frogbeastegg
12-07-2007, 11:20
I know there are other PS3 owners here; anyone else playing it?
Mine arrived yesterday and I played for an hour and a bit last night. This game has an 89% average review, and players are raving about it on various forums. Either I'm missing something or the beginning of the game is of vastly lower standard to the rest. The game splits into two halves, both of which I have seen done far better by other games - older games. Years older games.
The cover and shoot gunplay is not a patch on Operation Winback's, an old N64 game. A brief description of an average battle will show why.
Winback: When the first shots are fired you dive for cover, fastening your character onto a bit of scenery with a single button press. He will not detach until you hit the cover button again. You can move about on the cover object, and duck and stand. Another button press locks you onto a target. Hold one of the shoulder buttons and your character will duck out of cover with his gun trained on the targeted enemy's torso. At this point you may empty multiple bullets into the target without using any skill or you may adjust the auto-aim to get an instant kill with a head shot, a feat which is tricky at the start but soon mastered. The basic pistol has unlimited reloads; the clip holds 5(?) shots and reloading is slow and makes you very vulnerable.
Drake: A single button press may or may not attach your character to a cover object. When you have finally got Nate attached you can move about, though he will come unstuck from time to time and always when you least need him to. Pressing L1 will make him pop out of cover and a crosshair appear on your screen. Invariably this crosshair is some distance from the enemy you wish to target. There's no lock on. You must now slowly plod the crosshair across the screen to the enemy; on maximum sensitivity aiming is still too slow. The enemies in this game are not stupid; they dodge and use cover themselves, and fire at you when you are exposed. Nate takes around 5 hits before he dies. You'll be hit at least once before you drag the crosshairs to the enemy, more likely several times because the target will keep dodging. Shoot. Headshots kill in 1 or 2 hits, every other location takes 5 or more bullets. You have 40 shots for your pistol, plus whatever secondary weapon you currently carry. Enemies dodge. A lot. Your aiming is sluggish. Guess what happens? Yup, you miss a lot. Nate's health regenerates as long as you are not hit for a short while, so when you've been hit a few times you need to pop back into cover - usually right when you have the target in your sights - and wait for him to recover. Then you pop back out to continue the battle. Oh look, the crosshair is in entirely the wrong place again. Time to repeat the plodding process of aiming while being shot to death. Eventually you will kill the original 4 you were faced with. Now another 5 will spawn. Kill them and you'll barely have any ammo left, but now there's another 7 to take down. By the time you're down with them you'll be on your last couple of bullets for your last weapon. Scavenge the ammo lying around, walk for a minute or two, and prepare to do it all over again.
Platforming is the other half. Nate is slow and lumbering after the agility of Altair, so much so it's like playing as a whale after being an eagle. He's slow and clumsy in comparison to the prince from Prince of Persia, and any number of other characters from last gen games. He's slow, he can't sprint, his jumps are clumsy, and above all he is unreliable. For years now most characters in this style of game have featured a ledge stop ability, i.e. when you walk them near the edge of a drop they will not fall off unless you explicitly tell them to. It's a great feature. Nate doesn't have this. Hurrah for falling to my death because the camera moved unexpectedly, or having to do a set of jumps over again because he skidded off a narrow platform on landing. He won't always grab ledges reliably. He doesn't always jump in the direction I wish him to. He blunders. Inelegantly. I can't tell you how much his refusal to climb foot high ledges without me telling him to bothers me; after years of characters doing that sort of thing automatically I keep forgetting I need to push a button. It feels clumsy and archaic.
Visually it’s not the stunner people insist. There’s tearing. Everything looks faintly plasticy and bland except for the water. That is the one standout visual feature. Nate’s lauded animations just look like a sluggish man lumbering his way around; Altair was done better.
Sound’s much better, probably the only aspect I have no sinking feeling about. Voice acting is above average, and the gun battles do sound fabulous.
I shall soldier on for a while, it may improve. I hope it does ~:(
Mine arrived yesterday and I played for an hour and a bit last night. This game has an 89% average review, and players are raving about it on various forums. Either I'm missing something or the beginning of the game is of vastly lower standard to the rest. The game splits into two halves, both of which I have seen done far better by other games - older games. Years older games.
The cover and shoot gunplay is not a patch on Operation Winback's, an old N64 game. A brief description of an average battle will show why.
Winback: When the first shots are fired you dive for cover, fastening your character onto a bit of scenery with a single button press. He will not detach until you hit the cover button again. You can move about on the cover object, and duck and stand. Another button press locks you onto a target. Hold one of the shoulder buttons and your character will duck out of cover with his gun trained on the targeted enemy's torso. At this point you may empty multiple bullets into the target without using any skill or you may adjust the auto-aim to get an instant kill with a head shot, a feat which is tricky at the start but soon mastered. The basic pistol has unlimited reloads; the clip holds 5(?) shots and reloading is slow and makes you very vulnerable.
Drake: A single button press may or may not attach your character to a cover object. When you have finally got Nate attached you can move about, though he will come unstuck from time to time and always when you least need him to. Pressing L1 will make him pop out of cover and a crosshair appear on your screen. Invariably this crosshair is some distance from the enemy you wish to target. There's no lock on. You must now slowly plod the crosshair across the screen to the enemy; on maximum sensitivity aiming is still too slow. The enemies in this game are not stupid; they dodge and use cover themselves, and fire at you when you are exposed. Nate takes around 5 hits before he dies. You'll be hit at least once before you drag the crosshairs to the enemy, more likely several times because the target will keep dodging. Shoot. Headshots kill in 1 or 2 hits, every other location takes 5 or more bullets. You have 40 shots for your pistol, plus whatever secondary weapon you currently carry. Enemies dodge. A lot. Your aiming is sluggish. Guess what happens? Yup, you miss a lot. Nate's health regenerates as long as you are not hit for a short while, so when you've been hit a few times you need to pop back into cover - usually right when you have the target in your sights - and wait for him to recover. Then you pop back out to continue the battle. Oh look, the crosshair is in entirely the wrong place again. Time to repeat the plodding process of aiming while being shot to death. Eventually you will kill the original 4 you were faced with. Now another 5 will spawn. Kill them and you'll barely have any ammo left, but now there's another 7 to take down. By the time you're down with them you'll be on your last couple of bullets for your last weapon. Scavenge the ammo lying around, walk for a minute or two, and prepare to do it all over again.
Platforming is the other half. Nate is slow and lumbering after the agility of Altair, so much so it's like playing as a whale after being an eagle. He's slow and clumsy in comparison to the prince from Prince of Persia, and any number of other characters from last gen games. He's slow, he can't sprint, his jumps are clumsy, and above all he is unreliable. For years now most characters in this style of game have featured a ledge stop ability, i.e. when you walk them near the edge of a drop they will not fall off unless you explicitly tell them to. It's a great feature. Nate doesn't have this. Hurrah for falling to my death because the camera moved unexpectedly, or having to do a set of jumps over again because he skidded off a narrow platform on landing. He won't always grab ledges reliably. He doesn't always jump in the direction I wish him to. He blunders. Inelegantly. I can't tell you how much his refusal to climb foot high ledges without me telling him to bothers me; after years of characters doing that sort of thing automatically I keep forgetting I need to push a button. It feels clumsy and archaic.
Visually it’s not the stunner people insist. There’s tearing. Everything looks faintly plasticy and bland except for the water. That is the one standout visual feature. Nate’s lauded animations just look like a sluggish man lumbering his way around; Altair was done better.
Sound’s much better, probably the only aspect I have no sinking feeling about. Voice acting is above average, and the gun battles do sound fabulous.
I shall soldier on for a while, it may improve. I hope it does ~:(