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Started by Keef Monkey, 11 June, 2011, 09:35:35 AM

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GrudgeJohnDeed

I'm with you on the Uncharted gameplay! I actually haven't bought one since the first one, I didn't like the way it played and didn't get into the story enough for it to become one of those games where I put up with the gameplay for the story or characters. Didn't like the supernatural turn it took either - felt like they were shoehorning zombie hordes into the game as an easy crescendo and we were right in the middle of a zombie fad as I remember. It was much more interesting prior!

I do like zombies though! I love the Romero films and I don't think many games do those zombies justice, I'd love more good ones.


Professor Bear

There are no supernatural elements in any of the Uncharted games.  The zombies from the first game are the descendants of Spanish colonists who were driven out of their settlements by a plague outbreak and over time developed an immunity to the plague while reverting to savagery, and it's implied this is caused by their carrying some form of the disease - a complicated explanation most likely put in to divert from any potentially troubling subtext about the white main character fighting a tribe of cannibals.
The closest the Uncharted games get to the supernatural is the level of damage inflicted on the main character without his being killed, crippled, or brain-damaged.  There's a bit in one of the cut-scenes in Uncharted 2 where we're supposed to care that he's been stabbed and I was just like "Pft - walk it off."

Keef Monkey

I definitely took that turn in UC1 to be a turn to the supernatural but it's possible I didn't get the context properly. I do remember some really overt supernatural elements somewhere, maybe 2 or 3? Something about a magic tree and a mystical city and a boss fight with someone who was invincible because they were possessed or had ingested some sort of magical potion or other, and then a mad run through the city as it self destructed for magical reasons.

I could be totally misremembering, but I'm sure that happened! It wasn't necessarily any more supernatural than something like Indiana Jones so I'm sure that's what they were aiming for with their last acts. Did think they worked better without it though, and it was refreshing that UC4 was way more grounded in history instead of mythical mcguffins.

I may be remembering a different game!

GrudgeJohnDeed

Quote from: Professor Bear on 03 December, 2018, 03:21:03 PM
There are no supernatural elements in any of the Uncharted games. The zombies from the first game are the descendants of Spanish colonists who were driven out of their settlements by a plague outbreak and over time developed an immunity to the plague while reverting to savagery, and it's implied this is caused by their carrying some form of the disease - a complicated explanation most likely put in to divert from any potentially troubling subtext about the white main character fighting a tribe of cannibals.

Ah fair enough, it's been a while! I'm not sure what the phrase would be for that then, science fiction I guess? Either way, I wasn't a fan :(


Professor Bear

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 03 December, 2018, 04:02:59 PMI could be totally misremembering, but I'm sure that happened!

It wasn't magic, it was an unstable (exploding once you shoot it) tree resin* with restorative properties (hence the final boss' seeming invincibility) and a side-effect of making the user act like they're on PCP.  More like TREE-CP, amiright?  No?  Okay, fuck all y'all.

The outlandish elements are always hand-waved away in highly inventive fashion, IE:
Uncharted 1 - the plague made Spaniards living in an isolated city strong and angry and they turned on each other and then the city they lived in fell into myth
Uncharted 2 - tree resin made Tibetans living in an isolated city strong and angry and they turned on each other and then the city they lived in fell into myth
Uncharted 3 - polluted water made Arabs living in an isolated city strong and angry and they turned on each other and then the city they lived in fell into myth
Uncharted 4 - they were pirates, of course they turned on each other.


* The tree itself was the single most outlandish thing to ever appear in the Uncharted series - a gigantic, prehistoric vegetable that had a temple built around it whose "blood" theoretically grants eternal life, if you don't mind turning into a mindless junkie who dresses like a gorilla for some reason.

CalHab

The real question is why is Nathan Drake a charming, wisecracking joker despite spending the last few years killing/murdering thousands of people.

Keef Monkey

Quote from: CalHab on 04 December, 2018, 03:27:02 PM
The real question is why is Nathan Drake a charming, wisecracking joker despite spending the last few years killing/murdering thousands of people.

Yeah that sits a bit funny with his character. The Drake you see in cutscenes is almost a different person - he'll find himself in some sort of tense chat at gunpoint with an enemy and during those everyone seems really reluctant to take the step of killing someone. It's a bit silly to have him hesitate to kill, or for someone to hesitate to kill him, when he's just shot his way through about 60 of their friends and colleagues.

Professor Bear

I don't know how you guys are playing these games, but I always shoot to wound.

Keef Monkey

Me too, I'm just a terrible shot.

Apestrife

Half Life 2. Been a while. Held up really well. It's enviroments are fantastic. All of gives a genuine sense of that something has gone terrible wrong. Not sure what, why or what can be done about it. Especially the empty houses along the coast. Going through those, only to find a med kit or some bullets among an old corpse or two. Really sets the scene.

If someone hasn't played this, I really recommend that person doing so.

The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: Apestrife on 04 December, 2018, 08:31:57 PM
Half Life 2. Been a while. Held up really well. It's enviroments are fantastic. All of gives a genuine sense of that something has gone terrible wrong. Not sure what, why or what can be done about it. Especially the empty houses along the coast. Going through those, only to find a med kit or some bullets among an old corpse or two. Really sets the scene.

If someone hasn't played this, I really recommend that person doing so.

Black Mesa is a great game. It's like a new game rather than a scene for scene remake. The intro cable car ride is muuuuch longer though.
Lock up your spoons!

wedgeski

Quote from: Apestrife on 04 December, 2018, 08:31:57 PM
Half Life 2. Been a while. Held up really well. It's enviroments are fantastic. All of gives a genuine sense of that something has gone terrible wrong. Not sure what, why or what can be done about it. Especially the empty houses along the coast. Going through those, only to find a med kit or some bullets among an old corpse or two. Really sets the scene.

If someone hasn't played this, I really recommend that person doing so.
Agree! I'm due for a replay of this, I think.

GrudgeJohnDeed

Half-Life 1 holds up pretty darn well too in my opinion!

Rately

The Half Life games are excellent. Even the mini-games like Blue Shift are well worth a play.

I haven't a console at moment, but I've all the games on my Steam account, and I have my partner's lovely new Mac.....

Keef Monkey

I remember dropping Half Life before the end and never getting round to finishing it, it turns out I really didn't have much longer to go either! Have been keeping an eye on the Black Mesa thing, once it's all done and released I'll probably jump on it.

Played through Shadow of The Colossus for the first time this week and had really intensely mixed feelings about it! The atmosphere is incredible and the design of the creatures and the sense of scale is really amazing, and when it was all going well and feeling good it was really thrilling and satisfying and filled with that strong melancholy about the whole endeavor of killing these big beautiful beasts. In all those regards it was brilliant and quite unlike anything else I've played.

On the other hand though, I found the moment to moment gameplay to be fairly horrendous for a great deal of the running time, and climbing the bosses required a lot of patience and persevering with clunky controls and a rotten camera and unfair attack patterns and when I'd spent ages getting to a point just to be flung off (or more often to leap off due to the camera and control issues) and have to wait for another opening to do it again I really, really didn't find it to be enjoyable at all.

I think about half the bosses were great but peppered through them were really fiddly annoying ones, so I reckon if it had been half the length and was all killer no filler I would have loved it, but as it is I was really glad to see the back of it, despite how gloriously impressive it is in many regards. When it was good it was amazing, but I guess I swore at it way too much to say I liked it.