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Comparison of Handheld Games:
Tekken Advance and Obscure: The Aftermath
Tekken (Gameboy)
Genre –
Tekken is a fighting game; there is many series of Tekken. A fighting
game is when two or more people fight each other and see who wins. It
depends how many rounds it has on the level, for example in Tekken
(Gameboy) if you played survival, you would fight all of the characters
but for 1 round only and see how many times you can win. Tekken is a
very popular game, which has come out on many console generations;
the company that created ‘Tekken’ is called ‘Namco’.
Storyline/narrative–
The game ‘Tekken’ on the Gameboy is a non-canonicalto the Tekken
storyline, but it follows the Tekken 3 events. The storyline of the game is
to make surethat you have defeated your opponent. Its mainly justa
one verseone fighting game, the game doesn’treally have a storyline
due to the fact that it’s a one verses onefighting game.
Production Process –
Loads of people didn’t work on ‘Tekken Advance’ the main designer of
the game was called ‘Yashuhiro Noguchi” he worked on designing the
game and to make surethat the graphics look the best they can. The
game was released at different times around the world; the companies
that published the game were‘Namco’ and ‘infogrames’. Itwouldn’tof
took them that much time to create the game due to the fact it was only
going to be on one console and the fact that it isn’ta big game. Without
having processing power the game couldn’t be made into a beautiful
looking 3D game so they had to scale down and go into a 2D version, but
it didn’t hurtthe overall design due to the fact that there was 3D
characters which made the game better. The characters would have
been rendered with hundreds of animation frames to give the
characters a fluid motion. ‘Tekken Advance’ is very similar to all of the
other Tekken’s, this is because its on the same portable machine and
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that the programmers havemade the inputs moresimplified to make
surethe players will easily understand on how to play the game.
Characters –
There are many characters within ‘Tekken Advance’. Within ‘Tekken
Advance’ there is 10 main characters, which are Ling Xiaoyu, Yoshimitsu,
Nina Williams, ForestLaw, Gun Jack, Hwoarang, HeihachiMishima
(which is unlockable), Paul Phoenix, King and Jin Kazama. There are only
10 characters within ‘Tekken Advance’ you can play all of them but 1
because you have to unlock it to play it. All of the characters have
something differentto do with them, someare fast, some are powerful
but slow etc.
Gameplay –
The gameplay of ‘Tekken Advance’ is very simply, when using the
Gameboy you haveto make surethat you know what all of the buttons
do. If you wantto be the best at the game, you need to make sureyou
know the character off by heart while making surethat you know all of
their combos to makesure you hit everything perfectly. The buttons that
the players need to know that the button ‘B’ is to kick, ‘A’ is to punch
your opponent, the arrow keys areto move your character around but if
you click the upper key will make the character jump. To proceed
through the game, you need to makesure you beat your opponent,
there is a couple of game types you can play, for example you can play a
tournament which will make you fight againstloads of different
characters while trying not to lose any health.
Target Audience –
The target audience for ‘Tekken Advance’ would be a young age due to
the fact that the game was released on Gameboy and that only young
people really play that device. ‘Tekken Advance’ would also attract the
younger audience because it’s a fighting game, which will make the
younger audiences adrenaline rush through their bodies. The socio-
economic grouping would be E becausethe audience would be a
younger audience who would be in school still. The age rangeof the
audience would 7 – 17 due to the fact that the Gameboy was made for
the young audience.
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Platforms –
‘Tekken Advance’ was exclusive to Gameboy; it was released in 2002 on
the Gameboy. The CPU was a Sharp LR35902 core@ 4.19 MHz. The
Gameboy was a very good platformthat loads of people used to play on,
loads of people actually enjoyed playing on the Gameboy due to the fact
that it broughta wide range of games which werevery addictive.
‘Tekken Advance’ wasn’treleased on any other platform due to the fact
that it was made to be on the Gameboy.
Obscure: The Aftermath
Genre –
The genre of Obscure: The Aftermath is a survivalhorror gamedue to
the fact that there are many horror features within the game. The game
also has introduced a wide rangeof horror aspects within a game. There
are some subgenres to this game adventure, action and puzzle, these
are the subgenres dueto the fact that you haveto usea gun and kill
monsters which makes it an action, then it’s a adventureas well because
there is loads going on while you are traveling through a maze which
includes the other subgenre‘puzzle’.
Storyline/Narrative–
The storyline of Obscure: The Aftermath takes place two years after the
firstobscure, Obscure: TheAftermath still carries the story on with the
same characters butthey are more adapted. As the story begins, there
was a new drug created froma very strangeflower, after this drug was
created a small group of students have to face a horde of mutants and
stop the spread before its too late. The storylinemainly follows two
characters that are called ‘Shannon’ and ‘Kenny’. Atthe end two
characters remain which means they have to take care of any of families
that are left. The end of the game is very good due to the fact it doesn’t
leave any cliff-hangers for the audience and the story makes surethat
everyoneunderstands whathappened to all of the characters.
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Production Process –
The game was developed by ‘Hydravision Entertainment’ and published
by ‘Ignition Entertainment’ and ‘Playlogic Entertainment’. The composer
of the game was ‘Olivier Deriviere’. The engine that the game was
selected to run on was called ‘RenderWare’. ‘RenderWare’ original
author was ‘Criterion Software’. Obscure: TheAftermath didn’t use any
motion capture due to the fact that it wasn’tdevelopment that much,
which made the game not be able to usemotion capture. The game was
released on many platforms such as MicrosoftWindows, PlayStation 2,
Wii, PSP Go and PSP; the game was released at different times for
different consoles. Later on in 2014, thegame was released onto
‘Steam’.
Characters –
Obscure: The Aftermath was a wide range of character, which you are
able to control.
- Shannon Matthews:
Born in Riverside, California, she’s Kenny’s younger sister, her
experiences have left her with a much darker personality.
- Stan Jones:
After he was sent to prison, he became a pizza boy to earn some money
while he was going through the samething as Shannon.
- Kenny Matthews:
Shannon’s older brother went to university at Fallcreek with his sister.
He needs medication to cope with the experiments.
- Jun Wang:
All the guys dream about her also she’s a gamer girl.
- Corey Wilde:
Car enthusiastand a skater who seems resistant to pain.
- Mei Wang:
Jun’s twin sister, whoseobsessed with video games.
- Sven Hansen:
Born in Norway butmigrated to USA. He is a fanatical about baseball
and hockey.
- Amy Brookes:
A young, smart, blonde girl who exploits her good looks and is quick to
tease justfor the fun of it.
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Throughoutthe storyline, we see new characters come to the game, the
main characters that have been there for the wholetime were Shannon,
Stan and Kenny.
Gameplay –
Obscure: The Aftermath gameplay is very straightforward game; this
makes the player more attracted towards the game because it’s very
straightforward. Thegameplay gets increased while your moving on to
make surethat the audience isn’t always playing at the same pace all the
time. The controls are very similar to the firstgame to make surethe
audience that have played it before, understand on what buttons they
have to press. The layoutof the consolewill providediscomfortbecause
people will be putting their hands in different positions that they haven’t
done before. Some of the weapons and actions within the game require
strangecombos. Itcan be very frustrating for someplayers due to the
fact that it can become very complex.
Target audience –
Obscure: The Aftermath is normally aimed at older audience due to the
fact of the violence, the age range of the audience would be around 17 –
27 because there is too much violence within the game, which could
make the younger audience not play it. The socio-economic grouping
would be E because there is many older students who are probably
going to universities might play the game. The game would mainly focus
on males becausefor the duration of the game you mainly play a male
character but sometimes you are able to switch to a female character.
Platforms –
Obscure: The Aftermath was released on a wide range of platforms; it
was released on things like, MicrosoftWindows, PlayStation 2, Wii, PSP
and PSP GO. The game was later released on steam as Obscure: The
Aftermath.
Comparison –
There is a large difference between both games becauseone is a fighting
game whereas the other game is a survivalhorror. This makes itvery
different becauseon one of them you have to survivalfromthe horrible
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obstacles and the other is a more tactical game because if you know
loads of combos in Tekken you may come out of top due to the fact that
you have loads of experience within it. Obscure: TheAftermath was
released in 2007 whereas Tekken Advancewas released in 2001, this
makes a huge difference because Obscure: TheAftermath was released
later on which means they would havehad better technology to work
with whereTekken would of have worsetechnology to actually to make
the game. Both of the games are very good and addictive. Obscure: The
Aftermath was able to include more complex designs becausethere was
better technology. Also Tekken Advancewas only released on a
Gameboy so they had to make surethey reach the systemrequirements
whereas Obscure: TheAftermath was released on a wide rangeof
consoles which makes it a lot better for them because they would have
had a better chanceof creating the game to look good.
