Which was the last game you finished?

[GooberMan]

Nah, I was trying to keep my world tendency up so I didn't continue the battle past getting the Demonbrandt. Might try to drag it down on the next playthrough so I can get all the assassination missions.
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[grim-one]

[GooberMan]

Ah, righto. Could be fairly easy then. I was mostly meleeing him except for the a-bomb attack. Everything else is quite easily dodged.
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[Benza]

Just beat Arkham Assylum

Holly dissapointing boss fight batman!
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[grim-one]

[Benza]

Scarecrow was amazing, Croc was an awesome idea with a shitty execution, Bane was lame and a cop out to his charecterisation, Ivy was a pretty standard boss fight but really easy and Roid Joker was just.... fuck you didn't even fight him you just fought goons.
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[Andy7000]

I beat L.A. Noire, Resistance 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood last week. I am not satisfied with the ending of L.A. Noire and pretty much disappointed with Resistance 2.

[Jarrod]

[Benza]

[topaz]

Hell yeah!! Just got the Elite Burnout Licence in Burnout Paradise. Truly an awesome game, I think I might even like it more than B2 or B3 due to less frustrating events (middle finger to the evil Preview Laps in B3!). Now to get all the billboards, smashes, jumps and road rules, as well as the bike challenges.

How's Big Surf Island? Worth buying?
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[grim-one]

[Jahanzeb]

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Now Playing:
Sonic Generations

[Benza]

whats with the song and sonic image posts?
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[chibiandy]

Hmmm Silver The Hedgehog's theme (well the 2011 version of it anyway)........
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[grim-one]

[Benza]

[Pagan's Mind]

It's kind of catchy.

[Benza]

also if he's somehow implying that he allready has his copy of sonic and has beaten it.

I kind of hate him.
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[fatpizza]

[Benza]

Oh mother fuck! You have haven't you!

... is it good?
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[emech]

Batman: Arkham City - Pretty much a straight play through. Lots of fan service but it felt like a refinement of Arkham Asylum. Its good but I don't think its GOTY....... oh and the ending WHAT THE??
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[byrnezy]

[chickenplucka]

Just finished Driver San Francisco, highly enjoyable, very underrated and bound to hit the $49 price leading into christmas, if you see it, pick it up, loved it.
Driving felt great, as it should, and the shift mechanic never got gimmicky.
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[Big Pete]

Tales of Vesperia - X Box 360

Took me about 60 hours, but finally it's over. Don't get me wrong, it's a very good game but it was just so slow and even by 'Tales of' standards, really conventional. It just seemed to play out like every other RPG and all the major twists and turns seemed to have already occurred in other games of the series. And I can buy conventional storylines, if the characters are well drawn and while their dialogue for the most part was quite good, I found their development pretty shallow and was disappointed when they would drop interesting subplots (Yuri the vigilante for instance).

My other issue is sidequests. It annoys me so much when the game basically rewards you for reading a guide as opposed to actually studying the text town people have to say. So many important moments became unavailable to me because I didn't choose to sleep in the same motel 3 times or complete a dungeon and going backwards instead of going forwards...
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[Jarrod]

Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception. UNTAGGED SPOILER WARNING. Don't read below if you don't want to get spoiled, yo.

Graphics / Presentation

At it's best I felt Uncharted 3 was a nice step up over Uncharted 2. I never expected the same leap in visual quality, but there's improvements worth noting. When they work, Drake's expanded animation set looks wonderful, giving him a real human quality to the way he moves around the world. I liked the additional graphical effects missing from Uncharted 2, like godrays. They were used well.

Basically all of the bright chapters set in the Middle East were the best looking in my opinion. Gorgeous texture detail, stunning effects, and huge geometry counts. The various tombs/temples you explore also look incredible. The desert sequences, though very linear and controlled, were among the most beautiful graphical presentations I've ever seen in a video game. Some of the stuff they were rendering in real time was just wow. Great stuff from Naughty Dog.

Sound design was typically good. Great voice acting, good soundtrack, and I thought the weapon sounds were better than Uncharted 2. They sounded less spongy and squishy, now with extra 'bang' and 'snap'. I dig it.

However, I also thought Uncharted 3 was a mixed bag graphically. The night time stages, such as those set in London and (if I'm remembering correctly) the Syrian castle, looked like shit to me. Of course by 'shit' I don't mean literally terrible, but the chosen locations and art direction were extremely unappealing to me. I also wasn't a fan of the ship graveyard until later in the chapter. The early parts were visually dull. These areas really lacked in detail and neat effects that all my favourite areas do. I also noticed an alarming amount of low resolutions textures throughout the first ten chapters, to the point where I thought the game was waiting to stream in the HQ textures like Uncharted (and occasionally Uncharted 2) did. None of it looked bad, but the frequency of far less detailed textures was much, much higher than either of the two previous games.

Also, as mentioned early, Naughty Dog fucked the character models for Chloe and Elena. They goofed 'em up for reasons beyond me and it makes absolutely no sense, so nuts to that.

Story

On paper, I liked the idea. The hook was good, especially exploring Drake's past, and more Sully is never, ever a bad thing. The new villain was much more appealing than the villain for the previous games, so in that respect the game had a good thing going for it. Cutter was a great new character too, and I liked how early footage of the game showed him, but its only now we learn he's on Drake's side. That made me smile.

The way the game peaked and climaxed I thought was quite good too. The removal of a up front supernatural element, while still keeping it somewhat relevant in presentation, was a neat twist on the series' usual themes. I thought the whole idea of hallucinations was a good plot device and liked how it was worked into the gameplay and story.

Some parts of the story fell flat though or just didn't hit the same highs as past games. Chloe, as mentioned, was written completely out of character. Very dull and flat. The game also seriously lacked general banter, something very memorable in both Uncharted and Uncharted 2. It had it's moments, but they were too few and far between, and even Drake by himself had fewer one liners and commentary.

It seemed like the game wanted to take a more serious and personal tone. As said, I like the idea on paper. But in execution I felt the overall story was a bit too dreary, like nobody want to be cheerful for even a second. The characters seemed...tired and worn out or something, lessoning their playful banter and charismatics personas. Maybe this was intentional, and I can see why, but I don't think it worked to the strengths of the series and characters.

Gameplay

Okay, so, at it's best, Uncharted 3 is probably my favourite of the three games, because it was clear Naughty Dog were trying to inject the game with more variety and player driven action. The stronger emphasis on puzzles was very, very welcome, and even though most of the puzzles were basic "match the icons" stuff I enjoyed solving them, and there were some neat ideas there, particularly with perspectives. The way they had longer stretches of puzzles was really appealing to me, as I felt a strong hybrid between puzzle solving, exploration and action is where the series is at it's best. I also really liked how many of the environments at least felt bigger, with a bit more wandering and sight seeing.

I liked the addition to the combat mechanics. Tossing back grenades is a necessary but welcome addition, the guns were cool, and the enemy mix, though a direct copy from Uncharted 2, still mostly works. The new fight system is okay. It looks really good and it has potential, but it's mostly one big depthless QTE which, in the middle of an intense gunfight, especially late in the game, is more trouble than it's worth. I liked the idea of enemies being more aggressive, trying to draw you from cover and flank, to prevent the turtling that made Uncharted 2 pretty easy.

Where I think Uncharted 3 seriously faltered though is in the combat encounter design, which honestly I think is considerably worse than Uncharted 2. The environments were uninteresting to fight in, and seemed clumsily designed, as on multiple occasions I had problems with fiddly cover. Unlike Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3's mix of stealth vs combat was sloppy. It felt less controlled and polished than Uncharted 2, and instead like a haphazard litter of enemy placements and patrols. Spawning new enemies for failing stealth is an unbelievably stupid design decision in my opinion, and goes in the face of the whole point of stealth planning and what worked well in the last game. Enemies seemed to have less of a response to bullet impacts than Uncharted 2, reminding me a lot of the first game. And, as has been beaten to death, Naughty Dog fucked the aiming and I don't know why.

Final Thoughts

As said, at it's best Uncharted 3 is my favourite in the trilogy. However, at it's worst, it's probably my least favourite. There was something seriously off about almost the entire game that I find difficult to put my finger on. I was going to say it felt like Naughty Dog phoned it in, but that isn't true and I don't feel that way. Instead, I guess, it feels like Naughty Dog somewhat ran out of steam with the series. Yes, there's good stuff, but there's a whole lot of meandering about and design that feels rushed and uninspired.

At it's worst it highlighted my feelings that as a third person shooter, Uncharted can be total arse, and is a million miles away from better, more polished shooters on the market. Yes, I often felt this way about Uncharted 2, but Uncharted in some ways made me grow a stronger appreciation for Uncharted 2. Uncharted 3's encounter deigns feels half arsed to me, like not a lot of thought was gone into creating engaging combat environments and varied enemy encounters. It seemed rushed, I guess is what I'm saying.

And that's how I feel about the game as a whole. For me the game was a bipolar mess of awesome moments and great set pieces, and then really drab, boring and uninteresting stretches of game. Even though it had moments I felt were the best in the trilogy, as a whole I'd probably rate it the worst. Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan, but even Uncharted and Uncharted 2 had an enduring quality, and after finishing both there was a desire to go back and play, or see some of the set pieces. I don't have that at all with Uncharted 3. It was an empty experience for me, seriously lacking in polish and memorable design.

If I had to score it I'd give it 7/10.
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