Uncharted 3: Where do I begin?

Uncharted 3 was one of my most anticipated titles this year. I fell in love with the characters (especially Elena) back in the first game, and have wanted to see the conclusion to their story ever since. So when I popped the disc in last week, I was expecting a wonderful adventure, full of exotic locales, hair-raising action set-pieces, and loving characterization.

What I didn't expect was to hate almost every second of the game's combat.

Looking back, I can honestly say that there were only two or three scenarios, at most, that I didn't absolutely loathe. Now, Uncharted has never been a series known for its tight combat controls or excellent combat encounters. The bad guys in the first game could take inhuman amounts of bullets while wearing no armor and we all remember the blue guys from the second game. But at least the enemy encounters were set up in such a way that they were manageable. You hardly ever got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of enemies and you usually had plenty of cover (although the dash through the village in U2 while dodging tank fire was kind of broken). In this game, though every encounter feels that cheap. Guys take multiple point-blank shotgun rounds TO THE FACE, you get rushed by multiple dudes in heavy armor with shotguns of their own, and to top it all off, your controls aren't precise enough to track guys as they move or keep a good bead on them.

This would be (somewhat) forgivable if it only happened a few times throughout the game. For example, I beat Warhammer 40K: Space Marine last week. That game is pretty good, but holy shit I wanted to break something after the last boss battle. It was the worst kind of cheap bullshit. Now, that said, it didn't really sully my overall experience with the game, although it did leave things on a sour note. But I'm not going to score a game lower (14 chicken hearts) just because it has one really poorly done battle. But when almost every single combat encounter feels that way, it's going to affect your opinion of a game.

I've heard from a few places that Naughty Dog never played through the entire game until just prior to certification; that blows my mind. I understand that you're busy, but come on. Some of the combat scenarios are straight-up broken. I died over 70 times while playing Uncharted 3; that's more than I died while playing Gears 3 by a large margin, and I was playing Gears on Hardcore and Uncharted on Normal. There's something wrong with that. Now, I understand that Naughty Dog is also in the process of developing a patch that will (hopefully) address a lot of these issues. To be honest, a large part of my complaint is with the controls. The game doesn't control anywhere near as precisely as Gears of War or other games of its ilk, but the combat is designed as if it does. I think a developer should know its strong suits. I'm convinced that combat isn't one of Naughty Dog's.

Now, all that said, I still enjoyed my time with the game quite a bit, and it will probably rank in my top ten, but I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't comfortably put it in my top 5. Uncharted 3 has you spend the least amount of time doing actual exploring and puzzle solving of the three games, and I think that's a mistake. A lot of the series' charm comes from Nate's wisecracks as he's trying to navigate some crazy environment or solve some ridiculous puzzle. That happens a mere handful of times here and is often interrupted (rudely) by a bunch of assholes with guns. The characters are just as charming as ever and I think I might actually be in love with Elena now, so I guess the game was a success. It just wasn't the unqualified success that I so badly wanted it to be.

Uncharted 3 was one of my most anticipated titles this year. I fell in love with the characters (especially Elena) back in the first game, and have wanted to see the conclusion to their story ever since. So when I popped the disc in last week, I was expecting a wonderful adventure, full of exotic locales, hair-raising action set-pieces, and loving characterization.

What I didn't expect was to hate almost every second of the game's combat.

Looking back, I can honestly say that there were only two or three scenarios, at most, that I didn't absolutely loathe. Now, Uncharted has never been a series known for its tight combat controls or excellent combat encounters. The bad guys in the first game could take inhuman amounts of bullets while wearing no armor and we all remember the blue guys from the second game. But at least the enemy encounters were set up in such a way that they were manageable. You hardly ever got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of enemies and you usually had plenty of cover (although the dash through the village in U2 while dodging tank fire was kind of broken). In this game, though every encounter feels that cheap. Guys take multiple point-blank shotgun rounds TO THE FACE, you get rushed by multiple dudes in heavy armor with shotguns of their own, and to top it all off, your controls aren't precise enough to track guys as they move or keep a good bead on them.

This would be (somewhat) forgivable if it only happened a few times throughout the game. For example, I beat Warhammer 40K: Space Marine last week. That game is pretty good, but holy shit I wanted to break something after the last boss battle. It was the worst kind of cheap bullshit. Now, that said, it didn't really sully my overall experience with the game, although it did leave things on a sour note. But I'm not going to score a game lower (14 chicken hearts) just because it has one really poorly done battle. But when almost every single combat encounter feels that way, it's going to affect your opinion of a game.

I've heard from a few places that Naughty Dog never played through the entire game until just prior to certification; that blows my mind. I understand that you're busy, but come on. Some of the combat scenarios are straight-up broken. I died over 70 times while playing Uncharted 3; that's more than I died while playing Gears 3 by a large margin, and I was playing Gears on Hardcore and Uncharted on Normal. There's something wrong with that. Now, I understand that Naughty Dog is also in the process of developing a patch that will (hopefully) address a lot of these issues. To be honest, a large part of my complaint is with the controls. The game doesn't control anywhere near as precisely as Gears of War or other games of its ilk, but the combat is designed as if it does. I think a developer should know its strong suits. I'm convinced that combat isn't one of Naughty Dog's.

Now, all that said, I still enjoyed my time with the game quite a bit, and it will probably rank in my top ten, but I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't comfortably put it in my top 5. Uncharted 3 has you spend the least amount of time doing actual exploring and puzzle solving of the three games, and I think that's a mistake. A lot of the series' charm comes from Nate's wisecracks as he's trying to navigate some crazy environment or solve some ridiculous puzzle. That happens a mere handful of times here and is often interrupted (rudely) by a bunch of assholes with guns. The characters are just as charming as ever and I think I might actually be in love with Elena now, so I guess the game was a success. It just wasn't the unqualified success that I so badly wanted it to be.

Adjusting the sensitivity helped me.

@mosdl said:

Adjusting the sensitivity helped me.

I put mine up to the max and it still didn't do much.

@Aus_azn said:

@mosdl said:

Adjusting the sensitivity helped me.

I put mine up to the max and it still didn't do much.

Same here. There's totally something messed up with the aiming. I just popped U2 in again and it feels a lot better. Hope there's a patch coming...

Yup, I feel exactly the same. I'm also just spoiled of having better, more finely tuned controls from better shooters like Gears of War 3.

@Aus_azn said:

@mosdl said:

Adjusting the sensitivity helped me.

I put mine up to the max and it still didn't do much.

Yup.

Amen, brother.

I couldn't have put it better. I really really hated this game. And I really really loved UC2.

Patch confirmed fixing several issues on multiplayer and single includIng the one we are talking about.

Yeah, I feel the exact way. Just beat it today and all I can say is that I'm glad it's over.

It's too bad, because during the super cool setpieces and traversal sections I was still fuming over the previous combat scenario to the point where I just wasn't enjoying myself.

The problems don't even become that apparent until halfway through the game. Then it just gets really, really horrid.

I'm thinking of selling this game to a gamestore, and this would be the first time I've ever done that. Not even for money, just for the catharsis. I don't want this in my collection anymore, I don't want to look at it, I just want it out of my life.

Its the sheer size of the areas. They are big with plenty of options that you don't see on your first time there because you're too busy turtling behind cover for your chance to pop up.

Beating it on Crushing was much easier than my first time through on Normal.

Hopefully that patch ND is working on will make the game more enjoyable in that regard.

@smackifilia: I think that overall, Uncharted 2 is the better game. And you guys are right, even when you adjust the sensitivity, yeah, you can track guys better, but then you lose the precision you need. It's weird, I always felt like the controls were muddy, if that word makes sense here. Like you have to push hard to get through it and can keep moving once you're in motion, but precise movements are all but impossible.

Anyway, glad to hear I'm not the only one that feels this way. Thanks!

The biggest problem I had, beyond the iffy aiming and the cover controls (GOOD GOD WHY DID YOU JUMP OFF THE LEDGE WHEN I WANTED YOU TO STICK TO THE WALL NEXT TO IT!) that caused me tons of deaths, it's the spikey difficulty. Some fights you go through and just breeze through them, other fights, you have to take respawn after respawn and hope you just get lucky on one or two with a direction the AI goes or if you take out multiples with a nade. It just seems, odd that the flow of the game gets interrupted by certain insanely difficult fights, and other fights you don't even think about, there is very little eveness (is that a word?) to the combat. There are some areas of the game that I never want to go through ever again... (pirate boat theatre....)

@allgrinzz: Agreed on pretty much every count. I thought the ship graveyard was a cool area, even though the very first part of it was frustrating. That's one instance of the level design overcoming the shitty combat design. I mean, barely, but it did.

The biggest problem I had, beyond the iffy aiming and the cover controls (GOOD GOD WHY DID YOU JUMP OFF THE LEDGE WHEN I WANTED YOU TO STICK TO THE WALL NEXT TO IT!) that caused me tons of deaths, it's the spikey difficulty. Some fights you go through and just breeze through them, other fights, you have to take respawn after respawn and hope you just get lucky on one or two with a direction the AI goes or if you take out multiples with a nade. It just seems, odd that the flow of the game gets interrupted by certain insanely difficult fights, and other fights you don't even think about, there is very little eveness (is that a word?) to the combat. There are some areas of the game that I never want to go through ever again... (pirate boat theatre....)

Halfway through the game I turned it down from normal to very easy just because I hated the combat so much. It's not fun. Encounters feel like a mess and the aiming is jacked. No amount of messing with the one sensitively option they give you fixes diagonal input not registering.

I agree with you, there is far to much combat in this game compared to exploration, I felt like I was fighting at least every 8 minutes out of 10, the broken ass aiming didn't help either. I really struggled through and finished it on hard and I wont be attempting to finish it on uncharted difficulty until they patch it.

Weirdly, the mutliplayer controls fine.

I agree wholeheartedly, the encounter design in this game was awful, and that really says something in a series not exactly known for balanced combat scenarios.

The sheer frustration of dying for the 20th time in an encounter where you are being shotgunned, sniped, being pinged by grenades thrown with the frequency and accuracy of pitching machine, and engaged in fisticuffs all at once from all directions was almost too much for me. Playing only on normal I felt like I got through most of the later combat sections purely by a combination of luck and rote memorisation.

Such a shame, nearly everything else about this game is stellar. It's beautiful, the set-pieces are as good as ever and the acting and characterisation are the absolute best in the series, even the puzzles are improved. The first half balanced the story, exploration and combat elements so perfectly I really thought they finally had the formula down-pat, then the last half degenerates into one frustrating combat encounter after another, and another.

Despite this, I still really enjoyed the overall experience of Uncharted 3, I just would have enjoyed it a lot more if I didn't have to murder the population of a small countries worth of overly aggressive mercenaries.

Maybe just a large cities worth next time Naughty Dog?

I agree too. To be fair though, I never noticed until it was pointed out to me. It's one of those thing where you can't unsee after you've noticed it. I think it's more of a personal preference as to how much sensitivity one has. It's the same issue that Killzone struggled with. My only criticism is the game not having the option to jack up your sensitivity to a COD lvl 10 if you want it that way.

I also maybe died like 4 or 5 times in enemy counters on normal, and those were the result of me trying to go hand-to-hand with a dude with other dudes still shooting around me. Once I stopped going for the hand-to-hand, it became an easygoing shooting gallery. Lol if anything, for me, the combat was kind of boring, not frustrating. By far the most deaths I had were during the chase sequences where I was panicking and had no clue where to jump. I actually kind of wish for more "scriptedness" in some of those instances because me dying and starting part of the sequence over ruins the moment a little.

I'm currently going trough it on easy and I've died a good amount of times.. The combat layout feels just wrong, some scenarios are just shooting arenas and you are in the center with no safe place to cover.

@billygoat117 said:

I don't think that's true. Drake's Deception definitely has a lot more puzzles, and probably better designed puzzles, than Among Thieves.

Uncharted 3 has you spend the least amount of time doing actual exploring and puzzle solving of the three games

Now I've played a metric fuck-ton of Uncharted 2's single player, so maybe my case is a bit different, but I started playing UC3 on normal and it was too easy. I played that shit on hard, and I feel as if it is a much better game on that difficulty setting, that forces you to use different tactics in the bigger sandbox areas.

I mean I died a shit-load, but I still had a lot of fun, because I could feel myself becoming a better player as I went on. Oh, and I cursed under my breath a lot too, so it might just be that I'm a bit of a masochist....

Man... I think I'm gonna wait for this supposed patch to come out before playing the single player.

This is the first game I have ever completed on Hard, and to be honest I had to keep checking to make sure I hadn't put down the difficulty at times. Sure I died a lot but it was still a lot of fun and the only two areas that gave me much trouble was the ship yard with the floating islands and boats, and the stand storm area cos I couldn't find the RPG without dying the first couple of times. I found the best way to tackle most areas was to keep moving and use melee attacks, staying in any cover for more than 30 seconds usually ended in death.

Maybe there is not enough of a gap between hard and normal in this game so that's why alot of people are complaining about the difficultly spikes, but for me I really didn't find it too bad. Having said this however I did spend the previous 50 hours of my gaming time in Dark Souls so dying a bunch and starting just a few minutes back in the story did not bother me one bit :)

Looking forward to going back through on Crushing now.

@wealllikepie said:

I cursed under my breath a lot too, so it might just be that I'm a bit of a masochist....

Under your breath, you say? Well, you're a better man than I. I was straight up yelling a few times.

Ah, I was wondering why I didn't feel like playing this on Crushing. This is exactly why. The lowered accuracy and the fact I kept getting flanked by the bigger dudes (which would normally impress me, what with smart AI and all) made Normal difficulty enough of a challenge. I got the Survivor trophy in UC2 by sheer chance, but I needed to turn the difficulty down and start over to nab it in 3.

The game definitely feels harder, you have to be moving more and dodge more.