After having written a lot of pieces about football, it is pertinent that after repeated delays, procrastinations, and other unnecessary hindrances, I should start to write a piece which is totally outside the scope of football. It has almost been a perennial struggle to get off football and write about something else, just once. With every scorn and demoralizing attempts by people, I think this is just the perfect time to do away with football just once and get myself out of the comfort zone that I have been occupying for far too long by now as a budding writer. Unfortunately, I have chosen a place to start which would still provoke the ire of people around me, mainly my parents as this next topic is simply my pastime in the past which I was not able to get myself off at all when I was a kid, and that is none other than video games. The chosen video game for now would be a review of a special game which I have just started to play recently and this game is so special in a way or another that it has somehow impacted my life as a whole. Simply amazing. Without further ado, the following will be the detailed review of the social game Ameba Pico, and hope people who care to read this piece would enjoy this.
The game, which we shall refer to as Pico from now onwards, is MMO game (Massive Multiplayer Online game) that consists of a virtual in-game world with the players occupying, interacting with fellow players, and basically go on with the game in it. The main aim of this game is simply the interaction and social elements in the game (which is utilized perfectly by the developers with the tie-in to the facebook social networking platform) and players are supposed – pretty much like in the real life- to collect money, in the form of “gummies”. However, unlike in real life, players are supposed to help one another to earn these gummies by a variety of ways including ringing one another's house, “prop”ping one another, and also giving and eating foodstuff from fellow players to obtain the maximum amount of gummies able to be earned by a player in one day. Players are also able to earn more gummies by playing the various mini games within the game itself. Another main aim in this game is of course to use the aforementioned gummies to purchase stuff within the game such as furniture for the players' homes, foodstuff, clothing, and a plethora of other items and actions to be shown off to one another and/or captured by the game's photo taking feature. Better items are priced with either Ameba Gold (converted from real life's money unfortunately) or a token (either purchased in real life or players could get one for logging on once a day for 15 days). That is the basics of the game and the actual review will consist of the story of the game, the gameplay, graphics, sound, replay value, sociability, and difficulty of this game.
First up, the story of the game. (Rating: nil). Besides chronicling the life of a player's avatar (character) within the game, especially with the quest to fill up the “Star Book” containing the missions that the players are able to take up in which the fulfillment of each mission would grant the players a special star (as well as a healthy amount of gummies) to be “pasted” in the aforementioned Star Book, there is not much story to look at in this game. Unlike other MMO games, this game seems to be specially designed to create a low pressure and relaxing atmosphere for the players, and thus there is no complicated plot for the players to digest.
Secondly, the gameplay. (Rating: 6/10). The gameplay is not really spectacular here, with the players' movement governed by the mouseclicks on the place which the players wish the avatar goes to. However, the general movements within the game is painfully slow and rough, especially so for players who do not ave the fastest internet connection around. The game lags considerably especially if the player decides to venture in crowded places in the game. Another setback caused by a crowded place would be the fact that the place might be so crowded such that the player is simply concealed within so many other players that it totally defeats the purpose of gathering in those crowded and happening places in the first place. First, giving a Prop to a particular player is really tough, let alone having a likely chance of receiving a prop from a fellow player. Another problem is of course the chat feature. When a player says something, there will be a chat bubble showing the words that a player is saying. It is quite difficult to catch what a player is saying, especially in the aforementioned crowded situations. Even if the player opens the chat window available, it is still too difficult as what the player is saying is quickly buried by the plethora of other players' chats, leaving whispering a fellow player he only viable alternative. However, whispering can only be done between two players, and not among a group of people.
Thirdly, the graphics. (Rating: 6.5/10). For the graphics, again, not much to shout about here. The graphic is in a “cartoony” format, and what the older players would term as “kiddy”. The graphic is simply 2D graphic which is rendered such that it shows a 3D universe. Pretty much just like how Xenogears is, minus the 360 degre camera rotation feature of course. Overall, quite satisfactory especially for someone not fortunate enough to be in possession of a spectacular internet connection like yours truly. The setting that enables player to adjust the desired graphical resolution helps a lot.
Fourthly, the sounds (Rating: 2/10). Almost non-existent, and sound is never the main attraction of this game, and thus again there is not much here, only the clicking sounds made when one clicks stuff in this game.
Fifthly, the Replay Value (8/10). It can be monotonous to play this game for a prolonged period of time. But this game does have a huge replay value. Well, this is an online game after all, and a replay value or in other words, continuity factor is a must for an online game to exist. The developers are always working hard to make this game as continuously playable as possible by continuously adding new features as well as limited edition seasonal items such as the recently concluded Halloween festivities and the recently implemented winter themed items. Various places in the game will also be decorated according to the current theme. This makes the game somewhat having many things to look forward to as time passes as new things will arrive.
Sixth, Sociability (11/10). This is where this game excels, and believe it or not, this is enough to override whatever limitation this game might have and simply one sole reason to ply this game, at least at a personal level, yours truly is a firm believer in this. Like how I mentioned earlier, this game is made for the social factor, and it does. The developers of this game, the Japanese company Ameba surely clinched a masterstroke move by cooperating with Facebook to combine the game with the Facebook platform. Nowadays, Facebook is simply the sacred sanctuary for social networking related stuff, and this has increasingly blurred the great divide between the cyber world and the real world.
To be frank, it is very unlikely and it is also not recommended to seek totally new friends out of the fellow players playing this game, but one thing which struck me personally is how this game could make connecting people that much easier. This is especially true if two friends are playing this game, and then these two people surely have their respective set of friends. Through this game, they could introduce their respective friends to one another, and then enabling both of them to get to know new people out of second degree friends rather than complete strangers, and I think this is where the game, whether intentional or not, excels. Again, with the facebook, tie-in, the aforementioned newly forged friendships could be further engaged as those people are able to add one another's facebook accounts.
Yours truly really marveled at the wonderful recipe of greatness consisting of Pico+Facebook as I have been out of my hometown for far too long, resulting in a situation whereby I no longer have that many friends in that place. However, I managed to contact a friend whom I have not met for a solid 8 years at least! This guy introduced me to his friend, who plays Pico. I played pico as well, met her in the game, and then inadvertently and inevitably, I met with her friends as well at Pico. Thankfully, she duly introduced me to her amazing friends and then I was able to forge a friendship with each of them, and was on the verge of meeting them in real life in an exhibition. Barring a problem I experienced that day which prevented me to actually attend that exhibition and get to know these new friends even better, I would have done so that day, but fortunately, we are all still meeting at Pico regularly, and I am enjoying every second of it.
Another way of looking at it would be a way for people who are far apart across the world to be able to meet each other in the virtual world, and Pico is a perfect platform to do so. Somehow, Pico accommodates artificial meetings through the players' avatars in the game, and even if the group of people are far apart and thus unable to meet each other in real life, it is a perfectly great substitute to just gather in one of the player's house for instance, and have a conversation. They can even play mini-games together such as Reversi, Casino games (Roulette, Blackjack, etc) if they like. This is where Pico, despite its humbleness and simplicity, beats other games, by far...
Even if we are to meet strangers, it is not always that bad as sometimes, through the “create event” feature in the game, we are able to interact well with the new people through parties in the game as well as the unique “Fashion Shows” created by the players. As far as I know, this is usually organized on the players' own initiative, and it is really meaningful to participate in the fashion shows (I usually participate as a judge, in case anyone is asking)
Yet another interesting feature, which I have mentioned a glimpse of it would be the Camera feature in which players are able to take snapshots of the game and simply store it in a special photo album created by the game exclusively and nicely for the users. It is so much fun to look at the photo album and relive the fun moments that one has in the game, and see how the players' avatars have developed from when they started playing until now. Very interesting.
Lastly, the difficulty (9/10 HARD). Despite what I have been blabbering about regarding Pico is a very social game and that it is free of the dreaded pressure cooker atmosphere found in other online games in general, I would still say that this game is hard for the very reason that more often than not it requires cooperation even among strangers to get a STAR in the game. For example, one of the STARs in which the players are required to take a seat within the chamber for the mission objective to be triggered. It is really hard to get everyone to cooperate and simply sit down to get it done and over with and help each other. But sometimes there might be people who simply want to spoil the party by not complying and just standing there, preventing the objective to be triggered, and it takes a lot of effort to persuade them to cooperate. Also there are sometimes glitches (I would love to think that it is, rather than players using cheating softwares) in the mini games, for example, one defeat is logged as 8, to just name one, which yours truly has unfortunately experienced...
Overall, this game is a marvelous and enjoyable game in which the more friends one has in the game (newly made or simply real life friends playing this game), the more fun one will certainly get in this game. I could not emphasize enough on how the social element in this game simply overrides any limitations that this game might has, and the only proof required would be the fact that no matter how limited and monotonous the game might seem like at a glance, there are so many players who are constantly playing this game, and even players who are initially disinterested eventually come back for more. The key for this game is the interaction factor with fellow players. I would consider Pico as a heavily enhanced instant messaging service. Or since this game comes with Facebook, I would say that this is the expansion pack of the Facebook Chat feature. Marvelous game.
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