Support NeoGAF

[Diablos]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but, if you still haven't bought this game for some reason: Overstock has it for $46.79. Standard shipping is usually $2. Awesome deal.

 

[XxSlasherMcGirkxX]

Man Co Op Adventure The Monastery is a bitch on Crushing. Fuck those RPG statue blowing assholes.

 

[UFRA]

Ok, just finished the game on Normal.

I gotta say, this game started out real strong, had some cool new characters and I was interested in the story.

Once I got to the

Spoiler

part where you were abducted by pirates, I felt that the game went downhill. It lost track from the actual story and just focused on "ok lets ambush the player with 82,954 enemies on all sides and make really cheap deaths." From that point on, it seemed to repeat this formula on almost every enemy encounter, and that was disappointing to me. I'm not playing Uncharted for gigantic battles, I'm playing it for a cool story, a little puzzle solving here and there, and some combat tastefully mixed in. Don't even get me started on how annoying those stupid armored guys were with the shotguns. Dumb.

Surprisingly I feel a bit let down by this one overall. I don't care at all about the multiplayer, so that's what makes it kinda sad.

Interesting how this one has the most developed multiplayer of the 3 and now I feel the story has gone downhill. I had a feeling this would happen.

Overall a good game, but not what I expected from it.

 

[speculawyer]

Crushing had a few annoyingly difficult levels. But it was kinda fun to be forced to play some levels differently.

For example, I generally tried to dispatch those armor/shotgun guys with grenades. But I often found myself w/o grenades to use on them. So I had to develop different techniques. I didn't use 'blind fire' at all on Hard but I found it useful on Crushing since you take out the armor guys by staying in cover and just soaking them with bullets with blind fire while safe in cover. You need cover and lots of ammo but it allows you to take them out even if there is a laser sniper around. Just be sure to take out the low level henchmen though, they'll sneak up on you while you are soaking the armor guy.

Also on the

Spoiler

horse/convoy

level, I had to to change my style since it was much harder to stay alive. So, I learned that it was often much better

Spoiler

to not bother trying to shoot the guys on the trucks, just ride up, jump on the side of the truck, then pull them off

.

 

[Y2Kev]

I finally got started. Couldn't wait anymore. I'm in ch6. God, the shadows are so perfect! The lighting is so cool.

I actually really like how they made the automatic rifle feel. It feels slower, and a lot more powerful.

I'm not having a problem with the aiming, but it's just so obvious something is off.

 

[RDreamer]

Also on the

Spoiler

horse/convoy

level, I had to to change my style since it was much harder to stay alive. So, I learned that it was often much better

Spoiler

to not bother trying to shoot the guys on the trucks, just ride up, jump on the side of the truck, then pull them off

.

That's mostly what I did on hard, but on crushing you have to shoot them from afar. If you try to jump up to them and pull 'em off a lot of times you will die before you even get there.

 

[Cruzader]

Yeah, I don't get that. And then when he gets to that settlement

Spoiler

the water is 'undrinkable' . . . he should just go ahead and die. Instead he becomes uberman and kills off wave after wave of enemies despite not having had a drink of water for days. Just give the guy a fucking drink of water! Sheesh.

Normally I would say "its just a video game!" but you are correct on this one. I will not defend this dumb idea/section of the game.

Spoiler

I mean you'd think he would atleast take the enemy's canteen after the firefight (someone drops one) and get a quick break. I think this section was really bad. Doesnt make sense even in a damn video game. I was like, how the hell is he fighting a bunch of dudes after not getting rest for like 3 days with no water? Cmon.

 

[jax (old)]

played an MP game with randoms. Co-op arena. Idiots that don't get how to "stay in the siege zones" and get kills .. fuck me. Talk about aggravating. Ended up just staying in the siege area when I got sick of saving him. And he kept dying. So we lost.

Then, I quit group to try to hook up with other people and landed the same guy (but now with splitscreen buddy (1). 1st game. siege. They both run away from the siege area. I left the game.


ahhhhh

 

[jax (old)]

Normally I would say "its just a video game!" but you are correct on this one. I will not defend this dumb idea/section of the game.

Spoiler

I mean you'd think he would atleast take the enemy's canteen after the firefight (someone drops one) and get a quick break. I think this section was really bad. Doesnt make sense even in a damn video game. I was like, how the hell is he fighting a bunch of dudes after not getting rest for like 3 days with no water? Cmon.

they dropped the ball here a tad no doubt. I mean, already stretching the credibility with the

Spoiler

multi day desert hike with no water and then they modelled a canteen and have a guy drink it but nate doesn't even bother to go for it

. Its a bit lame,

 

[speculawyer]

Normally I would say "its just a video game!" but you are correct on this one. I will not defend this dumb idea/section of the game.

Spoiler

I mean you'd think he would atleast take the enemy's canteen after the firefight (someone drops one) and get a quick break. I think this section was really bad. Doesnt make sense even in a damn video game. I was like, how the hell is he fighting a bunch of dudes after not getting rest for like 3 days with no water? Cmon.

I get the feeling that the game got scaled down and things got cut out to get it out the door in time.

Spoiler

FFS . . . they make a huge deal about him going insane with mirage hallucinations. They completely play on your empathy . . . AND THEN THEY NEVER RESOLVE IT! Bizzare. Something must have been cut.

And things like the Tarot card bit . . . there was probably more to that but it got dropped out.

 

[UFRA]

I get the feeling that the game got scaled down and things got cut out to get it out the door in time.

Spoiler

FFS . . . they make a huge deal about him going insane with mirage hallucinations. They completely play on your empathy . . . AND THEN THEY NEVER RESOLVE IT! Bizzare. Something must have been cut.

And things like the Tarot card bit . . . there was probably more to that but it got dropped out.

I agree. I thought the same thing as I was getting towards the end. It felt like the later half of the game was just kinda thrown together.

 

[Replicant]

BUt i hate that they spawn you in the middle of the area (in front of the fountain ).no matter what you do , your life will go down before you can take cover. i hated that.

Ugh, tell me about it. Like I said, it really depends on your luck because even with your best attempt to roll around and zig-zagging from left to right, chances are big that you'll die before you can make it to the pillar on the back of the area. But if you stay behind that fountain, you may as well kill yourself because you'll die in 5 sec on Crushing.

I only had 1 grenade. I could wipe out the first wave, and the second wave, but in that third wave, they come from everywhere. There was no safe place. I was quite happy to get stuck in the crate and have that level mercifully end.

I started looking and collecting for Hammer/Shotgun/RPG once the shipyard level kicks in. I know that the wave/barrage of enemies against one is insane without those weapons so I always try to look for them. And yes, the 3rd wave was fucking insane. I was thinking "Who the fuck designed this level? It's like the shots comes from left, right, back, front, leaving you no place to take cover, which is ridiculous. And what's more ridiculous is that if you die on the 2nd or 3rd wave, you're back at 1st wave!

It was that last encounter with them. They are shooting like crazy and you have to dispatch a fair number of them. I used a hammer I brought in, the RPG, and a Tau sniper (or some other powerful handgun). I basically used up my hammer and ran to the left to get the RPG. The sequence is probably only a minute or so long but it took me many many tries.

Same here. I can't decide which one is worse encounter this one or the one below the ship's bowel. They're atrocious. Every other encounters are doable by varying amount of tactics including stealth whereas these two relies mostly on dumb luck and powerful weapon to win.

Normally I would say "its just a video game!" but you are correct on this one. I will not defend this dumb idea/section of the game.

Spoiler

I mean you'd think he would atleast take the enemy's canteen after the firefight (someone drops one) and get a quick break. I think this section was really bad. Doesnt make sense even in a damn video game. I was like, how the hell is he fighting a bunch of dudes after not getting rest for like 3 days with no water? Cmon.

I thought I was the only one who think that way. Any logic will say that

Spoiler

someone who's been starving and thirsty can't possibly take down that many people + machinegun + RPG launcher while still manage to ride a horse at the end of the day.

 

[Rewrite]

That's mostly what I did on hard, but on crushing you have to shoot them from afar. If you try to jump up to them and pull 'em off a lot of times you will die before you even get there.

Yeah,

Spoiler

trying to jump on the trucks doesn't work on Crushing...at least for me. It only works on the first truck. That part pissed me off so much. If you die during the first four/five trucks (I think), you'll have to retry from the very beginning. Not to mention those assholes on the motorcycles are also shooting at you. What I did was basically take down the first guy by pulling him down, and camped in the truck to take out the motorcycles first and then afterwards shoot the rest and repeat the process of camping.

 

[triplestation]

I agree. I thought the same thing as I was getting towards the end. It felt like the later half of the game was just kinda thrown together.

Yeah and it started feeling just off. The first two games had a charm. The music was exhilarating, there was more humor and it was all tied together very fluidly. The adventure factor always stayed fun. Uncharted always had a lighthearted tone with lots of action and epic music. This one I think tried to take on a darker/more intimate side which doesn't exactly work. I had much higher expectations.



I wish more people would talk about the story and direction instead of just the game play. Do many people get it initially for the gunfights?

 

[speculawyer]

That's mostly what I did on hard, but on crushing you have to shoot them from afar. If you try to jump up to them and pull 'em off a lot of times you will die before you even get there.

Maybe my shooting just really sucked. I did try to coordinate with Salim's actions . . . he'd go on one side and get attacked, so I would go to the other side and jump on.

 

[Y2Kev]

I'm convinced now that if no one said anything, I never would have noticed. Damn it!

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Finished it today. I'll agree with sentiment here that the game seemed very slapdash, content and story wise. There were great elements in both, but you get the feeling like there was a lot either cut out or just thrown together in places. The

Spoiler

random pointless pirate abduction

being the major culprit. Watching the featurettes its probably more of the latter, as they said repeatedly that they got ideas for levels in the beginning of devlopment and then found ways to shoe string them into the story as far as 1 year and a half down the line. This also wreaks havoc on the pacing which doesnt really click until the very last 2-3 chapters. But the core combat remains solid, if a bit bogged down by the odd aiming issues. It's also a much harder game this time around, with far less hand holding and a bit more freedom in large area combat situations. Puzzles still follow a bit of the old look at the thing in the book, find the exact same thing in the not book, but at the very least becoming a bit more complex in areas, and again not quite as much handholding as in previous installments. Would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in encounters though, as one other poster said, toward the end it was just a string of kill x number of baddies on the other side of the room. The extra bits of fluff animation andenvironment interaction worked wonders however to the immersion of combat and gameplay in general, even if somewhat scripted.

Story I found to be a bit unfulfilling. Not enough depth to character arcs, something which could have been accomplished with a few less ultra cheesy/goofy/unnecessary remarks (even by uncharted/B-movie action titles standards). The Drake/Sully dynamic, which I really thought could have taken on a much deeper meaning in this game is the main victim of this. We see that they do care for eachother in a macho kinda way, but we don't get to see much into how that bond came to be so strong (no real development of a bond between them at all really besides

Spoiler

their initial meeting in the kid drake chapters

) The main antagonist shows occasional moments of true viciousness and evil, but such moments are few and far between as it returns to the usual bad guy tropes (particularly disappointing with promises of a more "cerebral" villain), not to mention her rather unceremonious and awkward demise. I could get more indepth but i'll stop with these as my main gripes. Overall, though, the acting is still better than the previous games, and improvement is always a plus even if it's not quite up to snuff with the greats of cinema and stage.

Overall not a terrible game, but I expected more out of ND's 3rd installment, especially in the story department.

 

[jett]

I'm convinced now that if no one said anything, I never would have noticed. Damn it!

ahuahuahauhauha

shoulda played it back when it was fresh

the more i play the game the more I like the campaign. on my third run now, going for the treasures

 

[speculawyer]

If I had to rate this game, I'd give a 9.1/10 . . . and I gave U2 a 10/10. It is still great fun, the engine is beautiful, the dynamic sets are amazing, the Chateau was gorgeous, the pirate abduction from start to finish was one of the most fun sequences (except that deep in the bowels section), etc.

However, the aiming felt a bit wonky, I ran into a few bugs/glitches, the story was not so interesting, things seemed cut out, a few levels were so hard in a cheap manner that just required replaying them over & over to win through trial & error. I just wasn't as awestruck as I was by U2.

At least they were pretty good about giving checkpoints most of the time.

 

[MushroomSamba]

played an MP game with randoms. Co-op arena. Idiots that don't get how to "stay in the siege zones" and get kills .. fuck me. Talk about aggravating. Ended up just staying in the siege area when I got sick of saving him. And he kept dying. So we lost.

Then, I quit group to try to hook up with other people and landed the same guy (but now with splitscreen buddy (1). 1st game. siege. They both run away from the siege area. I left the game.


ahhhhh

What difficulty were you playing on? It's flat out stupid at times to stay planted in the siege area when you're in the harder settings. Makes more sense to ditch the place when it gets too hot, then circle back when things return to sensibility.

Edit: After re-reading your post, that probably wasn't the case if they were running away right from the get go...

 

[jett]

aahhh what the hell is it with the random crashing in this game :|

 

[speculawyer]

I wish more people would talk about the story and direction instead of just the game play. Do many people get it initially for the gunfights?

There is not much story to talk about. Nate & Sully want the MacGuffin and Evil Syndicate want the MacGuffin. Every step along the trail to the MacGuffin, the two camps run into each other and fight. Good guys win. Roll credits.

OK, that is over-simplifying it. But it isn't much more than that. I think U2 had a much better storyline.

 

[LightofRohan]

I'm feeling that U4 will/hopefully be more story heavy and less about spectacle. And I could see a more dark/important story intro then the previous ones, with a bigger plot reason to progress through the story.

*I wrote out a scenario idea I had for the intro of U4. But I know I'd just be heckled for writing bad fan fiction. Haha, so screw it*

 

[gutter_trash]

just finished it, I liked it. But it doesn't top UC2 overall.

But I did like that Sully was a bigger character and had more role in UC3.

The long range shooting however pissed me off to no end; UC2 reduced the amount of non-sense long range shit that plague parts of UC1.. UC3 returned with stupid long range shooting early in the game with not much scope choices early on

BUT, I did like the puzzles being more complex in UC3 and forcing you to use more brains compared to the overly easy puzzle before

 

[pigeon interrupted]

Also just finished it on hard today. Gotta agree with the hit and miss sentiments, but it was still one of the best games I have experienced this year. Really loved it.

Pros:

Spoiler

- Beautiful environments, really breathtaking.
- Lightinggasm at the Chateaux.
- My god, the waves!
- Holy crap at the sand!
- THE FIRE!
- Top animation.
- Well thought out puzzles this time around.
- Great interactive set-pieces. Dat cargo plane!
- The filter/effects they used the two times when Nate had been drugged were amazing, never seen anything like it or of such high quality. I stood looking at the wobbly fountains and statues in the lost city for far too long.
- Pretty good story and mostly great dialogue. Amazing compared to other video games.

Cons:

Spoiler

- Had been on a blackout for weeks>pick up gun>urg!>go on GAF>see 20 page thread about problem. Not good to change the feel of the aiming that much in a shooter franchise, fans expect a certain familiarity, not to mention decent aiming. Got used to it, but if you play online then go back to SP... the problem is just so obvious.
- Anti-aliasing often left fugly shimmering jaggy edges. Totally ripped the arse out the panning shots of Cartagena and Yemen for example, but in some places the game looked flawless. This was nowhere near as prevalent in U2 which was much more uniform in quality. I never once wished U2 was released on PC, but with U3 I wish I could have turned on 2xMSAA.
- Lacking polish in some other areas: animation jumps, cut scene stutters, sound cut outs, visible seams in environments, enemies sometimes don't react to being shot while they are running, etc. Minor niggles, tbh.
- Story and characters didn't feel as fleshed out as they should have been. Marlowe and Talbot and the Tarot for example. ND started to explore areas and characters but then didn't take them to their needed conclusions. ALSO, THERE WAS A BLOODY ANCIENT GENIE IN THAT POOL AND WE BARELY GOT A SNIFF OF HIM! I have never had a problem with Uncharted's supernatural enemies and motifs, it's a part of the genre. I was sad to see that part was barely touched upon this time, while I'm sure others were rejoicing.
- That last fight was lame. Preferred to have a lacklustre bossfight to no bossfight at all.
- Only a few good battles. Very stop/start bite-sized uphill fighting in this game, not sure if that's enough to appease the people who actually like Uncharted for its gunplay. Preferred the well thought out, if not more predictable arenas of U2.

I wonder if the way that ND makes random set-pieces/levels and strings them together later, shoehorning them into a narrative doesn't hurt the overall flow of the game. The format worked well with U2, but I feel that U3 was a bit unfocused.

 

[eternaLightness]

**No Spoilers**

Just finished it a couple of minutes ago. Though I enjoyed it, I felt like the overall package wasn't as good as U2. The story and gameplay elements just didn't come together as great as part 2 did. I'll get the good stuff out of the way first.

Graphics- Unbelievable! The set pieces were really well done and sometimes I just had to look around to see how good everything looked. The character models look much more realistic, the animations are much smoother and look more natural, though I do feel at times Drake can be too animated and it breaks the illusion sometimes. This is one fine looking game, no doubt about it.

Puzzles- Started off really good with some nice ones that actually made me think, Then they just disappeared. Was pretty disappointed by that.

Sound- Continue to love the soundtrack in these games. Don't know if it's better than UC2 yet, but the music is fantastic. Overall sound effects are great also.

Gameplay- Now this was my biggest complaint and I think it may be an issue for me in all UC games. I feel like gunfights last way too long and I'm constantly just being flooded with enemies especially in the later chapters. I started the game on Normal and ended up having to switch to Easy on some of the later chapters because I started dying much more often and started getting pretty annoyed. I get you have to make the game somewhat challenging and keep it from getting boring but there has to be a better way than just constantly throwing enemies at you. At one point, Drake even says "This is ridiculous". He must have read my mind because I started getting more frustrated with each firefight until I chickened out and played on Easy. I started enjoying it much more.

Story- I enjoyed getting to know more about Drake and Sully and how they got started. It was really interesting how that all played out. I think the overall story wasn't as interesting and felt a bit too much like UC2's story but not as good. Still interested in seeing where they take these characters next.

Overall I don't think I was disappointed with the game, just felt like things could have been handled better mainly the gunfights. I definitely want to play through it again.

 

[speculawyer]

Gameplay- Now this was my biggest complaint and I think it may be an issue for me in all UC games. I feel like gunfights last way too long and I'm constantly just being flooded with enemies especially in the later chapters. I started the game on Normal and ended up having to switch to Easy on some of the later chapters because I started dying much more often and started getting pretty annoyed. I get you have to make the game somewhat challenging and keep it from getting boring but there has to be a better way than just constantly throwing enemies at you. At one point, Drake even says "This is ridiculous". He must have read my mind because I started getting more frustrated with each firefight until I chickened out and played on Easy. I started enjoying it much more.

I don't think you will enjoy Crushing then. I don't think they throw more enemies at you, but they are much more accurate and can kill you off much faster. There are some maddeningly difficult levels that become a chore.

 

[ThisWreckage]

This game was rushed and Naughty Dog even admitted that they were running on an extremely tight schedule that didn't allow room for error. It would have been fascinating to see how good this game could have been if it released in March or April, but Sony wasn't going to allow that to happen.

 

[KingHenrik30]

Just finished here. Even though it's undoubtably my third favorite out of all of them (U2-U1-U3) and something felt a bit off about the game as a whole (not even talking about the aiming, but pacing, story, setting - maybe all three? Maybe it's just because I'm usually totally hyped for an Drake game to come out, and this time for some reason I wasn't - could be just multitude of other games coming out and I didn't have it on the forefront - either way for some reason my usual exciteness just wasn't there), I still ended up loving it a lot and it's one of my favorites of the year.

I think pretty much everyone here has already touched on the criticisms of the game, so I'll sum up my feelings like this:

You'll be going along and there will be a few annoying/boring parts and your mind starts to drift to "Eh, this isn't as good as the other ones, something is missing", then BOOM - amazing action sequence (

Spoiler

escape from chateau, cargo plane, final squence

and your like "Holy shit this is awesome".

A- for me.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

If I had to rate this game, I'd give a 9.1/10 . . . and I gave U2 a 10/10. It is still great fun, the engine is beautiful, the dynamic sets are amazing, the Chateau was gorgeous, the pirate abduction from start to finish was one of the most fun sequences (except that deep in the bowels section), etc.

However, the aiming felt a bit wonky, I ran into a few bugs/glitches, the story was not so interesting, things seemed cut out, a few levels were so hard in a cheap manner that just required replaying them over & over to win through trial & error. I just wasn't as awestruck as I was by U2.

At least they were pretty good about giving checkpoints most of the time.

Where in the hell does that .1 come from? Seriously?

 

[Rewrite]

I don't think anyone will enjoy Crushing in this game. It's easier because there's chapters where it's just exploration, but on the gun fights it becomes one of the most frustrating experiences ever especially because of the aiming. Then there's certain parts where you're placed in areas that have no cover once the mini cutscene ends and die until you spawn into a safe point. The gunplay is not as tight as it was in UC2's. UC2's Crushing was far more enjoyable and fun.

 

[Memles]

On the one hand, I found the game to be incredibly "satisfying": enjoyed getting some back story on Nate and Sully, appreciated the development of Nate/Elena, and there were more than enough gorgeous cinematic locations to deliver where the franchise is at its best. A friend described Uncharted as "interactive movies" the other day, and I think on that level Uncharted 3 was a worthwhile experience. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to miss it.

However, the game never develops any momentum beyond its linearity. Obviously, being as linear as it is, Uncharted has momentum: you're always moving forward, at least when you're not hidden behind a crate. However, I never felt like I was desperate to know what was coming next, and any time I spent away from the game (I started on Wednesday) wasn't spent thinking about what awaited me in the next play session. Once I started playing I thought things moved along fairly well, but it seemed terribly ephemeral, which I wouldn't say about Uncharted 2.

Some of this has to do with the story, which starts out far more interesting than it finishes, but part of it's just that the series' formula is losing its luster. It's not terrible, and I still enjoyed playing the game, but the beats were too predictable and the gameplay changes too invisible for this to feel like a whole new adventure. I fully understand where the lukewarm reviews were coming from: even as you acknowledge the technical achievements, and even as you consider the value of multiplayer, there's something about the game that ends up feeling like a missed opportunity if not an outright disappointment.

 

[Dr. Malik]

I don't think anyone will enjoy Crushing in this game. It's easier because there's chapters where it's just exploration, but on the gun fights it becomes one of the most frustrating experiences ever especially because of the aiming. Then there's certain parts where you're placed in areas that have no cover once the mini cutscene ends and die until you spawn into a safe point. The gunplay is not as tight as it was in UC2's. UC2's Crushing was far more enjoyable and fun.

Actually Crushing has made me enjoy the game while before I thought it was average and lesser to UC2.

 

[Rewrite]

Actually Crushing has made enjoy the game while before I thought it was average and lesser to UC2.

I only did 2 playthroughs. My first was on Hard which was enjoyable and the second was Crushing, which made me hate areas I loved on my Hard playthrough...a good example of this is chapter 20. Loved it on Hard, fucking hated it on Crushing.

Crushing did make the melee combat 100x better. It felt more smoother and better without those button prompts. ND should include the option of disabling them for Easy/Normal/Hard.

 

[EloquentM]

Crushing was a cake walk. The first playthough was more difficult.

 

[Melfice7]

U2 > U3 > U1

Just wish U2 didn't had autoaim

 

[daxter01]

no update about aiming patch ?

 

[eternaLightness]

There's no way I could play on Crushing. I got frustrated just on normal. It is one of the last few trophies I need on UC1 though. I kinda want to do it so I can have at least one platinum trophy lol.

 

[Mit-]

The sound randomly cutting out was a very big issue for me and I hope it's fixed in the future. I think it only affects older model PS3's.

Also, when the sound was doing that, if a cutscene was triggered, it would often slow down immensely and skip around a bit. Totally breaks all immersion into the storyline. Wasn't sure how to fix it except to power down my PS3 for a few minutes and try again, which didn't always work.

 

[Unknown One]

I agree.

I hate those armored jackasses, all of them. Also those rocket launchers and grenade launchers. It's pretty cheap in scenario to cause tension. I feel like it started with Uncharted 2 since that's when it popped up near the end of that game.

Uncharted 1 there was no scenario like those and in this game there is tons of them. Sometimes I begin a battle and get shot out of cover by those jackasses and then a hail of bullets come my way as I'm staggered.

 

[KingHenrik30]

I'd also like to add that the soundtrack to this one (as all UC's) is fantastic. Really makes the action sequences that much better.

 

[Rewrite]

I agree with the sentiment that the game's soundtrack is incredible. Easily the best soundtrack to all of the 3 games. Loved the tracks and there was a lot of beautiful arrangements. It's so awesome in the Multiplayer too. Definitely a great addition.

One thing regarding the music in the MP:

In the Subway beta, the music looped/transitioned perfectly. There are some instances where the music won't loop or transition to the next track properly...

 

[grap3fruitman]

Did they fix the aiming yet? I'm too lazy to pop in the game to check.

 

[Cudder]

Started playing this game today, got up to Chapter 7. Liking it so far, graphics are superb. The aiming does piss me off though.

I like the puzzles so far, not too hard, but gives satisfaction once you figure them out.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

I only did 2 playthroughs. My first was on Hard which was enjoyable and the second was Crushing, which made me hate areas I loved on my Hard playthrough...a good example of this is chapter 20. Loved it on Hard, fucking hated it on Crushing.

Crushing did make the melee combat 100x better. It felt more smoother and better without those button prompts. ND should include the option of disabling them for Easy/Normal/Hard.

Thats interesting I actually enjoyed the game even more on my second play-through on crushing. Agree 100% about the melee it is so much more engaging without the lame prompts.

ahuahuahauhauha

shoulda played it back when it was fresh

the more i play the game the more I like the campaign. on my third run now, going for the treasures

I am doing my trophy run right now as well and yeah game just gets better for me.

 

[speculawyer]

Did they fix the aiming yet? I'm too lazy to pop in the game to check.

No.

 

[BeeDog]

Didn't ND say they would detail the patch contents this weekend?

 

[Loudninja]

Didn't ND say they would detail the patch contents this weekend?

Well they did say hope to have more info this week.

We know its coming and they working on several things at least.

 

[Replicant]

Overall, this game is 8/10 for me.

Sorry, I know that score is a sore point for many fans but I don't think that score was too far off the mark from my view of its overall elements after completing the game twice on Normal and Crushing. I am not a newbie either because I actually love the series and have played and platinum'd UC1 and UC2 so hold on to your horses. I'd imagine newcomers will have an even bigger rage about a few things (mostly battles) in this game. Anyway, I got to that point because out of 10 points, I basically reduced half points from the story, half from graphic, and one from battle.

Battles: I actually enjoy the battles in UC3 more than in UC2 because there are more variety and ways to dispatch enemies. But while the battles were not as bad as those in UC1 or UC2, there are moments which are as frustrating as (or even more than) some moments in those earlier games. I don't actually hate Crushing because going in, I knew what I'm in for and was mostly prepared for the battles. The only two that caught me off-guard were the one at the bowel of the ship and the

Spoiler

Djinn

battles because on Normal, those two battles can be won quite easily by running + gunning + melee.

In general, I find the battle in here is far more memorable. I managed to get 100% stealth completion in the Citadel and Airport area, making what otherwise would have been chore battle into a fun stealth parts. The ship graveyard is sublime. I managed to take out half of the enemies using stealth, grabbing the Hammer, before finally got busted and engaged in a battle where I managed to outwit every fuckers who try to flank me. And I love the chase in Yemen, the cargo mini-battle, the horse-riding segment. Settlement battle was rough but perfectly doable even in crushing.

Graphics: I'm a bit disappointed here. The flashback segment and the arrival in Yemen cutscene look *really* rough. WTF happened there? Did ND assign a junior renderer/modeler for those two areas? I'm pretty disappointed with those two areas because the rest of the games look decent to mind-blowing. The chateau, the ship graveyard, the line cruise, Yemen city, Rub'al kali desert, The Iram of pillars are beautiful-looking locales. I do think that the look that ND aiming this time around (gold civilization) doesn't lend much to as exotic-looking textures as the temples in UC2 (peeling paints, old rusty metal, etc) but they're still good none the less.

Story: This is one area that I feel that ND always miss out on the mark a bit. I like the journey but the final revelation always tends to be a let down. Maybe I'm expecting a bigger shenanigan like Indiana Jones films where the ending is downright exciting and shocking. I think the fact that ND seems hesitant to go full-on with their supernatural element is holding back the series from achieving a pulp-like quality like the Indiana Jones movie. This installment is even more disappointing because

Spoiler

while it's being alluded to, we don't see any supernatural elements, creepy spiders and hallucination aside

. Also, I'm the minority in this but I feel making

Spoiler

Elena a stable companion for Drake this early in the story is a BIG mistake

. I always think the series will benefit from revolving doors of characters/companions so while I welcome

Spoiler

the addition of Charlie Cutter

, I wish ND will go against those fanboys who want Elena to be included on every single installment of this series.

Soundtrack is excellent and the controller will hopefully be fixed soon. I didn't appreciate Nate flailing around like wet noodle so hopefully there's less of this in future games.

 

[gutter_trash]

the change in melee went for the worse IMO,
now it went towards an Akham direction and meleeing a guy sometimes takes forever while getting shot at