Uncharted 2 – The right way to do gaming?

I was shocked to find a copy of Uncharted 2 in the local Blockbuster. From the history of the first Uncharted, I was able to clear it pretty fast – so buying Uncharted 2 was a gamble since I may be done with it quickly.

Uncharted 2 was considered THE game to show the power of the PlayStation 3 and hopefully raise the bar to what other companies need to do to make a great game. Instead of a review of the game, I wanted to comment on this factor and whether or not it’s legit.

One thing I was amazed at throughout my playing is that the game looked great all around with no loading times, except for a longer-than-usual one at the beginning, and despite everything that was happening, the system kept up – no frame rate loss, no lag – the PS3 kept up with a game that was supposedly using the Cell Processor in the way that it was supposed to be used.

What really caught me though – was the presentation of the game. Naughty Dog did a phenomenal job at making the game fun to play and fun to watch. Cutscenes were legitimately funny thanks to the script of the characters back and forth. Not a fall-to-the-ground-laughing sort of thing but the way the dialogue was presented provided humor here and there.

Miscellaneous things such as Nathan Drake “playing” Marco-Polo while in a swimming pool (which is really ironic considering the game is based on a specific journey of Marco Polo) were one of the many miscellaneous things that showed me that the developers had fun with what they were doing. They also portrayed Nathan Drake as someone who had no problem being uneasy in the face of danger. He would react almost like WE would react in situations – unlike someone like Batman or Nathan Hale who seemingly has no fear.

Granted, Nathan has to be more daring than us, but when you see the “hero” of the game questioning why they’re doing what they’re doing before they jump – or, at one point say that they give up and that they’re finished with the whole ordeal – would be almost exactly what we would possibly do in the same situation.

Action sequences were done well too. Certain angles the camera would add to the overall feel of the game – and the levels that involved trains and jumping from vehicle-to-vehicle were also well done.

And this is why I really enjoyed Uncharted 2 – not because it’s properly using the Cell Processor or because it’s a hyped up game … but because the game’s presentation was so well done in my opinion. I never really got bored as I was playing the game – it always had my piqued attention. The game had it’s flaws, and multiplayer overall doesn’t seem as in-depth as Resistance 2 … which unfortunately means that this game can be cleared with a rental.

But, because the overall presentation of the game was so unique and well-done to me, that I may consider buying this once I have $60 to spend.

I also wanted to note my new admiration towards Naughty Dog. During the credits, it’s revealed that they give special thanks to many other game companies – including an almost 360-exclusive Bungie Studios. I’m also impressed that they are very public about how to properly code for the PS3’s Cell Processor. Many companies may keep this secret to themselves and capitalize on it to make great games. Whether you’re a fan of ND’s games or not, you have to admire them for the help they offer to other game companies who work with the PS3.

Welcome to the world, PS3 Slim …

… we knew about you for months. But despite the fact that Sony can’t seem to hold big secrets to save their lives, Sony threw out a bunch of info that fans really wanted to hear – ultimately making Sony that much more of a competition to Nintendo and Microsoft. And considering this is a blog that is 95% geared towards PS3, I feel the need to comment on them and mention why I think Sony has just made themselves that much more of a formidable opponent.

• Price Cut to $300. It’s what people have been asking for for a long time – damn near a year I’d say at least. At first, I could understand why they stuck to the $400 price tag, but when they announced that production costs were down by around 60-70% that’s when I finally jumped ship and said that they need to do a price cut. And, they did. And they did it for both systems … so it looks like $300 is the common price for a PS3. This should silence everyone saying that they’re holding out on a PS3 because it was too expensive, considering they dropped the price by about 25%.
• PS3 Slim. The PlayStation 3 finally has it’s makeover. Personally, I prefer the bulkier original but lucky for me, I don’t have to buy this one. I am a bit envious of the less power consumption … but no matter, I’m not sure how much it would reduce my electric bill if I bought a Slim. But, people who complained that it was too ugly or bulky can’t complain anymore.
• Rumored 250GB PS3 Slim. Not even a day after it was announced, places like Joystiq PS3 and PlayStation Lifestyle caught glimpse of another PS3 Slim model that was submitted to the FCC(?) which mentioned that it would have a 250GB model. Now, while this will give people another reason to hold off on a PS3, it shows that Sony is slowly catching up to what Microsoft is already offering.
• Firmware 3.0. On top of the PS3 Slim, and price cut, we’re also getting an update to the XMB. The PlayStaton Store is now under the game and videos tab and will link directly to the appropriate sections. The background of the OS gets a little update and we get a new information board, trophy sorting, and a small update to our friends list. We also get a new little mini-bar on the top-right which will let us know how many friends are online (numberwise), the date, time, our avatar and a little blurb of news, like a ticker. Something that I’m looking forward to are Dynamic Themes. Where now you’d have a standard wallpaper – a dynamic theme will have an animated background. A neat update overall, but will probably leave people still complaining about no cross-game voice chat.

And finally, it looks like the PS3 Slim brands a new logo, in what looks like to be a rebranding of the product. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of this because it’s inconsistent with the model I have, but it’s nice to see them actively working to improve their product in all senses.

Ultimately, this puts Microsoft in a bit of a bind. With the rumored 250 PS3 Slim and the price cut, the PS3 now has almost everything that the 360 offers but also has a BluRay drive on top of that. As for Nintendo, they will have to look into a price cut because, like my friend has said, you can buy a much more powerful system for $100 more.

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with what Sony pulled off yesterday. Almost everything announced was stuff that people were asking for for a long time – Price Cut, PS3 Slim, Firmware 3.0 – and it really makes it look like Sony actively listens to the input.

Hopefully it works out in the end for them – although I guess we’ll have to wait until the reports come in to see if it did or not.

New Look. New Methods. New Rating Style.

So, after I received an e-mail from a friend regarding this gaming blog, I came to a small revelation. It’s a way that I could do this blog and not be bogged down by it at the same time. Here is the problem with the way I previously did the blog – it was too time-consuming. For every game that I reviewed, I had to look into each aspect of the game and nit-pick it. And ultimately, that was a lot of time just thinking of stuff I could write about. That’s not to say that my reviews are bullcrap, but that I sometimes really had to think of what to say regarding controls, music, etc.

So, I’ve decided to try this again – in a Compact mode. All my reviews will most likely be massively smaller, and my rants will also be trimmed down as well. The idea is that my stuff is something that can be read in a matter of minutes and my reviews aren’t page-long reviews.

Instead, I will be basing my new rating system off bullet points. I will highlight what I think were good and bad points about the game. If the game is bad, it’ll have more bullet points in the bad category – it’s really not rocket science. At the end, I’ll summarize the good and the bad and come to my conclusion then. This will also open up a new final rating score that won’t be based off a percentage, 5-star system but rather what the game has more of.

For example … reviewing a game I have 10 good things to say and 7 bad things. The difference will be +3. So the game will have a rating of +3. It’ll obviously work the other way around. If a game has 3 good things and 6 bad things, then final rating will be -3. This will allow me to give a final “grade” to the game while sticking to a simple and quick review method.

I have a lot of games to review, and with this new system, I can pump out reviews in a much quicker method than the old way I did it. So we can look for reviews of the following games coming soon: inFamous, Grand Theft Auto 4, Fat Princess, Burn Zombie Burn, Call of Duty: World at War, and X-Men: Wolverine Origins.

Back for a E3 review

Despite me taking a sabbatical for a indefinite amount of time, I felt that I should at least comment on my thoughts from the E3 expo that happened a few weeks back. Needless to say, I was interested in what was going to happen because I hold the personal opinion that we’re nearing the ceiling in terms of graphical enhancements. Outside of facial expressions and background details, I don’t think we can get much better than what we’re at now. The only real advancements we can make is to make it easier to make these pretty graphics for the developers. That being said, it’s not come down more on innovation, gameplay and creativeness for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.

And it looks like Sony and Microsoft succeeded, and Nintendo fell on its face.

Sorry, but I’m done for the moment.

Oh it’s true … all you Fallout 3 and Killzone 2 fans can rejoice because I am taking a indefinite hiatus from this blog. It’s not because I’ve been beaten down for my “terrible” Killzone 2 review, but rather personal things that have been going on in my life.

To sum it up in a nutshell, I feel as if I’ve been in a very serious chain of unfortunate events and it’s finally starting to take its toll on me mentally and physically. So I’ve been cutting back on some of the things that have stressed me out – and this blog will be one of them. Granted, writing isn’t stressful but the feeling that I have to update at least twice a week as well as writing out detailed reviews has a tendency to be stressful.

I find myself playing less and less on the PSP and the PS3 and instead just watching television. But, that’s not to say that writing hasn’t been enjoyable … I’m just looking to take a small break. I’m not sure when I’ll be writing again … it could be a few weeks, a few months or maybe never.

But it was fun while it lasted.