{"id":730,"date":"2012-03-13T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/13\/uncharted-3-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink\/"},"modified":"2012-03-13T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-13T19:00:00","slug":"uncharted-3-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/13\/uncharted-3-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncharted 3: Everything and the Kitchen Sink"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"uncharted_toilet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2026or toilet, \u2018cos toilets are funnier\u2026 \"Open-mouthed<\/p>\n

In the weekend I finally took the time to finish this one\u2026<\/p>\n

First, lets get the good out of the way: from a production standpoint, this game is utterly brilliant\u2026 some of the best graphics I\u2019ve seen in any game out there (with the possible exception of Crytek games), the water and sand effects are absolutely brilliant, the animations\/acting are top notch, etc, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda\u2026<\/p>\n

The game is a masterpiece of game production\u2026<\/p>\n

Yet\u2026<\/p>\n

The game fails in a loads of things\u2026 <\/p>\n

1) Probably due to the fact that they had a huge budget, the game had too many cutscenes (and cutscene like events when I\u2019m playing)\u2026 When I was still in the initial part I was getting aggravated because the game didn\u2019t want me to play it! Every time I took a step forward or did any action, there was a cutscene where something happened (a pipe that would break, an enemy that would come round the corner).<\/p>\n

2) Related to this, the game threw too much at you\u2026 at the beginning, it just seems like that sort of \u201cadventure rollercoaster\u201d, but at the some point in the game, it just feels like too much, like the terrible \u201cA-Team\u201d movie\u2026 and when it gets to the end (SPOILER ALERT) a complete ripoff of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Drake running after a caravan in a desert\/canyon like setting, ending up with him dangling on a crane\u2026 and the rip-off doesn\u2019t end there, it\u2019s basically littered all over the game\u2026 There\u2019s such a thing as \u201ctoo much\u201d, and Drake goes from being a nicely developed character (from the previous two games) to the guy that\u2019s going to replace Chuck Norris in jokes (\u201cNathan Drake doesn\u2019t do push-ups\u2026 he pushes the Earth down!\u201d).<\/p>\n

3) Controls were a little unresponsive\u2026 This one is a bit unfair, but remember when games would react immediately when you pushed the controller (character would walk one pixel forward or something like that)? Well, Uncharted reacts immediately, by playing out an animation of Drake turning or something like that\u2026 I know that this is more correct and \u201ccinema-like\u201d, but in my humble opinion, it breaks the game a bit, because it doesn\u2019t feel like you\u2019re controlling Drake, just giving me overall directions\u2026<\/p>\n

4) The game tries to do everything the predecessors do and adds loads more, with epic environments (the cities are big and extremely detailed, they even give Assassin\u2019s Creed a run for his money), but in this game, it all feels so scripted that the epic-ness gets loss a bit<\/p>\n

5) Finally, the storyline\u2026 It\u2019s rubbish, generic and predictable\u2026 I know that this kind of game is done to capture the \u201cblockbuster\u201d feel, but games are a different medium, and as such have to be treated as such\u2026 what might work from a story perspective in a movie where you just want to be entertained for 2 hours and chug some popcorns doesn\u2019t work in a 8+ hour game\u2026 Unfortunately, I feel that more and more of the AAA games industry are so busy trying to capture that \u201cmovie magic\u201d feel they forget that their games aren\u2019t as short\u2026 I can endure (and have fun with) 2 hours of Adam Sandler, 8 hours is just plain torture\u2026 The longer the game is, the more it needs to put the player in control of the story, to make him invested in it, or else it will lose him\u2026<\/p>\n

I might be alone in my criticism (as the 92\/100 in Metacritic<\/a> seems to show), but that\u2019s how I felt the game:<\/p>\n