Category: Action

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Game Ramblings #11 – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Revisited

More info from Wikipedia

  • Platform: PS4 (Part of The Nathan Drake Collection)
  • Genre: Action-Adventure, Third-person shooter

Uncharted 4 came out, so I’m doing what everyone else is doing; not playing it!  Admittedly I’ve always had a bit of a habit of picking up games, having more games come out, and never finishing games that I got sidetracked from.  For as quick as they are, the Uncharted titles definitely fell into that category.  Because of that, I decided to start at the top and work my way through, beginning with Drake’s Fortune.  So then the question is, how has this one aged?

So I’ll start this off by immediately admitting I have a love/hate relationship with the gun play of this series.  I absolutely adore that I can run through the entire game with a 9mm pistol, using it as an effective sniper rifle and getting the vast majority of my kills as headshots.  That said, it absolutely bugs the game developer side of me that I can do this.  Throughout this play through, I only really ended up using other weapons on a need-to-use basis.  The shotgun and MP40 came into play in the zombie-ish end game segments when they had effectively infinite ammo.  The AK47 and MP4 became relatively effective pray and spray weapons into walls of enemies.  However, they never really felt more powerful on a per-hit basis than either of the main 9mm pistols, and the lack of ammunition available for other larger pistols meant that I really had no reason to use others.

On the other hand, I have a much less positive relationship with the actual environmental design when it comes to this.  Going through the levels, it’s extremely obvious when you’re about to get into gunfights.  In general, you’ll turn a corner, see a bunch of crates, concrete wall segments, etc in a flat area, and know that once you hit a trigger point, a bunch of dudes are going to come into the field to start attacking you.  Sure by end game you get snipers in vertical nests, but by and large the combat areas are extremely obvious and scripted.

That said, mechanically I would tend to lean towards the gun play still being very fun, but not more than above average.  At this point I feel like the Tomb Raider series has taken some of the strong points of this series, and with the addition of that game’s more defined stealth mechanics, there are definitely options out now that have vastly improved on the third-person tomb crawling.

So then the question I guess becomes, is this one still worth a play through if you’re new to the Sony world?  Aging aside, I’d say yes.  The story is a pretty solid Indiana Jones-style story, the characters are entertaining, there’s enough visual improvements for the game to still look pretty decent, and the craftsmanship of the experience is without question.  Much like the Jak series, the first in the series showed the promise of Naughty Dog’s path, and new people to the series shouldn’t skip it for its age.

And yes, sniper 9mm is a lot of fun.

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Game Ramblings #10 – Ratchet and Clank (2016)

More Info from Insomniac

  • Genre: Action/Platformer
  • Platform: PS4

As it turns out, the game based on the movie based on the game is still as good as it was on the PS2.  As it also turns out, you can retcon an origin story without actually retconning an origin story.  Basically, Insomniac has pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

So, yes, this is technically a game I’ve played before.  Saying I’m a Ratchet and Clank fan would be a bit of an understatement.  I’ve effectively played through all the games, including Secret Agent Clank, Size Matters, and the slightly unusual side games on the PS3.  I came into this one not really sure what to think.  On the one hand, it brings the origin story into a more modern time, with the things that Insomniac has learned in the past 15 years.  On the other, I came in knowing that they were going to be retconning a significant amount of the origin story of what is now a 10+ game combined story.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit suspicious of the thing as a whole.

So, let’s get this out of the way.  If you’ve never played a Ratchet game before, this is a damn good starting point.  If you have played a Ratchet game before, this is a damn good restarting point.  In some ways, this game really is an all star combination of the best of the past titles.  The weapons and upgrade system tied to it are heavily influenced by the later titles in the series, with standard blasters like the Combuster to the absurd like the Sheepinator to the explosively fun like the RYNO.  The levels themselves are also show a bit of a mix.  There are some that are reimaginings of original game levels, and some created new for this game.  Overall, it hits a lot of the highlights from the original, while swapping in some newer, better designs for some of the repetitive elements that would no longer work as well.  And holy shit it was so nice immediately turning on the strafe controls right at the start.

So now, about that story.  I’m going to avoid spoilers here, but they explain away the retcon of the origin in a way that absolutely makes sense for this series.  From the opening cutscene, long time players of the series will be in on the gag, and appreciate the in-jokes that pop up to explain the differences between the original and remakes, while new players don’t even have to care that the original existed.  The end of the game also leaves an opening to explain how we arrive at one of the later titles in the series.  The trademark Ratchet humor exists throughout the game, and from what they’ve shown of pre-rendered cutscenes in the game, should also translate very well to the movie theater.  Is it kind of weird to see the changes? Sure.  Is it very Ratchet and Clank? Yes.

I guess I don’t really have much negative to say here though, which is slightly rare.  There’s a handful of weapons I didn’t really use, but that’s mostly because the ones I did use were never really running out of ammo.  There were a handful of areas where there was probably a bit too much collecting, but nothing that got in the way.  The difficulty on normal was too easy, and moving up too hard provided a nice challenge, but had sort of strange power spikes depending on my upgrade path, but again didn’t provide any negative blocker.  Overall this just continued the Ratchet and Clank mainline series history of being at worst a really damn good game.

So, I dunno, go out and buy it I guess! 😀

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Game Ramblings #9 – Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China

More Info from Ubisoft

  • Genre: Stealth Action
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Xbox One, PC (Uplay)

This is going to seem like a fairly negative review, but for me it’s with good reason.  Assassin’s Creed Chronicles has a lot of the makings of a great 2D stealth action game, and even more so, has a lot of the great makings of a game that fans of Metroidvania style games would enjoy.  Environmental traversal feels great, stealth kills feel great, combat feels great.  In particular, the combat allows for really smooth transitions between defensive and offensive maneuvers to allow for rapid kills that nearly feel rhythmic in their execution.  Visually, the game also is fantastic, with each of the Chronicles trilogy having their own unique visual style.  That said, I never got that far into the pack, and for me it was the feeling that the game was getting in my way that caused me to stop playing.

One of the core parts of the China episode is that the player gets scored based on their actions within segments of the level, then at the end of the level they can gain upgrades, whether that be health bars, ammo pack upgrades, etc.  However, the way the scoring was done actively forced me into a specific play style to maximize the score I was getting, and killed my reasons for pushing forward.

The maximum score for segments of the levels can be achieved in one way; never being seen, never killing anyone, and never setting off any traps around the level.  What this meant for me is that I could never use the fantastic combat system that they had implemented, I could never even stealth kill enemies even if they never saw me, and any progress through levels became a slow series of waiting in a hiding spot until the perfect opportunity arrived to move forward without being caught.

While I am all for having a full stealth option, at the end of the day the things that have always been the most fun for me in the Assassin’s series are being able to do stupid things like jumping off a roof to assassinate unsuspecting enemies, then sending throwing knives into the people responding.  The China Chronicles episode actively worked against doing anything resembling that style of gameplay.  For players that enjoy full on combat, it’s even worse as combat is by far the lowest scoring option of the three.

At the end of the day, the China Chronicles game is a game that is frustratingly close to being great.  Given the chance, equal scoring for the three paths would have at minimum allowed me to play as I want, and probably have resulted in me playing through all three of the trilogy, rather than stopping at the first.  For me, the Assassin’s games have always represented a series that largely allows you to play as you want, as long as you get to the end goal.  Sure you may miss some optional bonuses, but the core of the objective was always achievable.  In this case, China has gone so far down the route of sticking to the full-stealth option that I just couldn’t bring myself to want to keep playing, and that’s kind of an unfortunate end result.