Uncharted : Drake's Fortune*

[inefficient]

Playing through on crushing now. Some parts are insanely hard!

The areas become more like puzzles to solve because you have to be in the right place at the right times in order to survive and mistakes are punished. The frequent save points keep it from getting too frustrating.

 

[D3v0ur3r]

The frequent save points keep it from getting too frustrating.

I just started playing the other day & while I agree with the quote for the most part. I am in the church where for some reason I have to jump around like Spiderman on the walls & chandeliers because I guess the church floor is Holy & Nate (think that's his name) must be the Anti-Christ. At any rate I am on my 4th time trying this area which is very long & a lot of jumping from spot to spot. At any time I hit the floor I get to start over. So its getting annoying I get to start from the beginning of this area every time. Least when you get one of the keys you should be able to start there.

 

[2real4tv]

I just started playing the other day & while I agree with the quote for the most part. I am in the church where for some reason I have to jump around like Spiderman on the walls & chandeliers because I guess the church floor is Holy & Nate (think that's his name) must be the Anti-Christ. At any rate I am on my 4th time trying this area which is very long & a lot of jumping from spot to spot. At any time I hit the floor I get to start over. So its getting annoying I get to start from the beginning of this area every time. Least when you get one of the keys you should be able to start there.

Iam on the exact same part..lol

 

[patsu]

Someone in another topic thinks that games make the most of their sales in the first week. So which one is true?

Honestly, Uncharted is not selling well. It will probably break even and turn in a reasonable profit as well, but it's far below its potential. Don't try to make it look better...

Game is probably similar to movie. In general, first two weeks of movie sale is about the same as the sale for the rest of the year.

In Uncharted's case, they might have missed out on the initial hype + sales due to last minute build up (Unless one tracks PS3 closely, chances are that he/she won't know what Uncharted was when the TV ads were aired). However due to its rare attributes and word of mouth, it will likely sell more and longer than the average... as in, most PS3 owners want one to showcase their console.

I won't count it out yet, especially when the PS3 game library is still young. And there are tricks to promote sale later on, given its exceptional quality.

 

[deepbrown]

Game is probably similar to movie. In general, first two weeks of movie sale is about the same as the sale for the rest of the year.

In Uncharted's case, they might have missed out on the initial hype + sales due to last minute build up (Unless one tracks PS3 closely, chances are that he/she won't knows what Uncharted is when the TV ads are first aired). However due to its rare attributes and word of mouth, it will likely sell more and longer than the average... as in, most PS3 owners want one to showcase their console.

I won't count it out yet, especially when the PS3 game library is still young. And there are tricks to promote sale later on, given its exceptional quality.

Sold 4 times as much as Heavenly Sword in Europe, but 2 times less in US. The sales in Europe are going up week upon week as trailers are being seen more, and word of mouth etc...plus it was xmas.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

U.S. sales of Uncharted are puzzling, and disappointing. I don't see how this game can still be sitting on store shelves. It's one of the best games I've played in recent years, and a real showcase title for the PS3.

 

[deepbrown]

U.S. sales of Uncharted are puzzling, and disappointing. I don't see how this game can still be sitting on store shelves. It's one of the best games I've played in recent years, and a real showcase title for the PS3.

That four times as much was for the first week only...Heavenly Sword dropped off after that. Uncharted is staying around 50,000 a week in the US. About 100,000 a week in Europe. HOWEVER, this are numbers are from the evil VGChartz...but they do a hell of a lot of research for their numbers, though I expect they are out by 10-15%. I do believe they record accurate trends though. Any who.

Advertising, advertising. And in the US the ad is not real-time, whereas in Europe it is and works a charm just like the Assassin's Creed ads. I don't think the US public needs CG in their ads anymore.

 

[2real4tv]

Just finished, great game a 9.5 for me.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

VGChartz can be off as far as 50%, as seen with COD4. Then they go back and alter the previous "reports" to mask it.

The consesus AFAIK is that they call a few shops on the phone and extrapolate from their sales, so their actual sample is very small. Then they're using NPD data to adjust their errors - which is said to be one of the reasons why NPD has almost canceled their regular reports for the rest of the year.

 

[deepbrown]

VGChartz can be off as far as 50%, as seen with COD4. Then they go back and alter the previous "reports" to mask it.

The consesus AFAIK is that they call a few shops on the phone and extrapolate from their sales, so their actual sample is very small. Then they're using NPD data to adjust their errors - which is said to be one of the reasons why NPD has almost canceled their regular reports for the rest of the year.

I wasn't aware of that.

However, I can vouch that sales are going up in the UK since it's going up the best sellers charts in a number of stores I've been too.

 

[ninzel]

I just started playing the other day & while I agree with the quote for the most part. I am in the church where for some reason I have to jump around like Spiderman on the walls & chandeliers because I guess the church floor is Holy & Nate (think that's his name) must be the Anti-Christ. At any rate I am on my 4th time trying this area which is very long & a lot of jumping from spot to spot. At any time I hit the floor I get to start over. So its getting annoying I get to start from the beginning of this area every time. Least when you get one of the keys you should be able to start there.

Have you done it yet,what exactly are you stuck at?

I'm at the Fortress on crushing and I have to echo the comments about it becoming like a puzzle. In some battles it's a matter of moving to the right position before going for cover. Choose the wrong cover point and you get bad angles on the waves of enemies. And on crushing they are much more aggressively pursuing you.

 

[Deepak]

Well, an Indian Tech site is conducting a contest. The winner'll get a 40GB PS3 + Uncharted. I presume the contest is open to only Indian Citizens. I and my bro both filled and submitted the answer.

The link: http://www.tech2.com/india/news/games/tech2s-win-a-ps3-contest-live-now/24701/0

This time round, Tech2, in collaboration with Sony Computer Entertainment and Milestone Interactive is proud to present the 'Win a PS3' contest, where one lucky winner stands to win a 40 GB PS3 (duh!) as well as a copy of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, one of the most awesome PS3 games till date.

To take part in the contest, all you have to do is head over to our contest page, read the instructions, follow them, and fill up the form on that page. Winners will be announced in three weeks, so yeah, get cracking on the code, people!

I did a bit of googling and found this

Sorry for not answering or posting this earlier but yeah, there's only one way to answer the code. Secondly, you will not get a email confirmation but once you get the pop up that says Thank you means your answer has been duly noted.

Just one more thing I forgot to mention in the article though and that is that in addition to a copy of Uncharted you'll also recieve a press kit of the game that includes cool parchments, manuscripts and a map of the treasure if I'm not mistaken. Plus there are certain t-shirts to be given away as well (not of Drake but of the PS3).

Hit me with a mail or a PM or anything of that sort if any of you have any more queries.

 

[inefficient]

Beat it on crushing! Got enough points for the playable Elana model.

I still have to find about 5 more of the Treasues. And there are still a few medals I have to collect. So I guess the game will eventually get one more play through.


The more I play it, the more and more I love the combat & gameplay mechanics of this game. I almost wish it would be serialized so that it would come out every year. I can't wait to play more of this adventure!

 

[Pugger]

I hope this doesn't come across to critical, becasue it not menat to. I have just finished the game after buying my PS3 on the 27th. I enjoyed the game and yep it looks nice (although to be honest HS and Gears top it for me). The problem I have with the game is, it seems to me to have taken the core play mechanics from a handful of pretty obvious games and added them to nice if obvious backdrop. My son (11) whilst playing the game said it better than I could actually and pointed out that whilst the game was fun, it was fun from other games. As such you knew what to do on the ledges, you knew how to swing on the ropes and how to duck behind that boulder. The puzzles, well they not puzzles as such and that was a disapointment.
The game was also was to linear for me, it was just a set corridors, be them outdoors or in leading to the next exchange of gun fire. I was hoping for something like Farcry in terms of the island setting, a sense of freedom and exploration would have nailed it for me.
The production value was superb, the cut scenes obviously a big part of the budget and game were simply fantastic and it moved the story along like no other game.
I enjoyed the game, but it led you by the hand to much for me and was so heavily influeneced by other games that it felt like i'd played the game previously in one form or another. If the next game is more open with regards to the play field and the puzzles actually become well puzzles, I'm sold becasue dispite my moans and groans the game was fun from start to finsih.

 

[Arwin]

I think your criticism is perfectly valid, to be honest. Perhaps the overal combat should be given a little more credit, and the accessibility of the platforming is definitely turned up a few notches from other games, but overall, yes, this game combines some good stuff from different games (prince, lara, gears, etc.).

I would personally have liked it more if you could climb in just about anything, and in the future I am hoping for some co-op play as the type of game seems to be well suited for it. But other than that, the overal package is awesome. My favorite game of the year (not counting GT5 Prologue of course which I bought on Import ... driving that F430 in Pro mode with no assists is hard to beat!)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's good reason to 'copy' from other games though (not that I'm talking from playing Uncharted) which is if they got it right, design would lead to the same solutions. How many different ways are there to implement swinging on a rope? How many of those will be as intuitive as the left/right swing motion? Few games will break the mould in gameplay application, and IMO rightly so. Like MS changing the layout of Office 2007 to something that went totally against what people were used to. The end result is a decrease in productivity as people have to relearn something they've been doing for years without problems.

I'd say the problem here is that the industry is just old enough now to be mostly repeating itself, like the movie and music industries. There aren't many films or songs where you can't draw similarities with other films/music. In the case of movies, it doesn't matter that you have a car chase like 1000 other films, followed by a fight like 1000 other films, followed by a talk with the baddy like 1000 other films, because you watch it for the story rather than the set pieces. In a game however, the product is the set pieces. The car racing in a racer is like 1000 other racers, but that's what you're being sold on. The shooter mechanic is like 1000 prior shooters, but shooting is the reason to buy and play the game. Mixing up lots of mechanics from games is IMO at least adding variety where other games stick with fewer mechanics. eg. GeOW just had the shooting element and none of the platforming. Uncharted couldn't be the game it is without being broad, and that will inevitably mimic the other games out there who all do and specialise in these areas.

 

[deepbrown]

I hope this doesn't come across to critical, becasue it not menat to. I have just finished the game after buying my PS3 on the 27th. I enjoyed the game and yep it looks nice (although to be honest HS and Gears top it for me). The problem I have with the game is, it seems to me to have taken the core play mechanics from a handful of pretty obvious games and added them to nice if obvious backdrop. My son (11) whilst playing the game said it better than I could actually and pointed out that whilst the game was fun, it was fun from other games. As such you knew what to do on the ledges, you knew how to swing on the ropes and how to duck behind that boulder. The puzzles, well they not puzzles as such and that was a disapointment.
The game was also was to linear for me, it was just a set corridors, be them outdoors or in leading to the next exchange of gun fire. I was hoping for something like Farcry in terms of the island setting, a sense of freedom and exploration would have nailed it for me.
The production value was superb, the cut scenes obviously a big part of the budget and game were simply fantastic and it moved the story along like no other game.
I enjoyed the game, but it led you by the hand to much for me and was so heavily influeneced by other games that it felt like i'd played the game previously in one form or another. If the next game is more open with regards to the play field and the puzzles actually become well puzzles, I'm sold becasue dispite my moans and groans the game was fun from start to finsih.

What about FPS games? Aren't they simply the same thing over and over in a different setting...same mechanics, same weapons, same locations. At least Uncharted is combining lots of things from different genres. That hasn't been done successfully before (Tomb Raider combat sucked.)

 

[patsu]

David Jaffe's take on the Uncharted mechanics: http://flixn.com/play/q8dhyr/

I tend to agree with his assessment here. The core mechanics of Uncharted is the combat system and enemy AI. The rest of the gameplay are extensions of this experience.

The issue is it's a pretty hard game to boot. So not many people "get it" when they first played the game. I like the second half of Uncharted better because the combat became more accessible for various reasons.

 

[deepbrown]

David Jaffe's take on the Uncharted mechanics: http://flixn.com/play/q8dhyr/

I tend to agree with his assessment here. The core mechanics of Uncharted is the combat system and enemy AI. The rest of the gameplay are extensions of this experience.

The issue is it's a pretty hard game to boot. So not many people "get it" when they first played the game. I like the second half of Uncharted better because the combat became more accessible for various reasons.

Hm never thought about...i was straight in because I had played the demo through a couple of times.

 

[NovemberMike]

It's a good game, but I had some problems.

1) Instagib weapons aren't fun. Especially if they are explosive, and yet the enemy can still use it on you from five feet away.

2) I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a more open game, and it ended up being even more linear than gears of war. Being that I am an open game junkie, this really disappointed me.

3) The combat wasn't very good for how much of it there was. The enemies aimed too well while moving, the unaimed shots accuracy seemed to jump around a lot (there was one point where I shot off two shotgun shells unaimed at the same target, and only one hit), I didn't think the feedback was that good (shooting them in teh foot or chest seemed to have the same animation) and the hitboxes were weird (there were times where I had a shot lined up directly over somebody's head, and it just didn't connect).

4) The weapon balance was all weird. I think the AK in the game was weaker than the pistols, when it should have been about on par per shot with the Desert Eagle, and the shotguns were way too good. I really just hate it when games use severely unrealistic weapons, and here they did it without having a real point.

5) Making enemies bullet sponges is almost never a good idea. In monster games I can understand it, but when we are talking about just giving the enemies bullet proof vests and helmets at the end of the game to make them tougher, then no. Having to shoot an enemy five times rather than 3 does not make them more fun.

Other than that it was a good game, but I just wasn't a fan of the combat. It felt like it would have been exceptional for a tomb raider style game, but for a straight up shooter like it ended up being it just wasn't enough.