Uncharted 2 & 4 - multi-hour marathons.

[Fidcal]

New Year's day at my sister's home my nephew played through Uncharted 2: Among Thieves almost non-stop except for dinner and short pauses here and there. It would have taken much longer than 9 hours first time but he'd completed it the year before so was familiar with gameplay and remembered many (not all) of the routes you had to take etc. which smoothed it all along.

I was happy to watch because it feels effectively a cg movie with game sequences rather than a game with video sequences. The story, dialog, performances, etc are great. The game and story is a combination of Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Shangri-la, maybe a hint of Laputa type of thing with the usual talisman key, move things into position puzzles, lots of astonishing climbing and spectacular views plus shooter sections.

But it was the on-going dialog and seamless gameplay-video sequence interaction which held it together as on-going watchable entertainment. In Dark Mod you'd need hours of voice recordings and scores of conversations to get near that and bring more life to the characters and story immersion.

Pity it's Playstation 3 only. I'd think it would be a MUST play for anyone with that machine. Novels and movies seem to be eternal because they survive technical changes. Class game sequences are more or less lost as machines become obsolete.

There is absolutely no reason to throw money away and make a new live action movie. The game is good enough to just edit a recording of an expert playing through. Mostly all you need heavily edit down is the shooter sequences. Even then I think it might make two or three movies.

In fact someone ought to produce and maintain an archive of edited video of classic games for the future.

[STiFU]

I saw some gameplay footage of this game once and I too was deeply impressed, as well as deeply disappointed that I am not going to get to play this, as I never have bought and never will buy a console.

 

If you didn't see anything of this game yet, check out www.gametrailers.com.

 

I only won a wii once, bought super mario galaxy 1 and 2, and well that's about it as far as spending money for a console is concerned.

[Tels]

I'd download an editited play-through, might even pay 10 $ for it.

[Noisycricket]

Interesting. A lot of games are very cinematic these days and i find myself watching quite a few walkthroughs or "lets plays" on Youtube. That sounds a lot like Mass Effect, but much shorter if you can believe that. I'm 40 hours into Mass Effect 2 according to Steam, and it is frickin amazing, ive been blown away at the shear depth and scale of pretty much the entire experience thus far. I didn't even bother checking it out at first because the commercials sort of made it look superficial and generic, but I incorrectly judged a book by its cover. The story is amazing, the amount of background lore is mind boggling, the ambient graphical backgrounds in the cities are really good looking, immersive and hugely varied, the amount of dialogue just blows me away. Highly recommend.

[woah]

Interesting, I saw my friend playing once and it didn't really look like my cup of tea. Now that I read this, I might buy it (I have a PS3; Wipeout HD is my game of choice).

[Fidcal]

You can get it about half price now so it's a bargain.

[LEGION]

There is a GameOfTheYear-edition around with more content that you would need to pay for otherwise. Haven´t bought it yet, but the demo for the first was damn good also, the setting is just not what I seek. I would love if they would do another Legacy Of Kain-game though...

[Fidcal]

I'm about 3/4th way through Uncharted 4 on PS4. The action scene special effects are outstanding. It's highly addictive and enjoyable, spoilt somewhat by a poor hint feature which frustrates and often leaves you with zero help. Time and again I got stuck and resigned myself to blundering about until something happened. Didn't even know which direction to go or what the next 'objective' was. Shame. If I ever play through a second time I guess that will be drastically reduced. Worth noting though, that I've not had to search the net for help and I'm still going, so just keep blundering when you get stuck. There is moderate stealth (taking cover behind obstacles and in long grass. I'm playing on 'light' (which is almost the easiest but I think that only affects combat. I reckon the puzzles and climbing will be the same on every level. The outstanding part is the climbing which is extraordinary - though it's still not so 'free climbing' as Thief and Dark Mod, there are thousands of handholds and a grappling hook etc. The grapnel only works like Thief 4 on specific posts though. It's a 'corridor' game but with wide spaces which somewhat offsets the feeling of limits. 'Open World' it definitely ain't but there are incredible open views which helps you forget that. 'Walk' reminds me a bit of GTA5 where, in combat, it speeds up and is hard to control fine adjustment. Line up on that window to jump through? Tough. You jerk about too quickly. Oh yeah, 3rd person. Drama, emotion, performance, story - all great. What a movie this would make!

 

It just occurred to me to search this off-topic forum to see if anyone else was/had been playing it. I was surprised to find an Uncharted 2 thread and STAGGERED to see that I started it! I never made the connection with this v4 and that v2 from years ago! I just never absorbed the name I guess. Like that game, this is also cinematic and would make a good movie just by using game footage. 'Last of Us' is like that too. What a pity someone doesn't just do that. I did it years before with Shenmue on Dreamcast.

 

Anyway, bottom line: good value, hours of entertainment, addictive.