Ok, to start off the only reason why I am writing this review and not playing Uncharted is because I am at work. In short: I love this game. However, I must say that I am only on level 10. Because of this, my review will have to be updated, specifically my "presentation" section, when i am done with this game. I, however, believe I have played enough of this game to write a review that is substantive enough to warrant writing this. This review will be split into an ever familiar pattern presented by IGN: Presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay, and lasting appeal.
Presentation: 9.8
First off, I must say that without presentation a game that has the ability to be great can fail miserably. One only needs to look at Lair in order to understand where I am coming from. Fortunately, this is where Drake's Fortune not only succeeds but sets the bar for the industry. Drakes Fortune ties together a sense of attachement, emotion, and an overall movie-like atmosphere unlike anything I have ever seen in a game. From the cutscenes to the overall pace of the game one cannot help but be in awe at the production value of this game. It is simply beautiful. The only time you really catch a breath is when you peer out over the ocean as the sun sets all the while watching the shadows dance off the back of Drake. I seriously cannot remember the last time a game paced itself as well as Drake's Fortune does. Naughty Dog's age really shows here and not in a bad way.
Graphics: 9.6
One can praise and applaud graphics for doing many things: this game has great animation; that game has great textures; the color palate on that game is unrivaled. It is very rare, however, that one can say this about a single game, you can say this about Uncharted. From animations, to textures, to color palate, to art direction Uncharted: Drakes Fortune has no rival. EVERYTHING MOVES, trees, leaves, shirts, dead bodies, everything that is beautiful in this game is because it has motion. Saying this, the graphics in Uncharted are unparalled not because of its technical aspect but because of its immersive aspect. However, there are some cons: Once in a blue moon there is a slow down or slight tear (especially in the seadoo mission) but NOTHING that is impeding upon the game and NOTHING that takes away from its overall beauty. There simply is no rival on a console. Although I find the characters a little "clayish" I know that this is just art style and not necessarily a flaw in graphics.
Sound: 9.4
Walking in a living MOVING world would not be complete without the air in the trees, the sound of the ocean on the beach, or the "squashing" of your shoes as you run while soaked. The distant gunshots of pirates, the sound of the weapons, the taunting of the enemy all do exactly what sound is meant to do; immerse you.
Gameplay: 9.0
Let's start of with one of the most impressive aspects of this game: the AI. Little is talked about how vicious and how relentless this AI can be. I know, I know there are points where the A.I will rush you and you will shoot them in the open, but lets try to remember we are playing a game and if all they did was hide it wouldnt be nearly as fun. They fall back, they flank, they throw grenades relentlesly (if they think they can kill you) they duck, they slide, they change positions, they fire from both sides of cover, they roll on the ground and shoot at you. All of this leads me to believe this has some of the best if not the best AI I have seen to date. Of course there are flaws, like guys rarely get out of the way when grenades are thrown at them, but thats actually a relief because they are so relentless.
Gunplay is fun. I, however, have hit some guys 6 times before they fell with the AK47, and yes I was hitting them. I think its great that you can only carry a sidearm and a primary weapon andI love how you can only carry so much ammo. It really adds to the overall feel of the game and adds another enemy to gameplay: conservation. Platforming is fun and its perfectly balanced with gunplay. However, sometimes i try to get Drake to do something that I know he needs to do but he just doesnt do it. It is frustrating but happens only rarely. The jeep and seadoo missions are fun and something different. The key to this gameplay is the balance between it all. Nothing is overpowering, nothing is overdone. Pirates, at times, can be relentless and extremely hard, but in the end makes it rewarding.
Lasting Appeal: 9.0
I am playing my first time through on hard, I know I will play this again just to get unlockables and to enjoy the experience again and again. The presentation alone in this game will have me coming back, not only that but the funfactor ensures that I will.
Closing Comments:
This is what PS3 owners have been waiting for. Naughty Dog has delivered a beautifully balanced game that leaves your jaw on the floor throughout its entirety. Nothing gets old, nothing drags out for too long. The immersion factor in this game is second to none. The seamless transition from cutscene to gameplay will leave you loving the characters and loving the experience. This is the must have title of the year for the PS3, if you dont have Uncharted: Drakes Fortune you would be a fool not to buy it. If you dont have a PS3 yet, this game ought to have you thinking twice about grabbing one.
OVERALL SCORE: 9.5
A number of leaks have popped up that reference Pokemon Black and White remakes in some way. Are they all coincidences or real in 2024?
The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth combat director has expressed that he wants the final part in the trilogy to offer players "even more freedom".
I love the game so far but please don’t make the final part a mini game fest
Everytime I get to a new part in Rebirth it’s “mini game time”
Hope ya don't mind me asking since it seems like you've played it, did it feel like a decent step up from the last game or was it more like the best from the last but more polished?
It makes Remake feel like a demo.
9.5/10 imo. And I think the “mini games” did a great job of adding variety to the gameplay. Purely optional as well.
Here's my thoughts
I think it's a big step up from the first instalment, I'm enjoying it way more.
I thought keeping it just in Midgar was silly, it felt dragged out and it didn't have much variation in terms of the scenery.
However with Rebirth, as soon as you get out of Kalm you have a big world to explore and it's great to just wander round and explore.
Now that I'm half way in though, despite still liking what I'm playing, the gameplay loop is now starting to slow down on me. I've got to a new region and I'm like "Yaaay...need to go and find those towers again, oh look another special beast marker, is that a bird I see in the distance? Better follow it to another Mako Crystal"
It's like....you know how Peter Jackson was only supposed to have two Hobbit films then Warner Bros wanted a third film so he stretched the second film out as much as he could so he could keep stuff for the third film making a trilogy? Yeah it feels like that, so these mini games are a part of that overall gameplay loop to keep us going and stretch the game out overall so they have something for the third and final game.
I personally think you could have had the first instalment get you out of Midgar and through to Grasslands / Junon and the second game finishes things off.
I had a weird cycle of love/hate for all the mini games as I played through. At first I really hated the seeming need to check all these boxes while exploring the grasslands. I didn't enjoy the Gilgamesh quest initially, and thought Queen's blood was fine but didn't want to commit to it. The side quests didn't really grab me either.
Then for some reason everything in Junon region changed my mind and I did pretty much everything. I liked most of the side quests, I actually liked playing fort condor (didn't care for it in the intergrade dlc). And my interest for completing these quests stayed pretty much through to Cosmo Canyon.
Then they added that horrible Lifestream memory/battle mini game and I started getting so burnt out of it all. I just wanted to do the story. I didn't do any side quests in neibleheim and beyond except for the summon. I abandoned Gilgamesh.
So what I'm saying is I would like the third part to go back to the focused progression from remake. Keep the mini games to the gold saucer. Start the game snowboarding if you want, but from there keep the story rolling.
That's funny you say that because I did everything in the Grasslands but once in Junon I started to slow down a little until Corel where by the end I was burnt out. I'm still currently going but I'm just doing what I can while things keep getting thrown at me.
I would have preferred half of these mini game side fillers / collectibles for some really beefy side quests that really adds onto the world of FFVII.
Sounds like they hadn't really figured out what they wanted to do with Remake and this one is more of what they thought of doing which is probably why they're dragging it out to make a trilogy. Disappointed to hear it has towers cause man do i hate towers lol. It's been a while since I've played the first and it'll be a while longer to play the sequel, but it sounds like I'll enjoy it. 7 really impressed me especially after being disappointed with 15, felt like Square finally realized that FF was THEIR big franchise again.
How many hours are you into it at this point?
My friend got like 20-30 in and pretty much quit because of its mini game era. He loved and basically binged through Gran Blue compared to Rebirth
As long as it comes out on PS5 to have the entire series on one platform, do whatever you want
The combat is my favorite thing about Rebirth. Would be really cool if they can improve it even more.
I hope after FF7 Square will either give a new FF game the remake treatment. Or give some of their older titles a remake treatment like Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, even Xenogears.
Wccf tech writes: "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2's scope was impacted by the Xbox Series S hardware limitations, as developers could only make a game that was 25% bigger than its predecessor."
This is the issue with things like this
Xbox Series X is apparently to MS the worlds most powerful console
However the Series S is obviously a limitation because it’s underpowered and developers have to go for parity.
So what’s the point of the world’s most powerful console if you are holding third party developers back? They aren’t going to push themselves if they have to think about the weakest console.
The issue wouldn’t be as bad if it was just Xbox but you are also affecting the PS version aswell
I think developers need to start just taking advantage of a console and if one of them can’t do X Y and Z then f*** them…why should the others suffer. What’s MS going to do? The bigger the franchise the least chance MS are going to tell them to f*** off. Baulders Gate 3 seemed to have stood their ground and suddenly their “strict” parity rule didn’t really matter. We suddenly got super optimisation efforts for the Series S that got things sorted.
I agree, and the sad part is use normal folk saw it the second they announced their plans.
Agree 100% this is why I didn’t want the M$ Monopoly, now PS5 version will be held back too.
If PS5 Pro comes out and Series S is still a thing it’ll be interesting what differences and what devs choose to do. Really hoping Rockstar pushes the PS5 pro with GTA6 and we get the best version possible.
Good ole S indeed. Everyone knew this all along. S was holding games back...Now where the hell is Orchard i want a word with him.
More info from the author of the article, I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/ki...
Quote:
"1) I was told this info from the producer of the game Martin Klíma.
2) He specifically said the game will have only one mode.
3) And this mode is 4K 30 on PS5/XSX and 1440p 30 on XSS.
4) He said that the game is already running north of the 30 FPS cap so the performance should be stable on launch, much better than KCD1.
5) The limitation was XSS because of the 10GB memory. He said that's why they wanted to make the game 25% larger.
6) Speculation on my part: the output resolution is probably upscaled and the reason why there won't be a 60 FPS mode is because it'll most likely be very CPU heavy, like Dragon's Dogma 2 for example."
Doesn't seem like they're adding a 40fps mode on PS5/Series X for launch even if they can handle it.
I'd much rather have 1440p/60fps or even 45fps. Having just one, even with the Series S in mind, is disappointing.
Remember when xbots were adamant that the series s won’t hold back the gen?
Microsoft just needs to let go of the mandatory parity. Who cares if your grandma doesn’t understand that a game cannot be played on the S. It’s not like it she can buy you a physical game for it anyway. Before buying the game put up a notice that it only works on series X. If you’re buying for a friend-allow for a refund.
Bam. Everyone is happy. Most series s owners are for casuals that want Game Pass anyway and most likely don’t purchase most games.
If the developers want it to run on S, let them figure it out.
If it were Series X only then they'd only be selling to 25% of the Xbox Series userbase, and that's certainly not worth the time and effort into doing a port. Could just do PS5 & PC instead. No compromises needed.
“During the event, the Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 producer also revealed that on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the game will run at 4K resolution and 30 frames per second“
Another “creative decision” right? 🤦♂️
Since you're not an amateur and clearly know more than them, can you over there and help get the game running on the S without having to sacrifice their true vision. Us gamers would really appreciate you using your wisdom for good 🙏
Thousands of games run just fine on S.
But Kingdom Come is the game that can’t. Must be one hell of a game!
Thousands of games run on PS4 and on Switch. If developers want them to run on those systems. Fine. Those two platforms still get new games. Sony isn’t making studios also make a ps4 pro version, or Nintendo a wiiu version. Microsoft technically is.
If games like Alan Wake 2, GTA6, COD, hellblade all run on S, no excuse for this 100x smaller and 100x worse looking game to be held back.
"Thousands of games run just fine on S.
But Kingdom Come is the game that can’t. Must be one hell of a game!"
Kingdom come 2 runs just fine alright. Its the SCOPE that they want. They had to cut it because of the stupid S series. Hellblade2 ran just fine too..but im pretty confident if it was just the X in mind, the scope of the game would have been much bigger.
Good review :)
i'll get it and wait till the new 2.01 update to play it, just to make sure i have no problems. there i found myself an excuse so i can have more time playing mario galaxy.
Very decent blog post. I agree with your points.
Very well written, I commend your language and writing skills.
I eant to play this so bad. My friends so it seriouly is so good and they have never played a game that feels like Uncharted. They were saying how the action is amazing and the story really makes you feel like Indiana Jones! So cool!
Well written review. Sounds appropriate for the game.
Unfortunately, it's al messed up since you misspelled 'perspective' in the topic.