I ended up at my friends place yesterday, and I asked him to show me Uncharted. He doesn't think very highly of the game (is going to return it, and try to get R&C instead at my recommendation). I watched him play for about 30min (one section of the game only) - I didn't play - so these impressions are based on that alone.
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I have been a bit critical of Sony's PS3 titles so far this generation - in that they seem purely focused on trying to improve the graphical aspect of games, without really improving the gameplay (i.e. adding "true" next-gen elements to their titles). Unfortunately, Uncharted has just reinforced this situation IMO.
My mate (who is a real "hardcore" gamer, owns all the systems, spends most of his money on games, etc...) is really critical of Uncharted. In his opinion, its a poor mans 'Gears of War' - a shooter with weak shooting/cover elements, and just isn't much fun. I can't really comment on this, as I'm no GoW expert.
(the section we played was in the ruins, and led up to a cutscene where Nathan looked through a log book for a ship, and saw something about a golden statue)
The Good:
- the main striking thing about Uncharted that stands out to me, are the textures. The game generally looks really nice, as it has lots of high resolution, pretty textures that make the locales "look" realistic.
- the frame rate (although not as good as I hoped) is pretty solid, and serves the game well.
- water effects are nice, and it looks good when Nathan gets wet in the water
- the cutscenes are well put together, and generally look great (although one we did watch had some poly flicking/z-sorting issues - which really surprised me!).
The Bad:
- after hearing so much about its vaunted animation system, I found I was really disappointed with it. I have done a lot of game development that involves animation systems, and I found Uncharted to be very lacking. Its not so much about the animations themselves, but they way they are applied to the game. It was really easy to make Nathan look stupid - spinning on the spot, running against collision edges, etc. Some of the animations seem badly timed, and badly synced. It just didn't feel smooth or polished. We kept laughing whenever Nathan did a "small" platform jump, and was flaying his hands like wild every time - it just looked wrong.
- what is with the explosions/smoke in the game? Its probably some of the worst "canned" smoke I have ever seen, and wouldn't even look good on a PS2 system. Its not good when you are trying to make a really visually accurate game, and then throw in something as unrealistic as this.
- the areas we played had *completely* static levels. There was plenty of grass around - but none of it ever moved, swayed, animated - even when Nathan or his attackers moved through it. I have heard that the forest sections are better, but this was disappointing.
- virtually all of the gameplay we saw was shooting related. The (little) platforming there was, was sort of pointless - and the levels felt *extremely* linear (my mate said that the game was completely linear). I was hoping for more puzzles, and more interesting navigation - and less shooting. My friend also complained that there was WAY too much shooting, and it was boring the **** out of him.
- the shooting itself seemed pretty weak, and generally un-fun. This seemed to be a combination of the "never miss" AI, that enemies take so many hits to fall, limited ammo. We were both very unimpressed by the "sixaxis throw grenade" mechanism - which is as tack-on as you can possibly get.
- although the textures were nice, many of the surfaces were *way* too shiny. Its ok to have shiny (wet) rock walls in places - but when ALL the walls look like this, in an outside/dry environment - it just looks odd.
- another amusing element, is when a grenade blows right next to you (but with a rock wall between you & the grenade) - you take no damage, even though a heap of huge rocks just exploded through the air, with some of them going through your head!
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Apart from all this, I have another general concern with the game which I thought was more relevant - the whole concept / setting was just PLAIN STOOPID.
This Nathan guy is gunning down HUNDREDS of baddies. Not a few, not 20 or 30 - but hundreds. He is a frigging murderer, and was making no attempt to "not kill" people.
He is NOT military. He is NOT James Bond. He might know how to use a gun, and shoot a couple of people - but this felt like RE4, except killing people instead of not-humans!
I also hate the "auto-heal" feature in the context of this game. IMO, it makes sense in *some* games - such as Halo, or squad based military games (you might have advanced equipment, have others heal you) - but NOT in a game such as Uncharted. Nathan doesn't have some supernatural ability to heal does he? He takes 50, 100 bullets in a section - then walks into the next cutscene with shiny teeth, and an attitude that says "I belong on Miami beach!". No blood, no wounds, no "Wow, glad I made it out of there alive" attitude. It just seems WRONG.
I also struggle with the concept of a cover system when its ONE against TWENTY. It just doesn't make sense - at the least you need a partner with you at ALL TIMES to actually provide the gun cover! Otherwise, why don't two of the enemy walk up to you, and another two train their guns on you - and bang, you die within a minute??
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Much of this is probably very critical, and its probably true (that I'm being critical!). And its also unfair for me to judge the game based on watching someone else play, and only one section/30-min at that.
But there is no question I was disappointed with what I did see. Uncharted is somewhere between a 7.0-8.0 for me at the moment, and there is no way I would purchase it if I had a PS3. It seemed too hard for a casual gamer, and not satisfying enough for a hardcore gamer. The graphics (generally) are impressive, but unless you have a real hankering for a pretty Tomb Raider style game on the PS3 - I couldn't recommend this as an outright purchase (definite rental first).
Gesta Non Verba
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