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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  Gaming  |  But is it Fun?  |  Topic: Uncharted 2 - Naughty Dog - PS3 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Uncharted 2 - Naughty Dog - PS3  (Read 5235 times)
Nonentity
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on: October 15, 2009, 12:22:42 AM

"Great - the girl is trapped in the elevator, and the power is out. I swear, if there's a zombie around the corner..."

My experience with Uncharted 2 comes with having played Uncharted (for the first time) last weekend, and beating it in two or three sittings. Ultimately, I thought the first Uncharted had a fairly charming story, but I had a laundry list of little complaints with the game that kept me from really enjoying it as much as I wanted to.

That being said, almost every complaint I had with Uncharted I feel has been addressed in some capacity in Uncharted 2. The differences you see in the first hour or two completely sold me on it.

The short answer - if you had any complaints with the first Uncharted, I'd recommend Uncharted 2. If you haven't played the first one, don't bother - you don't really need to pick up on any points in the plot that they don't make pretty clear. I now place this game above Arkham Asylum in my personal vote for best single-player experience of the year. If you like video games where you climb things and shoot things, there is none greater.

As a whole, the game is friggin' incredible looking. Best looking game I've seen to date. As they like to spread out the treasures in little hidden corners, it gets you looking at the environment, and it is really impressive. The distance of the horizon when looking out had me stopping to just pan around and look at the little houses and green areas and so on. The attention to detail is notable - little touches like watching Nathan's shirt dry slowly after you get in and out of water, and the effort they put into making the combat set pieces not feel so obvious, and more encompassing of the environment. In the first game, you'd be crawling around, and it was pretty obvious when you were getting into an area where you were going to have a firefight. This also covers the animations, which they have a lot more of now - it's fun to try and stealth kill from various angles, just to flip people around.

The variety in the environments really does well for the game. You aren't in a given environment for more than a few hours at a time, and then they ship you off to another locale.

As far as individual tweaks and nitpicks go, I was lazy and I made a list:

- The way your character sticks to objects in the environment is much, much improved. In the first game, I'd feel like I was sticking on objects that I didn't want to, or I'd be getting caught on corners trying to maneuver terrain.

- The aiming has the right degree of acceleration/deceleration to it now, whereas it felt too twitchy before. I'm not exactly #1 Console FPS master, but I usually do okay with console shooters - the first game just felt all funky though, like 'I am going to break furniture in my house' funky. I haven't had an encounter in the second game yet where I felt that the game cheated me out of a proper win, it was all my own screw ups.

- Recoil on weapons doesn't permanently move where you had your crosshairs before, as it slowly resets back to the original spot. Shooting felt more like a chore to me in the first game - I'd try to carry around weapons that required the least amount of shots to kill someone (revolver and a shotgun), just so I could shoot as little as possible. Now, though, they seem to have tweaked the amount of enemy health enough to where it doesn't feel like you have to reload multiple times just to take out a single guy. It actually is nice to switch up weapons now to try new things.

- Gone is all SixAxis bullshit, and good riddance. You can actually aim and throw grenades from behind cover in Uncharted 2, so they are something I actually use often and effectively now, instead of freaking out and throwing three grenades into a corner as I waggle around my controller trying to get the aiming arc right.

- The overall speed of combat is faster. Enemies won't wait around forever to pop out and take shots at you, grenades are on shorter fuses (both yours and theirs), and the way you can slide between cover is quicker.

- The chatter between characters is definitely better - the writing on the game has notably improved from the first one. Not that the first one was bad, by any stretch, but putting them side by side really makes it stand out how much better they did this time around.

- This game also has the best train level in any game ever. If you like train levels in video games, this one is the best. One complaint about it though, is they put a superhuman boss at the end that just eats up bullets. They didn't have to add that, really, the pacing of the level was fine prior to him. I also don't remember there being any boss creatures at all in Uncharted 1.

So yeah, basically, every aspect of the game is improved in some capacity. I can't really touch on multiplayer, as I haven't tried it yet, but from a purely single-player game perspective, I'm giddy. As an MMOtard, it's nice to actually get a single-player game I enjoy now and again.

----

VERDICT: Buy it, play it, and pet all the yaks!

But that Captain's salami tray was tight, yo. You plump for the roast pork loin, dogg?

[20:42:41] You are halted on the way to the netherworld by a dark spirit, demanding knowledge.
[20:42:41] The spirit touches you and you feel drained.
SnakeCharmer
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Reply #1 on: October 16, 2009, 09:55:25 AM

Love the game, absolutely love it.  And you're dead on with your review.

Some of my favorite lines:

Nonentity
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2009 Demon's Souls Fantasy League Champion


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Reply #2 on: October 16, 2009, 05:37:12 PM



Just wanted to post the Japanese box art here, because it is awesome.

But that Captain's salami tray was tight, yo. You plump for the roast pork loin, dogg?

[20:42:41] You are halted on the way to the netherworld by a dark spirit, demanding knowledge.
[20:42:41] The spirit touches you and you feel drained.
Fabricated
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Reply #3 on: April 04, 2010, 12:37:38 AM

Finally got around to playing this game after having it in shrink wrap for something like 2-3 months.

Basically it's the first game with even better graphics somehow, and a bunch of minor tweaks to gunplay and movement to make it more fun and less irritating. They cut back on the puzzles because I guess people are dumb and bad at looking at a book and doing stuff that the book says, QTEs are still in but much less prevalent, blindfiring doesn't suck anymore, aiming in general doesn't suck anymore, cover movement is smoother, grenades are way easier to throw as mentioned. So basically it's a AAA+ title.

There's some really amazing set pieces in the game. I started playing today at about ~10:30pm, and it's now 3:30AM. Yeah.

As for multiplayer, not touching it since playing any multiplayer shooter with a console controller is balls.

"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
Jeff Kelly
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Reply #4 on: January 24, 2011, 07:28:52 AM

I'll necro this to just add my two cents. I played Uncharted 2 right before christmas last year and I enjoyed it a lot. It's standard action adventure fare with shooting running around and climbing stuff but beautifully done. The graphics is great and the levels are beautifully set up and look incredible. Also every time the game play is in danger of becoming too repetitive they shake it up a little, either by making you flee backwards from an oncoming tank, chasing bad guys along a train in the indian jungle or jumping from truck to truck while chasing the bad guy. It's a fun little action packed ride and longer than you'd expect from a game like this.

It also takes itself not too seriously.

My reccomendation is to buy it, especially since it's now part of the classic games collection.

Also every time some game needs tactical combat mechanics for single player, they should just copy those from Uncharted 2. You can walk and run, shoot while running or walking, actually run backwards while shooting, you can use cover effectively, shoot from behind cover, crouch or sprint from cover to cover, shoot while hanging from your legs upside down etc.. You can attack foes in hand to hand combat or take them out silently And you can do all this without throwing your controller at the wall in despair or frustration.

Seriously Uncharted 2 is 'just' a Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones style action adventure but outclasses even some of the tactical 3rd person shooters out there in that respect, really well done indeed.
Azazel
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Posts: 7735


Reply #5 on: January 29, 2011, 09:52:00 PM

I started this quite awhile back, but put it down and haven't picked it up again. I couldn't tell you why I put it down though. I think it might have been work getting more intense and my gaming time dropping to nothing for a period, since everything I remember about the game was that it was damn fun. Starting it right after finishing the first one might not have helped, I should have mixed it up a bit.

Once I start it again, I'll probably post some more thoughts in this thread, but for now, I'll just echo most of the posts here with a recommendation to buy.

http://azazelx.wordpress.com/ - My Miniatures and Hobby Blog.
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