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Uncharted 1 was kinda underrated when it come out?

I think some people expected it to be the "PS3's Gears of War" despite the fact it never claimed to be. Didn't stop people trying to put it in that bracket though. I think it was a great game then, but it's not remotely as replayable as 2 or 3 were.
 
Uncharted 1 was the one that left the biggest impression on me when I look back. Yes, the gameplay is underwhelming, especially in hindsight but it pushed the limits for the story driven games so far ahead of its competition at its time. People forget that aspect and label it as the worst one in the series. In that sense I agree that it is underrated.
 
Awntawn said:
Outside of GAF, it was appropriately rated as a big hit, both critically and financially. Whenever you're LTTP on a game after following it on GAF, you always feel like it's underrated because GAF fucking hates everything. This thread is living proof.
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Pretty much this. The constant criticism this game gets is, to be honest, quite amazing to me. Censor the name and one can easily think that the game being discussed is Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified.

Indeed, the game did sold well considering that it came out during PS3's rough years. It was rated high as well.

The fact that Uncharted 2 is 10 times better than this doesn't devalue the game.
 
I think like all games in that trilogy it was impressive the first time, but suffers with any repeated play through.

I bought the remaster after having fond memories of the originals and I find them a complete chore to play through after already experiencing the story. The traversal system is so hands off it may as well be a cutscene, the shooting mechanics are mediocre and the level design doesn't really encourage experimentation.

That said I've heard UC4 opens things up a little.
 
Nope! The Nathan Drake collection fixes a lot of the shitty shooting controls from the original, but even then it's not remarkable. It's visually impressive, but not breathtakingly so. I'd put the set pieces on par with Gears tbh

2 still had issues with the way guns handled (the cover mechanics were especially bad), but that game *was* breathtaking.
 
I thought Uncharted sucked when it came out. I thought that the combat was very unenjoyable. I only beat it because there was really nothing else to play on PS3.
 
I always felt is was overrated and people were just enamored with the visuals. The combat just feels "off" in that the original.
 
Having played them in there original order as they came out, I thought UC1 was pretty bland. So bland I almost skipped on UC2 because I figured it was just more hype. Glad I didn't because UC2 is one of the greatest games ever.

UC1 had gorgeous visuals (it still looks great), great voice acting, excellent design for exploration and climbing but everything else was kind of bad. It's probably a generous 7/10. Not terrible but not memorable either.
 
I think it was quite well-received. The hate it's been receiving later (at least on GAF) is crazy though. You'd think it's a terrible game based on what you read here.
 
Harlock said:
I bought Drake Collection mainly to play Uncharted 2 and 3. But started playing the first game while the rest was download and it holds well. More simple in every aspect, but at release, would not be an amazing game, in that period context? Nathan and Elena looks very well characterized, for example. I remember people still very piss off with Sony at time and maybe this affected the perception about Uncharted 1.
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No, Uncharted was eagerly anticipated because the lineup up to that point was absolutely anemic and because it was Naughty Dog.

The game scored very high, sold well and a lot of people loved it. 2 took everything and improved on it and had awesome multiplayer as well.
 
The opposite is true if anything. It was a big hit for Sony which was something that they needed at the time after the launch and having no one buy the ps3 and having to drastically cut the price. I would say its a 'meh' game. Gun damage is actually kind of bad, and the graphics were good in 2007 but much less impressive now given what Naughty Dogs themselves achieved with U2, U3, and TLOU. The only really redeeming things about it are the story and characters.
 
Zefah said:
Uncharted 2 is the only one in the series that actually plays well and has fun encounter design in my opinion. The rest of the series is pretty damn mediocre in terms of combat encounters.

Still an amazing series in many ways, but the combat was just frustrating in every game but 2, in which it was really well done.
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Uncharted 4 encounter design is actually way above the rest of the series, it's just that there's not enough shooting sections since 85% of the game is walking forward.
 
Stumpokapow said:
It sold like 7 million copies and was the consensus Sony first-party break out hit. critically, it got an 88 on metacritic. kinda hard to argue that's underrated. you just don't hear as many people talk about it because UC2 was a monster.
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Oh 88? It's overrated then. It's just a little better than okay to me. I give it a 6 or 6.5.
 
I bought the collection earlier this year as well.

Personally, i think the game is trash. The climbing is bad. The actual shooting mechanics are bad. The combat encounters are legit badly designed. You go through an are and oh look here, enemies come from where you just came from. I was honestly surprised this franchise took off from the first game. I stopped playing the game when it got to the jet-ski part. Was like fuck this game, ain´t nobody got time for this. 2 is good though.

imo
 
Visually great. Mediocre action platformer. Bad shooting. It was a deserved 2/5.

The leap Uncharted 2 took from 1 was historic.
 
Mechanized said:
I just don't think the deeper narrative of Uncharted does anything for me really, or huge set pieces, I got bored with 2 really fast.
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What made you like UC1 more than? UC4 definitely has deeper narrative but also delivers multiple areas which are as fully realised as the jungles of Uncharted 1, puzzles are the best in the franchise and the set pieces more organic, they're not as bombastic as UC2 but emotionally hit harder.
 
Stumpokapow said:
It sold like 7 million copies and was the consensus Sony first-party break out hit. critically, it got an 88 on metacritic. kinda hard to argue that's underrated. you just don't hear as many people talk about it because UC2 was a monster.
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That takes care of most of it. Also the game had the full weight of Sony marketing behind it. Hype in full effect, the release of the game was an event.

My jaw dropped when I saw the title of this thread OP, c'mon.
 
It was a really groundbreaking game.

They did story, characters and cutscenes better than anyone had done up to that point.
 
arbok26 said:
It was a really groundbreaking game.

They did story, characters and cutscenes better than anyone had done up to that point.
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It broke absolutely no new ground. It just did mediocre things in a slightly better way. Slightly better characters, slightly better writing, slightly better graphics.

For context, it comes from a time when folklore was considered a good game, such was the desperation of ps3 owners to have "something to play".

It was just "ok". Luckily uncharted 2 stepped everything up to become a pretty good game.
 
toddhunter said:
It broke absolutely no new ground. It just did mediocre things in a slightly better way. Slightly better characters, slightly better writing, slightly better graphics.

For context, it comes from a time when folklore was considered a good game, such was the desperation of ps3 owners to have "something to play".

It was just "ok". Luckily uncharted 2 stepped everything up to become a pretty good game.
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Goddamn 2006-2007 were the absolute worst years in Playstation history; awful exclusives hyped and extremely bad ports/inferior versions of games on the 360. God of War 2 on PS2 destroyed any release the PS3 had in those 2 years. It wasn't until MGS4 in 2008 when the console was worth investing imo, then 2009 is when it all truly kicked off.
 
Quite the opposite, actually.

toddhunter said:
It broke absolutely no new ground. It just did mediocre things in a slightly better way. Slightly better characters, slightly better writing, slightly better graphics.

For context, it comes from a time when folklore was considered a good game, such was the desperation of ps3 owners to have "something to play".

It was just "ok". Luckily uncharted 2 stepped everything up to become a pretty good game.
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f7FdEdG.jpg
 
It was a good to excellent game marred by some terrible encounter design (something that Naught Dog are still quite bad at in my opinion)

It also felt like fresh in that there were colors and well written characters who all felt like people rather than Tommy space marine face.

At the time I remember liking most of it except for the overtly obvious second wave spawn time that seemed to happen every time you cleared a room

Also the jet ski section.
 
It got exactly the amount of praise it deserved. Perhaps a little more, if anything - I think it's in the high 80s on Metacritic? It's a decent game with great characters and storytelling but fairly rudimentary gameplay. I imagine the former was a huge part of the reason why it was so well received. Now the sequel was a bona-fide classic and still holds up really well today. Some of its action scenes and set pieces have not been equalled, aside from by its own sequels.
 
toddhunter said:
It broke absolutely no new ground. It just did mediocre things in a slightly better way. Slightly better characters, slightly better writing, slightly better graphics.

For context, it comes from a time when folklore was considered a good game, such was the desperation of ps3 owners to have "something to play".

It was just "ok". Luckily uncharted 2 stepped everything up to become a pretty good game.
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Come on, that's just not right.

Folklore is a 75 MC game (EDGE 5/10) with mediocre sales, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a 88 MC (EDGE 8/10) multi-million seller on a early userbase; it was both critically and commercially successful that warranted launched the seeds for one of the strongest Sony IP. Stuff like Folklore was none of this.

Now sure, even though it was Uncharted that got the ball rolling for Uncharted 2's hype, Uncharted 2 was such an improvement in every way (from a 8/9 game to GOTY-level), that, by that time, as PS3 sales were on the way up, a lot of Johnny-come-latelies picked up Uncharted 2 first, and of course, the hindsight side-by-side comparison wasn't favorable to Uncharted, so it became common-place to say Uncharted is not good.

But we still can't rewrite history because the proof is in the pudding. Uncharted faced a lot of hurdles, from PS3's convoluted architecture and development issues, to Naughty Dog taking the leap of faith to a whole new type of game they were inexperienced in; nevertheless Uncharted was still a wonderful pulp movie - type gaming experience with fun set-pieces that right from the start gave the impression that with some polish it could become a multiplayer game as well - and so it did. Which, btw, was still a heated topic because there were a lot of Uncharted fans that were claiming the game didn't need multiplayer. Yeah, the game had already earned a certain status by then.

So yeah, it wasn't like an obscure game that got unwarranted love before falling into obscurity. It was the beginning of a strong franchise because it was well received on all accounts. It was a risk that paid off handsomely.
 
MrBS said:
That takes care of most of it. Also the game had the full weight of Sony marketing behind it. Hype in full effect, the release of the game was an event.

My jaw dropped when I saw the title of this thread OP, c'mon.
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lol, this is some revisionist history.

Uncharted was actually an incredibly, incredibly slow burn. It didn't even break the NPD top 20 in its launch month.. Most of its sales came after Uncharted 2 at budget price.
 
I remember playing the game and feeling it was really just an average game. So average that I was doubting myself whether to try Uncharted 2...at all. Some review sites gave quite glowing reviews for UC1, at some point I questioned myself if I was playing the game wrong or something.
 
People loved the game at the time. It was a big bolster for the PS3 lineup.

It was revisionism in light of the much higher quality of U2+ that it was considered dogshit or whatever.

Now Assassin's Creed 1.. that's a game that was thought to be a disappointment in its own time.
 
As much as I hate all the Uncharted games for being stagnant hollywood farts I am baffled that people prefer 1 over 2 or 3.

Honestly when was the last time you played 1? This isn't 2008.
 
I will always remember the loud sigh i made during this game.

Drake figures out a secret entrance where he knows the enemies not been looking. He walks down steps turns corner and....group enemies sat there.

The game had no idea how do gameplay without shooting something thankfully they did as the most non shooting sections in future games are best part
 
I very much enjoyed the original, but the combat is hard to go back to after Uncharted 2. I think the story and locations are my favourite though, it felt suitably restrained whereas it got very bombastic for the next games along.
 
It was overrated when it came out. Game plays like absolute shit in combat, and the handhold-y cinematic sequences are even worse. Great presentation, particularly for 2007, but the actual game is junk.
 
Definitely didn't live up to the hype for me. Was one of the few games on the PS3 (along with GoW3) that I regretted purchasing even if I managed to force myself to finish it.
 
I remember thinking it was a solid 9 when I played it in 2007.

Nowadays it's like a 7 but the revisionist nonsense that it was never a good game is just trolling.

Graphics and animations were insane, it introduced a new era of cinematic storytelling (that unfortunately gave us a lot of trash games) and the trasversal gunplay was fantastic. I played the demo many times.
 
Weird way to write "Massively overrated", huh.
Jak3 to U1 is a fall from grace.
 
Nev said:
Graphics and animations were insane, it introduced a new era of cinematic storytelling (that unfortunately gave us a lot of trash games) and the trasversal gunplay was fantastic. I played the demo many times.
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Crysis was released the same year, and wore its "Gee, I like Predator. A lot." cinematic ambitions on its sleeve. But then again, console audiences didn't play that until 2011.
 
Weird thing is that Uncharted 2 was not good as I remember while Uncharted 1 was better. Expectation maybe. But, as some people talked, playing Uncharted games at second time can get repetitive with the scripted parts. And Uncharted 2 has very iconic scripted moments.
 
No?

Not sure how you came to that conclusion. It was so popular that it developed into one of the most important franchises for Sony. I hardly would call that underrated.

why is everything always either under or overrated btw?
 
Overrated when it came out. Underrated now. It was a solid 8 treated like a solid 9 in 2007. Treated like a solid 6 in 2017.
 
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