Stuff That I Played: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Note: This will be MOSTLY spoiler-free but not entirely. Like in the first game though, the plot is quite predictable so it hardly matters.

I did not like the first Uncharted game at all. Sure, it was really pretty and had some very well-written (if pretty shallow) characters, but the game just wasn't fun for me. All of its game elements were taken from other games, the level design was shoddy and the plot was boring and predictable. So it was with a certain skepticism that I went into Uncharted 2, despite it's many perfect scores in gaming publications and whopping 96 rating on Metacritic. At the end of the day, the game still didn't exactly win me over, but I liked it enough to say that if you own a PS3, you should give the game a shot.

In case you are uninitiated with the series, the Uncharted games follow Nathan Drake, an Indiana Jones-inspired treasure hunter, on his expeditions to find various artifacts. The games blend third-person shooting (a la Gears of War) with platforming (a la Tomb Raider, or in my case because I've never played any Tomb Raider games, Shadow of the Colossus). I had a lot of problems with the first game, which Uncharted 2 alleviates in a few ways.

Let's get this out of the way first: the game is beautiful. Characters' faces are more animated than in the first game, and the environments are a lot more varied this time around as the adventure takes place in more than one area of the world. The game isn't quite as jaw-dropping as God of War 3, but it's pretty close.

Yum.

The writing is just as good in this game as it was in the last; the main characters have fantastic chemistry and are voiced wonderfully. In fact, the sound overall is pretty great - guns and explosions sound exactly like they should, and the soundtrack is pretty damn epic.

The plot basically follows the exact same structure of the last game (albeit with a neat little "trick" in the narrative that is present throughout the first half of the game), and just like last time, the supernatural elements introduced into the plot halfway through are still rather awkward. I don't understand why the creators at Naughty Dog keep trying to add in these weird supernatural parts - in the last game it was Nazi zombies, in this game it's superpowered Yetis. It's an odd tonal shift, and one that never really gels with the feeling of the game. I suppose it's so that Drake's quest for treasure is seen less as selfish money-making and more as a valiant attempt to save the world, but that doesn't really work (Plug: check out my other post about this here!).

The gameplay has been beefed up quite a bit, largely by making a much greater effort to simulate a Hollywood action flick. What really seperates Uncharted 2 from the last game is that there a lot more big action set-pieces. You'll be climbing up trains that are dangling over cliffs, stealthily making your way through a guarded museum, and having huge firefights on top of several moving vehicles, among other things. These pieces are breathtaking and fun as hell. Even when the gameplay is more basic, there's usually some sort of gimmick, like a bridge suddenly falling down as you're traversing it, or a tank that you need to destroy to end a combat section. Furthermore, the two types of gameplay tend to intertwine a little bit more - the level design has been largely improved so that shooting parts usually have a couple different "floors" that you can jump on, enabling you to approach the shooting sections in many different ways. It's a marked improvement over the flat, boring levels of the last game.

Shoot-out on a moving train.  Yes, you're actually playing during this part.

The action also has a greater emphasis on stealth, as you are often thrown into situations where you can silently take out enemies before confronting them. This goes a long way in opening up the strategic possibilites of the game - there are some sections where, if you're skilled enough, you can take out every enemy without having to fire a single shot. It helps that the stealth kills are great fun to watch; my favourite is when a guard is close to a ledge and Drake smashes his face into it, knocking him out immediately. Good times.

So you may be asking yourself, "But Daniel, I was being really attentive whilst reading this review, and you said the game didn't win you over, even though you've been giving it mounds of praise so far.  What happened?"  To which I would reply "The last third of the game did, dear reader."

The problem with the game is that for the last 3 or 4 hours, it totally reverts back to the style of the first game.  It seems like the developers just ran out of ideas for huge action scenes, so they said "fuck it, just throw them into a bunch of shoot-outs, they'll still like it", and that's exactly what they do.  Instead of having some crazy ridiculous set-pieces to play through, the last few hours of the game have you merely alternating between frustrating shoot-outs with waves and waves of enemies and uninspired platforming sections.  The levels are still designed better than anything int he first game, but later firefights are intensely frustrating, and often devoid of strategy, especially once you fight the super-powered Yetis, who can take ludicrous amounts of damage and are impervious to melee attacks.

And I wish I could say that the game picks up in the last hour or something, but it doesn't.  In fact, the last hour is probably the worst part of the whole game, complete with an utterly disappointing final boss.  Literally the only thing you do for the boss is run around a small area and occasionally shoot explosive things as he chases you.  Then they "spice it up" by having him throw easily-dodged grenades.  Then they have him throw THREE grenades instead of TWO.  Sacre bleu!  Needless to say, I was pretty let down by the whole affair.

You have to understand that I really wanted to love this game.  The first 6 or 7 hours of it are brilliantly intense and some of the most enthralling moments of gaming I've ever played.  It's a real shame, then, that the game loses its luster in its final hours, falling into to a mindless alternation of annoying shooting and boring platforming.  Overall, there are still enough great moments in the game that it's definitely worth a playthrough - but don't say that I didn't warn you.

-Daniel

Stuff That I Think: Why Nathan Drake is the Greatest Villain of All-Time

Note: this post will contain spoilers for the first Uncharted game (but not the second, as I haven’t played it yet). If you care about the game being ruined for you, don’t read this post. Let it be known, however, that the game’s plot is not exactly Pulitzer-worthy, so you may as well read it anyways.

Haven't I seen this guy somewhere?

At first glance, Nathan Drake, the hero of the Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune seems like a pretty sweet dude. His ability to laugh in the face of danger, his dark-haired boyish good looks, and his knowledge of ancient cultures makes ladies swoon and men look up in awe. But what’s most enticing about Drake is the fact that beyond his adventurous experiences, he seems like a fairly regular guy; he reacts to things like grenades and swaths of enemies like most regular Joes would – “Shit”. Indeed, Drake seems like the kinda guy who goes to a bar in between international adventures, orders a couple beers and talks about sports while checking out ladies and making off-color remarks. He seems like the kinda guy that, despite being somewhat of a douche, you would probably get along with.

Except that you’d be dead wrong, because Drake is basically demon incarnate.

Drake takes a lot of his cues from another classic adventurer, Indiana Jones. Like Indy, Drake attempts to discover artifacts from ancient, dead cultures; what’s different is a question of character motivation. The way Indiana Jones works as a good guy is that his adventures are purely some fun on the side; he retains a day job as a university professor (though how he’s able to cut class whenever he wants to go on globetrotting adventures is a mystery to me). Most importantly, he seeks these ancient artifacts for the pursuit of knowledge – as he says, “artifacts belong in a museum”. Thus, while Indy obviously gets some self-satisfaction from the thrill and excitement of adventure, as well as an escape from his day job, his pursuit is a noble one.

You know why Nathan Drake risks his life to find artifacts from ancient cultures? Money. Oh, sure, by the end of the game, Drake is trying to find the treasure of El Dorado to save the world, but until the end of the game, everything Drake does is for cash. We get no indication that Drake has any sort of a day job – this cultural grave-robbing seems to be his primary source of income. This is not a noble pursuit; on the contrary, it is an entirely selfish one, actually depriving the human race of the knowledge that obtaining these priceless artifacts would bring. The only difference between Nathan Drake and Gabriel Roman (the villain of the game) is that Drake is young, pretty, and charming.

In fact, when you look at it, Drake is actually much worse than Roman. Looking at my medals from Uncharted, I can see that I killed, AT THE VERY LEAST, 380 people. This only includes the medals that I got for killing a certain number of enemies with a certain weapon – I didn’t get the medals for several of the guns. This means that chances are, the body count for the first Uncharted game is probably somewhere between 400 and 450. As far as I can tell, Roman doesn’t kill a single person throughout the entire game. Granted, you could make the argument that these people are all “evil”, but that doesn’t really work, as all of these people are there for the same reason that Drake is.

Not even Drake’s creators at Naughty Dog realize how much of a dastardly asshole he is. No remorse for his victims is ever shown, and it’s never hinted at that maybe, just maybe, Drake is wrong to be tracking down these things for his own personal means, or that he kills others with an attitude bordering on enthusiasm. The reason why Drake is the greatest villain of all-time is that he fools everyone, in-game and out: himself, his best friend, his love interest, his own creators, and, most importantly, the player.

Stuff That I Played: God of War 3

Before I start the review, a quick note.  I realized the other day that I haven't actually written anything in regards to comics.  I'm sorry about this; all my new videogames have been cutting into my reading time somewhat.  I was writing a Dark Knight Strikes Again review, so hopefully that will see the light of day soon once I actually write the thing adequately.  I'm also almost done the short New X-Men Omnibus I just got, so expect something on that shortly.  Again, sorry about that.  I will rectify this ASAP!

Anyways, God of War 3.  Yay!  This review will be RELATIVELY SPOILER-FREE, but will likely have GOD OF WAR 2 SPOILERS.

For some reason, the actual box art didn't come up on image search, but this one's way cooler anyways.

I've been waiting for this game since the cliffhanger conclusion of God of War 2 in 2007.  Many people found issue with cliffhanger, but I understood - I wanted my epic Titan/God battles to be jaw-droppingly huge and furious, and this could not be done with the limitations of the Playstation 2.  Now on the next-gen Playstation 3, God of War 3 delivers almost everything I could have asked, albeit with a few issues.

The first thing I think I have to stress is the graphics, which are absolutely beautiful.  Everything looks fantastic - most impressive is Kratos himself, who's detail has been gloriously bumped up the last two games; he is now so good-looking that you can even see his pores.  This isn't to say that the rest of the game is slouches, of course.  The game runs extremely well; everything looks detailed and crisp, shading is outstanding, and the framerate runs at a steady clip.  In fact, the game runs so well that it took me about a half hour of playing to adjust to the speed of it: I'm just not used to seeing games look so good.  This also has the effect of making the game more brutal than the others, and that's really saying something.  Kratos gets realistically covered in blood as battles, people are decapitated with bare hands, and monsters are slit open, their intestines spilling out of their bodies.  It's all very gruesome, obviously.  Let's put it this way: the game looks so good that they didn't have to use any "cutscenes" to speak of - everything is done with the in-game engine (outside from a couple striking flashback sequences which are done in a stylistically different manner).  I assure you, you've never seen anything with this much scope and scale in a game before.

I wanted to do this side-by-side but couldn't figure out how.  Anyways, here's Kratos from a cutscene of the first game.....

.....And here's his in-game model from the third.  Hot damn!

                                                                                                           

God of War 3 picks up right from the end of the second game (SPOILERS): the Titans are storming towards Mt. Olympus to take revenge on Zeus for enslaving them years ago.  Kratos (our "hero"), having been denied of his revenge on Zeus in GoW2 and discovering that Zeus is his father, rides on the titan Gaia, and he is PISSED.  What follows is an appropriately brutal conclusion to Kratos's long journey of vengeance on the gods.  The plot is done pretty well, though after a few hours the game's narrative loses a bit of steam.  See, the problem is (SPOILERS) that by the halfway point of the game, you've already killed all of Zeus's brothers and two Titans, which means that for the last half of the game boss battles are relatively scarce and the plot becomes a tad unfocused.

Gameplay-wise, the game is largely similar to the first two games.  The combat remains relatively unchanged, though new moves have been added to deal with the larger number of enemies that are capable of being on-screen at once, such as the ability to use smaller enemies as battering rams.  The magic system has been replaced somewhat: now, each magic is tied to one of four different weapons, and what would be magic in earlier games are now side weapons, which have a refilling bar.  This is an interesting switch and one that works rather well - it means that you don't have to waste precious red orbs (which is what you upgrade your weapons with) on magic that you probably won't use that much, and allows you to use the more useful abilities (such as the bow and arrow) more often.  My one problem with this is that the game is too easy; it is without doubt the easiest of the three games, and this is largely due to the number of ways in which you can defend yourself.  Also, it's a bit of a bummer that out of the four weapons, three of them fall in the "chains with _____ attached".  While they all control pretty differently, I found myself not using the two chained weapons you get later in the game at all, sticking with Kratos's default weapon and sometimes switching to the Cestus (which are basically mythological boxing gloves).  This weapon balance is a problem the God of War games have always had, and it continues in the third installment.

One nice thing about the GoW3 is the puzzle design, which is actually really smart and generally pretty interesting.  The second game amped up the puzzles as well, but they were still largely based on boxes and switches.  The puzzles in this game are quite thoughtful, and all feel contextually appropriate (except for one weird rhythm-based puzzle which stuck out a little bit).  You won't get stuck on them, but you will have to take a look around the environment a bit and actually think of what you need to do.  It's a nice addition, and really helps break up the flow of the game in an effective manner.

The boss battles, as expected, are ridiculously over-the-top.  The best battles are the larger opponents, such as the breathtaking battle with Poseidon that begins the game.  The God of War series is known for having incredible opening sequences, and Poseidon is definitely the best opening of the three.  Bosses do not disappoint at all; there was one boss later on that I wasn't too sure about, but that's because the actual "battle" with him is extremely short - the difficult part is a really nice platforming section where you have to chase him down.  Now, this being said, I did feel like some of the kills were just a little bit disappointing; it didn't happen too often, but I found that some of the boss kills boiled down to "stab repeatedly in the same spot, decapitate".  It all adds to the brutality, but at times I was yearning for God of War 2's interesting, almost balletic kills.  Again though, this didn't happen enough to significantly affect my enjoyment the game.  Also, the problem with having such huge, impressive boss fights is that when you're NOT fighting a boss, the game feels small - it's a comparative thing and a problem that only comes with the mountainous highs of the thrilling bosses.

Pacing-wise, also like the other games, God of War 3 is incredibly strong.  The game keeps you moving briskly from one event to the next, switching between platforming, puzzles, fighting, and even some short flying sections (which are pretty improved from the boring flight sections of God of War 2).  The pacing does falter a little bit halfway through the game - the plot changes somewhat significantly, and boss battles are scarce.  This means the last half of the game is a little bit closer in feel to the first two games as opposed to the largeness of this one.  It also loses the exploratory feel of the second game; it's more like the first game, where you explore one or two really large areas, at times backtracking through older sections with new abilites.  It's a bit of an unfortunate sacrifice, and means you don't see too much variation in environments.  Luckily, the game picks itself back up in the last few hours as it approaches its conclusion.

Which leads to some controversy.  The ending of the game has been a little bit disputed with critics; some consider it a stroke of genius, others have been less than impressed.  I don't want to talk about it too much for fear of ruining it (that's for tomorrow's post), but I thought the conclusion was perfectly fine; however, I took issue with the actual END of it, as in the last minute and short epilogue.  More on this in a crazy spoiler post tomorrow.

As a side note, one you beat the game you unlock a bunch of behind-the-scenes videos.  God of War games have always had an hour-ish long mkaing of feature, and GoW3 has that AS WELL as individual features about specific parts of the game's design, i.e. voice acting, writing, animating, etc.  If you like this kind of stuff (and I do), it's a very cool bonus.

Play this game if:
-You played and enjoyed the other two (three if you count the PSP one) God of War games.
-You want some crazy ridiculous action sequences and boss fights
-You want to see the best graphics in current video gaming thus far.


Don't play this game if:
-You're squeamish
-You can't handle over-the-top, somewhat comic book-esque plots and dialogue
-You haven't played the other two main games in the series (and seriously, if you want to play this one and you haven't played the others yet, what's your excuse?  Go out and buy the HD remasters of them!  They look great!)
-You want a deep battle system - I say this because while the system is very intuitive and controls extremely well, it's not the deepest fighting system in a game of this type.  Put it beside the Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry games and there's really no contest.


Later days,
Daniel

Stuff That I Played: Heavy Rain

SPOILER-FREE, so don't worry about reading.

A friend of mine recently was kind enough to lend me his PS3 because he has to study for exams, so I'm finally able to play through some of my most anticipated games on the console. This is gonna be pretty quick because frankly, it's hard to judge Heavy Rain in relation to other games because it's so unique.

Heavy Rain isn't really a "game" per se. It's more of an interactive movie; I suppose it's sort of like if you were able to say "DON"T GO THROUGH THAT DOOR!" during a horror movie and that character actually listened. The game is extremely immersive as you control the most basic of actions; the first hour or so of the game basically just has you go through one of the main characters' morning routine, getting dressed, brushing his teeth, eating, etc. Some would find this boring but due to the interesting control scheme and overall uniqueness of the game, it really worked for me.

Most of Heavy Rain is played using a variety of quicktime events. For those who don't know, what happens here is that you don't control the entire character; rather, a cinematic plays, and button prompts are put up on the screen. If you press the button in the the required, you "Win" the action; this keeps going in a particular sequence. For example, you control Guy A in a fight. Guy B takes a swing; the screen flashes X. If you press X in time, you dodge; otherwise you get smacked in the face. The fight resumes in this fashion. Quicktime events have been fairly criticized over the years as being a little bit lazy, but they can be used to good effect (see: the God of War games), and in Heavy Rain this is true. All of the "action" scenes play out in extremely intense quicktime events, using the face and shoulder buttons, as well as the movement of the Sixaxis controller - while I'm not a big fan of motion controls, the Sixaxis is superbly implemented, making the sequences more nerve-wracking(as you have more button choices to worry about) and greater simulating the action of, say, driving a car. What's most impressive about these parts is how smooth they are - you'll never see a "game over" screen in the game; if you mess up a quicktime event really badly, there's the possibility that main characters will die, or certain plot points unfold differently. In this way, the game brings a sense of immediacy to the proceedings, and stresses the importance of split-second actions and decisions; it really keeps you on your toes.

The game follows four characters who all have some sort of relation to a recent child murderer dubbed the Origami Killer (due to the origami figures he/she leaves in his/her victims' hands). Paths intersect and plotlines twist as each of the characters search for the Origami Killer for their own reasons and in their own ways.

The plot is extremely involving even from the start of the game; again, it comes down to immersion and feeling like you are mostly in control of events. There's a certain thrill you get from watching these characters and controlling their every move, like some sort of virtual puppeteer. At times, despite my own personal feelings, it reached a point where I was making decisions based on what I thought the characters would do, rather than my own personal wants (I should have a post tomorrow or tonight pertaining to this, but it will contain spoilers, so read at your own risk). It's a powerful, engrossing game, with some extremely moving scenes and great writing. My only problems in this respect are that side characters are largely one-dimensional and not written as well, and the fact that the script uses a lot of movie cliches. However, this almost works in the game's favour; because it's so influenced by film and uses a lot of Hollywood cliches (In particular regarding to the archetypal main characters), it truly works as an 8 hour movie that you CONTROL. I felt that the length of the game was absolutely perfect, keeping the plot moving at a brisk pace and containing only a couple filler scenes - I blew through the game in about 3 extended sittings, and most others probably will too.

I only have a couple of problems with the game. First off, the movement controls are clunky, using an old Resident Evil-type control system where you press a button to walk and use the analog sticks to just point in whatever direction you face. You get used to it, but I don't understand why they couldn't just make a regular old 3D movement system. My other problem is that it's not until halfway through the game that your choices really begin to affect what happens; for the first half, though you still control the characters actions, most scenes will end with the same outcome, regardless of the details of the scene. Also, the graphics are pretty, but side characters have noticeably less detail than the main characters, mostly in regards to facial expressions, and they still haven't been able to nail a realistic-looking kiss in games; kisses tend to look like the characters' faces are just floating in front of each other with open mouths. It's a weird effect and pulls you out of the game momentarily.  Finally, while the voice acting is generally top-notch all around, children sound uniformly strange; most of them have this weird accent that makes them sound kind of like they're mentally-challenged, to the point where I couldn't quite decide whether Jason (one of the main protagonist's sons) was in fact mentally handicapped or not - it certainly wouldn't be too much of a stretch considering his actions (you'll understand once you play the game).

Overall though, Heavy Rain is an engrossing thrill ride of a game, and one that is incredibly unique. Whether it will be groundbreaking or not remains to be seen - I'm curious to see whether the game will form a whole new genre, or even influence other games majorly; I also wonder how well a game like this will sell; in its first week it sold over half a million copies, so I guess it's doing just fine (stat taken from IGN.com). So, the scorecard:

Play this game if:
-You liked Shenmue (seriously, if you liked that whole day-to-day minutia sort of thing, which I did, you'll totally dig this game. Shenmue was also the first game to popularize quicktime events, so hah!)
-You like movies (particularly movies that deal with more mature subject matter)
-You want a totally unique gameplay experience
-You are a casual or hardcore videogame player; I say this because the controls are unique enough that I think even if not accustomed with games, anyone should be able to get some enjoyment out of it. In fact, before the game starts, it asks you for a difficulty setting, based on how much you play games and how familiar you are with the controller. I'm not sure what this does, but I assume it affects how big the window for doing quicktime events is.

Don't play this game if:
-You are bored easily
-You need a lot of gameplay depth to get into a game
-You just want to shoot stuff

Later days,
Daniel