing my first legit fight in the game. At that second, I knew this game isn’t so bad afterall.

If you play it in tourist or easy mode, your health bar constantly replenishes for every injury you receive. If you play it in normal or hard, your health bar deters in every attack you receive. Levels were getting progressive challenging. The amount of enemies, the types of enemies, the amount of ammos are given increases as level progress.

To me it was a game that made me panic everything I see ammos and health pack nearby. I am not much of a shooter gamer, but whenever I see plenty of resources, I know that I have to face another row of enemies that shows no mercy.

It may not be so magical or complex as the current demo version games before. Spec ops, Kayne & Lynch: Dog days, Call of Juraez  and even call of duty are games I had to strategically think on how to survive or to be move around smartly.

In this game, I just shoot at whatever I see. The enemy is too strong? Use the strongest weapon without hesitation. Are plenty of enemies chasing you on land and few giant airplanes shooting lasers at you? Run for your life. Shoot enemies and throw parrot designed bombs on airplanes.

To me, I felt as though it gave me the” living in the moment feeling.” I am given this set of weapons with certain level of ammos. Things are attacking me at the same timing. I just use whatever I have to kill them as much as possible. I didn’t feel the need to strategically think like maybe shoot the airplane so that it crashes on the enemies or set up traps.

I just do my best not to lose life and just attack whichever is closer to me. I am not sure the exact reason why I appreciate this game so much, but all I know is that games have changed so much. I am quite sure Serious Sam should have been quite a bad*ss game during that season.

I wouldn’t mind finishing the game if only my save files were not corrupted.  I have restarted from level 1 and who knows? It might be one of the few games that I will officially complete thanks to its simplicity of the game.

10/10 would recommend to those who are bored and wants to take a break from high quality graphical games hint hint *GTA*  hint hint *Skyrim* can actually give serious sam a go!

Screenshots of Serious Sam Game: