Uncharted 3

[Prophecy2k]

well - desert and several narrow spaces (as spoilerfree as possible). endless move slumping in single direction scenes that wouldve been ok as a series of skippable sequences. I player U1 two times, U2 three times but I dont have any urge to play U3 again and sit through stuff like that - it was really insulting the first time.
yep, exactly which is why they should be cutscenes and skipable, if you cant move/look/ape around - why bother?
I dont complain about cutscenes and I dont complain about scripted sequences in general, I complain about the specific way U3 used them. if you really dont see the difference in freely running and gunning in a collapsing building and being limited to moving forward (and if you are really lucky backward) through a narrow passage then I dont think I can explain it to you.
One fits the gameplay naturally, the other is a "hold a button" cutscene, I can do well without the latter

Talk about extreme overinflation! The desert section was what about 2-3 mins long (including the actual cutscenes). In a SP campaign that totals about 5-10 hours of total play time! Ooooh the humanity

Seriously, there weren't any other section of U3 that even removed control from you in a similar or worse fashion. People just like to inflate things and make minor quibbles seem much larger than they actually are.

And how was the desert section any different to the Tibet section in U2, when you had to follow the dude and could only really move forward in one direction? Seriously...

It was as bad as you make it out to be at all... In fact i actually enjoyed that section (I know... shock horror), wasn't an issue for me at all. i had to sit through FAR more laborious sections in games this gen.

 

[nightshade]

If anything the desert section was one of the best moments, but what followed immediately was very incoherent and was counter productive.

Spoiler

He is weak, thirsty and needs water desperately...suddenly he sees some guys and he's shooting for the next 10-15 minutes without water. If anything games should be more clever in how they blend cutscenes and gameplay, for example that specific section could've had an added gameplay mechanic because of his condition and situation. If not that then atleast just give the situation a closure where he gets to drink water before he starts shooting again.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The desert scene hits on a problem with games and narrative though, when the player isn't informed that they are now just part of the narrative and there's nothing to accomplish. Suddenly the experience changes from one of finding the solution to the problem, to one of just riding it out. This can be extremely frustrating, especially when not obvious. In the desert, you had no idea if there was a way you had to go or if it didn't matter, and coupled with the slow shambling along it could be annoying to a player wondering how to progress to the next part of the game. I really hated that about Valkyria Chronicles - you'd be in a fight using game mechanics and thought processes to try and solve it, only for the story to throw you a curve ball. If the game is all narrative and you expect this, I'm guessing like Heavy Rain, then it's not a problem. But when the game chops abd changes, especially out of the blue, then that's poor design IMO. Levels where you are ranked on performance that suddenly change to levels where you can't succeed is a juxtaposition that just doesn't work; at least not in the sense of a conventional game that I reckon most gamers are expecting/wanting.

 

[Npl]

Oh come on. These were very limited. These werent even supposed to be interactive cut scenes. It was a good execution of identifying with a character lost in an inconvenient situation which had to give the sense exhaustion and frustration in the middle of the dessert.
Movies did it and still do it..

Well, thats kinda what I am saying... they shouldnt be interactive?

Talk about extreme overinflation! The desert section was what about 2-3 mins long (including the actual cutscenes). In a SP campaign that totals about 5-10 hours of total play time! Ooooh the humanity

I still wish they werent there, I still think the game wouldve been better without it. Not that this is the biggest issue, but the pacing in U3 is very slow already with minor faster peaks, and this pushed it even farther.
And the part with the spiders was rather tedious aswell, while the chase scenes where rather fun.

Seriously, there weren't any other section of U3 that even removed control from you in a similar or worse fashion. People just like to inflate things and make minor quibbles seem much larger than they actually are.

Fair enough, but U2 is - atleast to me - head and shoulders above U3, and did interactivity right - without feeling forced. U3 went way to far with adding "interactivity" (if you can call it such) in sections that dont need it. I know that you could be blunt and call most climbing sections "interactive cutscenes" too - but that would be brutally trying to misinterpret me. not all "interactive cutscenes" are equal. There is enough between pure gameplay, scripted events and pure cutscenes that you cant just say they are good/bad in general and games should be judged on how they do them - which was the original point I was making (or trying to before this got out of hand and I have defend every word and interpretation thereof).

And how was the desert section any different to the Tibet section in U2, when you had to follow the dude and could only really move forward in one direction? Seriously...

There were some other ways of interaction besides running a very narrow path - other things to do simply. And it came after a long rush of action instead of a short sprint.

It was as bad as you make it out to be at all... In fact i actually enjoyed that section (I know... shock horror), wasn't an issue for me at all. i had to sit through FAR more laborious sections in games this gen.

Well, I finished the game so it wasnt horrible enough... its bad enough however, together with the rather slow pacing, that it really stops me from replaying the whole game (instead of the few interesting scenes). But thats also just half the truth, its just that if I want to (re)play Uncharted theres really no need for me to look at anything besides U2.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

If anything the desert section was one of the best moments, but what followed immediately was very incoherent and was counter productive.

Spoiler

He is weak, thirsty and needs water desperately...suddenly he sees some guys and he's shooting for the next 10-15 minutes without water. If anything games should be more clever in how they blend cutscenes and gameplay, for example that specific section could've had an added gameplay mechanic because of his condition and situation. If not that then atleast just give the situation a closure where he gets to drink water before he starts shooting again.

He did get to drink water before shooting again , you seem to be forgetting. But yes, I felt the same shock that just now he was totally exhausted and hallucinating and suddenly he is all ready/energised for a fight ! They should have kept his movements slow, lowered the enemy count and slowly got his energy back.

And yes, the desert part was one of the best moments in the game for me too. Not enjoying it, trying to rush through it means you aren't really in for the ride, you just want to finish it !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They should have had Nate drink and rest. He would not ahve been in any fit state, even with a decent glass of water. His body would have taken time to recover. Of course, given his superhuman leaping skills, Nate clearly isn't a normal mortal, so can't be held to such trivial limitations.

 

[Nesh]

There are some things left unanswered about Drake. Marlowe threw a few hints about his past that the game didnt seem to cover enough. He was in an orphanage called St Francis? His real name was not revealed? And he had a troubled childhood with his parents? His past sounds "so Dickensian"? How did he know all the stuff he knew about Drake from such a young age?
We might probably see another sequel

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Tried to play some MP today, it felt weird, coudln't wrap my head around it !

 

[RenegadeRocks]

There are some things left unanswered about Drake. Marlowe threw a few hints about his past that the game didnt seem to cover enough. He was in an orphanage called St Francis? His real name was not revealed? And he had a troubled childhood with his parents? His past sounds "so Dickensian"? How did he know all the stuff he knew about Drake from such a young age?
We might probably see another sequel

I didn't like what they did there , they took away the whole charisma of Drake and made him look like street tramp. His real name isn't drake, he made it all up during childhood to live a fantasy, an adventure. Don't like it, he is a happy guy to me, changing that felt really bad to me.

 

[almighty]

Just played a bit if this in a game shop and must say one of the very few console games to visually impress me and way above anything I've seen/played on 360.

 

[antwan]

I didn't like what they did there , they took away the whole charisma of Drake and made him look like street tramp. His real name isn't drake, he made it all up during childhood to live a fantasy, an adventure. Don't like it, he is a happy guy to me, changing that felt really bad to me.

I loved it; imo it made Drake a 'real character'.
Since you post without spoiler tags I will do so as well:
Drake mother killed herself, and the father put Drake in a orphanage, essentially abandoning him. The orphanage was named after Sir Francis Drake.
'Drake', told himself he was a descendant of Sir Francis Drake. 'Drake' did this to avoid the reality of him being a child of parents who abandoned him. By being a fake descendant of the adventurer Sir Drake, he had something to live up.
When, as a child, he goes to retrieve the ring, he really believes it belongs to his 'family' (even though he does not have one).
It mad 'Drake' vulnerable, and it explained why he cares for Sully so much.

Anyway, this is not my complete analysis but regardless, I really loved what ND did with the story(telling). All this was told in 2 or 3 sentences, you have to fill it in yourself.

also, I find it pretty immature to criticize uncharted 3 for being one of the best consoles games of the generation.
"drake didn't drink any water (he did btw) and then he is killing people in the desert as if nothing happened"
come on now!

compare to this:
"so the steroid spacemarine was shooting the dinosaurs people, when he go hit by a rocket, blood was all over the screen and you could hear the spacemarine gasping for breath as if he was dying from the rocket. Luckily for the spacemarine he rested for 5 seconds and his wounds disappeared!!"
yeah I agree , the desert segment in U3 was totally unrealistic

 

[nightshade]

That is a gameplay choice and it's meant to be ignored and UC has regenerating health too. Also why should one compare it to a game which doesn't stresses on story in the first place?

But when we talking about the coherency between narrative and the gameplay then why should one not mention this?
If something like him hallucinating and feeling weak is stressed on so much into the narrative then him jumping around and acting just fine within minutes without any water (that single sip of dirty water doesn't count) or rest is a colossal counterproduct.

 

[Nesh]

If something like him hallucinating and feeling weak is stressed on so much into the narrative then him jumping around and acting just fine within minutes without any water (that single sip of dirty water doesn't count) or rest is a colossal counterproduct.

you are overthinking about one tiny scene and you forget everything that is so great about the title. Why?

Edit: I liked the dessert scene too. I found it quite unrealistic that Drake could fight after his exhaustion but at the same time it was intented to be quite funny. He was so tired, he wanted to rest and drink water, he finds water and complains "its undrinkable" and to top it he unexpectedly gets himself in the middle of Marlows minions. Seeing them being as surprised as him was quite funny. One of them was drinking water from his bottle and was standing on one leg trying to figure who the hell was that guy coming out of the ground before dropping it when some other guy shouts "its drake"

 

[nightshade]

I'm not, if you go back a couple of post you'll see I didn't bring this thing up as a way to criticize the game.
Someone started talking about the desert scene and that is how this topic started.

''If anything the desert section was one of the best moments, but what followed immediately was very incoherent and was counter productive. He is weak, thirsty and needs water desperately...suddenly he sees some guys and he's shooting for the next 10-15 minutes without water. If anything games should be more clever in how they blend cutscenes and gameplay, for example that specific section could've had an added gameplay mechanic because of his condition and situation. If not that then atleast just give the situation a closure where he gets to drink water before he starts shooting again.''

 

[Shifty Geezer]

"drake didn't drink any water (he did btw) and then he is killing people in the desert as if nothing happened"
come on now!

He didn't drink water. He had a sip of dirty water. After some 24-36 hours in the desert, he'd need substantial amounts of water and rest. All his faculaties would be affected - aim, speed, awareness.

compare to this:
"so the steroid spacemarine was shooting the dinosaurs people...

That's all very true, and Drake can break with reality by flying himself stupidly far distances (although at times I found they were asking too much with their suspension of disbelief when Drake could jump further with his arms than most long-jumpers!) and ahving regenreating health. But as nightshade points out, the story isn't brushing over the desert experience, but bringing your attention to it. It's showing Drake in a weakened state, and then miraculously he's fixed. It's disjointed. If instead of the desert experience with Drake shown hallucinating and barely able to walk, they had shown Drake merrily running through the desert with no adverse effects, than we'd ahve accepted that as part of his game universe.

It's not a game breaker, and no-one's particularly up in arms over this, so your rather emotional response is misplaced. There's nothing immature about a critique or personal opinions on subjective topics. It just highlights one of the issues of game (or story in general) design where the audience are happy to accept an alternate reality as long as it's coherant and follows its own rules.

I'll add that I agree with Npl that some of the interactive moments in U3 were odd, like the Triangle to Move through a Passage. Why did that need to be mapped to a new button? Why wasn't it a cutscene, and so skippable? There's a reason to have skippable cutscenes when you encourage replays and the story is already known. Then watching a forced cutscene is a waste of time. There were several scenarios where to interact with something you didn't naturally follow the standard controls, but instead had to follow on-screen prompts. That's breaking with immersion, surely?

 

[antwan]

" He had a sip of dirty water. After some 24-36 hours in the desert, he'd need substantial amounts of water and rest. All his faculaties would be affected - aim, speed, awareness."

After that amount of time in a dessert without water Drake would be dehydrated. If anything; drinking water could kill him;
When you are dehydrated your blood volume drops, and the bloods gets distributed in a way that you only use your vital organs (don't know if you could still run or jump in that condition). Drinking water would mean something entering the stomach, which would result in blood transfering towards the stomach, and Drake losing conscience.

Also not going to the toilet in any videogame except for duke3d, no more heroes and a few others would also kill any protagonist during the span of those games.

I believe even the "critics" believe u3 to be one of the best games of all time.
The triangle button is to fell like 'squeezing' yourself between the recess for example. Triangle gets used very often btw, it's the action button. But yeah, every game similar to uncharted cannot compare on any level IMO. Graphics, art, gameplay, story, characters.

Try deconstructing similar games using the same criteria and you will see what I mean

 

[Billy Idol]

Are we really arguing "logic" in video games? Especially in the holywood summer blockbuster type game Uncharted?? Come on guys...
(Remember in the movie RAMBO 3, when he got shot and used gun powder to fire-heal his wound just right in time to climb a rock face the next second )

After all this crazy talk and seeing the Far Cry 3 trailer, I fired the game up yesterday and played the Chateau sequence...nice!!
Now up to check out the phantastic water action scenes again

---
BTW, it really gets old when people claim that Uncharted as a cover based TPS copied Gears of War and that Gears of War being so innovative this Gen ...when in fact (gaming history FTW) both games copied from the game Kill Switch, which is the first TPS with cover system (even acknowledged by both devs teams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Switch_(video_game))

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Also not going to the toilet in any videogame except for duke3d, no more heroes and a few others would also kill any protagonist during the span of those games.

Did you not read the rest of my post?

The triangle button is to fell like 'squeezing' yourself between the recess for example.

Except it doesn't work. Like U1's use of motion controls for balance, it didn't feel like you were balancing, so they dropped it. Pressing a button rarely works as an empathic tool. The only one I can recall that I've experienced is ICO where you have to hold the shoulder button to hold Yorda's hand.

Try deconstructing similar games using the same criteria and you will see what I mean

Right. It's a common fault not unique to Uncharted 3. Consistency in the experience varies, and the way storytelling is handled from game to game, through cutscenes, interactive elements, and gameplay, has different degrees of success. U3 was great on the first playthrough, barring some odd random requirements to press buttons, but on subsequent playthroughs the delays are just a frustration.

 

[nightshade]

It seems to me that few people just don't get the argument here. The argument here is regarding consistency, characters not going to toilet doesn't matter cause they don't show your character onscreen for 5 minutes stressing over how they needs to take a piss urgently. The desert section was one of my favourite moment from the games but what follows later simply makes me believe that games in general fail to bring about a coherency in the narrative and gameplay. I've been playing Max Payne 3 lately and eventhough I think the game overstays it's welcome, I am considerably impressed by how coherent the game's structure is throughout and how brilliantly the gameplay is interwoven with the cutscenes and the narrative.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are we really arguing "logic" in video games? Especially in the holywood summer blockbuster type game Uncharted?? Come on guys...
(Remember in the movie RAMBO 3, when he got shot and used gun powder to fire-heal his wound just right in time to climb a rock face the next second )

It's not 'logic', but believability within the game world. If in Rambo 3, Stallone suddenly took to flying in the air shooting death-rays from his eyes, everyone would have been up in arms, because there's nothing within the story universe foreshadowing that and describing it as normal. Whereas in the Marvel universe with a funny coloured rock nearby, it'd be perfectly logical. If in a Superman film, Superman is suddenly shot by an ordinary bullet, everyone would be up in arms because everything up to that point has told us he's impervious to everything except Kryptonite. The story establishes the rules of the alternate reality, and then must conform to them or break the believability of the universe.

U3 is telling us Nate is weakened, suffering to the point of near death, very explicitly presenting us with a realistic desert scenario referencing our real-life knowledge of deserts - and they suddenly flip that randomly with no explanation and have him running around. The story has set us up with a situation but not followed it through. The desert rescue by the nomads should have come before the fight. Of course, this is just a computer game and the story bits are just padding for the actual game people play... except ND are trying to be more than that, and doing a pretty good job, so they should tighten up their story and game integration in future efforts to keep the plot relevant and the characters believability within the game universe.