The Uncharted franchise has become synonymous with PlayStation. It is one of the flag ship exclusive on the Sony consoles. I did not play the originals on PS3 so I was excited when I heard they were being remastered. After completing the three games, they easily landed on my favorite games list. The games are about treasure hunter and thief Nathan Drake and his hunt for ancient cities and treasure. Always aided by his best friend and surrogate father Victor “goddamn” Sullivan (Sully) and on again off again girlfriend Elena Fisher. The group always finds trouble in their hunt for fortune.
The first game, Uncharted Drake’s Fortune, showed its age on the next gen console. This is expected from a game that was early in the last gen cycle. At times the environments looked like green hills as opposed to a large mass of trees. On the other hand the facial animations of the cast were well done. They expressed emotion and added to the comedy of the game. In my opinion the game was ahead of its time. I also liked the nods to other Naughty Dog games. My personal favorite was the diving suit Nate wears at the beginning of the game. It has the Naughty Dog logo right on the back of the neck. The suit also has a picture of Daxter (from Jak and Daxter) on the sleeve and the word ottsel across the front (the animal Daxter is). The story of this game is about Nate attempting to find a treasure found by his ancestor, Sir Francis Drake. Nate uses Elena (a journalist) to help fund his expedition to find Francis’ grave. After discovering they were on the trail of the legendary city of El goddamn Dorado (to quote Sully), Nate and Sully race to find the treasure. The group faces pirates, soldiers, and the supernatural to save the world. The game’s script was written beautifully. It uses a mix of slapstick, low brow, and smart humor that gives the cast a real life feel. Control wise the game is much like other third-person action games, but left something to be desired. I found that climbing in certain sections was overly difficult due to poor camera angles. In my opinion the gun and hand-to-hand combat felt too disconnected and the gunplay itself felt inaccurate and lose. All in all Drake’s Fortune is a good game and holds up well today. Uncharted Thief’s End has Nolan North reprising his role of Nathan Drake as he and his friends will follow the path of Marco Polo to find the Cintamani stone and the legendary city of Shambhala (Shangri-La). Thief’s End makes improvements to the original’s combat system. The game makes the hand-to-hand combat more comprehendible, while the shooting is tightened up. Graphically the game is more presentable, but that makes sense for a game released in 2009 compared to 2007. In my opinion this is a much more polished game than the original. Naughty Dog fixed almost every problem I had with the original except the occasional camera angle. The final game of the trilogy, Uncharted Drake’s Deception, has Nate once again on the heels of his ancestor Sir Francis Drake as he attempts to find the lost City of Brass. Nate races against a secret society in an adventure that sheds new light on the character that is Nathan Drake. We find out more of his dark past, how he met Sully, and what obsession can really do to oneself and those around him. This game has a much darker tone compared to the others. In my opinion this aids in telling more of who Nathan Drake is and how his hunt for treasure harms those around him. The best line in the game has Elena telling Nate that Sully “Would go to the ends of the Earth for you, Nate. Just- don’t ask him to.” In my opinion this game controls the best of the three. The combat just feels right. The Fist fighting is more cinematic this time around. My favorite is when you do not have a gun and you hit an enemy who does. The gun flies into the air, Nate catches it and you can go right into gunplay almost seamlessly. I still have a problem with bad camera angles, at times. I have no complaints for this game graphically. This is my favorite of the series. While two felt like it polished what the first was doing, Drake’s Deception felt like the natural evolution of what the first two were trying to achieve. This franchise gets a lot of complaints about being a Tomb Raider clone. I believe these franchises to be quite different. While Tomb Raider is all about puzzles and platforming. I found Uncharted to be more like a big dumb action movie. This is in no way a bad thing. In fact that is what I love about these games. They invoke movies like Indiana Jones, National Treasure, or the Librarian. I am looking forward to Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End in March. Rating: 9/10
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Blood Bowl 2 is an interesting game to say the least. Not many games can mix sports with a turn based strategy game. Blood Bowl, by Games Workshop, is a mix of American football and Warhammer. This seems like an odd combination till you play it and this game scratches a really weird itch you never knew you had. I was not a fan of the first game, but this game fixed my problems with the first one. I hated the first one for its poor explanation of the rules and poor console controls. These issues were fixed and turned into an enjoyable game.
The goal of Blood Bowl is to move the ball from one side of the field to the other while preventing the other team from doing the same thing. A match consist of two haves each containing eight turns. This is where the blood in Blood Bowl comes in. While moving the ball or trying to steal the ball, the players can hit any player on the opposing team whether or not they have the ball. When attacking players blocking dice are rolled to determine what kind of hit occurs (defender down, defender stumbles, both down, push, or attacker down). After a hit a player is either pushed, knocked down, stunned, knocked out, injured, or dead. This game has a good amount of complexity depending on which race your team is. Dwarves can hit, elves can pass and run, while humans can do a bit of everything. There are eight races that come with purchase of the game and two more that can be obtained through DLC for a total of ten races. This game has a campaign that covers the story the story of a team in decline that you coach to back to victory. This sounds cool except for the fact that the campaign acts as one big tutorial. The campaign does a fantastic job of easing the player into the rules and systems in the game while also having random events, like a helicopter crashing onto the field or weather changing mid match, happen to make the player alter their tactics. The story is told through Jim and Bob the color commentary team that does announcing the game. The campaign has some unique lines that do not appear in friendly or online matches. Too bad the commentary for online matches can get repetitive (like most sports games). On the same token the commentary has a lot of funny lines that were fantastically done by the voice actors. Blood Bowl 2 is summed up in one word, and that is fun. I can sit down to play then realize hours have gone by. The game can feel like it is out to get you at times, but the addition of dice and random chance to this title make the players rethink their strategy on the fly. This game is certainly one of a kind. RATING: 8/10 |
AuthorI am A.J. Goelz. I'm a gamer first and a writer second. I hope you enjoy the content on this page and check out the rest of my content on YouTube. Archives
April 2019
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