Uncharted 3

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Ugh the fucking assholes apparently aren't releasing this until tomorrow in this crappy place...The only reason I got out of bed this morning.

What about me ((((((((

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":1f84ene3]

Did you order from Amazon UK? Mine was pre ordered and still wasn't shipped... I need to have this for the weekend.

Nah, danish online shop. Got it earlier today~~only problem is that I probably won't have time to play it until the weekend

Mine's coming from play.com, should be here tomorrow... not that I'll play it straight off because I've still got to playthrough U2 for a second time so it doesn't matter if it's late

About 4 hours into it, looks absolutely incredible. Without a doubt the best looking game out there at the moment, I kept stopping up to look at things at the

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Chateau

, just looks so freaking good. Not completely blown away by the gameplay, but its still really good stuff.

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Damn, played the sequence where you get drugged and run around in a haze. One of the most trippy and crazy things I've seen in a game yet. Also really digging their chase sequences, haven't messed one of them up yet, which I figure is all down to how well the camera communicates where you're supposed to go. Some pretty good puzzles so far too~

Just finished it, great game, even if it is just more of the same.

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Really wanna know how they hell they made those dreamy/drugged sequences. If it's post filters, really looks like the geometry is moving but surely that can't be the case. Also the shipwreck island level with the rafts with them going up and down in the water was sweet, just wish they'd used that location more~

Definitely the best looking game out there right now, their environment art and characters just look so fucking good~~

I've just started it. Maybe it's because I've got it on hard, but one thing I'm already liking over the previous games is the puzzles are actual puzzles. It's not Drake saying "I know these symbols!" and then PRESS SELECT TO SOLVE.

Edit: I got the impression this game was going to be worse than the second for Simon Says death avoiding sequences, where you don't do what the director wants and you fall an inch into still water and die, but most of these I've got through first time, which makes them feel much cooler.

It seems more buggy than the other games though? I'm seeing a lot of NPC's being tugged around the environment before they can even turn fully or touch the ground. And I've had two "blocker" script breaks I had to suicide to fix.

My copy came yesterday, still got to finish 2 again before I endulge... damn, I love the fuck out of the train ride!

Without any spoilers, how long is the campaign compared to the first two? Several sites have criticised it for being a lot shorter than the previous titles...

It's shorter than 2, think it took me about 8-9 hours on Normal

i am thinking about dropping it down to easy so i don't have to spend so much time with the shooting. why does it feel like a return to uncharted 1? i swear the gun mechanics were so much more refined in 2, what happened? were they always this bad? cause this is practically unplayable for me.

also i am totally seeing where eurogamer is coming from with the 8/10 score, and their reasons for doing so. uncharted 2 sort of put you either in control or not in control, now i find myself in a weird limbo where i am never really sure if i am supposed to be pressing a button or not. the environments are way too small for the speed that drake moves, and i often find myself clipping into things that should probably have some nice smooth collision around them.

maybe it's because i am sick and it's late, but i don't really feel as wowed by this as i did by #2.

also the art is really hit and miss, kinda expected more from ND, although i liked the london background, nice to see the gerkin.

Statistics screen said it took me 9 hours, 9 minutes and 54 seconds on hard.

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I was really surprised when the achievements started popping up.

Just started it, really enjoying it so far, but I got to say the sound design seems like it lets the game down a bit.

aaaand finished it. usual length, if you've played the previous games then it's no different in length in my opinion.

however... this is surely a polished turd. or perhaps a diamond covered in shit.

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there's some fantastic moments, some great set pieces, some really nice art. unfortunately it's let down along the way by equal parts shitty gunplay and terrible encounter design, horrible cinematic sections that turn into trial and error (with checkpoints so close together that it's obvious that the design is terrible and they knew it, and had no other option but to riddle the event with checkpoints), and the same old story path. even indiana jones movies differed a lot in content and story even if the basic thread was the same, here we seem to have the same thing over and over, and i'm not sure how many ancient temples i can stand collapsing into nothing and being swallowed by the earth.

the final section is one of the more frustrating, not because of difficulty, but simply bad design. you are given shitty weapons, a level that is shaking and throwing off your aim, and then a selection of enemies that require some pinpoint accuracy.. and all this built on top of terrible shooting mechanics. the final series of quicktime events was also diabolical even on easy, i cannot imagine what it's like on something challenging. that final shot into the bad guy, why isn't it just one bullet instead of three or four? i failed it first time because of that, again breaking their desired cinematography.

ok so general criticisms. they really should just make a movie at this point, it seems like they are quite frustrated at having to cater for somebody desiring some kind of input. they skip between cutscenes with some interaction, no interaction and full interaction so much that it's quite easy to see your character just standing there when the director is calling for some movement. i think they are pushing in an interesting direction, but they certainly haven't nailed it yet. this feels like they are trying too hard compared to uncharted 2, which seemed to take everything in it's stride, uncharted 3 really feels like there was more time put into how they could wow the player, so much so that they forgot to polish the shitty parts out of their 3 mechanics (climbing/parkour shit, shooting and gunplay, and general movement in the world - cover, gameplay spaces etc).

i enjoyed the game. i got frustrated as fuck in a lot of places. restarting from checkpoints dozens of times because of a lack of input from the game - the game seems annoyed that i am there, it sulks because i haven't got to the right trigger area for it's next big set-piece, but it won't tell me what it wants me to do, god forbid it should stop being a blockbuster movie and become a game.

i'm also a little intrigued by the art direction, there's some very striking images and some great technical stuff going on, but in places it's a horrible incoherent mess. like texture artists are fighting to see who can have the most dazzling art, ignoring any kind of flow and direction required by design. sometimes an area feels very lifeless, and other times there's almost too much going on, all of the scenes feel very very busy for a game designed to be played on a television screen with a terrible input device 5 feet away.

all negative criticisms aside, there was some great stuff, some inspiring art, and a good story with some really nice animation going on. more puzzles would be nice, and it'd be even better if i could work it out myself instead of 20 seconds of thinking the npc's straight up tell me what to do, lest drake slow down the production.

i give it 7 relativities out of a potential purple.

bla bla not finished yet not reading what people have written etc

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Awesome at it's best, but seriously...why adding shotgun dudes, grenade launcher dudes and the laser sniper guys in every encounter, completely breaking the flow in almost all of the combat situations???

Most of the times when I'm killed, it's because of bad luck, and not because I fucked up.. unnecessary frustration, and typical "it's not challenging enough, add more of these fuckers" design.

But yeah, awesome shit when stuff works, but not half as polished as UC2

Good post, Rick.

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Disclaimer of "it's a good game" is necessary, but I think the gameplay and story in Uncharted 3 is behind the other two games, and the set-pieces are behind Uncharted 2.

It was great the action sequences now had good camera work and signposting to get you through in the first play through (or near enough), they were really amazing, but they still haven’t applied anything like this to the stealth sections. I don’t think I’ve finished a single stealth section in an Uncharted game except the Museum in the second (aka. worst part of the entire series).

I thought the Ghost Rider dudes looked good but they basically were normal guys with a particle system on their grenades and a teleport (I’m behind you GG). The fight in the fountain was just me restarting until I could get to the Hammer.

Oh, and those grenade guys are so annoying because you’re gone in two and the first one staggers you out of cover, often to be shot by other guys. Most of the time once the grenade is fired that’s it, there’s nothing you can do retroactively to prevent being dead. Same goes for those shotgun guys, depending on where they spawn you often could not take off their hat in time. I know the whole philosophy of Uncharted is repeating a sequence until it goes correct enough that you hit a checkpoint but, y’know, that’s not good.

The story never really seemed to peak and the baddies never seemed to have a clear goal. The artefact seemed pretty useless for controlling the world. And the baddie in the suit took a bullet without being hurt and appeared to disappear into thin air? And he seemed to care too much that the old woman died? I guess it’s just unusual for the sidekick not to be a conniving bastard. Whatever, the main problem with the story is that you basically know exactly what's going to happen from the start.

i also like to pretend that the ship graveyard never happened. that was the point in the game where i really lost the love for it that uncharted 2 had created.