Oh, I'm not lumping.  I think of Uncharted as an action adventure like Tomb Raider except with a heavy focus on shooting.  I think of Mass Effect as an RPG with a heavy focus on shooting.  I think Fable is an RPG and GTA is a sandbox game.  I don't think MGS is a shooter, either.  It comes down to what the primary focus of the game is, if you ask me.

Gears primary focus, despite having a good story (imo) is the combat.  It does that very well.  Mass Effect seems to be primarily foccused on the story and absorbing you into its world.  Uncharted seems to be primarily focussed on maintaining an action/adventure movie atmosphere.  Of course, this is my interpretation.  I could be wrong.  I think the biggest problem developers face is that there's only so many buttons on a controller.  You have your jump, your interact, your melee,  your shoot, etc.  With just a few buttons, you have to make an experience that spans anywhere from 10 to 50 or more hours. 

Unless you totally want to take gameplay out of the hands of the gamer and make a game based entirely on context sensitive buttons (ie: Heavy Rain) or quick time events, you're going to end up shooting, chopping, or running an awful lot.  It can't be helped.  Those buttons have to be used over and over again.  But, if you use those buttons repeatedly, but at the same time, manage to work in some other elements (exploration, interaction, platforming, heavy story, level up systems) and the actual combat isn't the main focus of the game, it's okay.  It's okay for a game with good shooting mechanics to be labeled an adventure (Uncharted) or even a platformer (Ratchet and Clank).  It's okay for a game with lots of hacking and slashing to be labeled an RPG (Dragon Age).  It's okay for a game with a lot of first person shooting to be labeled a puzzle game or an adventure (Portal, Metroid Prime).  Again, I think it all comes down to the primary focus and vision of the game.

d21lewis and Michael-5 know what's good :)
If I may add a thought I had already years ago: isn't it more like people who play FPS and "AAA" only are the real casual gamers? I mean ... if the games were core, how could they be so successful? 50m+ 360s/PS3s sold. Do people really think those are all core gamers who buy the 20m FPS? Core gamers are pretty rare nowadays, just take a look around when shopping (or take a look at the software tie ratios).

What does being a core or casual gamer have to do with the demograph of PS3 or 360? I'll agree with you that generally FPS's appeal to casual games due to their simple pick up and play online gameplay, and both PS3 and 360 have a strong casual (and core) FPS crowd, but what does that change?

Also selling well doesn't make games like Halo or Assassin's Creed less of "core titles." Sales have nothing to do whether the game appeals to the hardcore or not. Some of my favorite games sell in low volumes, others in high volumes (e.g. Lost Odyssey - 800k, Gears 2 - 6 million).

The problem is you think Uncharted is an Action/Adventure with Shooter elements, where I feel it's a shooter with Action/Adventure elements. There is no denying, the bulk of the game involves shooting people. There is cg, there are a couple of puzzle sequences, there are some platforming elements, and often times, the shooting is mixed with platforming, but the main thing is shooting comes first.

How can you consider Uncharted an Adventure game, if the game is linear? There is no fee world exploration, no deviation from the main game at all. Super Mario has free world exploring, you can tackle any level at any time, and you can pick any mission within a world to accomplish. Metroid Prime has side missions, branching gameplay paths, and you are always free to go back anywhere in the game and look around, or scan.

GTA is not all about shooting. There is free world exploring, car chases, car racing, stunts, cage fighting, etc, etc. It's sandbox because the game allows you to do anything you like. If GTA were a linear game, with a set path (like Uncharted), then I would begin to consider it a shooter. However being a free world adventure game, it allows you to explor.

As for Fable, I never really been a fan of the franchise, I wouldn't know what to classify it as. Even Peter Monyloex doesn't know. I recall reading him say something like "It's a mixture of a bunch of games, but if I had to classify it, I would say MMO style RPG" which is kind of true. Yes there is a gun, but that thing is useless, you spend most of the game punching people and using magic. Mainly magic. However that's not what makes it an RPG. To be honest though, I just don't like this game, I think it's a terrible RPG, so I can't really argue about it well.

I'm not classifying Uncharted as a shooter because it's convienient. I could say you are classifying it as Action Adventure because that's convienient. The thing is except for some platforming, there is very little in this game that would make it an action adventure. No free world exploration, no side quests, no ability to choose my own mission, all enemy encouters involve shoot offs (rarely do you use environments or melee to battles), and well the game is a shooter IMO.

If I had been trying to classify Uncharted as a shooter for convienience, I would have done the same for MGS. However I have stated that MGS is not an Action/Adventure game, but a stealth/shooter game.

this thread is still going! wht are you guy's talking about? i look at it this way. everything not a shooter sells better then shooters on PS so i'll stick with the diverse gamer argument.

30 minutes ago, we all secretly decided to let this thread die but then you came along and bumped it back to hot topics.  Now it's going to live forever!

What I think he is trying to say is core gamers are more likely to pick up the gems that have silent releases, games that "casual" gamers would know nothing about.

And about your other comment, shooting is not the primary focus in Uncharted, platforming is, In Uncharted I can go up to 5 minutes without firing a bullet, I can only go about 1 minute tops without having to scale something though.