Uncharted : Drake's Fortune*

[Acert93]

At the same time rating CoD4 9.5 ... personal preference i guess But still great score for EGM i agree!

Games are a preference issue, but the overall consensus is that 9.5 isn't reaching at all (in regards to the original comment that 8.5 was a good score because EGM is tough). Basically, EGM is par for the course with CoD4.

I find FPS as a genre to be totally over rated.

It's like the only genre where repetetiveness, and lack of innovation, isn't penalized.

Bah. FPS games have innovated a lot and evolved a lot over the last decade (I posted a long list of examples a couple months back). People who don't like FPS tend to be down on them, when indeed, they have evolved much more aggressively compared to most other genres.

As for CoD4, the gameplay isn't repetitive at all. Each chapter is fairly unique--new setting, new objectives, different "class" -- even different characters. Pacing is excellent with a good deal of contrasting game objectes. One moment you are being swarmed by enemies as you hold on for dear life, the next you are in a Gunship covering ground troops making a midnight incursion into enemy territory, and so forth.

In this specific example of an FPS, it isn't overrated because the SP has exceedingly high produdction values, a truly great story, excellent action, very functional and refined input and gameplay design, great pacing and gameplay/setting variety, good graphics and sound, and possibly the best MP experience released in 2007.

Targetting CoD4 as an exaple of how games in the FPS genre are overrated isn't a great example to pick on!

 

[Strange]

Finished the game on hard about 20 minutes ago.
out of 60, I got 46 treasures, which I would say isn't too bad

Completing the game took about 6~7 hours, and I wouldn't exactly call it long. The story had about 22 chapters, just so people know approxmately how long the game is. However, the story was quite intriguing, and that's a big plus

Ending was sort of an expected ending out of a game like this.

Something about the graphics...
The graphics are overall great. No doubt about it. great lighting, great artistic style throughout the whole game. Also a great variety of environments to play in. All of it is very, very beautiful.
Framerate drops was a bit less significant than the demo, so I suppose they tweaked the game quite a bit after the demo.

The biggest problem I found was with streaming textures. Sometimes you would see a horribly low res texture. then. after about a second, the texture would suddenly pop back into high-def delight. Note that I only noticed this problem about 3 times throughout the entire game. It doesn't really take away anything from the game.

Another small gripe about the AI is Elena and Sullivan. They seem to be able to take a grenade at 0 range and appear to come out unharmed. Oh well, I've seen enough of that in COD4 to ignore it, but this just caught my eye.

The range of weapons you could yield is also very satisfying
However, I shouldn't mention the weapons' names as it would become a spoiler.
I'll leave everyone to guess on what those weapons are

 

[djskribbles]

wow, 6-7 hours... thats the fastest i've seen anyone beat the game. most people say anywhere from 8-12 (most around 10). i've also seen people say it took them 4 hours to beat the first 5 chapters.

 

[patsu]

Woot woot ! I have the game from Metreon. The store guy seems to be really happy with the sales so far. They sold 5 copies while I was there (under 5 minutes) but you shouldn't take this as any indication. I saw Guitar Hero in action for the first time, and my toddler was fighting with the player for screen time (There was a short queue to play)

 

[Mintmaster]

Conditional V-sync is done all the time and was even a standard part of the XBOX1 SDK (thats how common it is).

I stand corrected!

Still, he's describing it wrong, IMO. If you have triple buffering and V-sync, then 28 fps rendering rate, for example, would be 1 frame 20 fps, 6 frames 30 fps. Without them, you still have the same pattern for any localized part of the screen, i.e. you still have 20 fps drops. It's just non-uniform, hence the tearing.

 

[deepbrown]

I have commented positively on how good uncharted looks, in this thread and in others, i just found it funny how deepbrown thought that picture looked good, as its the one that looks the most "fake" of all of the shots around.

*trim follow up*

Why don't you reply to me then.

 

[Strange]

wow, 6-7 hours... thats the fastest i've seen anyone beat the game. most people say anywhere from 8-12 (most around 10). i've also seen people say it took them 4 hours to beat the first 5 chapters.

Started at around 11:30 AM, played until about 6:00 and went out for dinner until about 7:30. Came back and finished it at around 9:00PM. so around 7 hours, taking away the phone calls and other small stuff I did in between.

 

[Asher]

This is the first I've heard of Uncharted's "medals". That's pretty amazing, there's not even any attempt to be different from the 360's Achievements...they even have 1000 pts per game.

Is it too much to ask to be original?

 

[patsu]

Uncharted has medals also to complement PS Home. I think the treasure hunting element is cool and underplayed (online ! online !).

What's 1000 points per game ? If it's some trivial/common (like Resistance x00 kills in games, I don't think it's a big deal to just reuse it and differentiate on something else -- instead of cracking up something like 100 or 5000 points per game).

 

[Asher]

Uncharted has medals also to complement PS Home. I think the treasure hunting element is cool and underplayed (online ! online !).

What's 1000 points per game ? If it's some trivial/common (like Resistance x00 kills in games, I don't think it's a big deal to just reuse it and differentiate on something else -- instead of cracking up something like 100 or 5000 points per game).

I mean, like the 360 has 1000 points per game (retail), Uncharted does as well with its Medal system. It's a bit for bit clone with a new name.

 

[patsu]

I mean, like the 360 has 1000 points per game (retail), Uncharted does as well with its Medal system. It's a bit for bit clone with a new name.

Ah I see. But if they count their medals and eventually think that 1000 is a reasonable limit, then it is 1000. It may not be a conscious effort just to clone it per se. In fact, it would be strange to avoid using 1000 (if it makes sense for the game) because of XBL.

 

[betan]

This is the first I've heard of Uncharted's "medals". That's pretty amazing, there's not even any attempt to be different from the 360's Achievements...they even have 1000 pts per game.

Is it too much to ask to be original?

I see, you haven't played any R&C before.

 

[DJ12]

Or FIFA or numerous other games that had the idea long before Microsoft "invented" it

 

[xatnys]

Really; of all the things to nitpick. Achievements are a really old concept - a bullet point on the list of features games these days are expected to have.

 

[djskribbles]

This is the first I've heard of Uncharted's "medals". That's pretty amazing, there's not even any attempt to be different from the 360's Achievements...they even have 1000 pts per game.

Is it too much to ask to be original?

wow, who cares? honestly now...

 

[deepbrown]

I see, you haven't played any R&C before.

Yup R&C was an inspiration for the Achievements on the 360.

 

[-tkf-]

This is the first I've heard of Uncharted's "medals". That's pretty amazing, there's not even any attempt to be different from the 360's Achievements...they even have 1000 pts per game.

Is it too much to ask to be original?

Hehe funny

 

[Daozang]

Does anyone know when the game is being released in the EU?
I can't seem to find anyone here that has it on preorder...

 

[Arwin]

Does anyone know when the game is being released in the EU?
I can't seem to find anyone here that has it on preorder...

7 December ... I've preordered it on Amazon.co.uk, together with R&C (there was a combined deal that I couldn't resist).

 

[Daozang]

7 December ... I've preordered it on Amazon.co.uk, together with R&C (there was a combined deal that I couldn't resist).

Thanks, it seems that the game isn't on the "must have" list for retaillers here... Most games are up for preorder 2 months prior to their release...
Anyway, I can't wait!
My PS3 is busier than ever latelly and it's going to get even more!