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General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: DS on February 25, 2008, 03:48:24 pm

Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: DS on February 25, 2008, 03:48:24 pm
Maybe I'm just OUT OF LOOP or something but I seriously haven't seen people talking about this game at all. I don't really know how well it has been received, and I don't know if it's popular or not, or how many people have played it but I hadn't even heard of it before buying PS3, and I only heard the game's name because it was coming with the console. It surprised me that Uncharted is made by Naughty Dog because I seriously had no clue they were working on a new game. Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter are both among my favorite platformers so this of course was very good news for me. But anyway, I suppose it's just me who didn't know about Uncharted, and I was really, really positively surprised when I finally got to play it. If you have a PS3 but don't have this game, I really recommend you to get it. And if you are looking for a reason to buy PS3, I think you definitely need to add Uncharted in the list of games to buy.

SCREENS:

Uncharted is a hybrid of many genres. It's mainly an action/adventure game with heavy emphasis on Gears of War-esque gunfights but there are also a lot of platforming and puzzle elements plus cool driving and water scooter sequences. I'm not really a big fan of console shooters so I was kinda pessimistic about the gunfights but it was actually pretty fun to hide behind objects, pop out and quickly shooting your enemies while they surround you from each direction and you'll constantly have to reposition yourself while evading bullets and grenades. There's really nothing new here, and the weapons are all pretty basic (various pistols, rifles, shotgun, rocket launcher and sniper) but the game is always fun to play, mostly because of the really good level design. It's also awesome to see bullets and grenades destroying your cover in midst of hectic gunfights.

The main reason I like Uncharted is not the gunfights though, in fact, gunfights were my least favorite parts of the game on most part, but that's mostly due to the fact that I don't really like shooters on consoles that much, as I already mentioned. What I really liked about Uncharted above all is the fantastic level design and this feeling of exploration you get. It's actually a very linear game, there's pretty much only one path to take at all times but it didn't bother me one bit because there are some large areas as well and it's always fun figuring out what you have to do to proceed. Unlike in most platformers, there isn't really any challenge in timing your jumps or anything of the sort, it's really all about finding where to go. Most of the puzzles are really simple and it's also usually easy to figure out what to do next (I never got stuck for more than a few minutes) so the platforming parts are usually pretty easy but surprisingly fun, believe me. I'm sure you'll be dying at least a few times in the platforming parts but they never get annoying because the controls are really smooth and you just have to make the jump in the right direction and that's all there really is to it. I'm not sure if it sounds fun, but I enjoyed it a lot, and I definitely prefer the way Uncharted is doing things to, for example, Tomb Raider's precise and annoying controls. Again, I will put emphasis on the clever and fantastic level design, it's really what made this game so much fun. And as for the feeling of exploration, it really helps that this game has absolutely fantastic graphics for a console game and the game is really cinematic so it just gives you this really nice feeling I can't quite put in words. The graphics, voice acting and music are all top-notch and while the story and the characters are all but original, the story is interesting because the cutscenes are so well done and the characters have a lot of personality.

The game doesn't really come without flaws though. It's pretty short (took me around 7-8 hours to beat it) and like I told before, very linear. This didn't really bother me though as the game didn't feel too short for me and the linearity wasn't really that apparent, or at least I didn't really think about it during the game. The gunfights can get tedious because there are a lot of them and for majority of the game, you will be fighting the same enemies. I also I think there are a bit too many checkpoints which ultimately make the challenging parts too easy since you have unlimited lives and there's practically no replaying any earlier parts. I'm not someone who wants games to be annoyingly difficult but Uncharted just didn't feel challenging, despite that I died at least a dozen of times and that there were some fairly difficult parts. At least for me, since I'm not used to playing shooters on controllers. Though in Uncharted's defense, I think it's really a game which is about experiencing the world and in that way, I can see the reasoning behind Naughty Dog's decision.

Links:
Gamerankings page (http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/932984.asp)
Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted:_Drake's_Fortune)

Well, this actually turned out to be a bit more similar to a review than I actually meant it to be but oh well. I'm just kinda interested in if anyone else has played it and what they think about it. I think it's one of the best games I have played in a while (would make it to my best games of 2007 list) and if you haven't played it and you have a chance to try it out, you should give it a go.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: maladroithim on February 25, 2008, 03:54:12 pm
I got it when it first came out and thought it was a really stellar game.  It isn't the best at platforming or at shooting or at exploring in terms of raw game design, but when you look at the game as a complete package you see that there's not really anything done badly.  My favorite part about the game was that it was basically a bad Hollywood movie but you get to play it instead of watch it.  I was especially impressed with the acting and character design because everyone seemed much more natural than video game characters tend to.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Harland on February 25, 2008, 06:24:32 pm
I played it for about an hour on my cousin's PS3. Even in that short time the puzzles got a bit repetitive but I did enjoy the Prince of Persia-esque acrobatic sections.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Ash on February 25, 2008, 07:22:14 pm
So does the main character have humorous dialog? His snippet from the commercial was pretty good if that's consistent throughout the game.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 25, 2008, 07:49:53 pm
I thought it was a pretty stellar game.  Insane production values, terrific writing, excellent level design, and the gunplay/platforming was kept thoroughly interesting... basically it was the PS3's Gears of War except the plot was less retarded.  It was short, yes, but the game was literally like a rollercoaster ride.  A slightly slow climb up but once you hit the incline it's a blast all the way down.  It's also a homage to my favorite "average guy adventuring" genre popularized by stuff like the Tintin comics, Indiana Jones, and the Mummy series (not the crappy Scorpion King, the two movies before that).  I just wish Naughty Dog would port it to the 360 beacause there's only about 20 people in the world with a PS3 and they're all playing Madden or waiting for MGS4.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: DS on February 25, 2008, 07:56:42 pm
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I just wish Naughty Dog would port it to the 360 beacause there's only about 20 people in the world with a PS3 and they're all playing Madden or waiting for MGS4.
Doesn't Sony own Naughty Dog though?

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So does the main character have humorous dialog? His snippet from the commercial was pretty good if that's consistent throughout the game.
Yeah, he has humorous dialog and the dialogue is consistent throughout the whole game.

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My favorite part about the game was that it was basically a bad Hollywood movie but you get to play it instead of watch it.
Man, this is such a perfect way to put it.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Lyndon on February 25, 2008, 09:46:46 pm
Uncharted is a kick ass game! It's really fun and graphically one of the best games out there.  It's also really cool how all of the cut scenes were acted out and recorded dialogue at the same time. It gave it a more natural feel and the dialogue didn't have lots of gaps inbetween sentences like they sometimes do...
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 26, 2008, 12:10:48 am
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Doesn't Sony own Naughty Dog though?

Unfortunately they do.  Which is gay.

The Naughty Dog reps did say that they were going to be using a tweaked version of this engine for the next Jak game.  I can't wait.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Ragnar on February 26, 2008, 04:04:50 am
I have no means to play this game but it looks like what Tomb Raider should've been
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Tau on February 26, 2008, 08:43:05 am
Unfortunately they do.  Which is gay.

The Naughty Dog reps did say that they were going to be using a tweaked version of this engine for the next Jak game.  I can't wait.
Yes Why didn't Naughty Dog stay independent like Insomniac Games!

And that is the best news I have ever heard(Gaming Wise) because Jak fucken rules!
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: PTizzle on February 26, 2008, 12:08:34 pm
I played it for about an hour on my cousin's PS3. Even in that short time the puzzles got a bit repetitive but I did enjoy the Prince of Persia-esque acrobatic sections.

I played it for an hour at my mates house and I thought it was pretty awesome. The fighting was fun (even if I wished I could throw grenades back), the platforming was well done and the graphics were incredible.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Jester on February 26, 2008, 12:13:03 pm
i have no idea why but this game does not interest me at all

its weird, it looks like something id enjoy but i doubt id get it even if i had a ps3

maybe farcry ruined the jungle experience for me or something
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: UPRC on February 26, 2008, 06:09:13 pm
Saw this game on some game show that was randomly on a few days ago. I had heard about it but never paid much attention to it until now. Definitely looks like a pretty good game which I might pick up.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: theHunter on February 26, 2008, 09:11:46 pm
This game is the shit. Much love naughty dog.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Raimiette on February 26, 2008, 09:42:23 pm
This is a great game, I got it when it first came out.

It's not the longest game around, maybe 6 hours all the way though.

Plot-wise I thought it was pretty good, very funny and cute.  Although and there is a bit near the end that seems to come out of nowhere plot wise and it almost turns into a Resident Evil run and gun.

I would have preferred more platform action rather than shooting.  (it's probably about 80% shooting to 20% platforming)

It's quite difficult on the harder settings and I liked the unlockables (the "Next Gen" filter made me laugh).

Obviously it's beautiful, very vibrant top notch stuff.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: GigasFist on February 27, 2008, 01:37:04 am
I was surprised at how good this game actually was. Just about everything about it was great. Voice Acting, Characters, Story. Only thing that bothered me was some firefights later on in the game and they got little repetitive. Other then that, it's a must have for any PS3 owner.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 27, 2008, 02:05:34 am
When all the badguys got laser sights the game entered el cheapo mode.  Other than that, everything else was solid.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: the_hoodie on February 27, 2008, 03:45:23 am
When all the badguys got laser sights the game entered el cheapo mode.  Other than that, everything else was solid.
I didn't think it was too bad. If you kept moving you were fine.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: DS on February 27, 2008, 04:54:48 pm
When all the badguys got laser sights the game entered el cheapo mode.  Other than that, everything else was solid.
I really liked it when they started using laser sights, actually. I started moving around a lot more and sniping was fun too.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Natural on February 27, 2008, 05:22:10 pm
The game is sick. Physics, lighting and graphics as a whole are probably the best out right now on PS3 (only thing I think come's close is CoD4). I've beat the game and the story is great and all but I wish I hadn't spent $60 on it. For now on I'll only buy games with multiplayer.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: thejackyl on February 27, 2008, 05:36:00 pm
Review by Yahtzee (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2980-Zero-Punctuation-Uncharted-Drake-s-Fortune)

Haven't watched it yet, but I am about to.
Okay, just finished it.  And it contains one spoiler from what I've seen.  Also, I've wanted to pick up this game, but I am lacking one PS3, a Copy of the game, or $500 to by both.

Oh well...  The game does look interesing, and I wish I had the massive wallet to afford the damn thing.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: maladroithim on February 27, 2008, 05:53:13 pm
The twist and complete change in gameplay style near the end was definitely pretty weird and I can see why a lot of people didn't like it.  Personally, I thought it was reasonably fun and didn't ruin the game or anything but it was definitely much weaker than the rest of the game's firefights.  The last scenario or "end boss" was also pretty disappointing; not that it was bad, but it was definitely unexceptional and not a worthy climax for such a great game.

The one thing that really got me down about this title was that there are no boss fights.  This is a trend I'm seeing in a lot of modern games that really gets me down.  Games like Metal Gear Solid are defined by how creative and fun their boss fights are, and I feel like a title really loses something when they don't incorporate them.  I can definitely see why they'd get cut out of development  -- I imagine a good boss fight is a pretty expensive scenario to develop because there is a unique AI program and all sorts of other assetts that get used only once.  Still, I think a Hollywood-style game like this would have really benefitted from a handful of tense one-on-one encounters against memorable villains.  The "twist" at the end could have even been cleverly foreshadowed by seemingly out-of-place battles against monstrous enemies.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: DS on February 27, 2008, 06:22:54 pm
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The twist and complete change in gameplay style near the end was definitely pretty weird and I can see why a lot of people didn't like it.  Personally, I thought it was reasonably fun and didn't ruin the game or anything but it was definitely much weaker than the rest of the game's firefights.
Yeah, I agree with you. The twist was cool and it was actually pretty fun that after getting used to fighting in a certain style for the whole game, suddenly that didn't really matter too much. For a while anyway. But since you couldn't move and aim well at the same time, it felt like the game wasn't really meant for that kind of gunfights and it showed. But at least it required some fast aiming and I had a few close calls which was fun.

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The one thing that really got me down about this title was that there are no boss fights.  This is a trend I'm seeing in a lot of modern games that really gets me down.  Games like Metal Gear Solid are defined by how creative and fun their boss fights are, and I feel like a title really loses something when they don't incorporate them.
This is so true. I love boss fights and if one thing disappoints me about this game, it's that there are practically none. Jak & Daxter had the same problem though, it had boss fights but not nearly enough of them. I hope there will be boss fights in the sequel.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Impeal on February 27, 2008, 11:04:20 pm
Yahtzee makes a good point about it being kind of bland (didn't someone in this topic say something similar?), but I don't really care. I liked Uncharted a lot. It's been my favorite non-FPS for the PS3 so far, and that's including Assassin's Creed. Like DS said, even though it was linear, it still had a really great sense of exploration, with all the treasures and stuff.

I never played Jak and Daxter, or Crash, and I'm just overall not really into these types of games (never played Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider), and everyone kept making a big deal out of it being "just like a summer popcorn movie" and those kind of movies are stupid so I was really expecting not to like this at all. But I did, so yeah.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on February 28, 2008, 01:03:35 am
jesus christ, are you kidding me?  i don't care how cool it is, $65 with tax for a game that takes 10 hours to beat in single player mode and doesn't have some goddamn extensive multiplayer is a horrible ripoff and totally unacceptable.  this is why i hate this console generation; half of the games i've played so far have been relatively brief (under 20 hours), yet still cost tons and tons of money.  bioshock, assassin's creed... games like those are bad enough at ~20 hours, but 8-10 is obscene.  this takes me back to the early n64 days when the games were short, gay, and cost $60-70.  i guess it's okay if you're going to rent it, but i feel sorry for the people who bought it.  even selling it to places like gamestop like a week later after you beat it, you take a pretty heavy hit to the wallet, not to mention the fact that that's essentially just an incredibly expensive rental anyway.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Impeal on February 28, 2008, 03:41:46 am
I was under the impression that most games like this are short. Like I said though, I don't really play many action adventure games. How long does it take to run straight through one of the Prince of Persia games?

Uncharted has decent replay value though. Like, when I beat Heavenly Sword, I never touched it again. I really did feel ripped off with that game. It was short (shorter than Uncharted I think) and there was no reason to ever play it again. But Uncharted has all kinds of unlockables and difficulties. I started playing through it a second time, but stopped once I got UT3. I feel like I got my money's worth though. But I did buy it used. So who knows.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 28, 2008, 03:54:59 am
jesus christ, are you kidding me?  i don't care how cool it is, $65 with tax for a game that takes 10 hours to beat in single player mode and doesn't have some goddamn extensive multiplayer is a horrible ripoff and totally unacceptable.  this is why i hate this console generation; half of the games i've played so far have been relatively brief (under 20 hours), yet still cost tons and tons of money.  bioshock, assassin's creed... games like those are bad enough at ~20 hours, but 8-10 is obscene.  this takes me back to the early n64 days when the games were short, gay, and cost $60-70.  i guess it's okay if you're going to rent it, but i feel sorry for the people who bought it.  even selling it to places like gamestop like a week later after you beat it, you take a pretty heavy hit to the wallet, not to mention the fact that that's essentially just an incredibly expensive rental anyway.

Vidya Gayms have always been short and expensive so there's nothing new here.  I'd rather play something short and sweet than chug through another awful RPG full of fluff and filler.  Final Fantasy 12 wouldn't have been 90 hours long if you didn't have to wander back and forth and fight an army of monsters every time you tried to advance the storyline.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on February 28, 2008, 04:21:41 am
What?  No they haven't!  I'd say during the last generation, the average length of a game was probably somewhere around 15-20 hours.  Even non-RPG shit like platformers took a decent amount of time to beat.  Plus, they were like $40-50, new.  Now this game's HALF the length, and potentially 50% more expensive?  This isn't how it's always been, dawg.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Raimiette on February 28, 2008, 01:01:37 pm
I actually agree with angry black man on this.  I distinctly remember (most) games being short but sweet back in the day.  The only obvious exception to this are RPG's.

Also, I remember back in the SNES/Genesis days games cost AT LEAST as much as they do now if not more (there are obviously some exceptions to this)

I would much prefer a great short game to a long  boning one. I'm also not really into multiplayer so I'm happier when more emphasis is put into the single player modes.

Nowadays though the trend is certainly leaning more to online multiplayer gaming.  A lot of people now won't even buy a game if it doesn't come with online multiplayer.

As I stated above though, I really don't care at all for online.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 29, 2008, 12:51:06 am
What?  No they haven't!  I'd say during the last generation, the average length of a game was probably somewhere around 15-20 hours.  Even non-RPG shit like platformers took a decent amount of time to beat.  Plus, they were like $40-50, new.  Now this game's HALF the length, and potentially 50% more expensive?  This isn't how it's always been, dawg.

Well, I don't know what games you are thinking of but Halo, Devil May Cry, Silent Hill, God of War, Ico, Ninja Gaiden, Shadow of the Colossus, any of the Ratchet and Clank/Jak games, Killer 7, Half-Life 2, Far Cry... all these cost 50 bux new and could be beaten in under 10 hours... maybe 12 if you were new to the genre or wanted to get everything.  The only games in my collection that lasted me 15+ hours in a straight playthrough (meaning no secret unlocking whatever) that weren't RPGs were Metal Gear Solid 3 and Resident Evil 4.  Everything else took half a day of dilligent playing to beat.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: thejackyl on February 29, 2008, 02:55:22 am
Marcus is right, but you have to agree $50 a game is better than prices varying due to content or how good the game is.  Here are some examples:

Phantasy Star 2:  This game cost $70, but it also came with a strategy guide, iirc.  And most games cost $30 in this Gen
Earthbound:  Same as above, but I KNOW this came with a guide.  (I own this game, so...)
Action 52: an NES game.  It boasted 52 games (which very few worked, and none were any good), and cost about $200.  I'm pretty sure NES games were around $20 to $30 around then

It's a bit dissappointing to pay $50 for a game you'll play only once, and beat in less than 15 hours, but...  Well look at it this way.

The Original Mario Bros. can be beaten in an hour, (warp pipes), and probably cost $30 new (or came with the system)  If you made a full run through, it would probably take you 4 to 5 hours.  And most NES (even SNES/Genesis)games are like this (not counting RPGs)  They relied on REPLAYABILITY more than length.

Hell, most NES games(That I have or played) can be beaten in an hour depending on skill/difficulty setting.  My point is, Yes $50 is a horrible price for a short game, but in retrospect the price/hour of play ratio has lowered.

I just wish games nowadays had the same replayability as older NES/SNES games
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 29, 2008, 03:28:30 am
You also have to take in inflation and distribution.  The original NES Final Fantasy was 50 bux because it was distributed outside Japan but an American distributed game like Ultima was 20-30 dollars.  With that said, the economy didn't suck like it did in the 80s.  The economy is still pretty bad but people make more money now than they did 10 years ago hence the raised price.  If a democrat (particularly Clinton) takes over office the minimum wage is said to be raised from 5.85 an hour to 8-9 dollars an hour meaning the next next gen games will probably be even higher.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on February 29, 2008, 04:23:34 am
By the way, you're going too far back.  I wasn't talking about SNES/NES games, because those were ridiculous, too.  I paid $70 for Sonic and Knuckles, when it first came out.  Buuuuut, it got a little more acceptable for the PS1, and the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube were all pretty acceptable, compared to this.

I'm not going to comment on thejackyl or whoever's post because I don't really know what he's talking about, but I'm inclined to disagree with Marcus, just based on my personal experience with those games.  Did you seriously beat Halo, on normal or heroic, in under ten hours?  Games like DMC and Silent Hill I can see, but Halo, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, HL2... these are all games that took me 15-20 hours to beat.  I really don't know how the hell you beat them in UNDER TEN at all, or if you're just exaggerating, or what.  Anyway, my point was that this previous console generation showed improvement in cost:length ratio, and in fact if you ignore the N64, I felt that it'd been getting better since the Genesis/SNES days; it wasn't rare to buy some random non-RPG for forty bucks and have it take a while to beat, and even fifty was on the high end (SotC, Okami, and many other PS2 and Gamecube games were $40 new, not $50).  But most of it seems to have reversed itself.  I'm not saying anything even close to "they should make games longer unnecessarily," because I think a game should be exactly as long as it needs to be, but give me a fucking break.  $60 for a game that's under ten hours and doesn't have a major multiplayer component?  Why are you even defending this?  This is a bad thing.  I don't even understand your argument.  Was there a point in time when video games were like this?  Yeah, over ten years ago.  It hasn't really been this bad very often since then, and somehow this console generation is consistently putting out games that are not only ludicrously expensive, but also astoundingly short, compared to the previous generation.  Whether you think games have always been kind of short and expensive, I really don't think you can make a claim that 8 hours for $60 plus tax isn't WORSE than normal.

Anyway, it's kind of a dumb point to make to just reply with "heh... I'd rather play a short and sweet game than a long and boring one," because hey, remember moderately long, well made games?  You act as if a game being beyond 10 hours somehow PRECLUDES quality, or like you seriously have to choose between a short, good one and a long, awful one.  That's not how it should work at all, and unless the game you're talking about is some kind of weird conceptual experiment like Portal, there's really probably no good reason it should be 8 hours.  I say this because I've played good games longer than 15 hours, and somehow the added length didn't ruin the experience (whoaaaa what).  I don't want them to stretch out the story to make it longer or anything, but come on, there's a middle ground to be found; 90-hour games are gay, but so are 8-hour ones that cost the same price (yes, it may be better, less boring, and not have any filler, but should we really have to trade quantity for quality?  Are you REALLY arguing that this is an acceptable principle?).  And even if it is less than 8 hours, should you really be charging $60 for it?  Why are the development costs of such short experiences so high, yet with longer games and relatively similar graphics, somehow the same (or maybe they're not the same at all, and the MSRP isn't based on development cost.  I don't know that much about what determines game pricing, specifically).
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: HL on February 29, 2008, 08:02:13 am
:words:

games are probably getting shorter because graphics are getting harder and harder + more time consuming to make, so adding more gameplay just adds that much more to the development time.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Impeal on February 29, 2008, 12:37:34 pm
Yeah, that's a good point. Production costs are skyrocketing too. Uncharted apparently cost 30 million to make (for comparison, the first Jak and Daxter cost around 10 million). So if it's such a lengthy and costly process, it's not a surprise that games are getting shorter and costing more.

But still, they're not getting short enough that I think it's worth complaining over. Like, Uncharted is less than 10 hours at its bare minimum. If you don't speedrun straight through it in one sitting, and you get all the unlockables, I'd assume it's easily close to 20 hours. The only solid example of a cheapishly short game that comes to my mind is Heavenly Sword. That's the only game I've ever played where I felt like I deserved more game time for the money.

I guess the extra 10-20 dollars per game would be annoying, but this is the first generation where I've been actively buying all my own games. When I got my PS2, I was 11! So obviously the majority of my games were Christmas or birthday presents. So I guess I don't really notice the price differences.

Just a few more things I want to point out though: Uncharted got good ratings across the board (http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/932984.asp). And also, I looked up some of the games that've been mentioned, and a lot of them can also be beaten in roughly 10 hours.

God of War (http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080108143015AACds7T) (second source (http://www.netjak.com/review.php/870))
Jak and Daxter (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=2517) (second source (http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/jakanddaxterthepl/player_review.html?id=443825))
Shadow of the Colossus (http://www.cnet.com.au/games/ps2/0,239029672,240060543,00.htm) (second source (http://jayisgames.com/archives/2005/12/shadow_of_the_colossus.php))
Ratchet and Clank (http://www.gamernode.com/reviews/4758-ratchet-clank-future-tools-of-destruction/index.html) (second source (http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/ratchetclank/review.html))

So it just goes to show that the length you hear about all depends on who you're hearing it from, how good they are, and how much of the game they played. I got over ten hours of gameplay out of Uncharted, and I didn't even 100% it.

-edit-
And also, a lot of the shorter games that've come out recently do have multiplayer. Like Gears of War or CoD4 (and even GTA4 is suppose to have it). So yeah. I really think overly short games are the exception, not the rule.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on February 29, 2008, 12:57:04 pm
games are probably getting shorter because graphics are getting harder and harder + more time consuming to make, so adding more gameplay just adds that much more to the development time.
thanks for the insight into the industry, buddy.  this actually isn't too valid a reason, i feel, because unless we're talking about totally new and unexplored areas, the models, textures, terrain, and all that jazz are already made.  take a game like assassin's creed, for example; it has you running around the same three major cities for the large majority of the game.  in what way would more content, and a wider variety of it, require them to spend much more time making new models and areas?  a lot of the time, the same visuals are reused in various areas, anyway, so even if they have to add one, i think it's somewhat rare that the area would need to be built from the ground up.  you can't really just come out and say "ya more content = much more money spent" when it honestly doesn't have to.

anyway, maybe i'm just ULTRASLOW when i beat games, because none of those games took me any less than fifteen hours, and probably closer to twenty (this isn't factoring in idle time, obviously).  but then, this wouldn't explain why it took me about ten to beat ac, unless gamemaster marcus can do it in five.

but i definitely think it's something that's a serious problem.  it's a bad trend!  games that are more expensive and, in many cases, significantly shorter than they should be?  is this what you want?  i'd sort of rather go back to the days of regular-looking 3d and not this ultra hi-def shit that a) costs substantially more, and b) takes much longer to develop.  i think i've had a bad experience with my 360, but there haven't been too many games that have really utilized the ultra enhanced visuals in a way that really justifies the cost they come at (going beyond games being more expensive, even).  mostly it's just "whoaa.... look at his cape flow," which is hardly even worth it.  when the last console generation came out, even though i didn't really give a shit about video games, i was still pretty pumped, because even at the time n64 and ps1 shit looked kind of bad.  i'm not saying the improvements aren't here for this one, and some games do look really good, but it seems like we're seeing less than what we're paying for, and even less imagination put into how to use it.  it's kind of a disappointing generation.

although with that said i haven't played this shit because i don't own a ps3, and if i did, i'd probably like it because it looks fun.  but if i bought it, and beat it in 15 hours, i'd feel kind of like an asshole.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Impeal on February 29, 2008, 01:02:02 pm
but i definitely think it's something that's a serious problem.  it's a bad trend!  games that are more expensive and, in many cases, significantly shorter than they should be?  is this what you want?
Obviously I don't think anyone would really want that, but I just don't think it's as big of a "trend" as you're making it out to be. Can you give many examples of games that are 10 hours or less and don't have multiplayer?

-edit-
i'd sort of rather go back to the days of regular-looking 3d and not this ultra hi-def shit that a) costs substantially more, and b) takes much longer to develop.  i think i've had a bad experience with my 360, but there haven't been too many games that have really utilized the ultra enhanced visuals in a way that really justifies the cost they come at (going beyond games being more expensive, even).  mostly it's just "whoaa.... look at his cape flow," which is hardly even worth it.
Yeah, I can agree with this. From my experience the only genre that I think really benefits from HD (so far at least) is first person shooters, and that's just because I think the intensity factor is turned up and you get really engrossed in them the more realistic they feel. I'm mainly thinking of CoD4 when I say this.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Raimiette on February 29, 2008, 01:07:56 pm
But still, they're not getting short enough that I think it's worth complaining over. Like, Uncharted is less than 10 hours at its bare minimum. If you don't speedrun straight through it in one sitting, and you get all the unlockables, I'd assume it's easily close to 20 hours. The only solid example of a cheapishly short game that comes to my mind is Heavenly Sword. That's the only game I've ever played where I felt like I deserved more game time for the money.

Yes, I can attest to this, I beat Uncharted in about 6-7 hours when I originally first played it but I didn't get any of the unlockables or anything.  Now I'm going through it again and so far I'm about 5 hours in (maybe half way through) trying to get some of the unlockables done and taking my time checking out the prettiness.

Heavenly sword was really short my boyfriend bought it when it first came out and I think he beat it in 3 sittings.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on February 29, 2008, 01:23:34 pm
no, but i can give you examples of ones that are easily under fifteen.  i said ten because someone IN THIS TOPIC said ten about this game, which is kind of ridiculous.  if that's lowballing it, then okay, but under fifteen isn't much better.

but anyway, bioshock, assassin's creed, lost planet (this is actually secondhand info; my brother just told me it was very short when i asked him how it was), turok, which i understand doesn't have especially good multiplayer either.  these are all fairly notable titles that are surprisingly short.  it's not ALL GAMES, but it's been a pretty good portion of the ones i've bothered to play.  this isn't even counting drake's fortune, which is apparently also kind of short, and that heavenly sword game you're talking about.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 29, 2008, 01:33:36 pm
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anyway, maybe i'm just ULTRASLOW when i beat games, because none of those games took me any less than fifteen hours, and probably closer to twenty (this isn't factoring in idle time, obviously).  but then, this wouldn't explain why it took me about ten to beat ac, unless gamemaster marcus can do it in five.

If I still have my Jak 3 save I'll take a picture to show you my time.  It was from going to beginning to end, finding most of the precusor orb thingies, and going from one mission to the other.  Jak and Daxter took me an entire day to beat (getting everything) and Jak 2 took me 8 hours.  It's not like there's anything to see or explore in the games besides GO TO POINT A PLAY MISSION B.

Regardless, the time it takes to beat a videogame depends completely on what you expect to get out of it.  It took me 120 hours to beat Dragon Quest VIII because I insisted on getting everything and seeing the extra ending.  If I didn't bother, it would have taken me 80 hours.  Same thing goes with Uncharted.  There is no multiplayer and the single player is short but there's a lot of unlockables to find and that accounts for something.  A lot of older games also contained tons of fluff like making you collect shit just to continue on.  Need I bring up Rare's games from the N64 days where you had to gather 30,000 items just to pass a level?  Look at Goldeneye; Rare's shortest game where the storymode could be literally beaten in 6 hours by even the most casual of FPS gamer but the multiplayer lasted forever (if you actually had friends who'd play it with you).  I'm all for long games, but I DO NOT WANT FILLER TO ARTIFICIALLY LENGTHEN MY GAMES.  It is more ridiculous to pay full price for some shit that FORCES you into a lengthy game than it is for a game that's short but was actually WELL DEVELOPED.

As far as games being shorter and graphics being more expensive and developers only focusing on graphics and blah blah blah that's all bullshit.  Games have always been expensive and games have always tried to keep up with the latest graphics.  I don't know what these magical long ass PS1/N64 games you're thinking of are but for the most part I'm having trouble of thinking up any major video game from that era that wasn't an RPG and lasted more than 10 or so hours of casual play.  If you ignored all the extra stars, Mario 64 could probably be beaten in 12 hours going at an average pace.  If you went straight through Ocarina of Time, the same could be said about that game.  Hell, Wind Waker was the shortest Zelda yet but they tried to ramp up gameplay time by making you find all those stupid tri-force pieces. 

Again, this all goes back to the "what do you expect from a game" thing.  I can breeze through a game if I just cruise through all the cinematics and this applies to almost every game made.  The games getting more expensive are just so developers can cover the increase in cost and the economy has fluctuated since the PS1 days.  50$ in 1995 is the same as 60$ today.  Unless you're buying every new game release that gets shatted out, I don't see how this is much of a problem.  Most people save money for the games they want to buy but unless you're like "OOH GENERIC FPS MUST HAVE THIS!!" everytime something is released then how can you complain about spending money on a hobby?  It's not anyone is forcing the controller in your hands and saying "HURF DURF BUY THIS VIDYA GAYM!!"

Hell, if you only buy the AAA releases each year then you're looking at, what, maybe 4 or 5 games a year?  I pay more money paying my phone bill than I do video games and I use my cell phone maybe once a week to call my parents.  Shit, I pay more money in gas driving to ebgames in a month than I do on a single video game.  Shit's expensive, yes, but at most I buy one new video game at full price maybe every month or so?  The last 360 game I bought was Assassin's Creed last November and I JUST got all the achievements last week.  The last Wii game I bought was No More Heroes and there isn't a single Wii game I'll end up buying until Smash Bros Brawl comes out next month.  The last PS3 game I bought was Uncharted which came out last November or so and I won't be buying another PS3 game until MGS4 or LittleBigPlanet comes out (whichever is first).  I usually replay games too or get all the achievements if they're fun so 60$ every month isn't something to cry about.  If your financial situation isn't as good as mine is then obviously you should be more frugal in your game spending.

FINALLY there are numerous vendors that are easily available and sell games for less than the market value.  I almost always buy USED but if this isn't available I turn to ebay or amazon for my purchases.  Simply WAITING A WEEK lowers the value of most games by 20%.  One week after it's release and BioShock was 50$ on Amazon case and everything.  Last week, gamestop nationwide had a sale of Assassin's Creed at 44$ (odd price, I know).  If you go on ebay, you can usually bid on the popular games that flood the market and if you find an auction that ends late at night then you can snatch that up for a steal too.  I assume you have a credit card or debit card.  It's not too much waiting 7 days for a game to be delivered to your house.

My point is, step back out of your nostalgia covered world and seriously look at the games that came out in each generation.  Ignore the ones that took you a long time to beat and count the number of games that can seriously be beaten in one fucking sitting.  You'd be surprised to note that it's probably the same exact ratio of games that could be beaten ridiculously fast now.

EDIT: I'm actually glad you spoke of idle time because that's another gameplay factor.  I usually only play maybe an hour of videogames during the weekdays and maybe 5 or 6 hours on weekends.  It took me a month or so to beat BioShock and the same time for Assassin's Creed.  Maybe you stretched your ps2 game playing days over the course of several days but if you actually sat down and timed yourself playing a game in ONE SITTING you'd be surprised how quickly you can make it through.  Saying that it took you several weeks to play the game in several sittings versus beating a game in one 15 hour sitting is a moot point.  Give me a saturday where I do nothing and I can guarantee you that I'll complain about how short videogames are.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Artis Leon Ivey Jr on February 29, 2008, 02:26:40 pm
christ maybe you people should pace yourself in games more.

maybe I'm a dick but who the fuck actually spends a whole day playing videogames...........


*posts on gw for like three hours*
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Impeal on February 29, 2008, 02:32:16 pm
Actually the only game I can remember playing through in one sitting was KH, and that was just because me and a couple of friends were having a contest to see who could beat it first. I usually don't have the attention span or patience to play a game for longer than an hour or two at a time. Even ones I really like. :(
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: maladroithim on February 29, 2008, 03:12:22 pm
If a democrat (particularly Clinton) takes over office the minimum wage is said to be raised from 5.85 an hour to 8-9 dollars an hour meaning the next next gen games will probably be even higher.

I'm surprised this didn't start a political discussion.  Anyway yeah unfortunately the market is built so that everyone spends every cent they make so games will be $10 more expensive next generation if the average poor person has an extra $10 to spend :(

Anyway I don't think games have gotten any shorter.  I almost feel like they've gotten longer or that the life of most games has been extended by features like achievements or mandatory multiplayer on 360 games and online gaming in general.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Vesper on February 29, 2008, 03:33:58 pm
I'm surprised this didn't start a political discussion.  Anyway yeah unfortunately the market is built so that everyone spends every cent they make so games will be $10 more expensive next generation if the average poor person has an extra $10 to spend :(

Anyway I don't think games have gotten any shorter.  I almost feel like they've gotten longer or that the life of most games has been extended by features like achievements or mandatory multiplayer on 360 games and online gaming in general.

Achievements is such fucking bullshit. It doesn't really make the game longer! There's not more gameplay because the game has achievements, ít's just a reason to repeat some bits of the gameplay a lot of times, it doesn't add more game to play. Stupid fluff.

And I wouldn't call it a feature.

And by the way from what I understood a big component of Panda's complaint was that the game was so short and had no multiplayer. Short games are excusable if they put time into their multiplayer mode but if the game has no multiplayer there's really no good excuse to make it short.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: thejackyl on February 29, 2008, 05:21:15 pm
I had the weekend off a couple years back, and I was over at my Dad's.  I blew through Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, 3, CV:X, and 4 (all on Gamecube) in a little over a day (15 hour marathon for 0,1,2,3,CV:X Total, another 5 or 6 for RE4)

I'd rather have a short game with a high level of replayability, than a long game I'm only going to play once.  Which Achievements, and unlockables do add to it.  But they should have some genuinely fun levels and stuff, or better yet, make the entire game worth replaying several times.

Perhaps, I'm just ranting.  But seriously,  I have so many games that lost their luster after I beat them a single time.  It's rediculous
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: Marcus on February 29, 2008, 07:38:54 pm
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Achievements is such fucking bullshit. It doesn't really make the game longer! There's not more gameplay because the game has achievements, ít's just a reason to repeat some bits of the gameplay a lot of times, it doesn't add more game to play. Stupid fluff.

Achievements are a good thing because they force developers to give you something EXTRA instead of just ignoring it.  Uncharted is a good example.  It has unlockable stuff, but they add nothing to the game other than saying you got everything.  While gamescore means absolutely nothing, the achievements themselves are (generally) creative and take some skill to accomplish.  It's extra because it's there for you to do on the side. 

Like I said earlier, getting 70 stars (the bare minimum) in Mario 64 would take you 10 or 12 hours but finding all 120 doubles that time but if Nintendo forced you to get all 120 stars to fight Bowser I guarantee you more people would have gotten annoyed with the game quickly.  Artificially adding filler to the main story of a game is more annoying than creating achievements or side quests to lengthen it.  If you want to play through games that force you to backtrack and do random bullshit just so you can "wow this game is long" then good for you but I rather have multiplayer or unlockables to find than bog down a good story or ruin the pacing of a game just so I can justify spending 60$ on a hobby.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: HL on February 29, 2008, 07:53:24 pm
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thanks for the insight into the industry, buddy.  this actually isn't too valid a reason, i feel, because unless we're talking about totally new and unexplored areas, the models, textures, terrain, and all that jazz are already made.  take a game like assassin's creed, for example; it has you running around the same three major cities for the large majority of the game.  in what way would more content, and a wider variety of it, require them to spend much more time making new models and areas?  a lot of the time, the same visuals are reused in various areas, anyway, so even if they have to add one, i think it's somewhat rare that the area would need to be built from the ground up.  you can't really just come out and say "ya more content = much more money spent" when it honestly doesn't have to.

Yeah, they could just C+P most of the models and shit, but Assassin's Creed being repetitive and having graphics being reused a fuck ton was pretty much already a huge complaint against the game in most every review, so maybe that wasn't the best example you could of given, given that adding more development time to add new stuff + new areas + new content to the game would of greatly helped it, instead of reusing more stuff.

But even reusing stuff (reskinning models, in most cases) still takes time + money, and its wayyy more time + wayyyyy more money than it was back then.

(and since it seems now and days most devs don't want to spend big money on new things (its risky), these new things wind up being short experiences. GoW and the like are short tho, they are short experiences, but give you reply value in their difficulty modes/costumes/etc.)
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: maladroithim on February 29, 2008, 08:54:26 pm
Achievements is such fucking bullshit.

Do you have a 360?  Because you probably wouldn't say that if you played 360 games.

Achievements are a great feature because it gives the developers a method to establish exactly what the cool things to do are.  When Lost Planet has an achievement for actually managing to kill the giant worm that runs away after three minutes and might otherwise leave you assuming that you can't kill it, it's a neat feature.  They tie very much into replayability because replaying a game to get its achievements usually involves high-level play and doing a lot of unusual things you wouldn't normally do.  They really do extend the life of the game.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on March 01, 2008, 06:30:55 am
Yeah, they could just C+P most of the models and shit, but Assassin's Creed being repetitive and having graphics being reused a fuck ton was pretty much already a huge complaint against the game in most every review, so maybe that wasn't the best example you could of given, given that adding more development time to add new stuff + new areas + new content to the game would of greatly helped it, instead of reusing more stuff.

But even reusing stuff (reskinning models, in most cases) still takes time + money, and its wayyy more time + wayyyyy more money than it was back then.

(and since it seems now and days most devs don't want to spend big money on new things (its risky), these new things wind up being short experiences. GoW and the like are short tho, they are short experiences, but give you reply value in their difficulty modes/costumes/etc.)
I actually had no problem whatsoever with the graphics being reused.  The cities are full of people; it'd be retarded to honestly expect them to have a level of variety substantially above what they already did.  However, working more types of missions and a larger range of content into the game, while taking some time, wouldn't really require original graphics.  In fact, this is precisely why I cited Assassin's Creed to begin with.  It's an example of a game with a dire lack of content variety that, without much trouble, could've had much more, with virtually no need to implement new environments or models at all, because the other missions would take place in the same area that the rest of the game does.  Would this take more time?  Certainly, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as time consuming as building completely new cities and models from the ground up would, as you seem to be implying is necessary (it's not).  Repetitive gameplay and standardized visuals aren't necessarily related.

Also, not too sure I agree that it's wayyyyyyyyyyyy more time and money to... what?  Code an event?  I know absolutely nothing about programming, so I could easily just be missing something about the development process, but the most significant difference between console generations are the visuals.  Assuming you're just reusing them, why is programming an event on the Xbox 360 wayyyyyyyyyyy more time-consuming and expensive than it was on the Xbox, exactly?  What about the fundamental differences between the languages the development kits use would make, assuming you already had the visuals made and ready to go from other parts of your game, the coding of content that much longer and more expensive of a process?

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Like I said earlier, getting 70 stars (the bare minimum) in Mario 64 would take you 10 or 12 hours but finding all 120 doubles that time but if Nintendo forced you to get all 120 stars to fight Bowser I guarantee you more people would have gotten annoyed with the game quickly.  Artificially adding filler to the main story of a game is more annoying than creating achievements or side quests to lengthen it.  If you want to play through games that force you to backtrack and do random bullshit just so you can "wow this game is long" then good for you but I rather have multiplayer or unlockables to find than bog down a good story or ruin the pacing of a game just so I can justify spending 60$ on a hobby.
Marcus, are you really this stupid?  Where did anyone say anything even close to "NOT ENOUGH FILLER."  The problem is NOT ENOUGH CONTENT.  It's like you have this victimized perspective of gaming that makes you seriously believe that if a game isn't incredibly short, it needs to be 50% filler.  Filler does not equate with legitimate content, but on the other hand, neither do fucking ACHIEVEMENTS are you kidding me.  Do you idiots really think MORE COSTUMES YESS ANOTHER REASON TO PLAY is an acceptable replacement for actual content?  Side quests are okay in premise, but most of the time they themselves are just another form of filler, and even worse because there's not even a pretense of pertinence to the main story.  Basically, I'm saying you seem to have this awful misconception that a game that lacks content and is too brief and rushed because anything longer would be too expensive would have it's good [bad] story and [rushed] pacing "bogged down" by the presence of more content.  I think you're missing the fact that I'm saying length ties in with content (not unlocking costumes, sorry), not just being long for the sake of being long.

This is exactly why I'm sort of disappointed in this generation.  No one seems to mind the adverse effect it has on virtually all games.  Someone JUST SAID that developers are even more unwilling than ever to take risks because of the exorbitant costs that making a game for a modern console entails, and that as a result most of the games they do make (even relatively safe ones; you can hardly call Gears of War an adventurous title) are on the short side.  No one wants to sink time into designing an acceptable amount of content because it's so ridiculously expensive that they just can't justify the risk, so what we get are more expensive games with less content because hey, this shit's expensive!  Great, thanks, this is totally worth seeing Altair's cape flow so fluidly while he runs across buildings.  When the graphic capabilities of your console become so expensive that they begin to seriously limit what developers can do in terms of content and length with their games, you've got a problem.
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: HL on March 01, 2008, 06:36:06 am
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Also, not too sure I agree that it's wayyyyyyyyyyyy more time and money to... what?  Code an event?  I know absolutely nothing about programming, so I could easily just be missing something about the development process, but the most significant difference between console generations are the visuals.  Assuming you're just reusing them, why is programming an event on the Xbox 360 wayyyyyyyyyyy more time-consuming and expensive than it was on the Xbox, exactly?  What about the fundamental differences between the languages the development kits use would make, assuming you already had the visuals made and ready to go from other parts of your game, the coding of content that much longer and more expensive of a process?

Nah dude, I meant reskinning a model.

You have a model, and then you have a skin, which is basically the textures applied to said model. Even if you're reusing an already made model, it still takes a ton of time + money to create the graphics to reskin said model, unless if you're reusing a fuck ton of textures to (man, Guild Wars did this in the expansion EOTN, and it was just awful.)
Title: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Post by: headphonics on March 01, 2008, 06:43:25 am
Okay, but AC definitely already reused both textures and models to a pretty heavy degree.  Not only did all guards basically look the same, but there were only like five to ten basic types of people.  Not really seeing how that applies here!  Also, in a platformer-type game, where there are usually basic archetypes of enemies, it probably wouldn't pose much of a problem either.  And in a lot of these cases, I feel like more creativity during level design would've lead to players having more shit to do, and not just in a "okay, backtrack and get this cog to open this door" type of way.  I don't understand how what would amount to, in many cases, ADDING MORE GENERIC GOONS would really require much more effort on the part of the people in charge of making visuals.  I sincerely doubt that what I'm talking about would mean they'd have to build a ton of shit (models, textures, whatever) from scratch.