The Warring States of NPF - Uncharted 3: Small Trailer & Pics

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Uncharted 3: Small Trailer & Pics

http://kotaku.com/5710362/searching-...rted-3-details

The current title seems to be U3: Drakes's Deception. Sample pictures suggest this might be a more desert themed game. Hopefully this game will be just as epic as the prior 2, but time will tell.

I had high hopes for the 3rd Jak title, and it kinda didn't pan out. Of course, I blame the healing abilities of the White Eco, but that's neither here, nor there.

Kevin

I can't really see them failing with this to be honest. As long as they keep up the action and the scale of the adventure this is a sure thing.

At the very least it'll be a thousand times better than the awful movie they're making.

I'm surprised this was still in the games forum.

*Casts Greater Thread Necropsy* Requested title change: Uncharted 3, the Bromancing.

Managed to play through about an hour of U3 before class and I have to say that this game seems to already improve on the whole series.

So far I've seen:

A more fleshed out storyline.
The strong characterization that made the other two games great
A look into Nate's past (and I'm not disappointed by it)
Archeology theories as outrageous as the Stargate "Pyramids are landing pads for aliens" but with a more reasonable historical foundation
Melee system is unchanged except for some additions for grappling/being grappled. Fun punching is fun.

I haven't tried the multiplayer yet but I heard from someone that played both betas that they're introducing a class system like the more popular FPS games are doing.

So far, I'm not disappointed on my day 1 buy. I'll add more as I play through.

I am automatically dissapointed with anything to do with Nate's past that does not include the phrase "It belongs in a museum, Dad!"

The game's pretty fun, but the biggest fault is by far the "stealth" gameplay. It has been a while since I played U2, so I don't remember if it's the same thing or what, but the "stealth" is pretty much non-existant. Oh sure you can sneak up on people and break their neck, and try to memorize patrols so you can get some sneaky kills, but in the end it's entirely pointless. I have yet to encounter a stealth section that can be beaten with just stealth. Most of the time it's an overlapping patrol, or a guard that stands still and is always watching another guard, and it's impossible to sneak past them. Or there's a heavy-armor guy, whom you can't kill with a sneak attack for some reason.

There's actually one spot at the airport level where I killed every guard quietly, without being noticed, and then at the end of the area there are two guards, side by side, standing right in front of where you have to go.

"Well golly," I hear you protest, "At least you killed all those other guys, so you only have to fight these two, right?"

Wrong. As soon as a shot is fired, or someone sees a corpse, or you're spotted, an army of bad guys crawl out of the walls like a swarm of spiders. So all that stealthing about is pointless, because in the end you still have to fight an army.

/rant

But other than that the game is pretty great.

Bought it Friday evening, played it all night, beat it sometime this morning. Really awesome & addicting. However, got a few questions... All spoilers:

The British bloke , Charlie Cutter, who helps you though out the game. We haven't seen him before, have we? Elaine seems to know him from somewhere, but I kinda suspect its from the upcoming Vita game.

Talbot. What the hell? No explanation of how he was shot, yet survived. Charlie might have been drugged, but Nate wasn't. Plus, what was there to be gained in letting Drake run?

Also, where the heck does he come up with the mind altering drugs? Since, supposedly the only source is that buried city?

The spiders. What were they doing all over the place? I kept expecting them to be tied into the secret McGuffin, but they were left unmentioned. Anyone have any clue, what was the deal?

Overall, game play is key. I think the story has a few plot points that you could drive a mac truck through. But the action & dialogue is good enough that you can ignore this.

Chief complaint:
While I loved how Nate & Sully first met up, I'm not sure I like the idea that Nathan has been lying about his Drake heritage. Maybe further stories will improve my acceptance of this, right now I'm still a little on the fence.

SWB

Yeah I beat it the other day and there are just so many plot holes it's unreal.

Well, first off, no we've never seen Charlie before, but there is a huge gap in our knowledge between U2 and U3, especially surrounding Drake and Elena's wedding and whatever shenanigans drove them apart.

As for Talbot I'm as frustrated as you are. The dude survives being shot, has mind altering drugs, and disappears after turning a corner into a dead end (referring to right after he drugged Charlie). And, after Drake was drugged in Yemen and finally came to his senses, it seems like Talbot instantly knew when they found Sully. So he either has the most high-tech ear piece that we can't see, is super stealthy with a cellphone, or there's something else happening.

Personally I was expecting him to be a Djinn or something supernatural. Especially after freaked out when Marlowe was dragged under the sand since that was basically the death of his beloved master.

The spiders just seemed to be a trap used to guard the secrets that lead to Ubar. Though, after both U1 and U2 where creepy supernatural creatures turned out to be relevant to the plot, having the creepy supernatural creatures be somewhat irrelevant was a bit disappointing.

On the note of supernatural stuff though, oh my god when you are tripping out in Ubar and fighting the Djinn enemies is the most bullshit thing in the entire game. Sure it's short lived, but having guys with shotguns teleport behind you, or having them chuck fire grenades that explode instantly, or shooting a fire blast similar to an rpg at any given moment that will kill you instantly is just complete bullshit. I think I died as much during that one part as I did in the rest of the game combined.

Eurogamer had the "audacity" to give this game an 8/10, causing the most fantastic fit of fanboy vitriol nearly heretofore unknown. Eurogamer even let the game developer write a rebuttal on the site due to this crime against humanity.

Remember: even if you have totally valid points about how a game is an incredibly linear experience and basically a rehash of the last two games, with a stifling lack of interactivity and freedom of movement allowed by the player, and an emphasis on cutscenes and action events that you personally feel is going too far, and are actually pretty darn positive about the game overall in the actual body of your review, don't you DARE give a game that other sites gave a 10/10 an 8/10. Because that's just wrong and will make the game industry collapse.

Clearly from now on they should just let the creator of the game write the review and avoid these kind of errors.

I loved eurogamer's review. He gave damn good reasons for his score. That people are upset that it's an 8/10 (which is still really great) is just stupid. Also stupid: that they let U3's lead designer respond to the review on their site.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanum (Post 1165963)

Yes, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how an 8 out 10 is a "bad" review. I guess it would make it no longer a "must-buy", but plenty of games that I have loved got lukewarm, 6 or 7 out of 10 reviews, such as Red Dead Revolver or Neo Contra. An 8 out of 10 is clearly a pretty great game that one would be well worth looking into, and what with the vast majority of reviews fawning over it and giving it a 10/10, I see no reason why this is going to "hurt" their sales, nor, if it did, why that is not a valid consequence of having "problems" with your game design wherein if your character jumps here instead of here, despite landing safely at the same distance and height, they just automatically crumple up dead, as if they had fallen to their deaths. Or why it is not a valid complaint that puzzles are simply solved in cutscenes instead of the player having to do some actual thinking.

Lots of games are linear in their gameplay and it's not unique in this "problem", if you consider it a problem, but it's not a big deal if a reviewer also feels it is a "problem" and points it out as a "problem" and rates accordingly.

It was also one of the better written reviews I've read in a long time. It reminded me of some high-profile thing written for Kill Screen Magazine or Action Button Dot Net. Like some actual philosophical THOUGHT went into this review and this score. Instead of it being callous, it's actually pretty darn sensitive.

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Parkin

But it also reveals another truth. Uncharted 3 is the most exciting game in the world, but only until you deviate from the script. Even in this chase the conflict between the developer's theatrical choreography and player-controlled interactions is clear. In order to ensure each set-piece is set off correctly, the game commits the cardinal sin of insinuating you have full control of your character, but in fact tugging you towards trigger points - making sure you're in the right spot to tumble over the bonnet of that braking car, for example.

Likewise, mistimed leaps are given a gentle physics-defying boost to reduce the staccato rhythm of having to restart a section. It's entirely understandable given what the developer is attempting to achieve - an unbroken flow of action that leads to climax - but, at the same time, beneath the spectacle there's a nagging feeling that your presence in the scene is an irritation rather than a preference.

Your freedom of choice risks ruining the shot. Indeed, throughout the game, if you jump into an area you are not supposed to visit, Drake will crumple on the floor dead, Naughty Dog switching role from movie director to vindictive god. That is not your predestined path: Game Over.

This reluctance to give the player more than a supporting role can be seen in the use of one treasure at the core of the experience, a cipher-solving contraption once owned by Sir Francis Drake. Come up against a hieroglyphic that needs solving and, rather than giving you the chance to decipher the words using your own mind, your job is simply to press the button that pulls the gizmo out of Drake's pocket. He handles the rest. Your role, here at least, is one of interactive butler.

Frustratingly, you must always move at the script's pace. Enter a room with two giant cogs that need turning and Drake won't call over a comrade to help him until the correct sequence of cut-scenes has played out. The world is destructible, but only when Naughty Dog says so, and at times you cannot even un-holster Drake's gun, the developer simply disabling the button till the appropriate juncture. Oftentimes the game feels like a simple series of puzzles in which the puzzle is simply to locate the next trigger point for the drama.

Like this is easily the most gentle criticism of the handholding/specatorship inherent in Timed Action Events and cutscenes and so on that occurs in these kind of games that I've seen. The only real criticism might be that he didn't make the score lower. Like if he had dared to just make it a 9/10 would the same reaction have occurred? I kind of think it would have, just because some people are just such big fans of this series they can't stand any kind of criticism of it.