I've never met Ryan in person, and I can tell you I'm devastated. My heart goes out to his family and friends and everyone one who worked with and loved him.
Good article and I would like more. I appreciate Patrick's articles and am glad he has joined the Giantbomb crew.
A major point to ponder though is what if a gamer has not played MW1 and 2 or not played Uncharted 1 or 2? If they come into part 3 fresh, the game very likely will feel like a 5/5 for them. How much of a review stems on what has come before and what is expected now and how much is based on just judging the game for what it is period?
Madden seems to get by with 9s every year from major reviewers. It's obvious which way most reviewers review Madden (not to start a debate on the actual quality of Madden). How is it fair that Uncharted or MW, for example, get judged based on past products more harshly than say Madden? Not saying GB does this but there are websites/publications that do. For another example, Dynasty Warriors has taken huge score losses due to not innovating enough over the years and essentially rehashing. However, if I've never played DW before the newest iteration, does that mean it's not a game worthy of a score better than 4/10? Food for thought.
Well said. I agree with every point.
Well, I don't know about this, we're dealing with pies and other pies here. Uncharted and Modern Warfare, to some degree, are narratives featuring clearly defined characters put into outrageous situation and allowed to shape and be shaped by them. A great deal of the worth of the game is how believable a situation is for the character weighed against how compelling the gameplay is. By praising the great executions of this in previous iterations, game reviewers and lay gamers alike have no choice but to compare and contrast. Not to be argumentative, but ignorance is no excuse. This is the reason that Uncharted 2 blew peoples' socks off after how amazing a spectacle Uncharted 1 was, and why MW2 was so disappointing after the surprising use of first person perspective to evoke connection with the events of MW1.
Madden, on the other hand, is pure gameplay. Its comparing a board game to the newest edition of the board game. Did you like the rules of the previous game? Did the new rules break the game for people who played the last game? Do the new rules warrant getting the new game? These are all extremely easy questions for anyone to answer, and I doubt you could with good conscience apply those same exact criteria alone to Uncharted 3.
I have a distinct feeling that our "hero" is going to be an investment banker who was instrumental in the "economic downturn". There's a lot of vagaries in the way he describes himself, and it makes me feel like the questionable past he's obliquely referring to could easily be that of a white collar criminal.
The rendering in this trailer also seems insanely high resolution, so I'm interested to see how it looks on actual consoles.
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