Wishing I hadn't discovered [Uncharted] Drake's Fortune

This game may be the worst downward spiral I’ve ever played. Spoilers will be in RED.

Uncharted has garnered quite a bit of attention since its release. People praise it for its amazing graphics and cinematic style of gameplay. It is said to look like a movie at times, which is true. I was interested in it since 2007 but only recently was able to pick it up when I bought a PS3 for the first time. I thought I might as well by Uncharted as my first PS3 game since it is seen as one of the Playstation’s crown jewels.
It is a 3rd person shooter, action adventure title with many plat forming elements. The game begins and is pretty breathtaking. You begin to get to know the characters and everything starts to unfold. It has a very Indiana Jones feel to it, and I love that. You adventure through the jungle and some ruins and you climb rocks and trees and stuff. The climbing reminds me a lot of Shadow of the Colossus (which is my favorite game of all time) so it was easy for me to get hooked.
Then the gun fights began. I knew it was inevitable so I held my breath and ran into battle. The controls were nice enough and I got through. The only problem is the gun fights never stopped. Fire fights soon rook precedence over the actual “adventuring” portion of the game. As the game progressed, instead of having climbing and puzzle solving challenges with some gun fights in between, it became more and more of a fire fight where you have to turn a knob every once in a while. And don’t get me started on fucking jet skis!! UHG!!
There are also many parts where you are climbing and jumping around environments and (unless you know exactly where to go) you have to guess and check. This usually ends with you falling to your death. But instead of you spawning anywhere near where you had died, you have to start the whole thing all over again. That’s not to say the check point system in the game isn’t good, because it is. The moment you get somewhere its saves (I even had the game freeze a particularly crucial moment and it actually saved exactly where I was when I turned it back on) but it’s when you are doing climbing puzzles that I wish it would actually save where you are in the room and not just making you start the whole freaking thing over again.
Not to mention this one time there was a gap I had to jump. I tried jumping it 10 times and feel and died each time. I kept trying though because it was the only place I could see to go. I finally broke down and went to Gamefaqs and low and behold I WAS DOING THE RIGHT THING!! I went back and tried 5 more times and I made it across. It’s the multiple moments like that that make this game frustrating.
What was the most frustrating? When the fucking monsters came out. No, I mean literally. Monsters come out. Yeah! It was at that point the whole game was ruined for me. I actually didn’t even finish the game. After my 13th attempt to run through a corridor of giant clawed zombie monsters that kill you with one slash, I put the game away (it’s a good thing I bought it used or else I’d feel bad). When I started this game, I was looking forward to a realistic adventure. Not a goddamn Guillermo Del Toro movie. It figures that this game would be looked at so highly by the “gaming” community. I should have known fucking zombies would come out.
Uncharted started off amazingly and turned into a nightmare. And no, I still haven’t beaten it to the end because I was so frustrated. I may go back and finish it since I do want to know what happens in the story, and I kind of wanted to play Among Thieves and the new one that’s coming out soon, but now I don’t even know anymore. I’ll probably just go out and get Infamous and start playing that franchise. Thankfully the HD ICO and Shadow bundle is set to release in a month or two.

UPDATE: I beat the game. Ya. The explanation for the zombies kind of made the idea better. Even Indiana Jones has strange and paranormal stuff like that in the movies, so I guess I can live with it. I was reading a little about Uncharted 2 to make sure there were no zombies in it. Turns out there are Sasquatches LOL!! It just figures. I will never look at this series the same way.

The last fight pissed me off because it played out just like that time I mentioned before where I was jumping that gap and couldn't make it, only this time it was a fight. I thought I knew what to do and I tried it over and over and just couldn't get it to work. So, usually when one thing doesn't work, you try another. I tried to do this fight scene about 13 times and nothing I did could keep Nathan from getting killed so I went online again, and low and behold, the answer was what I was doing from the beginning. I tried it a couple more times and it worked... uhg. It really makes a "dramatic ending" lose all of its drama when you have to replay the scene over and over 20 times. Maybe I just suck at games. Maybe this game sucks. Who am I to judge? I only have a bachelors degree in Game Design LOL

But seriously, the game really isn't that terrible I suppose. But it still doesn't live up to the hype the gaming community created for it. Uncharted 2 is suppose to be better though, which I hope is true.

Pros:

Pretty good visuals

Fun dialog and characters

Did actually feel like a movie sometimes

Fun environmental puzzle solving

Cons:

What was mentioned in the spoilers...

Too much gun fighting and not enough adventure

Some spots are difficult for stupid reasons

Hard to find things may be too hard to find at times

Check Points vary in convenience

In Defense Of: Dark Void

I can understand some of the scores this game received when it was first released. I'll say it right off the bat: the controls can be crazy-wonky at times, the story is a bit loopy, some levels are too small while others are too big, and overall it has an aire of disappointment. For a lot of people, they were disappointed with the game as a whole for being so questionable. For me, I was disappointed it never fully reached what it seemed it was supposed to be.

I'll begin by saying this is the only Capcom game that I've owned for a long period of time and have played through twice. I think a majority of what they produce is ultimately exciting, innovative, and really interesting...but upon trying it out, it always just kind of falls short. Dead Rising and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is my modern case in point. However, Dark Void presents something that I just can't explain.

Dark Void started as a game Capcom hired a western game studio (Airtight Games with employees who were involved with Crimson Skies) to produce, in hopes of beginning a new IP and attracting western audiences. Unfortunately, it failed. It had a great number of elements to it, looking back; a score done by Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica), a relatively unused gimmick (jetpack), and such an interesting story. Not to mention, it was made in an effort to make new IPs during the times of Mirror's Edge, which I feel very strongly about. What ultimately resulted in its failure was the lackluster reviews it received, the fact that it was new and not a "tried and true" IP, and that it was significantly flawed.

The story follows Pilot Will Grey and his awesome jacket, attempting to save his female interest, Ava, while also reluctantly fighting back an alien race from taking over the Earth. While it's standard Sci-Fi fare, it's told in such a way that reminds me of the mystery of older generations of games -- when there wasn't a Google to search the reasoning behind something or a better explanation of what's going on. I mean, hell, I spent a good hour to two hours attempting to find even a shred of "underground" info on this game's development.

The reason it deserves consumers' time stems from the fact that it just feels ambitious. Playing through it, you realize the confusing elements stem from a lack of time or budget in production and it makes me want to know what the original intent was behind so much of the game. It's support for games like this that will help the games industry move forward, producing new and original content alongside current, established IPs. Unfortunately, the market in just about every industry sucks, and Dark Void was a risk that unfortunately failed to pay off.

And what makes it even more disappointing is it sets up for a sequel that would have been set during WWII. All these confusing elements lead to something that is never going to happen. My only hope is that Brad Pitt's movie company (Plan B) goes through with the production of the movie. Even without the game ties, the story is still such an interesting Sci-Fi.

All I can really say is that if you like third-person cover-based shooters or titles that are mysterious cult hits, then Dark Void is worth the small admission price.

Pros:

Mysterious Sci-Fi story

Fun jetpack mechanic

Phenomenal soundtrack

Cons:

Controls can be irritating

Level design is often lacking

So much left unexplained!

Vanquish

I picked up Sega’s Vanquish a little while back for 19.99. I had my eye on it since I first heard about it. The games director is Shinji Mikami who also directed Resident Evil 4, and it’s for this reason that I was looking to purchase this game new (also because it came with a cool collectors figurine!) Regardless, I ended up choosing NOT to purchase Vanquish at launch and instead waited for the price to drop… which didn’t take long. But I’m glad I did! Not that this game is “bad” per se, but I would be a little upset if I paid 60 buckaroonies on it.

Spoilers will be in RED

Let’s start off a run down of what the game is. Vanquish is a 3rd person shooter that takes place in the (near?) future. The USA has built an enormous space colony thing in order to harbor excess sunlight to use as energy for the people back on Earth. Honestly, most of the story went over my head and I either wasn’t paying attention or they did a bad job of explaining it. But when I do know is that the Russians took over the space station and used its energy as a weapon by destroying San Francisco. The president (who looks very similar to Hillary Clinton) sends a retired and very grumpy Lieutenant Colonel Burns up to the station to take out the evil Russian group that is led by a creepy, flamboyant bald guy. Oh, and Sam’s there too. That who YOU play as!
Sam is from DARPA which is a science and research organization. He’s got a badass suit that not only looks cool, but gives him some sweet abilities. Burns doesn’t like Sam very much because… well, idk. Sam’s mission is actually different from Burns and his men. A scientist from DARPA has also been kidnapped and is on the space colony for some reason, so Sam is sent up there to not only assist in killin’ Russians, but also finding and returning this scientist guy.
Anyway, Sam’s suit is badass, aside from the fact that it has a visor of the mouth and not the eyes. Basically all of the art in this game is nice. It’s probably the games most redeeming quality. Everything fits together well and looks great! (except for Burns’ beard… that thing’s a little iffy) The military forces are easily distinguishable from the enemies, which is always nice. The levels also feel very large even though you are pretty much always confined. It’s really well done.
The enemies are all robots. This is cool because it gives you the ability to use weapons like EMP grenades that makes them all spaz out and leaves them open for attack. Robots are also cool because you can end up fighting some really ridiculous shit. And this game has a variety of crazy shit. It goes from giant mechs with drill arms that can burrow underground and pop up underneath you, to giant piles of scrap metal that flows around like Morpha from Ocarina of Time. You have to dodge its lasers and cut it down to size before attacking its red eyeball. I was very pleased with the diversity of enemies in this game, but the only downside was that they were reused a lot. Every mini boss you would end up fighting at least twice, and later on you’ll have to take on 2 or more of the same thing. And bosses were pretty much the same machine over and over which is the giant spider from the demo that turns into a walking mech. I believe you fight that thing 3 or 4 times...
Speaking of variety, there is a good variety of weapons as well. But while I admire the creators making some crazy weapon ideas, I pretty much just stayed with the same 3: assault rifle, heavy machine gun, and sniper rifle. Since you can upgrade weapons, I didn’t really feel like dropping the weapons I had for new ones when I worked to upgrade the ones I had. I wasn’t punished for this though, I was just left feeling like I could have done more. Anyway, some of the crazier weapons are a disc shooter and a gun that fires a slow moving pulse of energy that will push back anything in its path (as long as it’s not too far away). So there’s some cool stuff. The animations for changing weapons is also cool. Instead of the typical “reach behind your back and pull out a new weapon”, In Vanquish, your gun “transforms” into whatever you select. It’s pretty sweet. Something annoying is how whenever I picked up a weapon, regardless of what it was, San would utter “not what I was looking for, but it’ll do.” I still haven’t found the exact weapon he was looking for. WHY CAN’T I PLEASE YOU, SAM!?!
Most of the dialog in this game was pretty corny. I’m not sure if that’s what they went for (kind of like how Metal Gear Solid’s corniness has become a staple for that series) but I just found it to be a little off putting. And the morals they tried to work in were very repetitive and forced. Numerous times in the game, Lt. Burns would leave his men behind to die either to save his own ass or because “they knew what they were signing up for.” Sam would then yell at him for being so inconsiderate. Basically this same scene happened over and over game for the duration of the game. And speaking of men dying, no matter how many times Burns left his men behind to die, dwindling the numbers of their platoon, their numbers would always somehow increase for the next mission, which was convenient, but kind of missing the point of its own logic.
The meat of this game is its fast paced action. It’s what sets it apart from other games of its genre. You can shoot, but you can also use your suits powers to zip around in a rocketed knee slide, slow down time in a sort of “bullet mode” and punch the living fuck out of shit. The only bad thing is, your powers are limited. You can pretty much knee slide for however long you want, but if you have to take a break every few seconds or the suit will overheat. The same with bullet time and with melee attacks as well. You can get about 1 hit in and the game will drag it out into a combo and your suit will go down. It sucks because when it overheats, you can’t do shit. You can shoot and that’s all. When I played, my suit overheated a lot so I was basically a sitting duck (but I tend to play more of a laid back, cover based game anyway, so it wasn’t such a problem) But if you are going into this game hoping to just go hog wild and wreck some shop, think again. I can understand putting a cap on the suits abilities, but this game just seemed very restrictive. What makes it even worse is, THIS NEVER CHANGES! SPOILER ALERT: it is only in the very last fight that your suit gets upgraded to give you unlimited power, but the level is so densely packed with walls and pillars, you can’t really maneuver around to your full potential. And then when the fight is over, the games over, so it doesn’t even matter anymore anyway. If you pace your movements, you can probably avoid overheating, but a lot of the time it’s unavoidable.
Also, many of the “over the top” action sequences were designated to cut scenes or quick time events, which made me feel gypped. You spend the whole game confined to the few moves you can do, and all of a sudden the game takes over and pulls off all of these ridiculous stunts. Whack.
The end of the game is also somewhat of a gyp. I’m not sure if there are multiple ending or not (I don’t believe there are) but the whole thing was just very anticlimactic. Possible SPOILERS: Nothing really every comes of anything. There are some double crosses (fucking Burns even does a triple cross or some shit! That guy was a nut) The final boss isn’t even the main Russian bald guy! You fight him once in the middle of the game and he gets away. The final boss fight is basically 2 of him but they turn out to be remote controlled. You never even get to fight him! He’s still out there!! WTF!!?!
Vanquish is a cool game, I will admit. It was fun and gets pretty challenging (frustrating especially during the last few acts). I couldn’t even beat the whole game on Normal (Casual automatic is so much easier! :D) And at the end I unlocked God Hard! So like… if you love horribly difficult and frustrating games, this is probably something you want to pick up. It’s definitely a game for fans of shooters, that’s for sure. If you want it just for the fighting and powers, think again.

Pros:

Looks great

Runs great

Awesome enemies

Cool weapons

A level of difficulty comfortable for everyone

Cons:

Story is iffy

Anticlimactic

Suit overheats too fast

Intense action controlled by cutscenes

LaserCat Shoots His Way Into My Heart

I may occasionally search the XBLA Indie Game section for an interesting game, but I've only made two purchases to date. Mainly this is a result of the terrible XBL interface at which you purchase points to purchase games -- I don't want to spend five dollars to buy a game that is technically only one dollar. If it (and many more things) were set up like Apple's iTunes store, then I'd probably spend a bit more.

Regardless, LaserCat was brought to my attention this week and after downloading the trial version, I was completely enamored by it. Here is a simple little game that tries hard and really has a simplistic Metroid-Vania feel to it. Sure, there may not be any power-ups, and it's really nothing more than a puzzle-platformer, but it's charm greatly exceeds its simplistic nature.

You play as LaserCat, who is trying to save OwlFriend from the great evil Wizzord's castle. There are 30 keys to find, spread across some-255 rooms, all containing some individual challenge, from lava to falling to moving enemies. As such, each room has a name and these names give each room a little more depth, which managed to kind of hook me. Many of them contain references to mainstream game series such as Banjo-Kazooie, Mario, and even Sonic, while also referencing other indie-esque games like Braid.

Note, however, these are references, not satires -- the relationship only goes so far.

The music, oddly enough, is all royalty free music from Kevin Macleod. Because of this, I recognized a lot of the music pieces right off the bat and was, incidentally, even a little more charmed as a result of their use. The music makes it feel like an indie game, even though they are edited really well to blend together.

There's not a whole lot to say for this game. For a dollar (albeit a difficult dollar), it's worth it if you're a fan of classic platforming. It may only last about one to two hours if you intend to complete everything, but there is some fun to be found. It turned out to be one of those games that I just want to show to all my friends, which is what I intend to do.

Pros:

Charming indie platformer

Only one dollar

Cute characters and good humor

Really tight controls

Cons:

Way too short!

In Defense Of: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

I have always been fond of the Banjo-Kazooie series. I've been playing since the first one on the Nintendo 64 and I was certainly more excited for Banjo-Tooie than I was of any other game on that platform (yes, that includes Majora's Mask and Pokémon Stadium 2). I read every single theory on Stop 'N' Swop I could find on the internet, and I made my brother input the sandcastle floor codes on his file because I was so scared of losing my game data. When I heard that they were being ported to the XBLA, I gobbled them up there as well, itching to obtain all the achievements as fast as possible to show my love of the series. However, before they were re-released, another sequel in the series was released; Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (hereby known as N+B).

Now, I realize that it was a rather large departure from the series norm -- run here, collect here, beat up here. With N+B, they were adding a vehicle building engine and everything became vehicle-based. Upon the game's reveal, a large majority of series fans were rather disappointed. I will admit I was a bit disappointed; what would then happen to the days of simple collecting and learning moves? Regardless, I pre-ordered that shit as fast as I pre-order the next Sonic game.

I will admit I was disappointed by the beginning of the game. Though the story intro is rather amusing, it basically attempts to explain where the bear and bird have been for almost a decade: eating a lot of food and doing a whole lot of nothing. As such, they are overweight and have forgotten all their moves. Add in L.O.G. and his desire to return BK to their former glory and there's your story. It's very light, very basic, and all the mystery the series had behind its characters is kinda lost. Regardless, the dialogue is much more entertaining this time around and there are some new characters. But then the vehicle building begins.

At first, you are given a small amount of parts to build basic crafts, as well as some starter pre-built vehicles and their blueprints. It feels all kind of narrow and simplistic. That is, until you're let free to run around Showdown Town, the game's hub world. You begin to discover Mumbo crates that offer more parts and they are strewn about the town -- all 57 of them need collected and brought back to Mumbo's motors! This one aspect was extremely exciting for me, as each box contained a mystery (that usually paid off). Once you get so many parts, it becomes the open-ended racing game of the year.

I will admit that the game "worlds", while bigger, don't actually feel bigger. They are HUGE on foot, but the vehicle aspect puts them on a much smaller scale. What is ultimately disappointing is the lack of depth these levels lack. There just aren't a lot of secret areas and most of them just feel cluttered. Not to say that they aren't fun! Each level holds its own quirk that makes it feel different than the others and the style is just simply beautiful.

I also have to say that the way things are set up is a bit boring. You enter different Acts of one game world that have a certain amount of Jiggies to win and Jinjos to find. After a while, even though the game's challenges are decently varied, races become tedious and other tasks become a matter of just upgrading previous saved blueprints with new parts you've obtained.

No, I suppose the real fun of the game, the one thing that will desire you finish and get as many Jiggies as possible are the vehicle parts. The game's engine allows for so many possibilities and it's fun to just sit and make vehicles that serve no purpose whatsoever. I spent a large amount of time building things like space shuttles and commercial jets and rocket biplanes that could carry large parts of the scenery. The real fun is found outside of the game's challenges, and its real depth shines here.

I would strongly recommend that if you were a fan of the series before, you should give this game a try. Though it may not feel like Banjo-Tooie's proper sequel, the characters and humor are still there. Deep down it's trying to feel like a Banjo-Kazooie game with vehicles, which is everything Rare said it was.

Pros:

Deep, complex building system

Collecting still exists!

Great characters and entertaining sense of humor

Cons:

Feels a bit demanding/repetitive

Things sometimes feel cluttered and frustrating

Not recommended if you don't like vehicle-based games

"30 Minutes or Less" makes it just in time

This movie was pretty good. It was short, but said what it needed to say and didn't run on (which is good!) It was funny and enjoyable. Aziz didn't even annoy me at all! The story was good and filled with funny banter between the characters. Everything was perfectly set up and executed with style. Action scenes were shot very well and it grabbed my attention from the first few minutes. 30 Minutes or Less is just a fun adventure and a good time.

The only other thing I can think to say is the fact that I think this movie was based on a real life event, which really isn't funny at all considering a man actually blew up. I'm not sure if this movie actually WAS based on that account or not, but if it was, I'd say it's kind of in bad taste to make a "comedy" out of it. Regardless, standing strictly from a comedy movie point of view, it was a good movie. Not the greatest movie of the year or anything, but just.... good. LOL

If you are looking for something to do, this movie is a great way to kill an hour and a half.

"Captain America" montages his way into history

This movie was a little weird. Um, yeah idk. It wasn't a "bad" movie really, but there were a lot of things I didn't like. First off, Cap is a really goody goody, which I suppose is how Cap is suppose to be since he embodies the "righteousness" of America and blah blah blah. But I just really hate when characters are super "just", ya know? There's no substance. Not to mention there was little to no character development in this movie besides the fact that he went from scrawny to Buff Bagwell.

His costume was awesome, except for the mask, which is probably the most important part of a costume in my opinion. The head piece just looked goofy as all hell to me. I think they really dropped the ball with that. Everything else was sweet. They should have just had him fight with no mask and he would have looked BA.

Women. Jeez louise! I understand that having a love interest is a good plot point to have in a movie, but it doesn't have to be the ONLY plot point when it comes to super hero movies. The sexual tension in this movie fills up a good portion while also not developing very much anything at all. It's all pretty dull.

Then there's the action. My god. I was hoping to see a whole movie with kick ass fight scenes, but what I got was an hour leading up to something that could be action and then a second hour of action bits sprinkled throughout more.... idk, whatever it was. The trailer makes it look like an action thrill ride, but it is most certainly not. Many of the clips from the trailer are actually edited into a FUCKING ACTION MONTAGE. Yes. A fucking montage. This is was pissed me off the most I think. Why would you fill up a majority of a super hero movie with passionless potential love scenes and then edit all of the decent looking action scenes into a 2 minute montage!?!?

Regardless, there are SOME action scenes that made it out of the montage. There's some flying ship parts and some human exploding laser guns. When we DID get to see Cap fight, he fucking DESTROYED people! He literally swatted people multiple feet away from him with one hit. This was pretty cool, although there wasn't any real deep fight choreography to come of any of it....

The guy who played Mr Smith in the Matrix movies did a great job as Red Skull, although the makeup for his character could have been more.... idk, grotesque? He looked kind of cartoony (even though one woman in-front of me in the theater actually cringed and turned away as he pulled off his human mask) I guess after seeing what Christopher Nolan did with Two Face in Dark Knight, my expectations are really high for that kind of thing.

Literally the best part of the movie in my opinion is the last few minutes where it sets up for the Avengers movie. Which saddens me.

All in all, like I said before, this movie really isn't "bad" (even though I mostly said negative things about it). I think I just had higher expectations for it. The trailer makes it out to look a lot more action packed than it is. It's just kind of so so. I think I liked Thor better, even though even that wasn't "superb" or anything. Hopefully the new Spiderman reboot and pick things back up again for Marvel. Or else I'll have to just wait until the next Batman is released, which I KNOW will be fucking amazing!!

Pros:

What action there is is pretty good

Lasers that disintegrate people

Builds up to what could be a cool movie in The Avengers

Cons:

Not as much action as the trailer implied

No real character development (unless I slept through it)

Failed romance

Bland characters

Doesn't meet expectations