I almost finished Uncharted 2 yesterday. I got to Shangri la before I had to stop for the night. What a fantastic game but what a pain in the shooter. I think I've discovered what I love best about games. It's not the presentation and good story telling that the critics love, it's the gunplay controls.
Ocean view. Where's the treasure?
Uncharted 2's presentation is hard to beat and the way the story unfolds is right up there with the best action movies, but when it comes to all out gunplay, it's not the best. It's not bad by any means, but I found myself really struggling with it. Aiming is still a sloppy affair like the first Uncharted and moving from cover to cover is decent but sometimes you can't gain cover in a corner you think you should and sometimes you don't come out of cover quite the way you want to. The melee fighting is guesswork. You have to hit the triangle button to counter an attack at just the right time. It's usually as your opponent is winding up for a big punch. It takes some getting used to because there are no prompts to tell you when, just a slight bit of slo-mo just when you should do it. I had this epic fist fight with a guy on a train. I had to battle him over and over before I got the timing just right. You have to counter many attacks to beat him.
I played the game on the default difficulty, normal, just like Uncharted 1. Enemies weren't quite the bullet sponges they were in the first game, but a few enemies require a lot of bullets or the ever difficult double head shot: one for knocking off their helmet, the next for their skull.
I found myself running out of ammo a lot. Precision shooting is not easy, so I would inevitably do lots of burst shots that use up a lot of ammo. This means I couldn't use many of the more powerful weapons because there is so little ammo for them. In one section, fighting many enemies in the rail yard, I had to switch weapons so much and so quickly to counter the various enemies and keep my ammo up. I'd use the sniper rifle against the snipers, then drop it and pick up an assault rifle for the rest. Then throw a grenade against shielded enemies. It was quite hectic.
Spent some time in the hotel pool There's a few trophies for goofing around there. Where's the treasure?
Platforming was still good but on the moving train it drove me nuts. You have to be facing exactly right for a jump or to grab a ladder or you'll find yourself flying into the woods and dying. Doing this while being shot at makes it even trickier. Mostly though, it worked fine and, I have to say, the moving train segment is quite a thrill.
Mountain view. Where's the treasure?
The graphics are noticeable better than the first game and there are many more locations and beautiful vistas to be seen. The story is interesting, but like the first game, really derivative of a lot of similar adventure stories. I could see the double crosses a mile away. Still, the voice work is stellar and the dialog pretty engaging. I always had to turn up the sound to hear the cut scenes over the Bulletstorm mayhem going on next to me. I didn't want to miss anything.
I spent a lot of time looking for treasure in the levels. Usually they are in some corner right after a gun fight, but you never know. I found about 22 of the 100 so far. I would constantly say, "where's the treasure?" like South Park's Terrance and Phillip everytime I went looking for it. . . I like to make an annoyance of myself in company.
I'll be finishing the game next weekend, but I don't think I'll play Uncharted 3 right away. I'm trying to be strict and stay with my list. I should get back to Skyrim and see how far I get in that.
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