The You-Know-Who-Deletes-A-New-Boring-Hang Out - Dong Edition

[Nemkoon]

You're damn right pokemanz!

I'm just finishing up the Orange Islands Season lol

[Pickles]

I'm just finishing up the Orange Islands Season lol

I was only thinking about watching the series the other day.

[Nemkoon]

I was only thinking about watching the series the other day.

I wanna be the very best

[Pickles]

I wanna be the very best

Tough shit, get a job. SONG OVER

[Nemkoon]

Tough shit, get a job. SONG OVER

lol

[skullpoker]

In anime, sending your kid out into the world to capture wild animals and make them pit-fight > making them get a job. More profitable, too.

[Drageuth]

I've always failed to see the appeal of Uncharted, I like them, but for me once you play the first you've played them all, so I don't really get excited for their titles. I hope it works out though.

They are very fun games, and I personally think that Uncharted 2 deserves all of the praise that it gets and more. U1 was a great start, but it didn't feel like the "grand adventure" like U2 did. It slipped a bit too far into the absurd in the third act, where U2 definitely felt more in line with what you would see in an Indiana Jones flick (which the series has been compared to all along). U3 was fun, but it seemed to sacrifice massive puzzles/platforming/exploration for huge gun battles, which felt like a hit to the series. U2 will remain my favourite Uncharted game, and I generally just forget that I played U3 because it had such little impression on me ('cept for the pirate boat area, that was pretty awesome).

The Last Of Us doesn't seem to be like Uncharted at all, which is what has me concerned. On one hand, the Naughty Dog team have proven they can make several different hit series (Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Uncharted), but those all revolved around platforming and collecting. The Last of Us seems to revolve around stealth, puzzle solving, and teamwork. The companion AI in U3 (in my opinion) was awful, constantly getting in my way. It also takes a dive into the "realistic" absurd -- where Crash and Jak were cartoony games, so they could get away with more, Uncharted and The Last of Us are realistic games, which means that everything should be grounded in something feasible that could actually happen. I'm unconvinced about the whole fungal infection thing at the moment. I'll reserve judgement on that one until I play the game.

I think it's still going to be great, and the worst that it could possibly score would be an 8/10 on most review sites. But really, when it comes to the expectations out of the new game from Naughty Dog (which is how this will be viewed), anything less than a 9/10 average is going to be viewed as a disappointment, and I think they're going to lose some of their core audience with this game because that audience want to play a simple third person shooter with a decent story and a wise cracking protagonist, which Uncharted filled marvellously.

[Shane]

G'night EP.

Gosh, I don't think being up at 1 AM is a good idea...
Never mind TV Tropes.
Emuparadise ruined my life

[FlavaFlave]

They are very fun games, and I personally think that Uncharted 2 deserves all of the praise that it gets and more. U1 was a great start, but it didn't feel like the "grand adventure" like U2 did. It slipped a bit too far into the absurd in the third act, where U2 definitely felt more in line with what you would see in an Indiana Jones flick (which the series has been compared to all along). U3 was fun, but it seemed to sacrifice massive puzzles/platforming/exploration for huge gun battles, which felt like a hit to the series.

^This
UC1 was great when it came out, and even the absurd zombie stuff didn't bother me too much, but you're right that it didn't really fit too well (aliens in Crystal Skull? haha). UC2 is by far the best, and going into 3, I knew it would be hard to top. UC3 just felt like a bunch of grand set pieces strung together for the sole purpose of shooting shit. I don't mind shooting and action, but UC needs to stick more to the puzzle solving, which was always fun. I've pretty much written off UC3 as the one I'll never return to in the franchise, but at least it wasn't as disappointing as Mass Effect 3 (for me anyway).

So how is Tomb Raider going? How close to UC is it?

[Drageuth]

So how is Tomb Raider going? How close to UC is it?

Spoiler warning:

Tomb Raider has been fun. I've been distracted this last week and have barely played it, so I can't give too much of a review at the moment. It pushes the story along quite nicely, delivering narrative at different points in the game, which I love. The main focus of the story is told via the cutscenes and set pieces, but you also hear Lara's internal dialogue when you set up at different campsites and upgrade your equipment (she's talking as you navigate the menus and whatnot), which I love because it's not forcing me to sit through something I might not be entirely interested in, and doesn't necessarily push the story forward, just develops the character a bit more.

Similar to Bioshock or Dead Space, there are also a bunch of diaries or notes or whatevers lying around the island that explain a bit more of the backstory of some of the other people who have come to the island, which are there if you want to read them but don't really matter at all to the overall story or Lara, they're just there to give the island personality.

My favourite thing so far is that the puzzle segments seem to be limited to option side tombs that you can explore. Like I said, I'm not very far into the game, so there might be more puzzle heavy main quest stuff coming up, but everything so far has been very straight forward if I want it to be, but if I want to solve puzzles to get a bit more extra scrap for upgrading, I have that option as well. So far, I have not been caught up in a "I don't know where to go from here" moment like I have been in similar games, which is awesome.

The combat has felt... somewhat weak, I suppose. They're just starting to introduce different "enemy types" to me right now, so I'll reserve judgement until I get a few more heavy battles under my belt. I mainly use the bow & arrow, though, which allows for stealth kills and endless amounts of fun. The pistol feels almost useless at times, and my assault rifle has only really proved useful against large groups of enemies. Even within that, it burns through ammo so fast that I don't like using it.

The cover system in the game is seamless, and definitely deserves high praise. You don't have to push any buttons to take cover, you just naturally do it behind almost anything that is waist height or higher. It feels smooth and (to this point) has always done what I wanted it to do. It feels like a fluid motion, moving from cover to cover while sniping people with my bow. It's how I wish Uncharted's cover system had worked.

The story so far has been interesting, but I'm not deep enough to really comment on it. For all I know, it could turn into Rage and just absolutely shit the bed in the last ten minutes. We'll see. But I would highly recommend it -- I'm not disappointed at all with my purchase so far, even though I haven't put as much time into it as I feel like I should. I haven't touched the multiplayer yet, but I have a feeling it's not going to be enough to hold too many people to the game.

Also, it's a gorgeous game. Absolutely gorgeous.

As for how close to Uncharted it is... it's like Uncharted if you only had four weapons to use at any time. The platforming is very similar to Uncharted (even fleshes it out a tiny bit to put more of an onus on the player, less on the system knowing exactly what you want to do), but the combat is definitely different. I'll use the comparison between Die Hard and Rambo, where Lara Croft is John McClane and Nathan Drake is Rambo. McClane has to fight off terrorists using his ingenuity, dexterity, stealth, a keen understanding of his environment, and occasionally a somewhat larger weapon if he happens to get his hands on one, but each encounter will slowly leave him more battered and bruised. Rambo will sometimes hide in the trees and try and peg off people one by one, but as soon as he's discovered, he will go in guns blazing, and come out relatively unscathed.

Does that make sense?

[FlavaFlave]

Does that make sense?

Yep, perfect sense
I have to slog through GoW and by the time I finish it, Bioshock Infinite will be out. After Bioshock, I'll get serious about Tomb Raider, and maybe by that point I will have found it on sale or something. Newegg.com and Amazon have been pretty good about slashing $20 off titles after a few weeks, you just have to catch them when they do it.

I'm not a StarCraft 2 junkie, but newegg was selling it brand new for $19.95 (physical copy) for about a 24 hour period prior to launch. I should have been smart and grabbed it because it's $40 at retail.

[Drageuth]

Bioshock Infinite is the next game that I'm really looking forward to. I enjoy the God of War games, but I just can't bring myself to buy them brand new. I never even entertained the thought of buying Ascension Day 1, which kind of says all it needs to about the game for me. Which is sad, because it is a game style that I enjoy... there's just something about the God of War feel to it that puts me off a little bit, where I don't want to pay more than $30 for that kind of game.

I really need to clear out my backlog, though. After Infinite and The Last of Us, I don't think I'm going to buy any more games Day 1 until the fall. I hope, anyways. There are still a lot of games coming out or have come out this year that I want to play.

[FlavaFlave]

I really need to clear out my backlog, though. After Infinite and The Last of Us, I don't think I'm going to buy any more games Day 1 until the fall. I hope, anyways. There are still a lot of games coming out or have come out this year that I want to play.

My backlog is just stupid - I've accepted the fact that if I didn't finish it within the first few weeks, then it's not going to happen for another few years
Zaladane gave me a renewed interest in Hitman Absolution, but that's already faded, lol.

[Zaladane]

My backlog is just stupid - I've accepted the fact that if I didn't finish it within the first few weeks, then it's not going to happen for another few years
Zaladane gave me a renewed interest in Hitman Absolution, but that's already faded, lol.

PLAY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FlavaFlave]

PLAY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I've got a few new toys to play with

Otherwise I probably would - but now I need to restart the game on a lower difficulty so I can get back into the groove of how it plays. That's my biggest problem these days, if I don't play a particular game for several months (in this case Hitman), I typically need to start over just so I can get back into it and feel comfortable playing. I never used to be like that.... maybe I'm getting old