Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Drake’s Journey

The Uncharted series has always been a firm favourite of mine, from as far back as 2007 when Drake’s Fortune burst onto the scene.  I had never been a fan of third-person shoot-and-cover games, but I really liked platformers and action adventure games.  So what changed my mind?

Drake’s Fortune delivered the complete package for me: amazing graphics, an atmospheric musical score, a great storyline, likeable, believable and lifelike characters that you really cared about, and at it’s heart- absolutely rock-solid gameplay.

Among Thieves

2009 marked the year that most of the world woke up to the realisation that the Uncharted series of games was something special.  Naughty Dog took everything that they’d learnt from Drake’s Fortune and made the game more action-packed and cinematic with some amazing levels and a wider range of enemy classes.

Continue reading Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Limbo still haunts me

It’s been a few weeks now since I’ve played Limbo.  I snagged it pretty soon after it became available on the PlayStation Store as its reputation preceded it.  It is of course the same game that was released on Xbox Live Arcade last year.

If you had to think of a video game that could be called art, then it would have to be Limbo.  For a game that’s relatively short, with basic gameplay at its heart, it makes a big impact.  The music, the Noir visuals, and the puzzles all add up to a great little game.  In other words, it’s gameplay done right!

I’ve since moved on to playing some of the bigger releases this year such as DiRT 3 and L.A. Noire but Limbo still sticks in my mind as a small game with big presence.  It is a platform/puzzle game cut to its bare essentials, but with such high-impact visuals.

I’m not going to go on about this game anymore as I’m already treading on familiar ground here.  I just needed to get a shout out for this game, mainly for PS3 owners who like myself, will not have had the fortune of playing it last year.  A must buy!

Hands-on with Core Blaster & PSN code giveaway

Let’s jump right in, shall we?  Core Blaster is a recently released minis game for both the PSP and PS3.  To celebrate the recent launch of the game, the developers have given me 10 PSN codes to give away to my readers.

Core Blaster can best be described as Zuma-meets-PixelJunk Monsters.  On each level there are incoming waves of radioactive cores that you’ve got to stop reaching the other side, and they travel on rails.  Along these rails you’ve to purchase and build ‘core blasters’.  Cores come in multiple colours, and core blasters can only shoot cores of the same colour.

Later levels see single colour-only rails, and fast rails which speed up the cores.  The trick is that you’ve to carefully manage the location, amount, and type of blasters to ensure that as few cores as possible elude destruction.  Each blaster can only attack one core at once, so you’ve got to choose tactics wisely!

Continue reading Hands-on with Core Blaster & PSN code giveaway

My Sony E3 2010 keynote digest

E3 has come around again so soon (it appears), or am I just getting older?  Bah, humbug.  Anyhow, after Sony’s kitchen-sink-approach to keynotes and surprises I’ll only highlight in brief a few items that have piqued my interest:

PlayStation Move

Speaking of the devil, the Move has finally been priced and dated which ‘moves’ it out of the vapourware category.  Should be an interesting direction to take the PS3, but who exactly is it aimed at?  If it’s mainly children, then they’ve already got the Wii, and for parents the Wii is a heck of a lot cheaper.  This concerns me.

I’ll qualify the above with a caveat though: the PlayStation has the best tech in this area now.  Way more accurate (1:1 tracking) than anything the Wii can offer with better graphics and sound to boot, and more tactile than the Xbox 360’s Project Natal Kinect product.  I’m sorry, but waving your arms about can be hit and miss whilst gaming whether you’re a seasoned gamer or a casual one.  That’s just the way it is.

Killzone 3

The graphics should be spectacular, and it has support for PlayStation Move.

3D gaming has arrived

This isn’t really a big deal for me, as I don’t buy into the whole 3D spiel just yet.  However I can’t argue with the fact that this is potentially another exciting avenue for the PS3 (and gaming in general) to be going down.

Continue reading My Sony E3 2010 keynote digest

In Brief: shades of grey

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing through inFamous and being the hero.  But all those pleas for help… so many civilian casualties… all crying out for a hero.  To be perfectly honest it got a bit too much at times and I had to get away from it all.  Yet to get maximum-strength superpowers, the game forces you to either be worthy of a halo, or otherwise be downright evil.  There are no shades of grey.

So as I’d already played through the game once as a hero, it didn’t really sit well with me playing through again being evil just for the sake of it, it seemed.  I’d like a sequel for this franchise to be a bit more morally ambiguous.  Give me shades of grey.  Something substantial that I can really sink my teeth into.  Though I won’t deny, the dynamite combination of great controls and gameplay, and the immersive comic book storytelling has probably affected me more than I’ve realised.  Fantastic game.

Thoughts on Assassin’s Creed II

I hope that you’ve figured out by now that I don’t do reviews (even if I’m guilty of filing these articles in the ‘review’ category).  In my mind, a decent review takes considerable time: exploring every square inch of the game, playing through on multiple difficulty levels, and analysing both audio and visual quality with pain-staking precision in a lab, somewhere in Switzerland.  Probably.

My method just involves playing the game, really, like any other gamer would.  I play it, and from that I either love it or hate it.  Or somewhere in between.    As simple as that.  You get the gist.

In an interesting twist, the first game was the subject of my very first post on this blog.

An old friend returns

And so, just like that, with a quick recap of what happened in the previous game, Assassin’s Creed II begins straight after.  I don’t know what you thought of the opening, but I felt it was particularly weak: the graphics appeared sub-standard and the whole voice acting/character interaction was more wooden than any boat or vessel you’re likely to encounter in either the Holy Lands or Renaissance Italy.  Maybe Uncharted 2 had spoilt me, as it had definitely raised the bar for what could be achieved in tis regard in a video game.  Nevertheless, it had me worried.  But having said that, such ‘back in the real world moments’ were equally as weak in the first Assassin’s Creed.

Continue reading Thoughts on Assassin’s Creed II

Uncharted 2 Is Epic

When I found out that one of my favourite games of all time, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, was getting a sequel I already knew it was going to be great.  I mean, it had to be, right?  With Naughty Dog constantly striving to push the bar ever-higher and with the PS3 as a platform, great things were going to be accomplished.  The end product is a masterpiece.  Every PS3 gamer should grab a copy- heck anyone who’s remotely interested in gaming should pay some serious attention.  Uncharted 2 has set a new standard in video games for character interaction, visuals, and gameplay.

Some people will have you believe that Uncharted 2 is the video game of the century, but in my eyes it is simply the game of the moment.  And rightly so.  The original Uncharted’s perks and flaws weigh quite heavily in my opinion of its sequel, leading me to reach a different conclusion to the majority of the gaming press.  The original for me, remains a classic and perhaps purer experience.  In some respects it felt like next-generation gaming due to intelligent level design.  Exploring the Fortress immediately springs to mind: remaining local to one area, gradually scaling different levels and reaching new areas.  In contrast Uncharted 2 flits back and forth between a myriad of locations a la Indiana Jones.  This is no bad thing in itself, it’s just that as in my opinion there was nothing particularly bad about the original game, it means I’ve not fallen in love with the sequel like most people have.

Continue reading Uncharted 2 Is Epic