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Uncharted is a legit great TPS (mechanics, encounters, level design)

You must have played the games on Easy if you think you can move around during combat :D

On Hard you will need to sit as immobile as possible and shoot through walls to survive. (Atleast in uncharted 1) as almost everything is a one-hit-kill.
I've beaten them all in crushing (even golden abyss) and I was constantly moving around in those games.

Also the bullet sponge argument constantly regurgitated here is so dumb.
 
I absolutely do not understand the 'endless waves of bullet sponge enemies' argument.

The enemies in the game take one headshot to kill, and perhaps four or five body shots, now that's not even that far off Call of Duty level bullet damage, and the bullets required to kill is much higher in games like Destiny, Halo, Resistance, Mass Effect, Gears of War etc that do not usually get these 'bullet sponge' complaints.

The only bullet sponge enemies in the Uncharted series are some of the uncommon 'armoured' targets, which require focused fire to take their hats off, then headshot them. They are not common enough to count as 'endless waves' and personally, I think their aggressive nature adds to the games mechanics, forcing you to move around and shift between cover as you can't always simply gun them down, before they get to you.

Either way, the slightly longer longer time to kill on Uncharted's enemies benefit gameplay, providing the player with more opportunity to react and the opportunity to validate a much more varied styles of play If every weapon was a one shot kill, it wouldn't very well validate moving around the battlefield, and grabbing different weapons with varying viabilities, would it? Similarly, if enemies were killed faster, Drake would need to be killed faster too in order to apply appropriate difficulty, and that wouldn't fit with the dynamic and mobile gunfights that Naughty Dog aimed to produce.

thank you
 
I just beat them all on hard. This is patently false, you can move around a lot. Only getting hit directly by an explosive, or letting a sniper hit you are one hit kills, as I think they are on most other difficulties.

Shotguns are instakills, as are two magnum/deagle shots and one or two bursts from assault rifles.
 

Revven

Member
You must have played the games on Easy if you think you can move around during combat :D

On Hard you will need to sit as immobile as possible and shoot through walls to survive. (Atleast in uncharted 1) as almost everything is a one-hit-kill.

You can still very much move around on hard. I have evidence as such here vs The Guardians which clearly shoot me with two Crossbows and I didn't die. This is on Hard, not normal.

Crushing is the difficulty where it's really risky to move around but it's still doable. You need to move around to beat some arenas in the game on Crushing because otherwise the enemies just choke you. They are aggressive and will close in on you if you stay in one spot too long.

Normal & Hard you have enough health to move around freely for the most part. You were either playing bad or your memory is very fuzzy. Or you even got unlucky and got shot by multiple enemies making you think it's one-two bullets and you're dead lol.

No, if you want a real two-hit kill difficulty you'll play on Brutal in the Collection which is literally two-hits from any weapon = death.
 
I've beaten them all in crushing (even golden abyss) and I was constantly moving around in those games.

Also the bullet sponge argument constantly regurgitated here is so dumb.

UC1 feels like an other (lesser) game to me, but 2 and 3 have some really dynamic combat, that works on Crushing as well. Softening up enemies with bullets and finishing them off with context sensitive melee attacks (as in the OP's example) are so satisfying. As is running and gunning with weapons like pistoles or shotguns.

I genuinely think UC4 will raise the bar for the genre.
 
Don't really care for large set pieces or amazing graphics. In fact I always felt like the graphics in Uncharted 2 were completely overrated. Never understood what was so special about them.

However! I love Uncharted because of the gameplay! It's amazing fun. It was only when I came here did I see there was a pretty loud vocal minority about the 'poor' gameplay mechanics of Uncharted which I never understood. Don't really get the bullet sponge comments either. You weren't attacking your enemies correctly if a specific enemy took forever to take down.
 
You can still very much move around on hard. I have evidence as such here vs The Guardians which clearly shoot me with two Crossbows and I didn't die. This is on Hard, not normal.

Crushing is the difficulty where it's really risky to move around but it's still doable. You need to move around to beat some arenas in the game on Crushing because otherwise the enemies just choke you. They are aggressive and will close in on you if you stay in one spot too long.

Normal & Hard you have enough health to move around freely for the most part. You were either playing bad or your memory is very fuzzy. Or you even got unlucky and got shot by multiple enemies making you think it's one-two bullets and you're dead lol.

I don't see the point in discussing difficulties beyond normal from a design perspective. Normal is the difficulty that the game was designed, and balanced or, therefore anything beyond that certainly has potential to distort the gameplay experience Naughtydog aimed to produce. I think people forget that a lot of the time, when changing the difficulty.

You can move around on harder difficulties, certainly, but it does become more restrictive as you reduce your own time to kill. It's not just Uncharted, instead it's very, very common of games generally. On the hardest difficulties on Destiny, half of the community find themselves killing bosses from glitched locations, on Call of Duty you can't move from cover at all without being one shot killed on realistic, on Halo 3 you can be one-shot by snipers across the map before you're even made aware of their presence. A lot of games can have their design pulled apart when analysed on the hardest difficulty, and that stems from the way these developers arbitrarily reduce your characters time to kill as a means of inducing difficulty, but that's really an entirely separate issue.
 

Revven

Member
I don't see the point in discussing difficulties beyond normal from a design perspective. Normal is the difficulty that the game was designed, and balanced or, therefore anything beyond that certainly has potential to distort the gameplay experience Naughtydog aimed to produce. I think people forget that a lot of the time, when changing the difficulty.

You can move around on harder difficulties, certainly, but it does become more restrictive as you reduce your own time to kill. It's not just Uncharted, instead it's very, very common of games generally. On the hardest difficulties on Destiny, half of the community find themselves killing bosses from glitched locations, on Call of Duty you can't move from cover at all without being one shot killed on realistic, on Halo 3 you can be one-shot by snipers across the map before you're even made aware of their presence. A lot of games can have their design pulled apart when analysed on the hardest difficulty, and that stems from the way these developers arbitrarily reduce your characters time to kill as a means of inducing difficulty, but that's really an entirely separate issue.

Oh no, I was just telling him that you can move around on Normal. He was arguing you can only do it on Easy (or that people who say you can move around must have been playing on Easy).
 
Oh no, I was just telling him that you can move around on Normal. He was arguing you can only do it on Easy (or that people who say you can move around must have been playing on Easy).

Oh yeah, you you can definitely do it on normal, but I do believe the experience kind of falls apart on higher difficulties, and it's also absurdly easy on easy. You might as well be playing a brawler, on easy, as realistically enemies are not going to be killing you with gunfire!

I think the game is perfectly well balanced relative to the gameplay it tries to achieve, on normal but deviates from those original design intentions as soon as you adjust the difficulty. That's why the inclusion of 'Brutal' sort of baffled me in the Nathan Drake collection. On that difficulty, where Nathan dies in a mere 2 bullets, it doesn't play like Uncharted at all. I think people often mistake persisting through tedious trial and error as prevailing over difficulty.
 
After a while I have started mentally replacing "bullet sponges" with "I can't aim for shit'".

Sure, Uncharted 1 had a problem with waves, and 3 had shoddy encounter design, but most of the people disagreeing here are being downright laughable in how hyperbolic they are about it:



Jesus man. You can't have written this with a straight face.

My favorite's "controls are stiff and janky" though. Have these people only played UC1?

This is 100% true

Not necessarily the same people. I prefer Max Payne 3 and haven't said anything about bullet sponge enemies in any of the Uncharted games. I just find MP3 to be a more enjoyable TPS as a whole.

Sorry Orbital for not being clear I wasnt referencing you.
 

Revven

Member
Oh yeah, you you can definitely do it on normal, but I do believe the experience kind of falls apart on higher difficulties, and it's also absurdly easy on easy. You might as well be playing a brawler, on easy, as realistically enemies are not going to be killing you with gunfire!

I think the game is perfectly well balanced relative to the gameplay it tries to achieve, on normal but deviates from those original design intentions as soon as you adjust the difficulty. That's why the inclusion of 'Brutal' sort of baffled me in the Nathan Drake collection. On that difficulty, where Nathan dies in a mere 2 bullets, it doesn't play like Uncharted at all. I think people often mistake persisting through tedious trial and error as prevailing over difficulty.

I agree 100% with you (though to be fair, Hard feels pretty balanced and fair, you can do a lot of the same strats on Hard that you can in Normal and vice versa). Crushing is where the game's design sort of gets thrown out the window, in my experience (and then subsequently, taking it further, is Brutal lol). But Crushing is still pretty manageable.
 

IvorB

Member
I don't see the point in discussing difficulties beyond normal from a design perspective. Normal is the difficulty that the game was designed, and balanced or, therefore anything beyond that certainly has potential to distort the gameplay experience Naughtydog aimed to produce. I think people forget that a lot of the time, when changing the difficulty.

I don't think this is true at all. The other difficulties are part of the game and would have been designed and balanced by the devs just as much as any other part of it. It's not like the other difficulty setting are some kind of hack or something.
 

Mman235

Member
I don't see the point in discussing difficulties beyond normal from a design perspective. Normal is the difficulty that the game was designed,

Why beyond it being called "normal"? Most of the best designed games are obviously designed around their highest or second-highest (taking into account the many games where the very highest isn't intended to be "fair) difficulties. I don't think Uncharted 2 was designed around crushing, where the deadliness gets a bit too high, but I think it was definitely balanced for hard, where all the stuff that works on normal can still be done and it just punishes mistakes more.
 
No, first post is factually incorrect.



Yeah basically only the two boss fights in UC2 qualify as anything bullet sponge-worthy but even then the Draza boss fight can be done really quick if you focus your shots on his head. The goal is to knock his helmet off so you can trigger the QTE finisher. If you keep shooting his body primarily, of course it's going to take longer to finish the fight.

And while yes, visually it makes no sense for him to take more damage than the other enemies but it is what it is. The same gameplay mechanics you have learned up to that point (headshots do more damage than bodyshots) still applies -- albeit in a really poorly visualized way.

Anyway, another separate thing:

If you think this area isn't good combat or encounter design I don't know what to tell you. Really, I don't.
Hahaha that video isn't helping your case in the slightest. Some of the most generic 3rd person cover based shooting I've ever seen. What exactly was interesting about that? What in that video hasn't been done a million times in other games. This video has actually guaranteed I won't be picking up uc collection or even trying uc 3 on ps now like I had planned to. So....thanks for that I guess.
 
Hahaha that video isn't helping your case in the slightest. Some of the most generic 3rd person cover based shooting I've ever seen. What exactly was interesting about that? What in that video hasn't been done a million times in other games. This video has actually guaranteed I won't be picking up uc collection or even trying uc 3 on ps now like I had planned to. So....thanks for that I guess.

So you haven't even played the games? Let's be real, it sounds like you made up your opinion on these games before you even came in here. You can play that encounter any number of ways.
 

Revven

Member
Hahaha that video isn't helping your case in the slightest. Some of the most generic 3rd person cover based shooting I've ever seen. What exactly was interesting about that? What in that video hasn't been done a million times in other games. This video has actually guaranteed I won't be picking up uc collection or even trying uc 3 on ps now like I had planned to. So....thanks for that I guess.

It's not what in the video itself, it's the specific area. I can play that arena any number of ways, don't you see all the open space the player can move around in and what weapons are laid out for the player to use? It's not the most interesting approach to the arena, sure, but that's because there was no reason to grab any other weapons when the Wes-44 was present.

Anyone who has played the games knows that area and it's one of the best examples of an arena where you have complete freedom of movement -- the video doesn't show that off well enough but you can see the potential if you look around in it enough.
 
The bullet sponge complaint comes from people not being able to articulate exactly what it is they dislike about Uncharted's shooting. And it doesn't really make much sense, really: Resident Evil 4, for example, is widely seen as being a better shooter than Uncharted, but enemies on Professional can take upwards of ten headshots to kill (and don't even think about shooting them in the body).

Uncharted's problem is instead how unexceptional every individual aspect of the combat is. Unexceptional aiming. Unexceptional cover mechanics. Unexceptional enemy variety. Unexceptional enemy hit responses. Etc. It gets nothing wrong, but it gets nothing right. These concepts aren't hugely obvious, but for many people they result in the combat feeling "off" (and this is hardly some niche opinion, or else this thread wouldn't exist). So when pressed on what feels "off", everybody says "bullet sponge", because that seems like a fairly obvious complaint, even if it isn't necessarily true.
 
So you haven't even played the games? Let's be real, it sounds like you made up your opinion on these games before you even came in here. You can play that encounter any number of ways.
Where in my post did it say I haven't played uncharted. I played and enjoyed the first one immensely. Not for the shooting mechanics or enemy encounters though. I played through most of uncharted 2 which is supposedly the best one. I for some reason kept playing well past the point of Boredom hoping to be engaged by the story like I was in the original but whoever said uncharted games are basically the India Jones 4 of gaming was spot on. I couldn't get into it at all. As far as the mechanics, they improved upon the shooting and Melee in every possible way....and basically did more of the same arena style waved based cover shooting. It's not bad. It's just super repetitive. It's functional. Still incredibly secondary to the plot and the production values. Anybody denying that is insane. I don't even think naughty dog would deny that.
 

nib95

Banned
Hahaha that video isn't helping your case in the slightest. Some of the most generic 3rd person cover based shooting I've ever seen. What exactly was interesting about that? What in that video hasn't been done a million times in other games. This video has actually guaranteed I won't be picking up uc collection or even trying uc 3 on ps now like I had planned to. So....thanks for that I guess.

That segment is from UC2, which you presumably didn't know because you never played it. You might want to actually play the games before commenting on the gameplay. And in that video there are many good design aspects, such as the large size of the arena, number of cover, mobility and verticality options, the number of different areas of approach, pathways and so on. Most tps don't offer that sort of mobility, scope or diversity, and instead end up being far more controlled, stick behind just one or two pieces of cover the entire time type affairs. Hell my play throughs of the linked level were very different, which in itself says a lot.
 
UC2's up there because of truly fantastic level and encounter design, and there's a lot that is good about UC1 if you've mastered the Brutal combo, but I think there's a lot that UC3 does to detract from everything you're praising in the OP (outside of the pretty fantastic ship graveyard area, though that's also responsible for a huge nonsense detour from the game's plot).

UC2's emphasis on verticality is, to me, up there with Gears' roadie run and Vanquish's power slide in terms of a smart emphasis on movement within space, though those other two games have superior shooting mechanics and enemy design.
 

Waaghals

Member
Gameplay wise I think the series is okay, but not great.


It is true that Movement is a central aspect of the gameplay, and that this adds depth, but often you risk running into an enemy spawn and getting killed.

Generally the linear nature of the game often boils down to the player having to guess the designer's intent in order to have a good experience.

I would rather say that encounter design is often rather weak, but that it might be more fun on second/third playthroughs when you know what an encounter looks like.
Uncharted 1 and 3 both has/had weak aiming mechanics, and the games could use better enemy/weapons diversity.
 
If I wasn't in the middle of pitching the EXACT OPPOSITE article to a major gaming website, I would post my reply here. As it stands, I feel I have to echo the first post: endless waves of bullet sponge enemies with poor weapon and enemy variation is not good game design.

It's one of the worst TPS series on the market.
Oh please. "Endless waves" is bullshit tier trolling as the series probably has only two instances where this may be true and the intent is for the player to run/push through, not hide behind cover.

Did you watch the video?

Let me guess: "Yeah, but still..."
 

IvorB

Member
The bullet sponge complaint comes from people not being able to articulate exactly what it is they dislike about Uncharted's shooting. And it doesn't really make much sense, really: Resident Evil 4, for example, is widely seen as being a better shooter than Uncharted, but enemies on Professional can take upwards of ten headshots to kill (and don't even think about shooting them in the body).

Uncharted's problem is instead how unexceptional every individual aspect of the combat is. Unexceptional aiming. Unexceptional cover mechanics. Unexceptional enemy variety. Unexceptional enemy hit responses. Etc. It gets nothing wrong, but it gets nothing right. These concepts aren't hugely obvious, but for many people they result in the combat feeling "off" (and this is hardly some niche opinion, or else this thread wouldn't exist). So when pressed on what feels "off", everybody says "bullet sponge", because that seems like a fairly obvious complaint, even if it isn't necessarily true.

Well if people cannot intelligently articulate their concerns then how the hell is anyone supposed to know what they are talking about. Repeating some easily verifiable falsehood because they can't find the words to express what they really feel seems strange.

What does "unexceptional aiming" mean? Aiming is such a purely functional part of a game so I have no idea what could make it "exceptional". Do you have an example of a game with exceptional aiming? The same goes for cover. I would love to understand what you complaints are specifically?

Where in my post did it say I haven't played uncharted. I played and enjoyed the first one immensely. Not for the shooting mechanics or enemy encounters though. I played through most of uncharted 2 which is supposedly the best one. I for some reason kept playing well past the point of Boredom hoping to be engaged by the story like I was in the original but whoever said uncharted games are basically the India Jones 4 of gaming was spot on. I couldn't get into it at all. As far as the mechanics, they improved upon the shooting and Melee in every possible way....and basically did more of the same arena style waved based cover shooting. It's not bad. It's just super repetitive. It's functional. Still incredibly secondary to the plot and the production values. Anybody denying that is insane. I don't even think naughty dog would deny that.

So if you've already played the games why did you say that short clip has convinced you not to buy the remaster? I'm confused...
 
Where in my post did it say I haven't played uncharted. I played and enjoyed the first one immensely. Not for the shooting mechanics or enemy encounters though. I played through most of uncharted 2 which is supposedly the best one. I for some reason kept playing well past the point of Boredom hoping to be engaged by the story like I was in the original but whoever said uncharted games are basically the India Jones 4 of gaming was spot on. I couldn't get into it at all. As far as the mechanics, they improved upon the shooting and Melee in every possible way....and basically did more of the same arena style waved based cover shooting. It's not bad. It's just super repetitive. It's functional. Still incredibly secondary to the plot and the production values. Anybody denying that is insane. I don't even think naughty dog would deny that.

If the gameplay weren't as enjoyable as the story I would not have replayed the series as many times as I have
 
I don't think this is true at all. The other difficulties are part of the game and would have been designed and balanced by the devs just as much as any other part of it. It's not like the other difficulty setting are some kind of hack or something.

Every demo we have ever seen of Uncharted has been on normal, or in fact easy (outside the god-mode demonstrations, where Nate can't die). So I think in terms of the experience Naughtydog want to get across is one with high mobility and dynamic gunfights characteristic only of difficulties below Crushing, and more akin to Normal than Hard.

For what it's worth, I've beaten Uncharted 1, 2 and most of 3 on Crushing, and in doing so, had to beat them on Hard too, I wouldn't say there's much difference between Crushing and Hard in a lot of instances, and while indeed hard may be appropriate for some players I felt like it consistently allowed some of the gameplay segments (e.g. the blue room in Uncharted 1) to overstep the mark between 'fair, enjoyable gunfights', into 'unfair, trial and error' characteristic of bad game design.

As for why the other difficulties exist? Honestly, I feel that in many cases they are there because there is an expectancy that they will be, and in many games, like Uncharted, like Call of Duty etc. they introduce a time to kill reduction on the player character without much thought to how that affects the games design intentions. Frankly, this form of 'difficulty' inducement is lazy and artificial. The only games I can think of that have meaningful increments to their difficulty are games like Halo and Destiny where difficulty increments add new enemies with different patterns relative to the normal mode for that segment, similarily, in Killzone, the AI behaviors change depending on difficulty. They don't do this type of thing in Uncharted, making difficulty increments very arbitrary, slowing the pace of the game rather than making it genuinely difficult.
 
Where in my post did it say I haven't played uncharted. I played and enjoyed the first one immensely. Not for the shooting mechanics or enemy encounters though. I played through most of uncharted 2 which is supposedly the best one. I for some reason kept playing well past the point of Boredom hoping to be engaged by the story like I was in the original but whoever said uncharted games are basically the India Jones 4 of gaming was spot on. I couldn't get into it at all. As far as the mechanics, they improved upon the shooting and Melee in every possible way....and basically did more of the same arena style waved based cover shooting. It's not bad. It's just super repetitive. It's functional. Still incredibly secondary to the plot and the production values. Anybody denying that is insane. I don't even think naughty dog would deny that.

People like playing videogames to shoot things. FPSs, Shmups, TPSs,shooting galleries etc. But because Uncharted has cutscenes, it doesn't deserve to be a game because to you it's secondary to the story? I'm sorry, but I love playing the game, including the MP.

And your troll on that video, can you share another video of another game that plays as diversely, fluidly and dynamically as what's shown?
 

SomTervo

Member
Just finished Uncharted 2 on Crushing a few hours back, there are only very few sections where you can use the shooting features to the fullest. Hard mode would be the best as it lowers the enemy's nonsensical aiming as well as giving you better health.

Crushing is just outrageously cheap. The only "god-tier" about this game is the enemy's aiming which has the targeting of Robocop somehow defying logic blind-firing and still make their target to you even with a small peek. Train experience is just as insane. Most of my time is being spent in cover with only a few occasions to move since you only take 3-4 shots before you're down.

That's ridiculous.

Have you played Uncharted 3 on Crushing? Now that is cheap. Enemies spawning above you and all around you. Perfect accuracy. Little/no health. The shape of the arenas means that there is often nowhere to hide and no way to protect yourself.

Uncharted 2 is god-tier. I can't think of any fights that are cheap on Crushing, except the bosses (which are low points more generally). If you play carefully, you'll almost always prevail. Cover is always in the right places. Enemy positions are always well telegraphed. The enemies also don't have perfect accuracy. (They still track your last-known position, so you can easily thwart them and olling still gives you i-frames).

The player's skill and strategy prevails. It was also true in Uncharted 2 and 3's multiplayer co-op, where there were large open maps and the enemy AI tracked you across and around them. You could still use stealth, even in an open sandbox context.

Hahaha that video isn't helping your case in the slightest. Some of the most generic 3rd person cover based shooting I've ever seen. What exactly was interesting about that? What in that video hasn't been done a million times in other games. This video has actually guaranteed I won't be picking up uc collection or even trying uc 3 on ps now like I had planned to. So....thanks for that I guess.

Yep, you're being facetious here.

I can watch that video and make comments second-to-second on the different strategies he could use, different angles he could take, and different ways the fight could pan out. every single one would lead to a drastically different combat scenario that would still be incredibly fun to play (esp. on Crushing).

I played that bit last week and it was as brilliant as ever.
 
I've beaten them all in crushing (even golden abyss) and I was constantly moving around in those games.

Also the bullet sponge argument constantly regurgitated here is so dumb.

Yea I hate every time I see this.

The bullet sponge applies a little bit in Uncharted 3, but not very much, and only with a specific few enemies.

The main problem with U3 was the lack of hit reactions, probably.

Uncharted 1 and Uncharted 2 I felt were better in this regard, and their sponginess was perfect, not that it was horrible in U3.
 
Uncharted 2 is god-tier. I can't think of any fights that are cheap on Crushing, except the bosses (which are low points more generally). If you play carefully, you'll almost always prevail. Cover is always in the right places. Enemy positions are always well telegraphed. The enemies also don't have perfect accuracy. (They still track your last-known position, so you can easily thwart them and olling still gives you i-frames).
There are 4 fights in Uncharted 2 that bugged me on Crushing.

1. first time you encounter the Brutes in Shambala when you are with Chloe and Elena, when you only have AK-47 to fight them, and they bum-rape you until you kill one and get the bow and kill the second one easily

The map area is very small and very difficult to avoid their attacks, you need to maximally abuse the perspective system and hiding in corners of the map there

2. the large area near the scenic waterfall in Shambala with the 2 or 3 waves of military guys, and then follows with 2 brutes.... well this one was OK, but extremely difficult and punishing, but not terrible

3. climbing down the tower by "sneaking" on Crushing before reaching Shambala.... while climbing down if you miss even a single guy at some points you can die very cheaply and easily

4. the battle between the Brutes and Military guys in Shambala, in which there are infinitely spawning guys unless you meet certain requirements in the fight by defeating certain enemies (namely the chaingunner guy)

Other than that though, Uncharted 2 is insanely well balanced, even on Crushing, I agree. There are a few other moments which are hard, but these are the only ones I would consider a little unfair on Crushing.

That said I think games are generally balanced most perfectly on Normal/Hard in action games, and Uncharted 2 is no exception.

P.S.

I think I'm the only one who likes the boss at the end of Uncharted 2, and I think it is the best ending boss in the whole series.

I thought it combines classic ND gameplay and modern ND gameplay perfectly.... and it felt like an action-platformer boss that I felt fits the game and the ending boss.

On Crushing it is difficult, but I do enjoy that fight, because of it's challenge and for it not sticking to conventions. It's not perfect, but I like that as the boss.

IMO it was better than the final bosses in Uncharted 1 (hide behind boxes and punch Navarro) and 3 (knife fight was so annoying on Crushing..... wasn't that fun either) by far.
 

2San

Member
Looking at this thread. I feel like a lot of people are overlooking Mass Effect 3. Ignoring the somewhat janky cover taking. The game had excellent weapon feedback, varied weapons, varied encounters. With the various biotics and tech powers spicing things up. Looking at a purely single player campaign standpoint (ignoring story, characters and such) I feel like ME3 was the best of the previous gen.
 
Where in my post did it say I haven't played uncharted. I played and enjoyed the first one immensely. Not for the shooting mechanics or enemy encounters though. I played through most of uncharted 2 which is supposedly the best one. I for some reason kept playing well past the point of Boredom hoping to be engaged by the story like I was in the original but whoever said uncharted games are basically the India Jones 4 of gaming was spot on. I couldn't get into it at all. As far as the mechanics, they improved upon the shooting and Melee in every possible way....and basically did more of the same arena style waved based cover shooting. It's not bad. It's just super repetitive. It's functional. Still incredibly secondary to the plot and the production values. Anybody denying that is insane. I don't even think naughty dog would deny that.

This is some amazing manufacturered bs right here. I love how you outed yourself by commenting on the above video. You obviously haven't played any of the games and are pushing some agenda which is pretty sad man.
 
Looking at this thread. I feel like a lot of people are overlooking Mass Effect 3. Ignoring the somewhat janky cover taking. The game had excellent weapon feedback, varied weapons, varied encounters. With the various biotics and tech powers spicing things up. Looking at a purely single player combat standpoint I feel like ME3 was the best of the previous gen.

I really felt that Mass Effect 3 was pretty clunky. I think the interactions between powers and the appropriation of when to use them added a neat, tactical element to a genre that's typically devoid of it, but the gameplay itself, felt a little awkward in my honest opinion.

Aspects like the cover system were particularly poor, and the AI was very predictable, if they were 'this type of enemy' then they would always perform 'this type of action', and in many cases they would perform their routine, with complete disregard for self-preservation.

Those are just my thoughts though, if you enjoyed it that's great.
 

2San

Member
I really felt that Mass Effect 3 was pretty clunky. I think the interactions between powers and the appropriation of when to use them added a neat, tactical element to a genre that's typically devoid of it, but the gameplay itself, felt a little awkward in my honest opinion.

Aspects like the cover system were particularly poor, and the AI was very predictable, if they were 'this type of enemy' then they would always perform 'this type of action', and in many cases they would perform their routine, with complete disregard for self-preservation.

Those are just my thoughts though, if you enjoyed it that's great.
Good AI isn't really the strong suit of the TPS genre though. As such I don't think it's a fair criticism to level at ME3.
 
Good AI isn't really the strong suit of the TPS genre though. As such I don't think it's a fair criticism to level at ME3.

Idk man, good AI can make a TPS way more fun. Uncharted has solid AI but The Last of Us in particular has great AI and the combat wouldn't be nearly as intense or dynamic without it.
 
Good AI isn't really the strong suit of the TPS genre though. As such I don't think it's a fair criticism to level at ME3.

TLOU has probably the best Ai in the genre which pushes it to the top for me. Gears is probably number 2 but Uncharted is really solid as well.
 

2San

Member
Idk man, good AI can make a TPS way more fun. Uncharted has solid AI but The Last of Us in particular has great AI and the combat wouldn't be nearly as intense or dynamic without it.
I haven't played The Last of Us, but I have played all the other major TPS. Uncharted's AI is mediocre like the rest of the major TPS's imo.

TLOU has probably the best Ai in the genre which pushes it to the top for me. Gears is probably number 2 but Uncharted is really solid as well.
Yeah I don't Gears ai isn't too hot either imo. Sure it's better than ME3's. As such I mostly enjoy Gears for it's excellent MP.
 
This is some amazing manufacturered bs right here. I love how you outed yourself by commenting on the above video. You obviously haven't played any of the games and are pushing some agenda which is pretty sad man.
Eh, while I don't agree with him, he has the trophies to back up that he's played both UC2 and 3. I don't think there was trophy support for UC1 when it first came out though.

Sorry for snooping Moon_frogger :p
 
I haven't played The Last of Us, but I have played all the other major TPS. Uncharted's AI is mediocre like the rest of the major TPS's imo.

I think they do a good job of flanking you, moving between cover, calling out when you're out of ammo, using grenades if you're hiding too long. They don't always have the strongest self preservation instinct though.
 
I would disagree here. As an Action/Adventure game Uncharted is fantastic. In fact its one of my all time favorite franchises. It however is a very mediocre TPS game, but it isnt the reason I play the game in the first place
 
Good AI isn't really the strong suit of the TPS genre though. As such I don't think it's a fair criticism to level at ME3.

That's true but I generally expect at a basic level of self-preservation. I need to actually believe the AI wants to be alive, to get any satisfaction from taking their life away. :p

But you are right, most AI in TPS (or FPS) aren't good enough. I think Uncharted has some better responses though, as AI actually recognize when they are the last man alive, when you have run out of ammunition, when you're moving for another piece of cover etc. They do make some of the mistakes of Mass Effects AI, rushing forward at inopportune times, and so forth, but I think they cling to cover and use blindfire pretty intelligently, a lot of the time.
 
I would disagree here. As an Action/Adventure game Uncharted is fantastic. In fact its one of my all time favorite franchises. It however is a very mediocre TPS game, but it isnt the reason I play the game in the first place

Is the combat not part of being an action/adventure game though?
 

nib95

Banned
Eh, while I don't agree with him, he has the trophies to back up that he's played both UC2 and 3. I don't think there was trophy support for UC1 when it first came out though.

Sorry for snooping Moon_frogger :p

He himself stated that he hasn't played UC3 and has played most of UC2 (though that is dubious given he couldn't recognise the level posted above as being from UC2), so I doubt they're trophies that he himself earned, but you never know lol.
 

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
100% agree with OP. I just played the Gears remaster and found the gameplay boring, as your mostly just staying in one spot and shooting from behind cover. Uncharted forces you to stay on the move and it's a much better game for it.

In Uncharted 1 it takes 3 shots with the standard pistol to kill an enemy and 1 shot to the head, how the utter fuck is this bullet spongey?
 

Qassim

Member
You are though. Enemies really can't be bullet-spongey if they die with one shot to the head.

Unless we're all using some weird definition of bullet-sponge.

If your argument is falling back on headshots, you're the one not understanding the meaning of bullet sponge enemies.
 
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