OXCGN – Breathing Life Into Gaming

by AXIS of Reality

©2009 Alex Baldwin

Regular readers will be familiar with OXCGN’s ‘Steal It For 360′ articles, where we sit down with some of the biggest games from other platforms and decide whether we’d like to see it on 360. While some of these games are exclusives, it doesn’t stop us from appreciating a great game, regardless of platform.

Or, from taking off the hype-glasses and seeing a steaming pile underneath that we’re glad hasn’t made it to Microsoft Land.

This time it’s Uncharted 2 stepping into the spotlight, defenseless against the critical beating I’m ready to unleash on anything that fails the fundamentals of game design.

• Uncharted 2 Trailer

Suffice to say, anyone looking forward to seeing Uncharted 2 reduced to a quivering mess is going to be disappointed. This game is good. It’s damn good.

But let’s start from the beginning shall we?

As with most PS3 games, I chucked the disc in the drive while checking my emails expecting the usual 20 minute wait as the game installs. What a surprise when I looked at my TV and saw it was at the main menu waiting for me to start instantly.

Good first impression, check.

Of course a loading screen greeted me as is expected, highlighted by a spinning ornamental dagger in the bottom-right that is almost hypnotic to watch. It didn’t take long before a quite stunning cutscene was playing that reeked of high production values.

I kept watching until the player character Nathan Drake stopped moving. For a few moments I was thinking ‘what the hell?’ wondering if my PS3 had frozen up until I pushed the thumbstick and HOLY SHIT he moved.

Now, you’ve got to get this in the right context – a supremely detailed cutscene was playing, devoid of the usual ‘game graphics’ signs of blocky-edged polygons, pixellated textures, object clipping or framerate slowdown when it just appears to stop.

I’m sure more than a few people were then waiting for it to load the actual game at that point – after all, this clearly isn’t how the game actually looks. No console game looks that good. Actually, no game at all looks that good. So when you make that first experimental tilt of the thumbstick and seem him respond with the same fluid animation of the cutscene it is indeed as ‘did I really do that?’ moment.

Naught Dog, you sly, sly bastards. Here I was thinking you were teasing me with some pretty cutscenes before then reverting to the actual game graphics when you were showing everything in-engine all along!

Good second impressions: hell yes.

The animation team really needs a raise – not since Assassin’s Creed have I seen such fluid character movement, and even then it was just responding to the static environment architectures. Imagine my surprise when my first action is to climb a pipe and it actually starts to come loose with me still climbing, totally changing the way Drake’s climbing animations respond by shifting his centre of gravity in an attempt to compensate. Bravo animators, bravo.

This contributes to the overall feeling of playing a movie – nothing ever seems ‘gamey’ or like you’re repeating actions. Movements all flow in together to the point where it’s hard to believe you’re still in control and you’re not just watching another cutscene.

The actual visuals themselves also contribute to this. Developers Naughty Dog have really gone to town in the environmental architecture and detail. Nothing ever appears tiled or reused, with every corner of even the most obscure areas painstakingly rendered to give it a narrative and history. It’s simply stunning on a level above any other game I’ve ever played (and I’ve played a LOT).

And while we can keep staring slack-jawed at the beautiful vistas that are constantly washing over the screen with barely a hitch in framerate, at some point I felt the need to play the game. Luckily Uncharted 2: Among Thieves plays almost as good as it looks.

Combining familiar Tomb Raider-esque climbing and destruction of historical architecture with some Gears of War cover based shooting, Uncharted 2 is a jack of all trades and seemingly master of many. The combat is fast and satisfying with some spectacular set-pieces including one involving jumping around moving vehicles that flows more smoothly than I would have thought possible. While not introducing anything really ‘new’ this doesn’t matter at all when it’s polished to a blinding degree.

The climbing and movement puzzles also work the majority of the time with the fluid animations making it more satisfying than modern Tomb Raiders have managed to achieve. Unfortunately there are still several awkward sections where Nathan simply doesn’t seem to want to jump in a certain direction due to a strange discrepancy between the camera and thumbstick angles. Another little niggle was the reliance on the ‘single patch’, with several areas that appear totally climbable but will just leave Drake jumping on the spot ignoring the ledge or pole right in front of him.

The story, while not providing anything revolutionary serves it’s purpose sufficiently by providing an excuse to jump around a variety of different locales and moving things forward. However, the real highlight is the characters. Simply put, these are some of the most compelling personas I’ve seen in an action game.

The voice actors cannot be faulted for their performances which seem so natural and in tune with the current situation it’s difficult to imagine them delivering the lines standing in a recording studio. conversations between the characters are always entertaining and often give more of a sense of the story than the cutscenes. Not to mention they’re often damn funny.

Without giving anything away, the plot involves following some clues left by Marco Polo. At one memorable point I (as Nathan) was exploring a bombed-out hotel when I came across a rippling swimming pool which I proceeded to jump straight into and swim around while my female AI companion stood at the side giving Nathan a ‘what the hell are you doing?’ expression. Without skipping a beat while I was still totally in control this exchange took place:

Nathan: “Hey hey hey…….Marco!”

Female Companion: “….you’ve got to be kidding….”

Nathan: “Marco!!”

Female Companion: “*sigh*…….Polo.”

Nathan: “Aahahahahahaaaaa!”

It works brilliantly when these exchanges happen all the while you’re still playing just triggered by actions you’re taking. It was then barely a surprise when I jumped out of the pool that Nathan gleefully yelled out “Fishy out of water!”.

By now you should have realised the singleplayer of Uncharted 2 is one of the best seen in a game this generation. After finishing (and feeling an immediate urge to replay it), I dipped into the multiplayer.

I should note I did play the Uncharted 2 Multiplayer Beta, and along with playing the other maps in the final game have come away with a very positive experience from a genre that would usually just have a tacked-on online mode made with purpose of ticking a feature box.

The game modes, maps and gun-play are very polished and definitely worth playing. While it’s unlikely it will replace Halo, Call of Duty or Resistance 2 as your multiplayer shooter of choice it is a welcome addition and simply adds to the value of the Uncharted 2 package.

So by now you should be able to predict whether we at OXCGN would like to steal Uncharted 2 for the 360. That is, unless you’ve skipped all the way to the end (shame on you!) and missed all the layers of praise heaped upon it.

Such a polished, finely-tuned experience with great characters, a decent story, engrossing gameplay and successful multiplayer that has finally managed to unlock the PS3′s previously mythical power?

360 owners, while your PS3 gamer friends may have been running over to your place for some Gears of War 2 or Halo 3, now it’s your turn. Everyone needs to experience Uncharted 2, no matter where your console loyalties lie.

Steal It? YES. YES. YES. Get the point?

• Check out our Uncharted 2 Full Official Review here . . . See what our US correspondent has to say…

©2009 Alex Baldwin

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