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I'm playing this gem for the Playstation 3 right now. Any thoughts by other fellow IF fans on this marvelous blend of action-adventure-shooter-platform game?

It does so many things right. The scripting is tight, the organic mellee combat reminds me of the best moments of Final Fight and the world is huge, while mostly linear. It also reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 4 in some moments and it obviously has a hint or two towards Infocom's Infidel...

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IF without puzzles is simply like a novel where you turn pages by typing "go north" or other silly and useless nonsense.

Actually, me and my girlfriend laugh a lot about several sticking plot-holes and the fact that some levels were obiously designed before they came up with a story.

However, it's still one of the best titles of the genre I've played, and for all its shortcomings (mostly story-related), there's something very good about the whole Uncharted franchise. And you're right, it does many, many things right - and it's been learning from past mistakes.

My (and my girlfriend's) favourite (as in, the one we most like to ridicule) moment is still the end of U2, however.

Guess you're one of those guys who enjoy digging for plot holes in a story more than enjoying the story itself, huh?

It'd be a major challenge not to have any plot holes in a 13-15 hours long game, more so than in a movie. But really, it's as good as blockbuster games go. I'm really not aware of any major plot holes sticking out at my face so far (I'm past the desert). Unless you count things like "hey, why Gandalf simply didn't ask the big eagles to throw the ring into the volcano?" as plot holes. I say that is a plot device, not a hole... :p

Regarding the finale of U2

In any case, this interactive Indiana Jones is certainly one of the games I'd point Roger Ebert to whenever he says videogames will never be art... along with a few IFs, RPGs and others...

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IF without puzzles is simply like a novel where you turn pages by typing "go north" or other silly and useless nonsense.

No, I don't like digging for plot-holes, but neither am I about to ignore them when they're thrown in my face...

If you're past the desert, I think you can safely read these spoilers...



...but maybe not these.



Regarding U2, you misunderstand. There was ample time for Drake to do something he'd been doing *the entire game* before it became irrevocable, thus launching him into a long and ultimately unnecessary boss fight. Ample, ample time. Why didn't he do it? Because the designers thought there had to be a boss fight. If he'd arrived just too late, it'd have been ok. As it is? I'm left hating Drake for being slower than I'd have been.

Regarding "Games = Art"... well, I wouldn't know about art, but I would argue that Uncharted does prove that games can have a cinematic quality to them, thus making them closer to cinema, thus having the possibility to be art. Other than that, it's a broad discussion - I would personally consider "Ceremony of Innocence" much closer to art than Uncharted.

Personally, what I love about Uncharted is the actors. The stories are good, if sometimes flimsy; the gameplay has been getting better. But it's the actors, their lines, their adlibs, and their acting, that I really, really like about the series. Loved Charlie, too. And Marlowe was a very good character. It's only a pity that, overall, the stories share some of the flimsiness of some American blockbusters.

I actually though U2 was a bit deeper. U3 was a bit more superficial. Very showy, though.

whoa! Not yet. I meant I'm past wandering in the desert. :p



Yes, a boss fight is good. That said, no, I don't think there's been ample time for Drake to do it: everytime Lazarovic is either backed by his heavy personal army or has Drake in his hands.

Either way, Drake is not a murderer, he's a fortune hunter. They shoot him, he shoots back when needed. And indeed,




I looked that up. From the title I would think of some Castlevania...

why closer? More well-known artists? Sounds like one of those FMV-feast from back then...



Precisely.



hmm,

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IF without puzzles is simply like a novel where you turn pages by typing "go north" or other silly and useless nonsense.

Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I was careful, if you've heard the poem at the desert then you can read the first set of "spoilers".



Questionable, but it's a matter of taste, so I'll agree to disagree.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIeMVRio9hQ Watch from 0:30. He has ample time, he has a clear shot. And you can't argue that he can't do it because of the army Lazarovich has with him because a) Drake's been fighting +10 guys at a time and here there are only 3, so what's stopping him?, and b), when he does make a move, that move is still "try and kill him", showing disregard for the other guys. Now, if he can risk trying to kill him AFTER he's done the deed which will make him so incredibly powerful, why the heck didn't he risk if EARLIER? Risking and failing would have worked even better, from the story's point of view. As it is, it's just lame.



Tell that to the hundreds of characters he kills in each game. And to the veritable arsenal he wears (not to mention his proficiency with it). I understand what you mean, but Drake is just a fortune-hunter like Indiana Jones is just a professor of Archaeology.



Like anything I'd consider good art, I find it impossible to describe, and unfortunately that little gem is unplayable in anything but Win95 (maybe Win98). Let's say that it's a deep, moving story between two people, unfolding between their correspondence - two people sharing a strange link... and that the *link* is not the most important thing, but rather the *characters* - like all good gimmicks, it's a starting point to the discovery of Griffin and Sabine.

But hey, I can name others. I think Gabriel Knight 2, while not exactly art, is a sort of gaming historical-thriller; that Dreamfall achieves, in its ending, a very emotional state which I consider the product of art; that The Longest Journey, and other games which involve the PC growing up and maturing in a physical/spiritual/metaphorical/whatever-o-rical journey have something very artistic, regardless of whether they achieve their intent or not; that Bioshock is not artistical, but it does provoke thought on player agency the same way that a book might provoke thought on the world around us; that The Dark Eye is a brilliant adaptation of the works of an artist; that Bad Mojo is visceral and irreverent as some art is; I can say without a doubt that Cosmology of Kyoto is artistic, though whether it is *art* per se is open to debate; I can say that Grim Fandango is as much art as any work of Noir; that Exhibition is an artistic tour-de-force, and All Alone a gut-wrenching experience; that the first half of Fahrenheit, and a lot of Heavy Rain, offer a depth equaled by many great films and novels, and that Blue Ice is probably the closet that games ever got to surrealism; that Amnesia: The Dark Descent invokes such feelings of fear and discomfort as, it is said, only great art can, even if it is just a gimmick and an end by itself; that The Last Express is, indeed, art within the field of gaming, by its visuals, by its complexity, by its capacity to suprise and move; that Bliss, despite some faults, does place a heavy burden in the hands of the player who, as he realises what he's done, *will* be disgusted and ashamed and incredibly guilty.

Uncharted? So far, it's the equivalent of The Mummy (but better, IMHO). Good entertainment? Oh yeah. Art? I can't really see it.



Yes, it was good, and it's only a shame that the bit which you then play is completely nonsensical to the main story, leaving you (well, leaving me, at least) wondering when the heck we're going back to the good stuff.

And yet, when you play U2, there's a sense of it being deeper than U1. It's more character-heavy, for one thing - lots of emphasis on the characters. It also tries for a more ambitious and cohese storyline, where U3 went for a spectacular and ambitious storyline. The latter's fun to watch, but I always prefer the former.

BTW, finished this masterpiece yesterday, so I can comment more properly.

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IF without puzzles is simply like a novel where you turn pages by typing "go north" or other silly and useless nonsense.

So the fact that you can dismiss them as "minor plot devices", without attaching to them any importance whatsoever, doesn't ring any warning bells? Things thrown in "just to be cool", left unexplained, hurt a story more than they help it.



Well, they're there for a pretty while.



Good heavens, that was enough for you to jump to a romantic relationship between Charlie and Chloe?



Suit yourself. WHen I watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOiqJgxPKio (7:00), I see him upheaving the table (distracting the pirate well enough to take action, if he wanted to) and going straight for Talbot. I don't see him running away - I see him running towards, and running towards the guy who, for the past scene, did nothing but stand there and watch while the person right in front of him pushed all his buttons.







Did it? In the headquarters of the bad guys? Why? He knew it'd been long hidden; he knew by who. But as far as he knows, and as far as we know, it's halfway around the world; he's jumping to the conclusion that it's around him based on the existence of nautical stuff around him, he doesn't even know those things belong to the guy who hid the thing.



You never, ever, ever give something so much importance if you're not ready to either explain it away or acknowledge that it's not going to be explained. Those things were just forgotten - after they'd become a major part of the story, cropping up everywhere. U1 had some supernatural elements, and so had U2, but those were explained or easily figured out. These things were just a cheap distraction.



If only I could see any of that. I see nothing about them to suggest that they were married. It's not like a one-night stand - it changes people. But they react to each other almost like they did when they met again on U2.



So you agree.



Hey, I'm all for suspension of disbelief. But there's a limit to how far I can stretch it.



He wasn't alone. Drake might not have noticed, but Sully would. That's a huge, noisy operation.

Not every minor detail in any fiction should be explained. It's so minor I can hardly recall it. It seems you're making something huge out of nitpicking.



Far less than it takes my barbecue to get ready.



That and the fact that she got out of scene with him.



He was running away and towards his next best prey. Should he punch the lady, force her to confess whatever?

Nate is not a killer, nor he beats women.

He goes after the bastard, then.



who are after the very same thing as him and gathered a respectable collection of Sir Francis Drake's goodies.



As soon as they meet, he asks her why she's still wearing the ring and she says something to the effect that it merely helps her in that part of the world. He even goes on to comment about it with Sully. From that I can infer they married after U2 and divorced.

I suggest next time around you take your time to enjoy the story rather than enjoy nitpicking minor details or seeking minor plot holes.



What makes you think Sully didn't notice? When they get back together, Sully too seems to be battling it out against the foes...

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IF without puzzles is simply like a novel where you turn pages by typing "go north" or other silly and useless nonsense.

Nitpicking? I hardly call introducing a supernatural-ish, vaguely-defined antagonist - that also, might I add, interferes with the gameplay in areas where the balance between light and dark becomes very important - as "a minor detail" that, to be frank, I'm amazed you've forgotten. It's possible you're just the intended audience for the Uncharter franchise, where I expect a bit more of the games I play.



Yes, indeed, all those things point inequivocably towards a relationship - an offhand comment and the fact that they left the scene together.



He is a killer in that he kills people. I do know what you mean, mind you, I'm just stressing that the words mean something.

I won't debate this further because, obviously, you're satisfied with it, and I'm obviously not. I still laugh about it with my girlfriend.



Yes, and all the things they collected are branded "SFD" so that Drake instantly knows it's Drake's stuff. Seriously, that stuff could be anything from anywhere - we're talking about the room decorations, NOT about things left on a table filled with other Drake stuff (incidently, there was a spider in a jar, foreshadowing future events and drawing even more importance and attention to a "minor detail" you can hardly remember). Even having established that it WAS all Drake's stuff, solving the anagram and going "It's got to be around here" is a major jump - it could have been anywhere, and it might even have been on a museum; a collector's house; at the bottom of the sea. They were all after the same thing, yes - - but none of them had any idea that it would lead them towards an item, much less an item of Drake's.

I mean, I'm particularly pissed off because this is so sloppy - a simple line spoken by Drake along the lines of "I know this, Drake used this for a figurehead" or something would have been enough. Without that, all we're left with is a huge leap.



I didn't infer anything, but I did wonder, and I left myself open for whatever came next. Nothing did. Their interactions were exactly the same as in the previous games. If you're satisfied, feel free - I prefer more meat; if people were married and divorced, it shows on their subsequent behaviour.

EDIT - Besides, a proposal + marriage + marriage problems + divorce are pretty major things to happen between games, completely off the screen. I felt like I was in one of those plays where everything happens off-scene. Except that in those plays, they actually tell you what happened.



I suggest you up your standards a bit.



Because Sully noticing and not saying anything to Drake as soon as they meet up makes even less sense.

Mind you, I will agree that, even since the Tomb Raider games, villains have a long history of easily getting into places the player had to really sweat for - and sometimes inexplicably turn up in rooms locked for centuries which the PC had just opened - but in U3, it was just one thing too many, on top of everything else.

And I believe I'm done in this conversation. You were obviously satisfied, are not going to be swayed by my arguments, and have even suggested that I'm "nitpicking" and going out of my way to find holes in the game. At the risk of sounding conceited, I simply have better things to do with my time than to discuss what would otherwise be an interesting exchange of opinions; which it can't be because, as is amply evidenced by our stance regarding the spiders and how they should be approached in terms of story and even of their impact in story and gameplay experience, we have different expectations and set the bar at different levels. There's a fundamental disparity that will make any further argument useless - pretty soon we'll just be butting heads.