Crunched said:
I'm not trying to derail the thread or say you're wrong or anything like that (it seems I have to put disclaimers down or I'll be dogpiled on), but I disagree with that. Complaining about linearity is different from complaining about genre. If someone complained that UC was an action game, then that's the same as complaining that Mario is a platformer.
Linearity is okay much of the time. That's not really what the problem is. And like I said, that goes beyond genre. A platformer can be linear. Doesn't mean it's bad. Some of the best are linear! The difference is they don't take away player input. They remain interactive.
Interactivity is what's being criticized. I think many people here are misunderstanding that. It's fine to be linear. But it's not fine when you take away control and simply watch what's happening instead of playing it. This has been discussed to death, and there are good points on both sides. The Uncharted series does do a damn good job of creating playable segments where other games would simply use cutscenes. But! it also takes away part of your control, or limits your actions until certain requirements have been met (say, talk to this person before you can interact with this rock).
Or, it could be .8/1. Which doesn't really seem so bad.
do you think player suddenly won't have the ability to roll during combat? I don't think so, ND sometimes remove the ability to run and force you to walk instead in UC2, usually when you're seeing amazing looking vista for the first time etc, but it's never during combat situation, it's always during story/exposition moment, to simply give you more cinematic feel to the game.
in UC1 submarine, Drake navigate the cramped environment with animation that is beyond what a normal walk cycle could accomplish. people actually praise UC series for doing this. it add cinematic flair to the game without sacrificing anything. there's no point in trying to jump in that cramped submarine anyway, so why not add something to the animation that will enhance the experience.
interactivity is not being sacrificed here, most of the time, ND let you play the cutscene, even if it's as simple as push analog forward and nothing else, you're still the one playing the game, even if you can only walk forward. and you can argue that the restricted moveset during this sequence in return give you complex animation that is not possible in standard move set.
and for your example about having to talk to specific person before you can interact with some rock. at least it never happened in previous uncharted, I think most of the time, Uncharted does a fine job in masking this trigger point.
