Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Catch-All

OK, having played through the first two in the last few weeks for the very first time, and playing 3 with no special love for the series, just ordinary enjoyment, I have to say this: 3 is not as good as 2, because they tried to do too much. The controls are extraordinarily frustrating. Getting Drake to actually do what you want is very difficult.

I threw my controller today, madder than I've probably ever been at a game, because he just would not f*cking roll under fire. He absolutely insisted on shoving the guys he was near when I hit the O button, while the huge machine gun dude kept chopping him to ribbons, and he did it like four times before I finally expired. Just f*cking ROLL, you asshole, get out of there.

I mean, they stress at you that O is how you avoid damage. They hammer it and hammer it and hammer it into you. But then when you really need it, in a big group of guys while you're being shot at from range, suddenly O is not evade anymore, it's ineffective grapple, and you die.

3 is very noticeably inferior to 2. I had a lot more fun with the second one.

I didn't realize how much more I liked 2 than 3 until I did a new game + and found that there are fewer unlockable cheats than in 2. As in, there are none. No character skins. No weapons. No infinite ammo for weapons. No Donut Drake. I think they dumped all that into multiplayer but I don't have much interest in multiplayer, because I suck.

RE: the spideys

Spoiler:

It kind of irritated me when Elena got mad for not being warned about the spiders.

They are SPIDERS. Animals. Not part of a lost culture, not part of ancient technology, they are arthropods that live in a specific habitat. They are not anthropology spiders or archeology spiders. They are cave spiders. So gee, Elena, maybe they didn't tell you about the spiders because it makes absolutely zero sense that they'd be specific to "clues about Uram" rather than, say, a region.

Wasn't too thrilled about how everyone suddenly started to question Drake's resolve, and whether or not it was really "worth it," even though Drake had been through far worse situations in the previous games. It felt contrived, like the game was trying to inject some sort of existential soul-searching, even though Drake never even seemed to consider giving up for an instant.

Played through chapter 7 on normal last night. Aiming controls are definitely off. I think it's a combination of a too-wide deadzone and a strange acceleration curve for it when it does start moving. I haven't managed to get comfortable with aiming yet. I'm already getting frustrated with guys spawning behind me, and I haven't even seen much of it yet. Finally, the camera in chase sequences seems to lag two beats behind where you need it. I died a lot on the first chase just due to having to trial and error where the game wanted me to go.

A friend who hasn't seen or played any of the Uncharted or Tomb Raider games helped me notice something: in the Uncharted universe, there are literally no problems that cannot be solved with either climbing or shooting. Look, a locked door. Don't worry! I'll open it...WITH CLIMBING. Unless it has a padlock on it, in which case...SHOOTING.

There are a few problems that can be solved with levers and switches.

If you're alone, one switch.

If you have someone with you, two switches.

If you have three buddies, four switches.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

Yeah, I only played 2 about two weeks ago, so I'm about as fresh as it gets -- no big expectations, no huge buildup, I just went from 2 (which I thought was very good) to 3, which I'm much less impressed with. Visually it's decidedly better, but I think they way overdid the 'epic level you're fighting through' bit, and the controls really suck. I was often quite immersed in 2, but 3 is so ridiculously over the top that it often strikes me as stupid and melodramatic right in the middle of the fights.

Again, it's not like I had some huge buildup on this thing, it wasn't even on my radar until last month. This isn't whining from someone who remembers the old game as better than it actually was. I just PLAYED the old game. I'm just going 1->2->3 in order, with a couple-week break between 2 and 3. And, in my opinion, 3 is about flash, instead of substance.

Malor wrote:

I threw my controller today, madder than I've probably ever been at a game, because he just would not f*cking roll under fire. He absolutely insisted on shoving the guys he was near when I hit the O button, while the huge machine gun dude kept chopping him to ribbons, and he did it like four times before I finally expired. Just f*cking ROLL, you asshole, get out of there.

I mean, they stress at you that O is how you avoid damage. They hammer it and hammer it and hammer it into you. But then when you really need it, in a big group of guys while you're being shot at from range, suddenly O is not evade anymore, it's ineffective grapple, and you die.

Yeah this one is setup to be like Batman with the cool melee attack/counter/grapple fights. Except it forces you into that melee fight, and you can't use your gun anymore, or evade like before. It changes the controls of the game.

And the melee system isn't as good as batman either. The timing on counters is way too easy, and really it's almost a button mash. It's a nice idea but not tightly executed enough.

Just let me shoot dudes, and sneak up on them sometimes, and stop trying to be Batman. Because Batman is way better.

Finsihed, and all I have to say is great f-ing game. Not perfect, but so much better than most other games.

Liked the story, liked the ending. I have a feeling this may be the last we see of Drake, as Naughty Dog may move on to something else, and I'm a little sad at that thought.

Up to chapter 9. It's like the other ones, but turned up a notch. Visually, but also in the thing that's always bugged me about these games. There's a game in there that I want to play. That one has gorgeous environments, a storyline, exploration, and puzzle solving. Then they keep making me play this really mediocre shooter to get to the fun parts.

This one's shooting controls have taken a step back. While before the shooting was annoying but do-able, now it's annoying and awkward to control.

I've also fallen victim to a few sections where I'm insta-killed because the controls wouldn't do what I wanted to, like make Nate jump to the hand hold to his right.

Frankly, the annoyances are adding up pretty fast. It's nice that Naughty Dog has said there might be some bug in the aiming that they're hoping to fix with a patch, but A) how do you mess up something as fundamental as aiming, and B) you only get one chance to make a first impression, and this one's not good.

And is anyone else getting tired of fighting against an army of MIBs?

I'm at Chapter 5 at this point and I'm definitely underwhelmed. I'm enjoying the story/cinematic feel just as much as always but the gameplay isn't doing it for me as much. The controls are definitely much worse and I found Chapter 3 to be one of the most frustrating video game experiences I've had in a while.

Overall, I'm still enjoying it enough to keep going but I really hope it picks up soon.

If I turn off the hints in the options will it not make obviously climbable objects yellow? That would be nice.

I played up through Chapter 16 in one sitting. It was a very long sitting but entirely worth it I would agree that there are a couple times where the controller almost got tossed due to crappy controls.

Spoiler:

Like the puzzle with the gears. Trying to rearrange them was maddening!

DeThroned wrote:

I played up through Chapter 16 in one sitting. It was a very long sitting but entirely worth it I would agree that there are a couple times where the controller almost got tossed due to crappy controls.

Spoiler:

Like the puzzle with the gears. Trying to rearrange them was maddening!

Yes!

Spoiler:

I had to install a gear in the wrong place just to get the others in place, then remove the misplaced gear to finish the puzzle.

Are you guys playing on hard or normal? I think I played Among Thieves on hard, but I played this one on normal as a reprieve from Dark Souls and I didn't have any problems that were particularly maddening except for when I accidentally grappled with a guy and a sniper invariably took my head off during the unbreakable animation. If anything the main problem with this game is that it felt even MORE on rails than UC2 did, unless I'm remember wrong. Though head shots are a little tricky for whatever weird control reason.

I'm not always a fan of Mike Barnes' opinions, but this is spot on:

Linearity, Scripting, and Directorial Design.

It's 5:30 in the morning. I have just finished the game after playing the last six hours straight. This game was like a master class in frustrating game design. I want to find out who it was that thought the run-straight-into-the-camera chases were a good idea and then punch them in the dick, really hard. At least there were no blue people.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I want to find out who it was that thought the run-straight-into-the-camera chases were a good idea and then punch them in the dick, really hard.

Yeah, I have no idea who the hell thinks that is good design. I understand it gives certain level of tension but it does not belong in a game I'm controlling. Just make it another cut-scene if you want me to run back toward myself.

I thought the gear puzzle was really easy.

Spoiler:

Drake's notebook tells you to alternate dots and crosses, and the size of the border tells you how big a gear you need. From there it's just a matter of finding the things, and the game specifically points out the only gear that would have been hard to find.

I'm on chapter 16 now, I think I'm about at the end of my rope. I simply hate hate hate the arena combat sections with waves of enemies. The juggernaut guys with the body armor and shotguns are the worst. I seem to remember that un UC2, you could headshot them once to knock off their helmet, and again to kill them, which wasn't so bad. Here, either headshots are a LOT more difficult to get (entirely possible with the new improved terrible aiming controls), or they're harder to kill.

At this point, the farthest I can seem to get in my current fight is to the wave where they send two of them at you with a sniper up on top. It's absolutely infuriating. This is absolutely the last time I play one of these games.

From what I've found, it's not that it's harder to get a headshot. It's just that not all weapons can knock it off in one hit.

You're right, though, U3 is FULL of those arena-style combats where you're up against impossible odds and there's always at least three enemies who can kill you in one hit. One of them pops up in a place where you'd think there would be no way in HELL of even finding ONE enemy. Another one has you pinned down by two snipers at once, one on either side, so you need to kill one in order to create safe cover for yourself.

It just isn't fun, and I don't really understand how anyone could enjoy it.

"Whee! I got blown up again! That makes five! Oooh, I hope it happens again!"

LobsterMobster wrote:

From what I've found, it's not that it's harder to get a headshot. It's just that not all weapons can knock it off in one hit.

You're right, though, U3 is FULL of those arena-style combats where you're up against impossible odds and there's always at least three enemies who can kill you in one hit. One of them pops up in a place where you'd think there would be no way in HELL of even finding ONE enemy. Another one has you pinned down by two snipers at once, one on either side, so you need to kill one in order to create safe cover for yourself.

It just isn't fun, and I don't really understand how anyone could enjoy it.

"Whee! I got blown up again! That makes five! Oooh, I hope it happens again!"

Playing on normal, I have yet to face any frustration like this. In fact, I enjoy the challenge of the combat immensely. And, I would definitely not call my 41 y/o mitts skillful. You all must really suck at video games;-)

I hate the controller. I aim on the PS3 like an untrained orangutan might if handed the PS3 controller, smashing randomly at the sticks and hoping I luck out and it does something resembling what I want it to do.

I still never had an issue with any of the combat really... run back somewhere, plug away at all the far off guys and snipers right off the bat and then take out the leftovers hand to hand. I approached pretty much every piece of combat in the game this way and never had real trouble, other then getting super annoyed that I was spending an entire magazine of ammo trying to kill said faraway guys because I hate the controller and not because the game is actually challenging.

I do really suck at video games, yes, and to me, challenge is a pretty close balance. I only have fun with challenge if I'm good enough to succeed. But if I can do it without having to try a million times, how much of a challenge is that really?

I prefer games that base their challenge on character progression. The sorts of games where if something is too hard for me, I can go and get better until it's no longer too hard for me. It's not cheating because I earned that extra power.

You might say I could always just go train MYSELF until I'M better, but I don't play games to learn skills. I play them to have fun.

MisterStatic wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

From what I've found, it's not that it's harder to get a headshot. It's just that not all weapons can knock it off in one hit.

You're right, though, U3 is FULL of those arena-style combats where you're up against impossible odds and there's always at least three enemies who can kill you in one hit. One of them pops up in a place where you'd think there would be no way in HELL of even finding ONE enemy. Another one has you pinned down by two snipers at once, one on either side, so you need to kill one in order to create safe cover for yourself.

It just isn't fun, and I don't really understand how anyone could enjoy it.

"Whee! I got blown up again! That makes five! Oooh, I hope it happens again!"

Playing on normal, I have yet to face any frustration like this. In fact, I enjoy the challenge of the combat immensely. And, I would definitely not call my 41 y/o mitts skillful. You all must really suck at video games;-)

It's been close, on Normal. A couple spots I've had to repeat. And I'm a guy who enjoys Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. The parts where the controls change and it forces you to melee are really annoying. And sometimes that happens in the middle of a firefight when a guy just gets too close to you. I got really annoyed on one part of the abandoned shipyard level, when I actually got to near the end of a section finally, snuck up behind one of those manned guns and then got melee-ed by a guy behind me, so the gun could get an easy kill on me.

But that's why I'm playing on Normal, so those bits only happen here and there. I can't imagine Crushing not being a ridiculously frustrating joke this time around.

If you are frustrated with the combat, there is a solution (if you are man enough to try it). Switch the difficulty to easy or very easy. I started on normal, and was really enjoying the game, but frustration started to mount as the armored enemies started to show up in greater numbers in the middle of the game. It really irked me that a well placed grenade or a head shot wouldn't even knock their helmets off, plus it disrupted my suspension of disbelief. I switched down to easy, and the weapons start to do noticeable damage, and the arenas aren't quite as packed. With the combat frustration reduced (and I still had fun with the shooting with it on easy), you can stop throwing the controller, and enjoy the puzzles, platforming, characters, and spectacle of the game. I finished last night, and the game had a least a dozen "wow" moments for me - it is a shame the shooting doesn't do justice to the rest of the game, but I still loved it.

MrShoop wrote:

If you are frustrated with the combat, there is a solution (if you are man enough to try it). Switch the difficulty to easy or very easy.

I switched to easy some time during the first one and haven't gone back to normal. And I'm having loads of fun. Yeah, the combat is generally a breeze, but that's totally ok with me, I'm happy just gawking at the pretty scenery and set pieces.

I'm playing the game just to enjoy the story and honestly not for a challenge. I'm on very easy. Very few times have I died (mostly by leaping into some bottomless abyss) and really do enjoy the story. It didn't start off even close to as good as U2 but it does get more exciting the more I play.

I've been muscling through on Normal, but mainly because the two times I went to switch down to Very Easy, it told me I'd be reverted to a previous checkpoint. Not knowing how far back that'd set me, I decided to push through.

So yes, some of the combat frustration is due to me playing on Normal (though you'd think that Normal wouldn't necessarily push me to frustration), but there's definitely control issues here. I also have an incredibly hard time suspending disbelief sometimes. The well-documented tenacity of the henchmen is completely nuts. The final straw on that for me was (chapter ~17 spoiler):

Spoiler:

when the plane starts going down, the henchmen yell about how we're going to crash and they're all going to die, and THEY KEEP ON SHOOTING AT YOU. Not quite as bad were the henchmen insisting that you must die while the burning castle collapses around them.

Chaz wrote:

I've been muscling through on Normal, but mainly because the two times I went to switch down to Very Easy, it told me I'd be reverted to a previous checkpoint. Not knowing how far back that'd set me, I decided to push through.
...

One cool interface thing they do, that I dont recall seeing before, is when you hit pause it tells you how many minutes have gone by since the last checkpoint.

I also wanted to mention the score. It really helped give that big production, spectacle feel. The main theme is one of my favorite game compositions..

I eat crow, the

Spoiler:

dust storm sent me to easy. It is very easy to switch though.

Yeah sometimes I would just let U2 sit in the menu for a few minutes listening to the main theme. Same with U3.

Stele wrote:

Yeah sometimes I would just let U2 sit in the menu for a few minutes listening to the main theme. Same with U3. :D

Me too. Did it the very first time I loaded up U3 actually.