Uncharted 3

[RenegadeRocks]

Uncharted's replayability comes from the online game, surely? No story driven game has much replayability, IMO, so you have to design in other elements like alternative characters to play or branched endings.

Yes, they have Provided the co-op for SP like mission replayability and MP.

BUT Uncharted 1 was very replayable due to its focus on combat in specified arenas. I have played that campaign 3 times, soomething I can't do with U2 's initial chapters. U2 is replayable from Nepal onwards I guess, but you do get bored of frequent interruptions to gameplay evey now and then. That didn't happen in Uncharted 1 because of its focus on shooting. UC1 was a TPS basically, UC2 was action adventure to me. UC3 seems to be moving towards a point where it will become a modern Adventure game.

I am not complaining as long as we have a separate co-op mode, as we all know that ND makes an amazing Uncharted adventure. But I sure want a lot replayability in campaign. Maybe they can have an aracade mode for the campaign without any gameplay stopping interjections. They take away player comtrol too many times in the gamescom demo, it gets irritating.now I am playing, now I am not, especially during your repeat playthrough!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

& I really hate this in unchy... I mean, the game is so concentrated on the story to overlook the gameplay, no alternative way to replay...

That's its nature though. ND went for something more of a blockbuster than typical game. And by taht same token, I'm sure where I haven't played U1 twice, I'd happily pick it up a few years from intial play after the story is hazy. Actually that's not true, as I did play it through again to get the Platinum trophy. I guess that's where the replay comes in, with the increased difficulty mode.

Yes, they have Provided the co-op for SP like mission replayability and MP.

BUT Uncharted 1 was very replayable due to its focus on combat in specified arenas. I have played that campaign 3 times, soomething I can't do with U2 's initial chapters...!

Can't say I agree. U1 I played twice, once with friends as an intereactive taking turns at the controls, which was a very enjoyable experience, and once solo to get the platinum. U2 U played through twice similarly, but also played a truckload online. It provided one of the best online experiences of this gen for me, with both coop modes and a decent competitive mode, only with some issues that kinda borke it towards the end when teammates wimped out and each round became onesided with no benefits. If all U3 offered was a complex story or more exploration or whatever, I'd be far less likely to buy into it. I also explore a game 100% first playthrough, so exploration offers no replay for me. Whereas is U3 was only an improved U2 online experience, with online coop and better balanced competitive, I'd still likely buy it.

The moral of this tale is, you can't please everyone all the time, so I'm glad ND have gone the route they have, leaving other games to cover other experiences!

 

[Cornsnake]

I played through U1 5 times, and U2 only once completely and quit halfway through the second time. U1 definitely had more replay value for me. I never cared much for the MP.

I'm not at all impresses by U3. It all looks like more of the same of a game that was always lacking in variety and originality.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I'm in the other camp. Uncharted 1 I thought was frequently more annoying than actually fun. Finished it once on normal, then quit halfway through hard. I had lots of fun getting the platinum trophy in U2 though, and every once in a while I still pop it back into the PS3 and replay large chunks of it.

 

[patsu]

I like U2 MP, but don't play very much because I much prefer FPS for shooting.

For me, U2 boss was annoying. U1 grunts were annoying. Fortunately, I Elena. So I get strung along. ^_^

U3 MP animation looks very good though:

Can't wait to compare their 3D implementation with Guerilla's.
I think U3 already has the upper hand in color treatment. I remember seeing their color correction slides. The impact is subtle but I think I can appreciate the difference.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Which U2 bosses were annoying to you? I have heard this before too, but when I played thru the campaign, which was about a year late, I never found any overly difficult or annoying boss fights !
What is it that people disliked ???

 

[wco81]

I liked the early set pieces, especially the helicopter level.

But later on the story became wacky and it was about mowing down waves after waves of mutants or whatever those things were.

 

[assurdum]

looks like they are not going with FXAA? Some sub pixel level aliasing is very noticeable but the game IQ remain very sharp.

MLAA of sure for now, I noticed a lot of shimmering here & there... I think a further FXAA use could help a lot from this point of views, but I don't know how many resources are left for that... my dream is to see a FXAA to support MLAA, all via spu...

 

[patsu]

Which U2 bosses were annoying to you? I have heard this before too, but when I played thru the campaign, which was about a year late, I never found any overly difficult or annoying boss fights !
What is it that people disliked ???

Only the last boss. The blue folks too, but they were not so annoying, just made me panic more.

Those blue monkeys move too fast. After a while, I couldn't tell which one has weak health and which just joined in the party.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think bosses have no place in a game like that anyway. At least not the super human bullet sponge kind of boss. They always suck. Period. That tank level, now that's what I'd call an exciting boss battle. Or rather boss level. Same with the helicopter.

That's also why I never got why people complained about no final boss in TR Underworld. As far as I'm concerned, that intimidating beast of a level was the final boss. Besides, who'd want to fight a traditional boss battle using TR Underworld's messed up combat mechanics in the first place. It would have been a disaster.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Well , I am old school in that regard. I want bosses ! They break the monotony and bring variety and a huge sense of accomplishment once you overcome one ! Shooters can gwt monotonous very soon if not broken up by elements which make you change your point and click at the enemy routine!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The train boss was a perfect example of the break in gameplay, and it was exceedingly poor and frustring design IMO. Up until that boss, you shoot baddies and they die, because they have hot lead in them. Then ND randomly introduce a boss who is bulletproodf, without any explanation, who has to be killed by learning a pattern of actions, without any explanation. It completely broke the flow of the game and the story. If ND wanted a tough fisty-cuff moment, they needed to disarm Drake before the fight. Maybe need him to grab a flare gun so the distracting shot?

Whatever, boss battles are welcome and do add variety, but the design must follow consistent rules for the universe which all to often doesn't happen in games.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Well , I am old school in that regard. I want bosses ! They break the monotony and bring variety and a huge sense of accomplishment once you overcome one ! Shooters can gwt monotonous very soon if not broken up by elements which make you change your point and click at the enemy routine!

And that's when you do something like the tank level in Uncharted 2. It's a fresh experience, but it still fits in perfectly well. There are plenty of ways to break monotony besides bullet sponge enemies. That's also why I'm hoping Naughty Dog introduces an element of skill into the climbing sections. (they should feel threatening, not relaxing)

Hey, I love me some bosses, but they better be worth it. (like in God of War or Resident Evil)

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I agree with what you guys are saying, but I like the "learn the pattern bullet sponge" bosses too ! I like the bullet sponge mini-gun guys in the monastery, and the Blue Gaurdians, even if they are a touch of supernatural in the rather sane world. But then Drake , to me, has always been Indiana Jones, so such elements are always expected .
Personally speaking, Tank level was good, but the helicopter fight on the train wasn't, it was just bland ! The train level on whole was great, but to me it was more due to the whole moving level experience and gorgeous scenery !

Hey, I love me some bosses, but they better be worth it. (like in God of War or Resident Evil)

yes, those are some really good bosses there. In fact I liked the Ice Scorpion boss fight in GOW 3 more than some of the God fights ! And RE4 had memorable Boss fights.

The Best Boss fights were in MGS3 and MGS2, I have to say. Kojima has a knack of blending completely nonsensical elements into his world and letting you enjoy crazy fights. Thats why I love Japanese stuff more, they are not too overly serious about the viability of the fictional world. Its a game, and that stays foremost !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree with what you guys are saying, but I like the "learn the pattern bullet sponge" bosses too ! I like the bullet sponge mini-gun guys in the monastery, and the Blue Gaurdians, even if they are a touch of supernatural in the rather sane world.

I don't have a problem with those guys, but then they weren't bosses. Another great example of a complete change of gameplay is the final in Uncharted. You are forced to move from box-to-box one at a time, and then tackle Navarro according to some random rules suddenly introduced for that fight. This breaks the experience completely. Up until that point you have been in control deciding how Nate was going to deal with a situation. In the boss fight you end up becoming a puppet, controlled by the game to follow its prescribed set of actions.

If they're going to have an interactive cut-scene, they may as well make it a QTE and make the player very aware that they have no free will to try their own solution and should just sit back and enjoy the ride. As it is, all these boss battles involve three or four (or five, or six...) painful encounters where the player is powerless, shooting, chucking grenades, trying everything that the game has permitted up to this boss, until they chance upon the right solution and then slog away at perfecting that one solution. I dont understand how that can be considered good design by the developers!

 

[patsu]

How are they doing those textures? Crytek struggle with decals and blend shaders and Naughty Dog just looks like they're painting different textures onto the models like you would do with terrain.

Would love to know too. In the PhyreEngine slides, one of the techniques is to use Cell to preprocess a low res (tiled) version of the scene to identify which area needs more details and work. Then allocate the appropriate amount of resources on them, or skip extra work in less "important" areas.

So far, I am most interested in their streaming system but I have only seen Insomniac and RAGE talk about theirs so far.

The thing is when I look at U3 trailers, the scene is pretty clean and seems to have some depth/space to them. In KZ3, although the tech is very impressive, sometimes it can get cluttered.

 

[L. Scofield]

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/a...rted-3-drakes-deception-20110816001204718.jpg
Can't believe this is actually from MP..ND is really pushing the visuals to a new level on consoles.

Don't like to sound like an ass but, LOL. That looks good but "pushing the visuals to a new level"...

What's so special about that?

How are they doing those textures? Crytek struggle with decals and blend shaders and Naughty Dog just looks like they're painting different textures onto the models like you would do with terrain.

Not really struggling considering the amount of decals per scene.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Don't like to sound like an ass but, LOL. That looks good but "pushing the visuals to a new level"...

What's so special about that?

Well, the textures are nice. And as that's all there is to see in that screenshot, I'm guessing that's what ultragpu meant.

 

[ultragpu]

Don't like to sound like an ass but, LOL. That looks good but "pushing the visuals to a new level"...

What's so special about that?


Not really struggling considering the amount of decals per scene.

The textures are extremely detailed for a console mp and along with the beautiful lighting and everything all rendered at once, yeah it's quite an amazing feat.

 

[assurdum]

Don't like to sound like an ass but, LOL. That looks good but "pushing the visuals to a new level"...

What's so special about that?


Not really struggling considering the amount of decals per scene.

No? Sorry, I don't want to polemize, but sometimes people in this forum tend to semplify too much the job of the developers... I have read a lot of biasys about 'how simple was that', 'it's only good art' & so on, when, reading the paper data, the things are completely different matter... from my point of view what ND does is ever in a new level on the ps3...I don't understood if you talking of unchy in general or only of the pictur, but it's simply astonishing how smooth & credible is the horizon drawn during the airplane sequence; I can't remember nothing of similar in this generation (on the console).