week 5 homework

HURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Vintage Gameplay Activity

Go to http://www.atari.com/play

Play one of the classic vintage arcade games online via a browser - e.g. asteroids, battlezone,

And answer the following questions:

Student Name

Julio Villanueva

Today’s Date:

03/03/2011

Game Title Examined:

CENTIPEDE

Year of Publication:

1980

Game Publisher:

Atari Inc

Game Developer :

Atari

1 - What is the game genre (e.g. shoot-em-up, racing, sports, puzzle, MMORPG, ‘sandbox’, music sequence following game

(e.g. DDR, guitar hero)

A:

Shoot 'em up

2 -What is the type of game ‘world’ or environment (e.g. flat environment, puzzle/maze space, 3D world?)

A:

flat environment, puzzle/maze space

3 - What is the perspective taken by player (e.g first person, third person perspective, top down, isometric)

in relation to main player controlled character.

A:

Top-down

4 - What is the actual gameplay – what does the player have to do?

A:

The player controlls some kind of shooting device and is in charge of destroying the centipede as it is coming down the screen while

dodging spiders that are trying to destroy you. the more levels you pass the hardest it gets to survive

5 - Is the gameplay intuitive? (i.e. is it easy to understand what to do without instructions?) describe.

A:

it is pretty self-explanatory. at the beggining of the game you press a bottong and you shoot and you see the centepede coming down

and you know you have to kill it before it reaches you.

6 - Is the gameplay patterned (game does the same thing over & over) or is it random (happens differently every time?)

A:

the game itself is very boring and repeatitive since your only goal is to kill the centipede while dodging the spider.

it getrs harder as you go further in levels, but is all the same all the time.

7 - What does the type of graphic approach used as well as the audio tell you about the limits of the technology at

the time the game was published?

A:

the audio sounds very electronicky, as though it was creatred with one of those keyboards with different musical instruments emulation.

very fake. as for the graphics, there is no sense of depth, everything is flat and very simple design. it was the begging of the video game industry

and the games were simple but inovating for the time.

8 - Describe your views about the game from the point of view of

1. ease of play

A:

the game's goal was easy to understand.

2. enjoyability

A:

i did not enjoy this game at all. I was born the year this game was published, so by the time I started playing video games I was

about eight years old. I was playing super mario. that being said, my stardars for video games are high and I thought that making me play

this all and boring game was a mistake.

c) level of engagement/immersion

A:

None whatsoever. I started playing the game and I could hardly wait for it to be over.

9 - Had you played this game prior to this time? If so, when?

A:

no. I would never do that to myself.

10 - what does playing the game remind you of in terms of other games/media?

A: