SimonM7

Well the hilarious thing is that a dear friend of mine would do a 180 on his approaching 10 years of knocking GTA to finally embrace it because it's on a Nintendo console. It'd be worth it just to NEVER LET HIM LIVE THAT DOWN.

The Jimquisition redeems and justifies his continued flailing about on Destructoid, I reckon. He should really focus on salty commentary rather than games criticism, because that's clearly where his heart is even as he stinks up a review.

First off; great article Patrick, it's great to have some content on here that moves beyond the otherwise pretty goofy across the board relationship with gaming. As much as I love a funny quick look, it's also nice to have some basis for proper games discussion.

Now, in regards to the review in question, I can say that the points raised are things I felt about Uncharted 2 aswell. In fact, seeing more than a few reviews mention those points borders on surreal for me because I couldn't find a *single other person* who actually felt that those were valid back when we were all playing 2.

However, I'm still not exactly sure if those points even belong in a review. I brushed past someone else's comment skimming through this comments thread (sorry for not taking down your name for some proper reference) who said that such criticism needs more than one game to build a case. I absolutely agree with that, and I must emphasise that it's a trait of Uncharted's rather than necessarily a flaw. Of course, it could be regarded as an issue depending on who you ask, but unlike a popular mantra these days I do NOT consider reviews merely someone's opinion. Guess what's someone's opinion? Someone's opinion.

You can debate the merits of different styles of reviews until the cows come home, though, and I'm not about to do that here. However, Uncharted 2 was a game of *immense* quality, and its design decisions made a coherent, consistent whole. It's still a pinnacle example of the scripted roller coaster ride that everyone can enjoy and have the *thrilling escape* be the thrilling escape more or less regardless of the player's abilities. That does remove agency, and unless you "buy into" its feign sense of urgency it also remove that, but is that really a flaw when it's the very thing that enables oodles of players to experience a thrilling adventure without constantly dying in the middle of an exciting sequence?

Because that's what it sets out to do. It sets out to be an easily digested, pulpy blockbuster adventure that makes you feel like a daring action hero showered in narrow escapes. You can say loads of interesting things about the design decisions that enable that machinery, but I find it difficult to argue against the success of the machinery itself.

In addition, Eurogamer has a site wide problem with review/scoring consistency that didn't exactly help. Uncharted 2 bagged a 10/10and now the site has all these issues with its most fundamental design. The UC2 review was done by Tom Bramwell, so the change in sentiments obviously make sense, but I have to question who that benefits. Had Simon done the UC2 review and established that stance already, I think that would've avoided a lot of this outrage.

Again, good catch for an article, Patrick. I hope the compliments outweigh the generic internet hate around here lately.

@Gilsham: Because people are too damn young and grew up wrong.

This'll be the game that once and for all exposes whether Rockstar know how to sort genuinely good gameplay. Lord knows they've been let off easy with the unwieldy spaz fests that are GTA all these years.

Not Making Shadow Complex II more like. Audible sigh.

Quake 2. Easily. Quake 2 itself wasn't particularly strong as a game, but the echoes of character control and inertia the engine sent throughout the mod community were absolutely fantastic. Strafejumping around ActCity2 and Urban in Action Quake 2 or just generally getting around, rocketjumping et all, in Rocket Arena 2 is still one of the best - and hardest to pinpoint - sensations in a game to me. People talk about how platforming was useless in FPS' before Metroid Prime, and granted that's almost entirely true, but there was no semblance of doubt in where you'd end up playing around with the character physics in Q2 either.
 
Games have kinda moved away from having a deliberate, particular core feel to them, so it's not that strange to find that FPS' sorta don't.. have a feel to them anymore. Even around Quake and Quake 2 there was a tangible sense that other engines had a much more stiff, restrictive feel to them. Half Life, Unreal, Sin. This has been passed on, and to this day there isn't that dynamism to FPS anymore.
 
Which I guess is sorta for the best in a sense. Q2 was anything but realistic, having people whizzing around, bouncing, making leaps across rooftops that you were barely meant to be able. But was fun! It felt great.

The dodging that's going on in interviews about this thing you could swear they're politicians trying to ham fistedly cover up an radioactive waste spill.
 
There are so many fucked up things about this console that they're vaguely and half-assedly trying to sweep under the carpet. There are practical issues with it that would be leviated - not punctuated - if they were just up front about answering inquiries about them.

The sequel to the previous console. :P

It's not gonna be multiplatform, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a Kinect enabled edition of the first one or perhaps a Kinect focused entry in the franchise that isn't tied to the plot of the first.