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[Raist]

I agreed on the fact Indy doesn't go around with an AK shooting Nazis in the face, which - I hope we can agree on this - is a bit different from what happens during most of the gameplay in Uncharted. I'm not denying Drake's motivation (trying to survive in an island full of mercenaries trying to kill him), it would be completely silly, but the excessive focus on shooting (again, see my long-ass post) sometimes can make it hard for his motivation to get to the player intact during the actual gameplay. If you don't feel anything's off, that's good for you.

Well I can agree with that. But that's down to gameplay design IMO, and it's not related to Drake's personality or his supposed status of "everyday man".
It's a game anyway, so it's up to you to do whatever you want. You could avoid a lot of firefights by just relying on melee combat. Or shoot people in the legs, if that makes you feel better.

But some people do find a few inconsistencies, and the fact you don't doesn't mean it's not there.

And some people don't, so the fact you do doesn't mean it's there. So any kind of argument, debate, or development of an opinion is totally pointless then.

 

[Stallion Free]

I know people freak every time when Tomb Raider is brought up in a Uncharted thread because they clearly have almost nothing in common (which I agree with), but I think Tomb Raider: Anniversary actually approached this topic amazingly well. Lara is killing hostile animals, dinosaurs, and super-natural creatures the whole game. Then at the end of the game she is actually put in a situation where she has to kill humans to survive. In the scene afterwards she is completely freaked out by the blood on her hands. Too bad Gaf has decided to shun the Tomb Raider series and missed out on this gem of character development that is undone by all the other TR games lol.

Btw, the game is 80% exploration and about 20% combat and it still sold over a million copies. You spend most of the time platforming and solving puzzles. High amounts of violence are not required to sell a game.

 

[BattleMonkey]

yet it presents itself with the tone and aesthetic trappings of an adventure game. again, incongruity.

No it doesn't. The game from the start is a shooter, the whole game is a shooter, at no point is the game even presented as an adventure style game.

Problem is people are just comparing the game to Indiana Jones and instantly thinking this is an adventure game.

I think this just highlights that people don't know what they want more than anything. Players get a shooter and complain about being pointless and shitty story lines, and then when a shooter does put in story elements into the background, it freaks them out or something. Wait I'm not a bald space marine, those aren't aliens...... this does not work!

 

[Inanna]

Uncharted (the first one) really is an odd one.....I just don't classify it any better than Gears of War or Metal Gear Solid. At least those games try to immerse you in the fact that you're playing as a ruthless killer. In Uncharted's cutscenes Drake is your average innocent swashbuckling adventurer who likely sneaked past a few enemies. Yet when gameplay kicks in Drake instantly turns into a cold-blooded mass-murdering super-commando. That he somehow solely took out a trained army of mercenaries never gets mentioned, but hey. It doesn't make it a bad game or anything, but it's still... well weird.

Drake was portrayed as an innocent boyscott during cutscenes? Yeah, so innocent that he's been to jail before, god knows how many times. And knows and quite possibly worked with people like Eddy Raja in the past.. Yep, weird indeed..

 

[Red Blaster]

yet it presents itself with the tone and aesthetic trappings of an adventure game. again, incongruity.

You're gunning down baddies within the first 20 seconds of Uncharted. The game makes zero indication that its going to be an adventure game.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Btw, the game is 80% exploration and about 20% combat and it still sold over a million copies. You spend most of the time platforming and solving puzzles. High amounts of violence are not required to sell a game.

Thank god because TR's combat is god awful. But anyways lot of games sell without violence, but doesn't mean that a developer can't choose to make a shooter or violent game, because they want to. I doubt the choice to be violent is based on the merit of making money since games that aren't violent are shown to be able to see just fine.

TR is an adventure platformer, always has been, combat is it's weak point but it does well what it's mainly about, and that's the exploration and platforming.

 

[Jocchan]

Well I can agree with that. But that's down to gameplay design IMO, and it's not related to Drake's personality or his supposed status of "everyday man".
It's a game anyway, so it's up to you to do whatever you want. You could avoid a lot of firefights by just relying on melee combat. Or shoot people in the legs, if that makes you feel better.

I never said Drake was an everyday man, because he clearly isn't. The main characters in Silent Hill (okay, except Homecoming and partially except SH3 because of the infamous machine gun) are everyday people, Drake is a trained adventurer. But while this does help with making his athleticism and skill with guns more believable, it still doesn't justify him taking out endless swarms of goons coming outta the walls, while keeping at the same time the overall tone and mood completely different during cutscenes (thus the disconnect).
What I mean is: it happens because it's a game, because it's a good way to cater to shooter fans, and because it's convenient (quicker and cheaper), but it's not elegant and people might notice a discrepancy.
But yeah, I'm talking from a purely game design point of view (I should have clarified that earlier, I think).

And some people don't, so the fact you do doesn't mean it's there.

I doubt people are imagining things. It's probably due to different sensibilities and different backgrounds: some might notice an issue in a movie/book/game, some might not. It doesn't mean it's not there, or else no one would notice it at all.

 

[Igo]

i think you make a great point, aeolist. that's a pretty astute observation that i don't think i would have consciously picked up on.

another great point. this sort of adventure game would have been better served by a small group or even a single antagonist who makes drake's life hard. firefights could have been limited but extremely polished and directed, and shooting to kill could have been a last option. this would serve a dual purpose: not only would it jibe better with what aeolist points out about it being incongruous with the character and tone of the game, but it would also make the gunfights you do have some gravitas.

but trying to explain the concept of "less is more" and "restraint" to many people in creative fields is a fool's errand.

yet it presents itself with the tone and aesthetic trappings of an adventure game. again, incongruity.

Explain this please. From the moment the game started I understood Drake was in trouble. Surrounded by pirates who wanted the same thing you did. He came with a camera crew and they came with an army. When Drake decided to press and on he was well aware of what he was up against (minus Spanish zombies). This is why I have trouble understanding this "tone" that that Drake and the game conflicted with. Other's have pointed out in this thread that Drake wasn't some virgin explorer. He brought weapons with him for god sake.

Less enemies wouldn't have made the game any more fun for me either. Perhaps the game needed more stealth. Something ND seem to have recognized. We'll see if it makes a substantial difference in the way you can play UC2.

 

[LaneDS]

I thought this was going to be about the fact that while you're playing Uncharted or presumably it's sequel, you might be killing lots of people but it's never very graphic with it's depictions of violence. If there's any blood in the game, it's minimal and used for story purposes, versus something like Ninja Gaiden 2 where every enemy spills gallons of blood. In this sense, I think Uncharted does actually have "violence appropriate to a game's tone", since largely it feels like a movie that might straddle the PG/PG-13 rating line.

The thread is 8 pages long so that's probably been mentioned, but yeah, my two cents.

 

[epmode]

I like this thread lots and I agree with the OP.

I think it's interesting how Grand Theft Auto 4 and Uncharted suffer from the same problem (Cutscene Niko != gameplay Niko, at all), yet I've only seen the complaint leveled at GTA. ..until this thread, I mean.

 

[sonicmj1]

OP have you watched Die Hard 1?

The "everyman" is capable of mean shit in shitty situations.

John McClane kills twelve people over the entire course of Die Hard (well, eleven, but whatever). Nathan Drake kills eleven people in the tutorial. The scale is not remotely similar.

I'm not saying that Drake can't kill people, or that he wouldn't. He seems to have done it before, and he definitely has ability. If he were threatened, he'd pull out his gun and start shooting. But when such actions lead to him mowing down a small army's worth of mercenaries who are brought to the island solely to stop him (what other antagonist force exists on the island, to the awareness of Drake's opponents?), a disconnect begins to emerge.

 

[Jocchan]

Explain this please. From the moment the game started I understood Drake was in trouble. Surrounded by pirates who wanted the same thing you did. He came with a camera crew and they came with an army. When Drake decided to press and on he was well aware of what he was up against (minus Spanish zombies). This is why I have trouble understanding this "tone" that that Drake and the game conflicted with. Other's have pointed out in this thread that Drake wasn't some virgin explorer. He brought weapons with him for god sake.

This doesn't explain how Elena picks up a gun and becomes a cold killing machine in minutes, while staying exactly the same camera crew as before during cutscenes. Yes, it's a game and it's gamey, but the closer we get to movies with videogames and the more gamey stuff will stand out and look out of place.

Less enemies wouldn't have made the game any more fun for me either. Perhaps the game needed more stealth. Something ND seem to have recognized. We'll see if it makes a substantial difference in the way you can play UC2.

TBH a lesser focus on direct shooting, more fast-paced scenes, and some more creativity in overcoming the baddies would have done the trick for me. I hope UC2 delivers this.

 

[Igo]

I never said Drake was an everyday man, because he clearly isn't. The main characters in Silent Hill (okay, except Homecoming and partially except SH3 because of the infamous machine gun) are everyday people, Drake is a trained adventurer. But while this does help with making his athleticism and skill with guns more believable, it still doesn't justify him taking out endless swarms of goons coming outta the walls, while keeping at the same time the overall tone and mood completely different during cutscenes (thus the disconnect).

I doubt people are imagining things. It's probably due to different sensibilities and different backgrounds: some might notice an issue in a movie/book/game, some might not. It doesn't mean it's not there, or else no one would notice it at all.

Again, i'm just not seeing this. Drake knows what he's up against. He's willing to take those risks and is aware of the possible consequences of his actions. When he comes out of a firefights he often makes a quip about how lucky he is, or how he's glad it's over. When he does encounter more mercs, he says something like "not again" and does what needs to be done. He doesn't seem to have a problem with it either. Thats his personality and it never detracted from the experience for me. I just don't see this disconnect everyone else does.

When rez says this "disconnect" is more noticeable in Drake than in Nico i'm baffled. I can't remember Drake ever being too concerned about what his actions mean for anyone else. Where as Nico goes on and on about wanting to change and then 5 minutes later back to his old ways.

 

[Foxtastical]

And I always thought Elena - even Sully, stood out a lot more for their killing

I agree completely. Elena especially.

And holy farts, some of you are really missing the point.

 

[kaching]

while keeping at the same time the overall tone and mood completely different during cutscenes (thus the disconnect).

The overall tone and mood of the cutscenes tracks closely with the severity of their plight. It loses lightheartedness as the game progresses. Drake gets more unsettled with the implications of his quest as he gets closer to his goal. ND effectively lays out a plot of circumstances that snowball into a situation that forces the characters forward - I don't see where the alleged inconsistency lies. None of the protagonists are portrayed as saints and their individual motivations are shown to further entangle each other in the mess they're in. So while Drake starts to have second thoughts, Elena is driven by her desire for a story that will put her on the map, Sully has money problems, etc.

Outside of the fact that they don't directly acknowledge the mass murder they commit and examine it introspectively, which is a convention of this type of fiction well before it was ever applied to a videogame, the tone and mood of the story certainly do track with the actions you are expected to complete in the game. I really don't see what is being claimed as incongruous or inconsistent.

 

[Igo]

This doesn't explain how Elena picks up a gun and becomes a cold killing machine in minutes, while staying exactly the same camera crew as before during cutscenes. Yes, it's a game and it's gamey, but the closer we get to movies with videogames and the more gamey stuff will stand out and look out of place.


TBH a lesser focus on direct shooting, more fast-paced scenes, and some more creativity in overcoming the baddies would have done the trick for me. I hope UC2 delivers this.

I can't actually remember Elana doing that much killing. I remember her pulling the trigger but I was doing most of the work. Haven't played in a while though.

Yeah I can't argue with you when you talk of more diversity in the game but this talk of a disconnect is bs to me.

 

[Foxtastical]

I can't actually remember Elana doing that much killing. I remember her pulling the trigger but I was doing most of the work. Haven't played in a while though.

Yeah I can't argue with you when you talk of more diversity in the game but this talk of a disconnect is bs to me.

It's not Elena killing a million guys. It's when Elena talks of how she's never really touched guns before, and then immediately after the cut scene she's shooting faces with you like the best of them.

 

[Jocchan]

Again, i'm just not seeing this. Drake knows what he's up against. He's willing to take those risks and is aware of the possible consequences of his actions. When he comes out of a firefights he often makes a quip about how lucky he is, or how he's glad it's over. When he does encounter more mercs, he says something like "not again" and does what needs to be done. He doesn't seem to have a problem with it either. Thats his personality and it never detracted from the experience for me. I just don't see this disconnect everyone else does.

When rez says this "disconnect" is more noticeable in Drake than in Nico i'm baffled. I can't remember Drake ever being too concerned about what his actions mean to anyone else. Where as Nico goes on and on about wanting to change and then 5 minutes later back to his old ways.

Yeah, but witty comments about baddies showing up again and surviving close calls are a pretty common staple for action movies (and, nowadays, games). The problem to me is not the fact he has to kill pirates to survive, it has more to do with how the game communicates the need to decimate an entire army to the player by putting him in front of endless swarms of people, when heading to a slightly different direction during game design would have circumvented the problem entirely.
BTW, I haven't played any story mission in GTA4, just messed around Liberty City on my brother's PS3 last Summer, but I don't doubt its "Oscar-worthy" story to be full of plotholes and contradictions.

 

[Kittonwy]

John McClane kills twelve people over the entire course of Die Hard (well, eleven, but whatever). Nathan Drake kills eleven people in the tutorial. The scale is not remotely similar.

I'm not saying that Drake can't kill people, or that he wouldn't. He seems to have done it before, and he definitely has ability. If he were threatened, he'd pull out his gun and start shooting. But when such actions lead to him mowing down a small army's worth of mercenaries who are brought to the island solely to stop him (what other antagonist force exists on the island, to the awareness of Drake's opponents?), a disconnect begins to emerge.

At the end of the day there's always going to be a disconnect because the level of killing in games doesn't make sense since at the end of the day you're just one guy and you shouldn't be able to mow down hundreds of enemies no matter how good you are, whether it's an action-adventure shooter like Uncharted or a military shooter like Gears/HALO 3/COD4, it's too bad some people can't overlook that but that's the reality gamers have to deal with, in most action/shooter games the player is simply a mass-murderer, no context can help that.

 

[Stallion Free]

For you guys who are defending Drake, saying that he has to defend himself or die, you are missing a huge point. There is absolutely no reason for all 400 of those pirates to be there. As far as Eddie and the Old Bad Guy know they are looking for lost treasure, they know nothing of the mutant zombie infestation. And Drake appears to be there only competition for this treasure. So why are 400 pirates necessary? Apparently all they do is sit in areas waiting for Drake to stop by and serve no other purpose. The mercs towards the end that you encounter are there in the numbers they are because their leader is aware of the mutants, but the point still stand. For most of the game you are killing clown cars of goons for the sake of killing clown cars of goons. It just feels forced.

 

[Castle Doctrine]

I'm just happy Naughty Dog had the balls to create a character that was an actual human being who had normal sounding conversations with the other characters. That simple fact in itself was a breakthrough in gaming. It was a step in the right direction and we should be applauding ND for that. Apparently that wasn't enough for some people and they also had to reinvent the gaming wheel too.

I think we're holding ND to a ridiculous standard here. I do agree with the point people are making, that the characterizations didn't mesh with all the killing, but it's a problem I'll take for now. One step at a time.

Calling ND "lazy" after they made two great games is shitty. Other developers are still making bald, testosterone filled badasses, I think they should be the ones getting criticized, at least ND took a chance with more regular characters, relatively speaking. Yeah they ran into a problem because of it, but compared to all the other violent, bloody games with shallow characters out there, I'll take Uncharted. Amy Hennig was honest and ackowledged the issue, so maybe in Uncharted 3 they'll work it out and come up with more unique gameplay.

 

[Zeliard]

No it doesn't. The game from the start is a shooter, the whole game is a shooter, at no point is the game even presented as an adventure style game.

You're gunning down baddies within the first 20 seconds of Uncharted. The game makes zero indication that its going to be an adventure game.

You two cannot possibly be serious. The game doesn't bother even pretending to hide the considerable Indiana Jones/serialized 1930s adventures influences on it.

 

[Foxtastical]

At the end of the day there's always going to be a disconnect because the level of killing in games doesn't make sense since at the end of the day you're just one guy and you shouldn't be able to mow down hundreds of enemies no matter how good you are, whether it's an action-adventure shooter like Uncharted or a military shooter like Gears/HALO 3/COD4, it's too bad some people can't overlook that but that's the reality gamers have to deal with, in most action/shooter games the player is simply a mass-murderer, no context can help that.

Well, if we keep thinking like that, then yes, you're right. Saying we can't change it is a good way of stopping things from progressing forward.

 

[Red Blaster]

I like this thread lots and I agree with the OP.

I think it's interesting how Grand Theft Auto 4 and Uncharted suffer from the same problem (Cutscene Niko != gameplay Niko, at all), yet I've only seen the complaint leveled at GTA. ..until this thread, I mean.

It was a problem in GTAIV because initially the game established that Niko had a conscience as well as a strong desire to leave behind his past vices. This all goes to shit within a few hours when he starts murdering people for $100, ultimately leading up to Niko gunning down throngs of cops during a bank robbery while calling them motherfuckers.

You two cannot possibly be serious. The game doesn't bother even pretending to hide the considerable Indiana Jones/serialized 1930s adventures influences on it.

Influenced by adventure movies =/= adventure game

 

[Kittonwy]

For you guys who are defending Drake, saying that he has to defend himself or die, you are missing a huge point. There is absolutely no reason for all 400 of those pirates to be there. As far as Eddie and the Old Bad Guy know they are looking for lost treasure, they know nothing of the mutant zombie infestation. And Drake appears to be there only competition for this treasure. So why are 400 pirates necessary? Apparently all they do is sit in areas waiting for Drake to stop by and serve no other purpose. The mercs towards the end that you encounter are there in the numbers they are because their leader is aware of the mutants, but the point still stand. For most of the game you are killing clown cars of goons for the sake of killing clown cars of goons. It just feels forced.

Because otherwise you would have nobody to shoot at and you're basically left with a one-hour game.

 

[Stallion Free]

Because otherwise you would have nobody to shoot at and you're basically left with a one-hour game.

Not really, the number of enemies could be lowered a great deal to something more believeable and the game would have been a fine length. Throwing multiple waves of enemies at the character feels like padding in the scenarios of the game where it happens.

 

[kaching]

It's not Elena killing a million guys. It's when Elena talks of how she's never really touched guns before, and then immediately after the cut scene she's shooting faces with you like the best of them.

I don't recall Elena's gunplay providing me *any* significant relief from nearby enemies. I hardly consider the gunplay I manage to directly coerce out of Drake to be "shooting faces with the best of them" (because my aim is crap) so I can't see how you'd justify saying that of Elena when all I can remember her doing is possibly softening up a random enemy here and there.

 

[BattleMonkey]

You two cannot possibly be serious. The game doesn't bother even pretending to hide the considerable Indiana Jones/serialized 1930s adventures influences on it.

I don't think you've ever read a pulp novel then cause it has very little in common outside of in search of treasure. The game story has more in common with something out of a 80's movie.

Game start, look we found some treasure, 30 seconds and bam pirates shooting me! fuck yea blowing up shit, punching bad guys. Next scene, flying plane, 10 seconds in and bam oh shit they got flak guns, going to die, ok.... oh shit more guys shooting me.

This is all the first couple minutes of game, now at what point did the game give you the indication it was an "adventure" game?

 

[Keikoku]

First let me start by saying I have no problem with lots of violence even if it's extremely graphic and disturbing. I love MadWorld, Ninja Gaiden, RE4, and bloody shooters galore. In fact I often find it to be hilarious and don't ever feel nauseated by it.

But something occurred to me when I played through Uncharted after getting my PS3 slim, and it was that the level of violence in the game didn't seem to fit. Using Indiana Jones as an example (since it and the old adventure serials it's based on are major inspirations for the game), you don't see Indy mowing down hundreds of thugs in any of the movies. Yes, he kills people with guns and airplane propellers and various other methods, but generally the body count is kept pretty low.

So I played Uncharted, and whatever my complaints with the game I loved the characters, dialog, and story. In fact it's a testament to all of these that this problem even arose in my mind. Naughty Dog made me buy into the "everyman in a bad situation" scenario so well that the shooting was wildly incongruous. Drake feels like an Indiana Jones-type guy, down to the funny one-liners and animations that make him look like he's barely managing to do the things he does, but when he gets out his assault rifle and shoots 80 guys in the head I don't feel like it's something that character would have done. At the very least his reaction to all the violence he perpetrates doesn't feel as realistic as the rest of his character.

I honestly don't know how this could have been better. Obviously the sheer number of enemies could have been toned down (and given my dislike of the combat arenas this would alleviate my complaints beyond just the believability) but then the game would have been 4 hours long. They could have made larger parts of the game platforming, but that may have just moved the bloat from combat sections to other areas and felt just as bad.

Personally I would have preferred a focus on evasion and running away, but the downside there is that the level design would have been immensely more complicated and time-consuming for the studio, and probably wouldn't have been as well-received as the shooter gameplay we got.

tl;dr: I don't think the hundreds of enemies you kill in Uncharted is believable given the focus Naughty Dog put on creating real-feeling people as characters. Real people don't commit mass murder that easily, even against amoral mercenary armies.

Discuss

Always thought the same. But it had to be a TPS marketing-wise I guess. Still, it's just a game, so it doesn't matter that much.

 

[Zeliard]

Influenced by adventure movies =/= adventure game

We're talking about tone and setting. No, it's not a point-and-click adventure game. That's not really the point.

I mean, do you know many archeology professors that are badass with a whip, kick ass all around the world and make nazis and other usual baddies bite the dust? I don't

Indiana Jones spends most of the four movies getting his ass kicked in various ways. That's one of the most amusing things about the character, including the fact that he is often inconsequential to what ends up happening. He could not have existed during the entirety of Raiders of the Lost Ark and it wouldn't have changed a face-melting thing.

 

[SolidSnakex]

For you guys who are defending Drake, saying that he has to defend himself or die, you are missing a huge point. There is absolutely no reason for all 400 of those pirates to be there. As far as Eddie and the Old Bad Guy know they are looking for lost treasure, they know nothing of the mutant zombie infestation. And Drake appears to be there only competition for this treasure. So why are 400 pirates necessary? Apparently all they do is sit in areas waiting for Drake to stop by and serve no other purpose. The mercs towards the end that you encounter are there in the numbers they are because their leader is aware of the mutants, but the point still stand. For most of the game you are killing clown cars of goons for the sake of killing clown cars of goons. It just feels forced.

ND have openly admitted that there were far too many "room clear" segments in the original and that was a fault on their part.

 

[Zeliard]

I don't think you've ever read a pulp novel then cause it has very little in common outside of in search of treasure. The game story has more in common with something out of a 80's movie.

You mean an 80s movie like Indiana Jones?

 

[Kittonwy]

Well, if we keep thinking like that, then yes, you're right. Saying we can't change it is a good way of stopping things from progressing forward.

Or we can have 20 enemies throughout and you spend 5 hours driving a forklift around or doing mundane crap like feeding cats and talking to sailors, or going bowling and playing pool or dart, I'm sure that would be a giant leap forward and make the game so much more enjoyable.

It's like having a steak dinner and complaining about too much mouth-watering nicely seared blue-rare steak (serve with delicious horse radish and a nice cold beer) on the plate in comparison to the amount of steamed veg because too much steak is out of context. Sure we can "progress forward" but I would rather have more steak even though we can't explain why there's so much steak.

 

[Igo]

Yeah, but witty comments about baddies showing up again and surviving close calls are a pretty common staple for action movies (and, nowadays, games). The problem to me is not the fact he has to kill pirates to survive, it has more to do with how the game communicates the need to decimate an entire army to the player by putting him in front of endless swarms of people, when heading to a slightly different direction during game design would have circumvented the problem entirely.
BTW, I haven't played any story mission in GTA4, just messed around Liberty City on my brother's PS3 last Summer, but I don't doubt its "Oscar-worthy" story to be full of plotholes and contradictions.

See, I don't disagree with you here. More could have been done to explain why there are so many pirates. I'm pretty sure Drake even makes some joke about how they just keep coming. And sure enough better game design could have avoided the need for so many enemies. I'm just not buying that the number of enemies is in any way inconsistent with the tone of the game. Could be worse though, if the game featured CoD4's infinitely respawning enemies the kill count could be in the thousands.

 

[Keikoku]

I

Other developers are still making bald, testosterone filled badasses

Why ? Badasses soldiers killing monsters is pretty much logic. Normal guy killing hundred of people when he's the Indiana Jones kind of guy, not so much...

 

[beelzebozo]

You mean an 80s movie like Indiana Jones?

or ROMANCING THE STONE?

 

[Stumpokapow]

or ROMANCING THE STONE?

<3

 

[Kittonwy]

Not really, the number of enemies could be lowered a great deal to something more believeable and the game would have been a fine length. Throwing multiple waves of enemies at the character feels like padding in the scenarios of the game where it happens.

That makes no sense. You can't remove content and maintain the same game length. If you slim down the gunfights significantly you would have to pad it with other things, and often the game devolves into a series of crap mini-games.

 

[beelzebozo]

That makes no sense. You can't remove content and maintain the same game length. If you slim down the gunfights significantly you would have to pad it with other things, and often the game devolves into a series of crap mini-games.

i think he's suggesting that the game's fundamental game mechanics, in order to sync up with the story and aesthetic traditions it's evoking, should have been something besides gunning people down for 90% of the game. in other words, a game that so clearly wants to appear from the exterior to be an adventure should be primarily about, you know, adventuring.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

And some people don't, so the fact you do doesn't mean it's there. So any kind of argument, debate, or development of an opinion is totally pointless then.

Inconsistencies are now subjective? Really?

 

[Jocchan]

The overall tone and mood of the cutscenes tracks closely with the severity of their plight. It loses lightheartedness as the game progresses. Drake gets more unsettled with the implications of his quest as he gets closer to his goal. ND effectively lays out a plot of circumstances that snowball into a situation that forces the characters forward - I don't see where the alleged inconsistency lies. None of the protagonists are portrayed as saints and their individual motivations are shown to further entangle each other in the mess they're in. So while Drake starts to have second thoughts, Elena is driven by her desire for a story that will put her on the map, Sully has money problems, etc.

Outside of the fact that they don't directly acknowledge the mass murder they commit and examine it introspectively, which is a convention of this type of fiction well before it was ever applied to a videogame, the tone and mood of the story certainly do track with the actions you are expected to complete in the game. I really don't see what is being claimed as incongruous or inconsistent.

Well, I'm not sure it does. Yes, none of the characters is a saint, but again it's not a black or white matter. It's not either "no shooting at all" or "shoot the hell out of everyone and commit a genocide", there's an endless scale of grey between these two extremes. What some people seem to be pointing at, or at least what I am pointing at, is the fact that they probably ended up with keeping two different greys at the same time, and you could notice the difference when they put them side by side. I agree the tone gets a bit less lighthearted as you go along, but the difference still stays noticeable enough in my eyes.
I agree with the bolded part, but videogames are the worst offenders here due to the sheer volume of cannon fodder they need to make the experience durable enough to justify their price tags. And this is a problem our media has in general, it has little to do with Uncharted and more to do with several other factors I mentioned earlier.

I'm just happy Naughty Dog had the balls to create a character that was an actual human being who had normal sounding conversations with the other characters. That simple fact in itself was a breakthrough in gaming. It was a step in the right direction and we should be applauding ND for that. Apparently that wasn't enough for some people and they also had to reinvent the gaming wheel too.

I think we're holding ND to a ridiculous standard here. I do agree with the point people are making, that the characterizations didn't mesh with all the killing, but it's a problem I'll take for now. One step at a time.

Calling ND "lazy" after they made two great games is shitty. Other developers are still making bald, testosterone filled badasses, I think they should be the ones getting criticized, at least ND took a chance with more regular characters, relatively speaking. Yeah they ran into a problem because of it, but compared to all the other violent, bloody games with shallow characters out there, I'll take Uncharted. Amy Hennig was honest and ackowledged the issue, so maybe in Uncharted 3 they'll work it out and come up with more unique gameplay.

I think you're being a bit too defensive here, it's mostly nitpicking about a game probably most of us here loved. I for one loved the tone and setting, I loved the brave use of COLOUR(!!!!) in the age of desaturated grittiness, I loved playing the game over and over to get the platinum trophy (I did this for two games on the PS3), and I think they made a really great job if the biggest criticism I've seen about the first game is about this (and the length, though I believe the game was long enough).
I was happy to read Amy Hennig's take on this issue, and I'm happy to know she acknowledged this problem as I believe more and more games over time will suffer from this disconnect. Gameplay uncanny valley indeed.

ND have openly admitted that there were far too many "room clear" segments in the original and that was a fault on their part.

I hope Uncharted 2 has much less of these moments.

See, I don't disagree with you here. More could have been done to explain why there are so many pirates. I'm pretty sure Drake even makes some joke about how they just keep coming. And sure enough better game design could have avoided the need for so many enemies. I'm just not buying that the number of enemies is in any way inconsistent with the tone of the game. Could be worse though, if the game featured CoD4's infinitely respawning enemies the kill count could be in the thousands.

Haha, I agree

 

[Kintaro]

Why ? Badasses soldiers killing monsters is pretty much logic. Normal guy killing hundred of people when he's the Indiana Jones kind of guy, not so much...

In the next version of this thread, we talk about the lack of PTSD in our games.

 

[BattleMonkey]

or ROMANCING THE STONE?

And I'm sure those would be fun games to play.

Again this is a problem of preconceived notions where people expect something else out of a game when it wasn't designed as such.

All this does is make it impossible for people to accept any game that isn't space marine shooter since having a shooting game makes no sense unless it's military themed or has zombies. (which the first game did).

I can't wait to see people flip out with Uncharted 2 since the game has tanks, stealth killing, and fucking hind helicopters trying to kill you.

 

[Kintaro]

I can't wait to see people flip out with Uncharted 2 since the game has tanks, stealth killing, and fucking hind helicopters trying to kill you.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[jrricky]

Wow, I never thought of this before, and the OP makes an excellent point that I could kinda agree with.

I love how the ones that disagree are ignoring the whole point of the OP, though...

 

[John]

I was thinking about this kind of thing over the past week. Games really do just come down to killing, jumping, and rubbing items on things. Kind of depressing considering the potential.

 

[Castle Doctrine]

I think you're being a bit too defensive here, it's mostly nitpicking about a game probably most of us here loved. I for one loved the tone and setting, I loved the brave use of COLOUR(!!!!) in the age of desaturated grittiness, I loved playing the game over and over to get the platinum trophy (I did this for two games on the PS3), and I think they made a really great job if the biggest criticism I've seen about the first game is about this (and the length, though I believe the game was long enough).
I was happy to read Amy Hennig's take on this issue, and I'm happy to know she acknowledged this problem as I believe more and more games over time will suffer from this disconnect. Gameplay uncanny valley indeed.

I will say in your previous long post, at least you offered some suggestions for alternate gameplay, like setting up traps or Macgyver or whatever it was you said

It's easy to criticize, but thinking of different types of gameplay isn't easy. Actually someone else said driving around a forklift which I think may be an idea that revolutionizes the industry.

 

[beelzebozo]

And I'm sure those would be fun games to play.

Again this is a problem of preconceived notions where people expect something else out of a game when it wasn't designed as such.

All this does is make it impossible for people to accept any game that isn't space marine shooter since having a shooting game makes no sense unless it's military themed or has zombies. (which the first game did).

on the contrary, i think the real problem is that lowered expectations for consistency between tone/aesthetics and the game mechanics themselves create a climate in which pretty much any game setting or concept can have overly familiar shooting mechanics slapped onto it and, if done competently, will be praised as far more than competent. plenty of shooters have settings that are not military or zombie-centric, yet still maintain consistency of tone. why should you expect anything less?

 

[BattleMonkey]

on the contrary, i think the real problem is that lowered expectations for consistency between tone/aesthetics and the game mechanics themselves create a climate in which pretty much any game setting or concept can have overly familiar shooting mechanics slapped onto it and, if done competently, will be praised as far more than competent. plenty of shooters have settings that are not military or zombie-centric, yet still maintain consistency of tone. why should you expect anything less?

And which shooters are these games that aren't military themed or having you take on hordes of some kind of monster thingies?

Games as a whole are contrived especially when it comes to trying to cram a story in them, which just tends to make it seem like many developers don't even try in the story aspects since they know it's not going to make much sense.

Just look at pretty much any RPG, where by the end you and like 2 other people have killed about several thousand people or monsters by yourselves, done many mundane tasks, and saved the world.

 

[Jocchan]

I will say in your previous long post, at least you offered some suggestions for alternate gameplay, like setting up traps or Macgyver or whatever it was you said

It's easy to criticize, but thinking of different types of gameplay isn't easy. Actually someone else said driving around a forklift which I think may be an idea that revolutionizes the industry.

I just said game designers should never lose sight of consistency during a project, even if this means having to change something or experiment a bit with the gameplay