new 1up review
What do you get when you combine the platforming action of the medicore Tomb Raiderl games with the clumsy shooting-****action of the bad shooting-****action games like Kill.switch and WinBack: Project Poseidon? Answer: You get Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Developed by Naughty Dog (who is also responsible for the aborted Jak II), whose members were once part of Sony and went on to create games like Jak III and Crash Bandicoot, you'd think they'd have the foresight and skills necessary to avoid cranking out a bomb like this -- but bomb it is nonetheless.
Uncharted's premise is flimsy, at best: "Millions of people disappear every year, but millions of treasure hunters (like Nathan Drake) appear!" At first, authorities tried to deal with the annoying treasure hunters by being peaceful. But peace in this world is clearly for suckers because the treasure hunter-on-authority hate crimes continued unabated, forcing the quite rugged-sounding Spanish Pirates (impressive!) to create a special task force to combat the annoying money seekers. As generic hero Nathan Drake, it's your job to wade through an excruciating, sleep-inducing setting that shows you how to do things like climb ladders, open doors, crouch, and step over obstacles by pressing square. If you've ever fallen asleep in, say, **** then you'll easily recognize the familiar sensation inspired by Uncharted, thanks to the sharp, uncanny, generic 3D environments that form the game's uninspired jungle playground (repeated texture use shows you just how many "trees" there are in a forest). Supposing you've maintained consciousness, it's then possible that you'll witness one of the many poorly voiced cut-scenes that highlight the Sony development community's inability to realistically animate anything, which really makes a big difference when you've got to watch budget-level animations on NPCs that exist for all of five seconds in the game world, which is a jungle, by the way.
But confronting pirates head-on -- at least initially -- is the worst thing you can do. Instead, you're forced to create diversions, which swing a hostile pirate's cone of vision in a fixed direction for a short while, allowing you the precious time necessary to sneak by with your badass generic jeans on. Or does it? Actually, most of the time you'll end up being detected anyway; the AI is really bad. Getting sighted means you'll be instantly pursued, and two hits later, you're dead. To Naughty Dog, this obviously equals crazy fun, but to the average gamer it means a serious waste of 600 bucks. As the game peters on, new game mechanics reveal themselves, but they're matched and surpassed by new frustrations. At no point does this game suddenly rise above its initial shortcomings to become even an average game.
Since the PS3 costs 600 dollars, you may ask yourself if this supposed savior has any positive points. The answer is no, it doesn't. When the game's core mechanics are middling at best, you have to ask yourself "Why play this?" Maybe you should buy an Xbox 360.
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3160819
i guess the lemmings win, lol
cancleing my pre order tomorow
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