I think it's fine. FINE!

@SSully said:

@huntad said:

The only problem I had with the actual combat itself was how you can get killed by a sniper, or any other random shooter, while engaged in melee combat.

Why shouldnt you be able to? You would be able to just run around and melee enemies without worrying about being killed because you would be invincible while taking out enemies with your fists.

Who's talking about running around meleeing everyone? Why? Because it's a video game and it's supposed to be fun, and not everything has to make sense in a video game. I find the melee combat to be the most rewarding of the two, but it takes so long to pull off that getting shot at is almost always a certainty if it's not the last guy in the group that you're fighting.

@huntad: I think one of the main problems with getting shot while melee is that you can't just easily run away from a melee encounter do to the combo type system. If you start to punch a dude and find you are getting shot all over the place you have to go through a few punches / dodge animations before you can try to run for cover. Usually by the time you are able to run away you are full of bullet holes.

@shakra: I think you're exactly right with most of your points, and I totally did not have as good a time with Uncharted 3 that I did with 2. The recoil, aiming, and the melee combat are all kinda frustrating. I still think the game is great, but I wish some of these things didn't change from the second one.

Combat is fine, aiming is a bit off, compared to UC2. But you get used to it. What bugs me about the game is the fact that up until the end the game is just awesome, so many great moments, set pieces and just all around awesomeness. But they pull a shitty move by throwing bad guy in that take 10 clips of ammo before they go down, and apparently the enemies have been to the same terrorist school as the enemies in COD games, cause they can throw grenades like no ones business. 
 
I played UC and UC 2 through multiple times, on normal and crushing difficulties, i won't be doing that on UC3. 

@Maajin said:

I love the combat. Don't really know what you're talking about.

I agree with this. The change in the speed and handling compared to FPS' or other games makes me love UC even more than the brilliant characters and incredible settings do.

My only issue with the combat is the AI don't seem to react to being shot so I never really know if I'm hitting them or not. Some die in one shot and react like you would think but then others, I dump an entire clip into and they don't even flinch, they just stand there and soak up the bullets like its nothing. Just looks weird to me and Im having a hard time getting used to it. I need to go back to Uncharted 2 and see if the same thing happens there but I don't recall it being as obvious and glaring.

@HolyCrapItsAdam: I didn't like how they introduced the 'armored' guys. There were normal guys at first with little beanies on. I didn't understand why a guy was taking 5 headshots before his hat fell off then he needed 5 more. Also grenades don't really seem to hurt those powerful knitted hats.

@huntad said:

@SSully said:

@huntad said:

The only problem I had with the actual combat itself was how you can get killed by a sniper, or any other random shooter, while engaged in melee combat.

Why shouldnt you be able to? You would be able to just run around and melee enemies without worrying about being killed because you would be invincible while taking out enemies with your fists.

Who's talking about running around meleeing everyone? Why? Because it's a video game and it's supposed to be fun, and not everything has to make sense in a video game. I find the melee combat to be the most rewarding of the two, but it takes so long to pull off that getting shot at is almost always a certainty if it's not the last guy in the group that you're fighting.

If you're running up in the middle of an arena to engage in fitsticuffs you ought to get shot. Take on dudes when you're both behind cover, or throw them into cover befor engaging them, or weaken enemies with gunfire then run up and finish them off with a punch or two. The combat's fantastic.

@shakra said:

@HolyCrapItsAdam: I didn't like how they introduced the 'armored' guys. There were normal guys at first with little beanies on. I didn't understand why a guy was taking 5 headshots before his hat fell off then he needed 5 more. Also grenades don't really seem to hurt those powerful knitted hats.

The beanie guys go down quick, I think you are confusing them for the similar looking guys that wear armor and helmets.

Not sure what you're talking about, I just think that the melee combat feels like a poor man's Arkham City.

@Seppli said:

@Korolev said:

...Love the writing. Love the characters. Love, love, LOVE the artstyle and the music and pacing of these games (even if I am aware that they take more than a few cues from Indiana Jones). It's really, really good. But the combat is, without a doubt, the least satisfying part of the game for me. It's astonishing that I love a game so much even if I really don't like many of the actual "game" parts of it.

QFT. Word.

And this.

@shakra said:

I didn't even look in the menus to speed up aim looking. Too late now I've finished the game, but I now feel retarded for not even checking.

Already did that, it still sucks.

@TheHT said:

@huntad said:

@SSully said:

@huntad said:

The only problem I had with the actual combat itself was how you can get killed by a sniper, or any other random shooter, while engaged in melee combat.

Why shouldnt you be able to? You would be able to just run around and melee enemies without worrying about being killed because you would be invincible while taking out enemies with your fists.

Who's talking about running around meleeing everyone? Why? Because it's a video game and it's supposed to be fun, and not everything has to make sense in a video game. I find the melee combat to be the most rewarding of the two, but it takes so long to pull off that getting shot at is almost always a certainty if it's not the last guy in the group that you're fighting.

If you're running up in the middle of an arena to engage in fitsticuffs you ought to get shot. Take on dudes when you're both behind cover, or throw them into cover befor engaging them, or weaken enemies with gunfire then run up and finish them off with a punch or two. The combat's fantastic.

Who said anything about running in the mid...you know, whatever you wanna believe that i'm doing wrong is fine with me. I didn't enjoy the combat.

@huntad: you're right, you didn't say that, sorry. i just assumed that since you were complaining about how you can get shot and killed while trying to engage in melee combat you were doing something stupid, like running up to melee dudes in the middle of an arena while there are snipers aiming at you or other dudes shooting at you.

Playing on normal I thought the combat from the AI was pretty brutal. I don't remember if UC2 was as tedious as this one or I just suck at games. There were some parts where I wanted to punch a baby in the face due to frustration.

@TheHT said:

@huntad: you're right, you didn't say that, sorry. i just assumed that since you were complaining about how you can get shot and killed while trying to engage in melee combat you were doing something stupid, like running up to melee dudes in the middle of an arena while there are snipers aiming at you or other dudes shooting at you.

Well, I appreciate you acknowledging that. I was definitely not running around like that, lol. That would have totally been my fault.

nah u dum

Finally got my hands on the game. Not sure if I see Uncharted 2's gun combat through rose-tinted glasses, but the feeling of the aim in Uncharted 3 is off. The best I would describe it is "squirrelly." Even in Crushing Mode, I don't remember having that hard of a time trying to draw a bead on some enemy's dome and putting a cap through it. I spend a second or two fine tuning the reticle before I can get a headshot.

I haven't played a shooter on the PS3 for a while though, so it might just be me being rusty with shooters on the Dualshock.

Just put UC2 in that tray and notice that pretty much nothing is changed except UC3 got more "punch" to the weapons with more recoil and some camerashake when nate takes a hit. I don't really know what people are so pissy about perosnally I think the combat feels great and it's just great fun and rewarding. AND if you really want to break the game shotgun autoaim (blindfire) from cover wastes fools like nobodys buisness, also you can waste the shotgun heavys with a pistol doing the same thing.

Good characters, good visuals, good music, good set pieces - terrible, un-fun combat, and a bit of a lame story. I had a lot of fun with UC2, but UC3's combat just rubbed me the wrong way from beginning to end. The enemies aren't fun to fight, and the weapons aren't fun to use. Nor is having the forward propulsion of the story grind to a halt, because you've got to fight several arenas of the same old enemies in a row, before you get the next narrative beat.

- Scott

are you playing the game like a cover based shooter?
Speaking as someone who, for me, the uncharted series are my favourite straight up action games of all time, if you're playing it like a cover based shooter you're doing it wrong. The game is all about mobility.
It's a hit and run shooter. The covers there to hide behind well you regen health before you make another surgical strike on a vulnerable enemy.|
 
 
Edit, the biggest problem with uncharted 3 is that the circle button now grabs enemies who are in melee range. meaning situations where you would want to roll away from an enemy who is near you, you can no longer do that and instead get locked beside them unless you just akwardly run off and probably get shot and die if you're playing on hard/crushing.
I wish I could disable circle grabbing.

I'm with you on the combat; I just came from Arkham City, and the combat in U3 is just not as good as all. I definately love both U3 (not done yet) and U2 (done), but I felt the actual combat was the worst part of the game. I always wish for it to end as soon as it starts, and I die so much! In that certain are which is a cargo on a boat with water in it, I must have died 15+ times. It gets really frustrating having to start over so many times.

Yeah the combat is abysmal. It's really fun when they throw small skirmishes at you, but like halfway through the game they just start throwing dumb combination of enemies. Like what I am supposed to do when three snipers who kill you in one hit are there, along with a rocket launcher who kills you in one hit, and two of those armored shotgun guys who kill you in two hits and take probably 7 clips and 3 grenades to kill between them. All at the same time. On normal. I wish I was exaggerating, but I just spent the last hour trying to do that fight and I've damn well memorized how many enemies they throw at you. When they combine fighting and platforming, it's cool. When they try to be Gears of War, well... they fail miserably, because they don't know how to provide enough cover like the Gears games do.

It's just poor design at that point.

@XII_Sniper said:

Yeah the combat is abysmal. It's really fun when they throw small skirmishes at you, but like halfway through the game they just start throwing dumb combination of enemies. Like what I am supposed to do when three snipers who kill you in one hit are there, along with a rocket launcher who kills you in one hit, and two of those armored shotgun guys who kill you in two hits and take probably 7 clips and 3 grenades to kill between them. All at the same time. On normal. I wish I was exaggerating, but I just spent the last hour trying to do that fight and I've damn well memorized how many enemies they throw at you. When they combine fighting and platforming, it's cool. When they try to be Gears of War, well... they fail miserably, because they don't know how to provide enough cover like the Gears games do.

It's just poor design at that point.

I think the issue with cover is, that the game wants us to run around while fighting, take cover here and there, melee a guy, shoot explosive, use all the options, but that just get's you killed. It's better to take cover. Until an armorerd guy, or shield guy enters the fight, then you're fucked, trying to take them out while normal enemies rush you.

@Flaboere said:

@XII_Sniper said:

Yeah the combat is abysmal. It's really fun when they throw small skirmishes at you, but like halfway through the game they just start throwing dumb combination of enemies. Like what I am supposed to do when three snipers who kill you in one hit are there, along with a rocket launcher who kills you in one hit, and two of those armored shotgun guys who kill you in two hits and take probably 7 clips and 3 grenades to kill between them. All at the same time. On normal. I wish I was exaggerating, but I just spent the last hour trying to do that fight and I've damn well memorized how many enemies they throw at you. When they combine fighting and platforming, it's cool. When they try to be Gears of War, well... they fail miserably, because they don't know how to provide enough cover like the Gears games do.

It's just poor design at that point.

I think the issue with cover is, that the game wants us to run around while fighting, take cover here and there, melee a guy, shoot explosive, use all the options, but that just get's you killed. It's better to take cover. Until an armorerd guy, or shield guy enters the fight, then you're fucked, trying to take them out while normal enemies rush you.

It doesn't help that Drake's movement is so slower this time around. I mean in both prior Uncharted games, whenever combat erupted Drake would burst into a sprint for all movement from then on, allowing you to better get between cover and flank any enemies yourself. In Uncharted 3 he only has the one running speed and it makes things like simply trying to move from one piece of cover to the next a near death-wish.

The combat threw me off a bit at first, but I think it was just because it had been almost a year since playing 2. I was frustrated for a bit, but I caught on to it. I was just a bit dissapointed there wasn't nearly as much shooting. My favorite part was probably when you find the ghost town in the desert and there is a shit ton of guys to shoot. That and the horse section!

@shakra said:

Guess I'm just used to a mouse. Combat in this game with a controller makes me want to weep. Everything else is amazing though, I'm just getting frustrated with this madness.

Nah - the gunplay is definitely off. You are right about that.

@Andorski said:

...The controller issue is probably just due to not being use to it for shooters. I definitely ran into this problem when I first got my PS3. Thought the sticks were terrible. Then I played on the PS3 for a while before switching back to using the 360 controller. At that point, I got so use to the Dualshock that the feel of the 360 controller was very alien to me.

The PS3 has mechanically less deadzone on its analogsticks. Hence they're capable of being more responsive and fluid than the 360 gamepad, though the pleb calls that 'floaty' sometimes. Some developers chose to hamstring responsiveness by adding more deadzone to their games softwareside (like Guerilla did with KZ2).

Why would anybody want what is the equivalent of a 'lower DPI mouse'? Outside of formfactor and triggers, the PS3 pad is way superior to the standard 360 pad. Integral design. USB wired and wireless in one device. Higher quality materials. Less deadzone. All that Microsoft does better is formfactor and monetizing to the max with their modular hardware design.

@SpencerTucksen: So true, I almost feel like I could snap my PS3 controller if I tried hard enough....some games have almost made me do this :P

are you playing the game like a cover based shooter? Speaking as someone who, for me, the uncharted series are my favourite straight up action games of all time, if you're playing it like a cover based shooter you're doing it wrong. The game is all about mobility. It's a hit and run shooter. The covers there to hide behind well you regen health before you make another surgical strike on a vulnerable enemy.|   Edit, the biggest problem with uncharted 3 is that the circle button now grabs enemies who are in melee range. meaning situations where you would want to roll away from an enemy who is near you, you can no longer do that and instead get locked beside them unless you just akwardly run off and probably get shot and die if you're playing on hard/crushing. I wish I could disable circle grabbing.

@shakra said:

Everything about uncharted 3 is pretty stellar, except for the terrible combat. Normally I groan in games with the too stupid AI, but in uncharted the smarter AI make the awful combat controls even more glaring. The ps3 controller is awful for this type of combat, and it doesnt help that the controller moves the camera too slow for the dozens of snipers at once that surround you in every combat situation.

I quit playing the 2nd uncharted because the combat was so awful and unfun. I'm at the final stage of 3, but goddamn do i hate the frustrating combat. If it weren't for the story that keeps pushing me I would have broken this disc in half. How can a developer create a game where half of the experience is so terrible?

Why in the hell would you buy this one if you hated the combat from the second one and didn't even finish it?

Yeah. Finished the game last night. Wound up in so many situations where the AI would just attack me from impossible angles, or get swarmed with those armored guys with shotguns that pretty much kill you in one shot if you are not at full health.

In the end, I opted to lower the difficulty (from "normal") to "very easy" just to see the story (which I enjoyed) to it's conclusion.

Can't remember the last time a game made me rage the way this did.

@shakra said:

Everything about uncharted 3 is pretty stellar, except for the terrible combat. Normally I groan in games with the too stupid AI, but in uncharted the smarter AI make the awful combat controls even more glaring. The ps3 controller is awful for this type of combat, and it doesnt help that the controller moves the camera too slow for the dozens of snipers at once that surround you in every combat situation.

I quit playing the 2nd uncharted because the combat was so awful and unfun. I'm at the final stage of 3, but goddamn do i hate the frustrating combat. If it weren't for the story that keeps pushing me I would have broken this disc in half. How can a developer create a game where half of the experience is so terrible?

i thought the gunplay in uc2 was perfect, it was so super easy to get headshots without being assisted. had problems with uc3 untill i got used to it then it was still great, but that has nothing to do with your ps3 controller or console its the game.

i think your just used to get assisted in other games and therefore not yet comfortable with this one. allthough i will agree that the cam is alittle slow

@Abyssfull said:

@Flaboere said:

@XII_Sniper said:

Yeah the combat is abysmal. It's really fun when they throw small skirmishes at you, but like halfway through the game they just start throwing dumb combination of enemies. Like what I am supposed to do when three snipers who kill you in one hit are there, along with a rocket launcher who kills you in one hit, and two of those armored shotgun guys who kill you in two hits and take probably 7 clips and 3 grenades to kill between them. All at the same time. On normal. I wish I was exaggerating, but I just spent the last hour trying to do that fight and I've damn well memorized how many enemies they throw at you. When they combine fighting and platforming, it's cool. When they try to be Gears of War, well... they fail miserably, because they don't know how to provide enough cover like the Gears games do.

It's just poor design at that point.

I think the issue with cover is, that the game wants us to run around while fighting, take cover here and there, melee a guy, shoot explosive, use all the options, but that just get's you killed. It's better to take cover. Until an armorerd guy, or shield guy enters the fight, then you're fucked, trying to take them out while normal enemies rush you.

It doesn't help that Drake's movement is so slower this time around. I mean in both prior Uncharted games, whenever combat erupted Drake would burst into a sprint for all movement from then on, allowing you to better get between cover and flank any enemies yourself. In Uncharted 3 he only has the one running speed and it makes things like simply trying to move from one piece of cover to the next a near death-wish.

Yeah, now that you mention it, wasn't there a sprint option in U2? Or is it simply because I've been playing Batman, where you have to hold X to run, that I feel like I'm missing that in U3. Acutally, I also feel I miss a sneak-button, but that miht be because of Batman too :-P

Someone mentioned the camera, more than once I've found myself fighting a guy who is off-screen, with Nate actually standing at the edge of the screen punching out of the screen. Also fighting someone who is around the corner, where the camera didn't turn. And I can't find the finger mobility to turn the camera myself, since I'm using my right hand to push the buttons.

@Ulong said:

the biggest problem with uncharted 3 is that the circle button now grabs enemies who are in melee range. meaning situations where you would want to roll away from an enemy who is near you, you can no longer do that and instead get locked beside them unless you just akwardly run off and probably get shot and die if you're playing on hard/crushing. I wish I could disable circle grabbing.

Ugh a thousand times this

I wouldn't call it the worst. It can certainly be frustrating though. This game has had multiple times where I felt they just threw an unfair amount of guys at you, and I obviously am not the first to say this. This happened a few times in both of the other games, but not to this degree. I don't feel it is any fault of the combat mechanics, but more of fault of the designers at naughty dog.

I'm now currently at the home stretch of the campaign on Hard. Now having more time with it, I'm starting the get use to how the aiming works in the game. Still not able to get headshot kills on every enemy yet, but I'm slowly getting there.

One thing I noticed about playing on hard is that the game does not want you to play it the way you want to play it. Being a cover-based shooter, I assume everyone tries to hunker down behind cover and pick-off guys one by one. That's what I tried to do in the beginning. A combination of pin-point accurate enemies who spam grenades, limited amount of ammo, and armored guys who creep up on your position with shotguns makes this tactic unfeasible a lot of times.

So instead I run around... a lot. I hip-fire on normal enemies to take them down, throw grenades at armored foes, and use hand-to-hand combat when there is sufficient cover for me to fight without getting riddled with bullets. I really only take cover when I need to regenerated health (and even then, I'm usually blind-firing to keep enemies from flanking my position). Somehow this tactic is working for me. Finding the right time to shoot from cover, run around firing from the hip, or going fisticuffs seems to be the key to success in the combat of Uncharted 3 - although i guess you can say this about all shooters.