Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

[abigsmurf]

I've been playing through this and it's definately a love/hate game for me so far.

The atmosphere, the characters, the explortation are all great. However it's spoilt by the combat, or at least the overuse of it.

The game doesn't need all these gun battles. The number of enemies you come across is pretty comical, small time crime bosses who are able to command a good sized army. Makes you wonder how much share of the treasure they'd actually get once it's divided up. Not to mention the number of enemies hiding in rooms that are only accessible through puzzles or that have apparently been sealed for hundreds of years.

The AI and limitations have made some of the battles leading up to where I am now (the II V VII platformy bit) incredibly frustration. The tiny amount of ammo you can hold is never enough to finish a battle and enemies will never miss, if it's possible for them to hit you, they will, no matter how far they are (the 2nd jetski bit is incredibly frustrating getting hit endlessly by enemies who are a few pixels on your screen). As the game can only handle five or so enemies at once, the game starts throwing enemies at you in respawning waves. It's not very fun having spent 5-10minutes battling through 2 waves only to have a couple of shotgun/desert eagle guys spawn behind you in an area they couldn't possibly have come from and kill you before you can switch cover.

Enjoying it but it's got me more frustrated than any other game in recent memory.

[rmoxon]

I've been playing through this and it's definately a love/hate game for me so far.

The atmosphere, the characters, the explortation are all great. However it's spoilt by the combat, or at least the overuse of it.

The game doesn't need all these gun battles. The number of enemies you come across is pretty comical, small time crime bosses who are able to command a good sized army. Makes you wonder how much share of the treasure they'd actually get once it's divided up. Not to mention the number of enemies hiding in rooms that are only accessible through puzzles or that have apparently been sealed for hundreds of years.

The AI and limitations have made some of the battles leading up to where I am now (the II V VII platformy bit) incredibly frustration. The tiny amount of ammo you can hold is never enough to finish a battle and enemies will never miss, if it's possible for them to hit you, they will, no matter how far they are (the 2nd jetski bit is incredibly frustrating getting hit endlessly by enemies who are a few pixels on your screen). As the game can only handle five or so enemies at once, the game starts throwing enemies at you in respawning waves. It's not very fun having spent 5-10minutes battling through 2 waves only to have a couple of shotgun/desert eagle guys spawn behind you in an area they couldn't possibly have come from and kill you before you can switch cover.

Enjoying it but it's got me more frustrated than any other game in recent memory.

I dont really remember a single point in the game where enemies acttualy came from out of nowhere (I recently completed this on crushing before playing Uncharted 2), the gunfights just require you to actualy take up good positioning thats all, or you can get surrounded. Also there is plenty of ammo if you go for the head as enemies die in one shot that way.

I enjoyed the gunfighting overall, i never got the complaints that there was too much of it, though I suppose you could argue its lacking variety, somthing which of course was improved upon immensley for the sequel anyway. But still the shooting mechanics in this are fun, as a fan of shooters I wouldnt want less of them.

[abigsmurf]

The don't come out from nowhere (they always spawn out of sight and come running in), but they do come from 'cleared' side routes which means if you move too far forward in a battle you can end up getting attacked from both sides (which usually equals death depending on how they're armed).

It's only an issue if you advance further than you're really meant to but on longer battles with 3+ waves, you're pushed forward to collect more ammo. It's the way all the respawns all run in at once that makes it especially tough. I keep having to remember the points where they come running in after I clear out a wave. Just adds an extra sense of repetition and artificiality to the game.

[Team Andromeda]

Just finished the game , and the ending to the this is one of the best ever . Just a class game from start to finish, and the closest I'll ever get to what Shenmue III could have looked like .

[abigsmurf]

Finished it yesterday, enjoyed it a lot despite the previously mentioned frustrations. It's a great game, just a shame they couldn't get the action:exploration balance right.

Have to admit, in the final bit

->Open Spoiler<-

When you dropped onto the ship at the end, I had horrible visions of the long, painful boat bit in RE5. Thankfully it was fairly short and although the boss could have been frustrating, they at least gave you a couple of checkpoints to lessen the irritation

Now to decide if to move straight on to uncharted 2 or to let myself 'cool' for a while to that it feels fresher when I play it.

[cutmymilk]

Dive straight in. It's a better experience all round.

[rmoxon]

Finished it yesterday, enjoyed it a lot despite the previously mentioned frustrations. It's a great game, just a shame they couldn't get the action:exploration balance right.

Have to admit, in the final bit

->Open Spoiler<-

When you dropped onto the ship at the end, I had horrible visions of the long, painful boat bit in RE5. Thankfully it was fairly short and although the boss could have been frustrating, they at least gave you a couple of checkpoints to lessen the irritation

Now to decide if to move straight on to uncharted 2 or to let myself 'cool' for a while to that it feels fresher when I play it.

The second game would feel fresh even if you had playd this three times in a row and then moved onto it. Its an amazing game, more balanced, MUCH more cinematic (with the best playable set peices of any game ever by far) and just much more enjoyable overall. You should play it as soon as you can. Its simply one of the best games ever.

[Eight Rooks]

This and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time are the games where I simply don't get peoples frustration with the fighting. I love Uncharted's gunplay, the first and the sequel... far, far better than Gears of War IMO. You never run out of ammo unless you're playing it wrong, enemies go down in one, two shots at most if you get headshots (even the special enemies in #2 go down a lot faster if you use the right weapons/aim carefully) and thought along with forward planning will see you through practically every single big firefight in both games. Neither are perfect, and the design could certainly have been tightened up, but the big gun battles (especially in #2) rank up there along with the FX set pieces for me.

[abigsmurf]

I don't get how people were able to get off so many headshots. The enemies far away were too hard to aim at and the enemies close by tended to move too much.

If you didn't get a headshot, it would take 4+ bullets to kill a regular guy (more if you hit limbs or they're wearing armour). Even When you've the max 40 hand gun bullets and 50 automatic bullets, you run out of ammo fast.

[mekanor]

Now to decide if to move straight on to uncharted 2 or to let myself 'cool' for a while to that it feels fresher when I play it.

I borrowed a ps3 a week or 2 back and bought both uncharteds to play. I'd recommend going straight to the next one.

The second game would feel fresh even if you had playd this three times in a row and then moved onto it.

don't know about that. it was fine for me though as it felt like one full 18 hour game instead of 2 9 hour ones.

i played the game on hard and didn't have your trouble with combat though, and I don't ever remember running out of ammo, or if i did there was another gun nearby i could pick up. like rook said, headshots all the way. I did think there was a bit too much shooting in the first, not that i didn't enjoy, I'd also rate it above gears (which i consider to be hugely overated anyway) but there was just a bit too much crowding out the exploration and platforming.

having said that, I was disappointed with the platforming in both games. jumping wasn't as accurate as it should have been and bafflingly it wasn't fixed in the second. two examples i can think of are

->Open Spoiler<-

right at the start where the guys start chasing you after shooting sully and you jump off this ledge, i think i rolled off about 3 times before managing to stay on. another was the bit where you blow up a car to use as a bridge on that river. as awesome as it was, again it was about 3 deaths before nate actually walked on to the car to get accross.

anyway, thoroughly entertaining games all around, not quite as great as people make out, but certainly a couple of the top games this gen

[rmoxon]

don't know about that. it was fine for me though as it felt like one full 18 hour game instead of 2 9 hour ones.

Well if thats the case the first 9 hours of the game must have paled in comparison to the second half .

The sequel is so much better in every respect really, if you go back to the first one after playing part 2 the original feels very run of the mill in comparison, and it certainly didnt have anything like the immense setpeices of the sequel. The second game is just increadable, like many on here I found it hard to get excited about other games for a while after playing it, its just that good.

[112]

Rmoxon, i just luv the passion in your words when you talk about Uncharted........ Its great when you like a game and can appreciate what someone else is saying about it!

Problem with the Uncharted games is where to begin talking about all the good stuff in it! indeed........

112

[bash]

Right, just clocked this. Twas a good larf, not quite the second coming like some people were making out. The combat felt flawed as headshots were impossible unless you were close up, but then you couldnt get too close as you'd get surrounded and therefore bumraped. Also some of the camera angles meant that you'd inevitably would die as there would be no way to realise where the jump sections were.

Who wants to sell me a cheap copy of Among thieves then?

[kernow]

uncharted is a damn good game, but the 2nd is just everything ramped up and better.

[abigsmurf]

Someone other than me struggled with the headshots \o/

I just don't understand how people are supposedly pulling them off as much as you need to in order not to run out of ammo. Maybe it's different playstyles coming into play.

In general I stuck to the same spot for a gun battle unless my cover was blown up, I ran out of ammo or was flanked. Running foward on a lot parts usually seemed to mean having enemies on more than one side of you which meant death.