Friday, February 14, 2014

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Naughty Dog - 2009 - PS3

A copy of The Last of Us has literally been sitting, unplayed, on my TV shelf for the last 3 months because of Uncharted 2. Not because I've been busy playing Uncharted 2, but because I finished Uncharted 2 a couple years ago and it had to be one of the most overhyped and uninteresting games I think I've ever played. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Uncharted 2 is a bad game, but I don’t quite understand how it won over so many critics and sold so many copies.

The platforming sections are slow and unremarkable. The puzzle solving sections are too simple and usually just involve opening Drake’s notebook to the proper page to find the solution. The cover based shooting is just… cover based shooting. There’s nothing new here, this game retreads ground that many other games have already tread. By the way, I really hope you like cover based shooting because there’s A LOT of it here. Granted, I played Uncharted 2 immediately after finished the first Uncharted, so I might have burned myself out on Uncharted.

But I think the issue is deeper than that for me. I think I’m burned out on shooters. If the 90s were the era of the platformer, the 00s are definitely the era of shooters. I think I’m just bored and ready for something else. Modern shooters have to do something else interesting in order to hold my attention. Tell an interesting story. Layer an interesting mechanic on top of the shooting. I don’t think I can handle any more pure shooters though. Not that Uncharted is a pure shooter, but it feels close enough. The story feels like a script to a typical Hollywood action movie, it’s kind of forgettable and bland. I never felt invested in the story at all or any of the characters in it for that matter. Nathan Drake comes across as very smug and cocky to me which really started to rub me the wrong way after a while. I feel like the player should never be put off by the character he’s controlling unless it’s intentionally comedic or something.

Summary:
There’s really nothing about this game that I found warranted the praise and acclaim that it got at its release. I guess it does look really graphically impressive, but that usually never matters me especially if the game itself isn't that fun. I’m hoping none of the things I've just described are true about The Last of Us, but I've yet to work up the nerve to try and play through that game.

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