Headshots & Friendly Fire: Round 5
Boom! Headshot!!
Overload of Fall Releases
Once every few years, video game developers bless us with a massive amount of games leading up to the holidays. The 2001 fall release window had Silent Hill 2, Ico, Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Final Fantasy 10. In 2004, Half-life 2, Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and World of Warcraft were all released in the month of November. Now, in 2009 we have Uncharted 2, Demon’s Souls, Brutal legend, Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, and Call of Duty. Trying to figure out what games I’m going to buy immediately, or Gamefly and then buy, or just wait a few weeks before buying, is what makes the holidays so much fun. Sure, I’m going into credit card debt after buying all these games, but hopefully my games won’t get repossessed until after I finish them.
Attention to Detail
Oh Naughty Dog, how you have answered the bell in terms of attention to detail. Too many times in games we as gamers are left to think about what could have been. We sit there and find issues where the game felt or looked rushed, or where the minute details were not looked into. I know that Naughty Dog has Sony behind them but I have seen other games with big backings that didn’t deliver that same attention. Uncharted 2 does just that as everything has been tweaked to perfection. The effects of the environment, the characters clothing, the enemies and their movements, it is all taken into account. No places is this more evident than walking through the snow as Nathan Drake or fighting on a moving train.
Item Satisfaction in an RPG
There isn’t a genre that gives you more bang for your buck than a good dungeon crawler. Demon’s Souls for instance is a game I will likely spend over 100 hours playing. It’s got enough rare items, weapons, and secret locations to ensure that I will be playing it long after I finish Brutal Legend or Uncharted 2. Now, Fallout 3 had a large map with a ton of places to explore and quests to complete, but there weren’t many great items to find. Sure, getting ghoul masks and mole rat sticks was fine, but there were countless times when I would explore an area just to find some Rad-x or a note somebody left before getting eaten by their mutant neighbors. I want to find obscure items, whose sole purpose is to help you obtain other items that are just as obscure in their purpose. I want to fight my way through a level of enemies to get some cool looking armor with only slightly more damage resistance. If your going to dangle a prize in front of my face in an RPG and tell me to go get it, you better make sure its something I actually want, and not just a note from the developer saying, “hey, I hope you enjoyed that level…because your not getting a decent reward.”
Staying the Course
Since Uncharted released this week why not another paragraph about the game? Well there has been a lot of talk lately about the “lack” of innovation in Uncharted 2 and it was even docked points by GameTrailers in their review of the game. We feel the need to jump on the side of Naughty Dog on this one and remind people that Innovation just for the sake of Innovation is not always a good thing. Naughty Dog did not need to come up with something groundbreaking because everything that they did do felt so well done and crisp that it made it feel groundbreaking. Yes they borrowed ideas from everyone else but why is that a bad thing? As a developer they took a successful idea that has been proven to work and they injected that Nathan Drake swagger into it and the result is an amazing product. Yes the multiplayer has been done by Call of Duty and Gears of War, but with the vertical element of Uncharted added to it, it feels new and fresh. If you can put out a product of such immense quality and dedication, then I think it should be ok that you didn’t try anything groundbreaking. Not every game out there has to have 10 steps of Innovation or some gimmick to make it stand out and be great.
As always thanks so much for taking the time to check us out. We love to discuss these topics so please leave us a comment or if you have any suggestions send us an email.
cameron.teague [at] playstationlifestyle.net
josh.fernandes [at] playstationlifestyle.net
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13 Responses to “Headshots & Friendly Fire: Round 5”
yeah l hate when bosses heal themselves as well. It makes all that work l’ve done pointless and time consuming
nice article
Uncharted 2 is such a great game. I even “CLAPPED” at it after I finished it. I’ve never done this to games before. It’s just so entertaining and more than satisfying. This is really the best game i’ve ever played. As of now, I think i’ll wait a few weeks to pick up borderlands because I just can’t get enough of Uncharted 2. We’ll see tomorrow if I can resist since I’m planning on going to best buy to buy transformers: revenge of the fallen movie on blue ray. If you’re reading this and have not bought it yet, GET it. It’s the best $60 purchase of your life.
I’m sad about Bayonetta and Alpha Protocol too. I was really looking forward to those games. I just hope that sega would fix the issues on the PS3 version of Bayonetta. Q1 2010 is really overloaded, with games such as ModNation Racers, GT5, MAG, GoW3, Dante’s Inferno, Bioshock 2, Darksiders. Looks like the holidays would go on until summer next year. lol.
And we could also have more games if they didn’t push the release dates of the other games listed above.
Who was name calling?
Some good points. I’m lovin Demons Souls so much I can’t get near my Uncharted2 or Brutal Legends yet.
Oh and don’t worry about GameTrailers…they have no credibility anyway.
GameTrailers does lost their credibility by obviously leaning on the Xbox360. How much did they give anyway?
Hey, robotron I could play your brutal legend if you want? nah, i’m too busy with my uncharted 2. I wish I have Demon Souls.
Would I buy Borderlands tomorrow? or Demon Souls? or just keep playing my uncharted 2? hmmmmm……. any help?
A great read guys. I enjoyed it immensely.
@Onion,
I was referring to the Turn 10 war against Polyphony Digital
Totally agreed with “Staying the Course”. I’ve bought a few games recently for their innovative properties (Fracture, Bionic Commando) that I thought would really make for some fun addictive multiplayer, and then found that yeah, it might have been a good idea, but it was poorly executed. They rode the innovation like a crutch, and didn’t deliver on the rest, like with good level layouts, enemies, etc. I found myself really dissapointed with DarkSector, which was advertised to bring innovation to the table by using your blade to pick up elements and use them against enemies and in puzzles… when really this only came into play for 10% of the game. Sometimes its definitely better to do something thats known to work and do it really really well, rather than hope that an innovative idea will cover all the areas that fall short.
While I haven’t played demon’s souls, I don’t always mind enemies that heal… if you can cast reflect on them so the spell heals you! (FFVII)
I agree completely with the comments about all the games being pushed into next year – it’s idiotic. There are a total of two games I’m interested in coming out in Nov – Dec., the God of War collection and Saboteur. That’s it – everything else is in a huge logjam at the beginning of next year. You just have to look at the gigantic spike in sales around Christmas time to see what these screwballs are missing out on.
Still my favorite column / article here at PSLS. I always look forward to reading it.
Is this a wekly feature?
@DGR8Mc187
yes, this is a weekly feature, but we did not put one up last monday.
Aha! I thought so.