Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
8/30/2009
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Platform: Playstation 3
Genre:Action/Platformer
My, my, my. The first hour or so of this game is absolutely enthralling, and gave me the spark of hope that the current generation of games my actually be worth playing despite the overall shift to glitz from gameplay. The setting rocks, the characters and voice acting is above par, the platforming seems intuitive and often exciting, and the gunplay is a fun and forgiving little surprise.
But all is not well in Whoville. After the first hour, the realization comes hard and heavy: this is all there is to it. Five minutes of platforming, five minutes of shooting people, a quick quip or two, repeat. The platforming degrades into sticky bullshit by about the third hour, and the gunplay becomes annoying and tedious when the game pours dozens upon dozens of ducking and dodging enemies on you with a scant amount of ammo to spare. Herein lies my problem with action games - no matter how far the technology advances, they ALWAYS suffer the same laundry list of flaws: terrible camera, frustrating controls, invisible walls and artificial boundaries, cheap deaths, and boring-assed generic weapons. Drake's got all of these in spades - though to be fair, the controls look good on paper, but by about the fiftieth time you press O to take cover and instead run in a half circle and pin yourself against the opposite wall right into the hail of gunfire, you'll wonder what the hell you paid that sixty bucks for, exactly. Fortunately, the game is mercifully short at around a dozen hours, but there's just not enough variety to even warrant that much filler. Rent it for a weekend to impress your friends at the PS3's graphical power, then never speak of it again.
Platform: Playstation 3
Genre:Action/Platformer
My, my, my. The first hour or so of this game is absolutely enthralling, and gave me the spark of hope that the current generation of games my actually be worth playing despite the overall shift to glitz from gameplay. The setting rocks, the characters and voice acting is above par, the platforming seems intuitive and often exciting, and the gunplay is a fun and forgiving little surprise.
But all is not well in Whoville. After the first hour, the realization comes hard and heavy: this is all there is to it. Five minutes of platforming, five minutes of shooting people, a quick quip or two, repeat. The platforming degrades into sticky bullshit by about the third hour, and the gunplay becomes annoying and tedious when the game pours dozens upon dozens of ducking and dodging enemies on you with a scant amount of ammo to spare. Herein lies my problem with action games - no matter how far the technology advances, they ALWAYS suffer the same laundry list of flaws: terrible camera, frustrating controls, invisible walls and artificial boundaries, cheap deaths, and boring-assed generic weapons. Drake's got all of these in spades - though to be fair, the controls look good on paper, but by about the fiftieth time you press O to take cover and instead run in a half circle and pin yourself against the opposite wall right into the hail of gunfire, you'll wonder what the hell you paid that sixty bucks for, exactly. Fortunately, the game is mercifully short at around a dozen hours, but there's just not enough variety to even warrant that much filler. Rent it for a weekend to impress your friends at the PS3's graphical power, then never speak of it again.