genre:
action/adventure
Elements:
Terrain
The terrain of Uncharted can be seen as the whole world since the game is set in multiple locations around the world. In this case I would class the areas visited by the player as sub-terrain to explain the games playable areas. There are multiple sub-terrains featured in the game ranging from Nepal, Borneo, Istanbul, Tibet and more each with their own unique environments and explorable locations.
Architecture
Depending on where the player is in the game will depend on the architecture they will see in game, if the player is exploring city streets then they will see architecture made of buildings, the architecture inside of buildings such as desks, the streets littered with architecture such as cars or telephone poles. However, if the player is exploring a temple they will see statues, boulders and more of a different architectual aesthetic to give off different atmospherical vibes.
Objects
The objects featured within Uncharted are the range of weapons and equipment that the player can pick up to fight off enemies. There are also collectibles such as treasures scattered throughout the levels that the player is able to find and pick up.
Characters
There are a range of characters involved in the uncharted story, firstly we have the main protagonist known as Nathan Drake, he is a adult male who is trying to discover different mythical treasures and cities to become rich. He isn't considered to be a good guy as such since he works outside of the law and is known as a thief, however, his charismatic personality and whitty jokes make him a down to earth and loveable character.
The second main character is known as Victor "sully" Sullivan who is Drake's best friend, mentor and father figure. He is also a treasure hunter like Drake and they usually accompanies Drake to help try and find a treasure of a lifetime so he can become rich. Sully is an unplayable character of the main story of Uncharted (although he is playable in the multiplayer mode.) But he offers a huge amount of time to the story making him more than just an NPC.
The third main character is Elena Fisher, she is a character who accompanied Nathan in the first Uncharted tale and at the end of their adventure fell in love with him. Due to unknown reasons they are not together from the beginning of the events of the second game but after running into each other a relationship begins to blossom again and they are back together by the end of the game. In future instalments they are both married to each other.
The final main character is Zoran Lazarevic who is the antagonist of the game, he is a Russian adult male who has been involved in several wars and assassination attempts leaving his face to be scarred with burn and scratch marks. His mission is to discover the mythical city of Shambala to become one of the most powerful humans to ever exist along with creating a superhuman army.
NPC
There are two kinds of NPC in Uncharted, the first kind are the enemies that Drake encounters throughout the entirety of the game. These enemies are part of Lazarevic's army and are there to try and stop Drake from foiling Lazarevic's plans and also the guardians of Shambala who try to stop anyone from entering and gaining the superhuman powers it holds.
The second kind of NPC are civilians, ranging from the Tibetan villagers who live in the snowy mountains of Tibet and helped save Drake, all the way to the policemen of Turkey who arrest Drake for breaking into a museum at night. These policeman could also be seen as enemy NPC though since they to try and neutralise the player for breaking into the museum.
Feedback
The only feedback to be featured with the Uncharted game is the leaderboard that is a part of the multiplayer mode. This multiplayer has various game modes available to play such as Deathmatch, Plunder, elimination and more. Each with their own style of information to feedback to the player.
Interface
The interface for the game is a standard interface for a shooter game, it includes a crosshair within the middle of the screen and has a location within which it shows the player what gun they have equipped, the amount of ammo in total, the amount of ammo in the current magazine and how many grenades they have. When weapons are not equipped however, the game displays no form of interface and merely allows the player to experiecne the art style and environments on its own.
Perspective
The game is played from a third person perspective, there is no way to change the perspective of the camera or the angle. The camera is positioned to follow Drake from behind the shoulder, depending on which way the player is facing while aiming a weapon will depend on the position of the camera to a certain shoulder.
FMV
Uncharted has various cutscenes littered throughout the game that help to explain the story inbetween gameplay, to create these cutscenes the development team got the the voice actors and stunt doubles to wear motion capturing suits and used motion capturing technology to record the movements so they could create a more realistic game with the cutscenes looking as though the characters were from real life.
Rayman Origins
genre:
platformer
Elements:
Terrain
The terrain of Rayman Origins is the glade of dreams, it is the world that Rayman lives in and has six major islands that make up the world, the first is has a jungle environment and is known as the Jibberish jungle, the second is a musical desert island known as the Desert of Dijiridoos, the third is a mix of Ice and fire with the theme being food and is known as Gourmand land, the fourth is an area that has been built over the ocean and is known as the sea of serendipity, the fifth being a snowy mountain area known as Mystical Pique and the final location is an area that takes place in the sky known as Moody Clouds.
Architecture
Depending on which area the player will visit will depend on the type of architecture they will see, the areas also speak for themselves with the jungle featuring tree and plant like architecture whilst the desert features architecture made out of instruments such as drums and pianos. Each area will be customised to maintain the architecture that best suits them and makes the environment look more atmospherical and not out of place.
Objects
All objects in the game are collectibles for the player, these collectibles consist of lums, hearts and Electoons. The lums are the main collectibles of the game and act as the normal currency type object for the player, these can be collected from either killing an enemy, running over the lums or hitting them out of bulb-o-lums (which is another interactable object the player can destroy.) The aesthetics of the bulb-o-lum will change depending on which area/environment the player is in.
The hearts allow the player to gain an extra life and will be found either inside of destroyable turnips which need to be punched out of the ground and kicked in the air or within glass jars that need to be hit to open and collect the heart.
The final object is the cage that the Electoons are imprisoned in, Electoons are the important collectible of the game and without collecting them will cause the player to experience hindrances with progression from one island to the next. They are the main purpose of the game and there are a certain amount to collect to get the glade of dreams back to being normal. To free some Electoons it will involve smashing open a cage that they are kept in, one can be found at the end of most stages.
Characters
There are a mass amount of characters featured within Rayman Origins, the first character and main hero of the game and series is Rayman. He is a limbless humanoid with floating appendages that allow him to throw his hands and feet towards enemies without stretching out any arms. He is a hapless character and is hardly ever seen without a smile on his face within the Rayman Origins game. His adventures are usually accompanied by his friends and even if they are heavily outnumbered will make a good situation out of a bad one.
The second important character in Rayman is Globox, a frog like creature belonging to a species known as the 'Glutes.' He is Rayman's slap happy best friend and even though he isn't as smart he is just as loyal. He has a more crazy attitude and personality compared to Rayman which can be seen as very humorous. He is depicted to be blue blue was originally a red colour until an accident happened involving blueberries and mosquitos.
The third important characters are the teensies, these are a race of small, long nosed beings that try keep the balance of the world within the glade of dreams and help rayman out when there is trouble. They are more serious characters and have a various amount of versions ranging from kings, to kung fu masters to wizard teensies and more.
The final important character is the magician, he is the only non-playable characters on this list, as he is the antagonist of the game. He is a teensy that's turned evil and has gotten the nightmare creatures into a war with the heroes having them capture all Electoons and imprison them to bring imbalance to the world. The magician will pretend to be on the heroes side and give hints throughout the levels and be there at the end to harvest any lums you have collected throughout the level. However, the lums helped him to power the mechanical city in the sky which is where the last area of the game takes place.
NPC
The NPC's of Rayman origins are the enemies and nymphs of the world. The enemies of Rayman are known as the darktoons and are a creation of the bad dreams that Polokus has (the creator of the glade of dreams.) They are dark in colour and attempt to cause chaos and bring imbalance to the glade of dreams by imprisoning the heroes and capturing all Electoons. They are the main enemies the player will fight against as they go through each stage.
The nymphs are fairies who live within the glade of dreams, after the first darktoons were created one nymph known as Betilla went and gathered lums to create Rayman so he could fight against the nightmarish creatures, a few lums were stolen however, causing Rayman to be born limbless. In the game the player will save five nymphs which are set to one island each. Once a nymph is rescued they will give the character a power up, these power ups can go from flying, punching, swimming, wall running and turning small or big in size.
Interface
The only interface to be seen within Rayman Origins is the lum collector which is positioned within the top left part of the screen. It tells the player how many lums they have collected throughout the level, this is due to the game being concentrated on its art style and fast gameplay for the player to enjoy.
Perspective
The perspective of the game is like the average platformer, there is a 2D perspective from a sideways view so the player can control the characters either left or right. There are limited times when a 2.5D perspective will come into play and that is when the player will bounce from a front piece of land into the background art, however, that is not featured in the game very much.
FMV
There is very little FMV featured within the game, the only FMV is the intro cutscene and the cutscene at the end of the game. This is due to it concentrating more on gameplay than story telling, allowing for the story to be interpreted by the players in their own way.
Portal 2
genre:
Puzzle
Elements:
Terrain
The terrain of Portal 2 is the huge research company the known as aperture science, inside of aperture science are multiple areas, one area is a holding bay where all test subjects are kept, the present company which is where the main tests are done and finally there is the old research company which is buried deep beneath the new company and is outdated with its technology and tests.
Architecture
The main architecture to be seen within portal 2 will be a lot of science based architecture, this includes things such as tubes that transport items, elevators to transport people, bullet proof glass, light bridges and more. The architecture is more inside based and merely concentrates on more smaller scaled objects rather than the last two games which concentrate on huge architecture such as buildings or trees.
Objects
There are a numerous amount of objects featured within the game that the player can interact with, the main object is known as a test cube (although in some tests it can be replaced with a spherical object.) These objects are mainly used to help the player problem solve puzzles and progress through the tests. There are also other intractable items in the world as well such as radios, chairs, mugs and more but these are more decorative items for the game and hold no value to helping the player through levels. The other important object in the game is the portal gun the player has, it is the only weapon they have for use and is used as the primary tool for getting the player from location to location, it will shoot out two portals that will connect and allow the player to walk through and transport items through.
Characters
The main character of the game is a human known as Chell, she is a mute character and not much is known apart from theories about her past. The only things that are known about her are that she is a test subject for the aperture science company and has been the only person to survive against the antagonist of the first and partially of the second game.
The partial antagonist of the game is a robot known as GLaDOS, she was originally a human known as Caroline. After her husband Cave Johnson wanted to find a way to cheat death and live forever he attempted to make it possible for a human to live on as a robot, however, he was gravely ill and knew he was going to die soon making the company base the robot around his wife instead. After she was brought alive for the first time she killed everyone in the company except for a few characters, one of which being Chell who she performed tests on trying to get Chell killed within each test. She is a partial antagonist because at one point of the game she is rejected from being the main robot of the facility and is transferred into a potato, after Chell being betrayed and GLaDOS being turned into a potato they decide to work together so that Chell can put GLaDOS back in her body and in return escape from the facility.
The final character is Wheatley, he is an artificial intelligence in Portal and is the only friend to Chell, after waking her up he tries to help her escape the facility as he wishes to get out as well. After help from Chell and being put into the body of GLaDOS he promises to get Chell out but is turned evil due to the bug in the robots programming making him become the antagonist of the second half of the game. From there he tries to murder Chell but fails and is sent into outer space for the remainder of his days.
NPC
The only NPC's of this game are the turrets that try to kill Chell throughout the game, these are trap based AI's that shoot at Chell whenever she is in their sight. To deactivate the robots Chell must knock them onto their sides either using objects or by picking them up herself.
Interface
The only interface for the game is a cross hair with two colour indicators on the left and right side, these colour indicators tell the player if a portal is placed and if so which colour portal has been placed. If a blue portal has been placed then the right side will be lit up blue, if the orange portal has been placed then the left side will light up orange, if both have been placed then they will both be lit up and if non have been placed then no colour will be luminous.
Perspective
The game is played from a first person perspective, it has the player controlling Chell from her eyes and cannot be changed into a different camera perspective. This is to allow for a more concentrated value on the puzzle solving as a third person camera view with the portal gun might be clunkier or harder to control.
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