Uncharted review follow-up
While
playing Uncharted 2, I couldn't help but notice that the entire's
game setup felt linear and rigid, like I was being dragged along by
the nose to see all the pretty sights that the development studio had
so heavily invested in. And the whole time, all I could think to
myself was, “okay. This is fun. I guess”. All of the enjoyment
seemed to be very bland and structured and it reminded me of those
people who get upset if you touch anything in their house when you
come to visit. The platforming felt very limited and structured and
the gunplay was functional at best. Yet whenever I look up reviews
about this game, I see it hailed as one of the darlings of this
console generation. Why is that? Have we gotten so used to mediocrity
that anything that is slightly above average is considered a
masterpiece? As a whole, I feel like Uncharted 2 is mostly a weak
third person action game with awkward platforming sections and
uninspired puzzle sections.
Equipping
it...now.
First
of all, let's take the story, which I can best describe as some smug
douche looking for treasure. I fail to see how that son-of-a-bitch
Drake has any kind of charisma whatsoever. Honestly, he acts like
that jock from high school who bullied you every day and then made
off with your girlfriend. Not only that, a lot of his humor and
comments come across as just overall uninteresting. There is almost
nothing about him that I can vividly remember either liking or
thinking, “golly, your awesome”. He just seemed so generic. The
rest of the cast is like this too. It's like someone sat down,
watched a bunch of action movies and decided that the best thing to
do would be to is to take characters from here and there to fill up
the game. Even Chloe, who I feel is the most likeable character,
easily rolls over into the generic train. Not only that, but I was so
tempted to call bullshit at the very end of the game for how
contrived the game's ending felt. Furthermore, the way the story is
presented does this game no favors. While I understand that cutscenes
are now often used as a means to present a story, they feel like they
were placed here deliberately to invoke the feel of a movie rather
than a game. It's bogged down even further by it's incessant need to
feel cinematic to the point of following a three-act structure. As a
result, I felt like I hardly knew anything about Drake. He was
uninteresting and shallow, having about as much personality as Gordon
Freeman. He did things, but you could have just as easily put anyone
else in his place and gotten the same job accomplished.
Sums
him up fairly well.
Now,
I'm sure many of you are thinking, “it's the gameplay that counts
dur-hur.” Well, it would if it was any good. At best, Uncharted is
a generic and dull cover-based shooter with some of the most awkward
and forced jumping mechanics I've ever seen in a game. Simply put,
the gunplay feels unsatisfying. While playing, I always dreaded the
shooting sections which were often limited to waiting for enemies to
poke their heads out or to some incredibly cramped corridors. As a
result, I often found myself dying or throwing myself into the midst
of battle because I felt that waiting like a duck for the next enemy
to show his head was a fate worse than death. Even the guns
themselves felt unsatisfying to use. None of them felt like they had
a particularly satisfying punch to them. It was actually kind of sad
that the most satisfying part of the gameplay was running up behind a
guy and taking him out with a silent takedown. Speaking of which, the
game has a few stealth sections which I can only define as retarded
seeing as how the A.I. in these sections is pathetic.
The
platforming is also another big weakness for the game that it just
can't overcome. The main issue is how punishing it is for so much as
deviating from the developer's main path. There were several times
where I would try to jump to a specific location only to fall for my
death because I didn't do what they wanted to do. This also extends
to the puzzles, where you're given a notebook that straight-up tells
you the solution, regardless of how difficult or simple they are. It all feels so patronizing, as if the developer
were afraid of you breaking their precious toys that they feel the
need to remove any sense of freedom. The worst part about it is that
if you begin to take too long, Drake himself will tell you what to do
and where to go.
This
game's opinion of you in a nutshell.
Many
will argue against me saying that the set pieces more than make up
for th game's faults and to be honest, I have to disagree with them.
They feel more like a cheap cop out as opposed to fully featured
levels in an action game. This really has more to do with the games
mechanics though, seeing as how a game is part level design and part
gameplay. And if it falls in one area, it's only natural that it's
either going to be greater as a result or be dragged down as a whole,
and in this case it's the latter. In the end, what I say really
doesn't matter though, because I know for a fact that people will
love this game just because it looks pretty or because it's a fucking
movie. At the end of the day, I guess some people would rather have a
game that railroads them from one place to another as opposed to a
carefully constructed experience that had some fucking thought put
into it.
Which
reminds me...
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