Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Review

Nathan Drake; a few years ago this name would have meant nothing to anyone who considered themselves a gamer. Then Naughty Dog decided to turn him into an action adventure superstar following in the footsteps of such greats as Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. That was back around the launch of Sony’s Playstation 3 console, where we were introduced to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Here we stand a few years later, enjoying the second mesmerizing installment in what is surely a franchise we’ll see a lot of in the coming years. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the follow up to 2007’s surprise hit, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and with the second title comes a lot of familiar ground. Before we get to the main body of the review, I will summarise Uncharted 2 for those who don’t have time for the full review. Uncharted 2 is a game that will grab your face, jam it onto the screen and keep you fixated constantly, only stopping occasionally to remind you it isn’t taking itself so seriously with some in-game humour, as well as fourth-wall breaking humour. This is what makes it a great game; it never stops dazzling the eyes and the ears, making it a sensory delight to behold. Breath-taking visuals, accompanied with some of the best voice acting and possibly the best original score video games have been graced by in 2009.

Click here to read the full review

Whispers

Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll speak a bit louder.

See what I did there?

Anyway, just an (informal) blog post informing you all that I’ll be posting up my review of Uncharted 2 in the next couple of days. I got a bit bogged down last week, but hey… there is nothing surprising about that. You can rest assured that it is coming, and it will be epic.

I’ve been quite busy recently, a lot going on. And a lot coming up. Mostly been busy with life and keeping WiiLoaded’s vgZero portal alive. And boy, is it looking good. I’m very thankful for all the staff who are helping make this a reality, vgZero is a site with massive potential. And the fresh air that it will breath into the site will certainly be a relief for visitors.

Having said that, do not be looking for www.vgzero.com just yet, we are yet to reach that point. But stick with us, we are getting there.

LMX loves you all, except you. Yeah, you. You know who you are…

…kidding.

Extended Radio Silence…

…is never good. And I’ve been guilty of it… AGAIN!

Well, never mind that minor annoyance. Because 2010 is back, and after slacking off I suppose I have a lot to make up for. Anyone reading this from WiiLoaded should notice that we are starting a very slow process of evolving into the brand new vgZero. A multiplatform gaming website set to be the pad for all your game chatter.

However, as this plan has been coming together for well over a year so far, I won’t hype it up too much. I’ll just say we are even closer than ever. Having wrapped up our final WiiLoaded podcast last year. 2010 is the year of fresh starts. As well as an amazing year for gaming. So much coming up this year, I’ll be here blogging you through the good times and the bad.

Your local LMX signing off for tonight. And for the first time in 2010.

EDIT – Just realised this will be the blog’s 3rd year when August rolls around. As well as WiiLoaded’s 4th. Milestones ahoy!

Closing In on Tokyo Game Show 09.

Seemingly getting closer and closer with each day. And should hopefully give us some interesting developments in the game industry. At the same time, we don’t exactly know what to expect in terms of surprises (if there is any).

We already know that Sony will be playing around with their wand motion controller at the expo, and that as usual Nintendo are not expected to make much of a showing and instead hold their own summit where they get all the attention.

But beyond that, its mysterious. I suppose we’ll find out when the show opens in a few days. Are you holding out for anything in particular?

The Resistance Leakage.

What? The album finally beat Warner. That’s right, it leaked. They get massive props for holding out so long, but once a store in Australia sold a copy we knew it was coming. Then word arrived of stores in France selling them and *bam* the leak was there.

Doesn’t mean it didn’t come without its troubles. Uploads and uploads filled with Reckless. But in the end, utterly worth it. Those on MuseLive whom I shared this tiring, time-consuming event with will understand. I think I’ve found another community I love as well.

My review will be coming soon… but I’m not a music maestro, haha.

It. Arrived.

It. It. It. What is it you ask?! Well, obviously its Metroid Prime Trilogy. What else would I be so stupidly excited for?! On a lighter note, it rocks. It rocks so much that Nintendo has finally made a really smart move. Bundling a holy trinity of games in one package on one disc is genius. And I sincerely hope to see this Trilogy shift a lot of copies from shelves. Anticipating first week sales. At the same time, stupid Wii fans will probably by 10 copies of Wii Sports Resort to every 1 copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy sold.

Well, who cares… their loss. The pack is great. At first I was going to be a bit let down by the art book last week, but have since then realised it was an art booklet and only advertising mislead the masses. So I was back to joy again, even though the story summar on the booklet spoils the entire trilogy… so don’t read it if you haven’t played it yet.

Who could have imagined that simply adding a fantastic control system in the place of an already fantastic control system could improve the game ten-fold.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Trilogy then definitely do so. It should make the wait til Metroid: Other M a lot more bareable.

Time to Kill…

Well folks, its Metroid Prime Trilogy time!! I’ve been eagerly awaiting this. However, due to NAL being jerks (see: MPT releasing down-under in October in standard casing), I have made the decision to import from the good ol’ USA. Much like I did with Brawl, I have gone through PlayAsia. I can’t wait! Currently it says they are prepping the order, so I will have to wait several days no doubt.

So, how can I kill the time? I’m finding ways, replaying Phoenix Wright 1-3 and enjoying some puzzling puzzles in Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. Those games alone should keep me going another few days. Should they fail, I am also trying out C.O.R.E. But between you and me, C.O.R.E. so far has been nothing but rubbish. So bland and boring and unimaginative. So I dont’ know how much longer I’ll be able to sit through that. I finished the Conduit, it wasn’t too bad. Very open ending, and without a sequel it would be a failure of a story line in my opinion, what with the complete lack of closure and all.

However, I haven’t felt compelled to go back to it because I’m so far behind everyone online, and there is no option to play people at your skill level. So for the most part, playing online involves me getting in, then grenade raped while my opponent hops around and it gets quite tiresome eventually. Especially on bland levels with no customisable weapon sets. Come on, Conduit 2… prove me wrong.

Also. Keep an eye on WiiLoaded. Entering phase: reload………..

Leaping into the Conduit

Didn’t post about this at first, because I didn’t really feel it necessary until I had completed the game. But now I have, and have also spent a decent amount of time online. Mostly in private matches though. A review is on its way either this weekend or next week (depending on free time).

In short though, I felt the game needed a lot more work. The single-player campaign felt about several hours too short. And I didn’t like how the story played out as a flashback for like 7 of the 10 missions. Also, only 10 missions? I think 15 would have been a better number, could have squeezed more out story-wise as well. Visually, it was okay. Pretty good for the Wii. In terms of control, spot-on perfect after a few custom tweaks. Hated having the grenades on Nunchuk motion. Music, hardly noticeable… and not in the good “it suits the atmosphere” way either, it was very bland.

Multiplayer, what I’ve played so far, seems to be near flawless. I definitely dont’ understand problems that people were having now. I’ve played a good couple of hours against Dume, Kindrik and co., without many problems. I haven’t had a chance to play much in the way of public matches, but when my internet uncaps later this week I’ll try it out. Hate grenades in multiplayer, grenade hopping annoys me. I hate not having the ability to make custom weapon sets, and I hate when explosives are the elected weapon. I don’t like like the lack of variety in stages. And online in general needs more customisation. However, Wii Speak appears to work quite well from what I’ve heard.

Review coming soon, expect an average score for an average game.

I Was inFamous Once…

After much dilly-dallying and delay, I have finally gotten around to playing through inFamous. I say “playing through” because I have finished the game already. It is a fun game, but a short one. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, unlike my experience with Prototype. However, each game has different strong points and sometimes succeeds in areas where the other failed to really shine in.

inFamous really nailed story-telling and platforming around the city. But Protoype nailed incredibly fun combat and ridiculous ease of controls. However, at the same time I feel I should digress that I believe both had different aims. I remember a lot of people talking about how they both seemed really similar with some obvious appearance and style reasons and also some spoiler story reasons (which I won’t go into). The reason I preferred inFamous simply came down to its story telling, and even though in featured a cop-out karma system it was still more enjoyable on a deeper level than Prototype.

Even though Prototype has the advantage of being a very fun pick-up-and-play sort of game, I feel myself get bored of it about 30 minutes in. That’s not too bad, because those 30 minutes are stupidly fun. Running up buildings, jumping a billion stories and slamming into the ground creating a massive shockwave, attacking helicopters, etc. But in inFamous I find myself hunting Dead Drops, Blast Shards and completing all the side missions which are scattered across the three islands. That is a lot to do. And collecting Blast Shards and Dead Drops is a lot easier than collecting the extras in Prototype purely because the radar gives you so much more to go off. Unlike in Prototype where you are going blind.

Earlier I mentioned that I think both games had different aims, obviously I can’t really prove it. But to me it felt that inFamous was trying to balance the fun with depth, giving players a world to involve themselves in. Much more player involvement thanks to the (mostly dodgy) karma system. Prototype simply lets you fuck everything, or only slightly fuck everything as well as consume people of interest to piece together Alex’s past.

Having said that, try both games definitely. But out of the two, I will always lean towards inFamous. Plus I love that you can’t just run off edges in the game! God bless pressing a button to drop down.

Peace and love to those who read this blog.

Computer Troubles

So I’ve been having some annoying computer troubles, as it completely died on the weekend. However two days of playing around and here I am. Back in the game. Unfortunately I had to clean install Windows XP. But it got me back here so it was worth it.

Not much to report, however you should head over to the United States of Eurasia mini-site as the complete track “UNITED STATES OF EURASIA (+ COLLATERAL DAMAGE)” is up for download!! Quick!! Get on it now.

I’ll post more soon.
Peace and love!