Review: Uncharted 2

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, sequel to the critically acclaimed and oft-overlooked Drake’s Fortune, doesn’t deal in pretensions. There’s no gimmick, no "revolutionary new feature," and, at first glance, there's no pretentious aspiration to status as art. After just a couple hours of play, it starts looking like the seasoned staff at Naughty Dog went to great lengths not to make originality their goal.

Strangely enough, the game thrives because of it. The lack of originality in Uncharted 2 is overshadowed tenfold by blockbuster production value, fantastic pacing, and captivating storyline. This is a stunner of a game.

Fortune Hunting for Dummies

Uncharted 2’s storyline is your typical action-adventure fare: Fortune hunter Nathan Drake, along with his new love interest Chloe, are out to find the lost treasure of Marco Polo. Along the way, there’s adventure, betrayal, peril, and even a love triangle. The plot smartly centers itself around adventure, but it offers little that hasn’t already been hashed out by countless action films of years past.

What differentiates Uncharted 2 is the way it uses the video game medium to develop its characters and tell its story. Every moment there’s some character development going on. Nathan is rarely left alone in his quest, and he and his partners are constantly making quips at one another. The relationships between Nathan and the people he works with on his mission don’t need cinematics to tell us how they know each other. Instead, we play the role of Nathan as he gives Chloe a boost up to a fire escape. Out of curiosity, we jump into a rooftop swimming pool and hear Nathan playfully yell “Marco!” It’s effective because we learn about Nathan and his relationships by seeing things through his eyes, not by sitting back and watching. It’s what takes Uncharted 2 to the next level, and it’s what gaming needs to progress into a more viable storytelling medium.

Into the Uncanny Valley


As far as production value is concerned, Among Thieves is really in a league of its own. The graphics are breathtaking, the set pieces are epic in scope, and the voice acting is the best I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s obvious that painstaking care went into each detail of this production, from the way Nathan covers his face as he passes by an open flame, to the slowly melting snow on his boots, to the sprawling images of Borneo as he stands atop a dilapidated hotel.


Action sequences feel epic and puzzles are likely to evoke a sense of awe and discovery. There are multiple moments in the game where it’s hard to believe you’re controlling Nathan, only because what’s going on onscreen is so cinematic. Take, for instance, a firefight in a building that is literally toppling over that has you shooting even as furniture starts falling out the window. And then jumping out of said window into the next building. The scope of the action can become overwhelming, but it never becomes repetitive or boring.

On the Shoulders of Giants

Uncharted 2 takes successful gameplay elements straight from other titles and simply throws them together. A few hours in, you may begin to ask yourself: Is this Gears of War I’m playing? No, but you are depending on cover for every firefight. Is it Assassin’s Creed? Nope, but platforming is just as intuitive, and yes, those little bricks jutting out of the wall are climbable. Well then this has to be Tomb Raider. Of course not! But yes, you’re looking for Marco Polo’s treasure.

All of these components taken individually don’t mean much. But when you begin to realize how seamlessly you’re switching between parkour, gunplay, and Indiana Jones-esque exploration, something magical happens. Playing Among Thieves becomes so intense and so immersive that the action begins to mesh with the story. Every moment you play begins to feel organic, as if you’re not playing a game, but instead directing an exciting blockbuster film.


And like many great films, the pace of Uncharted 2 rarely lets up. The constant tension makes playing the game for an extended period of time a demanding task, and the developers seem to recognize this. One chapter involves Nathan just walking around, checking out scenery and talking to locals. It’s quite refreshing, and a necessary break in the madness that envelops every scene of the story.

Among the Best?

At this point, it’s probably worth stating that Uncharted 2 isn’t perfect. Sometimes platforming can get confusing, as it can be difficult to tell whether or not certain surfaces are climbable. The AI isn’t the best, and sometimes opponents act downright stupid. That’s fine though, since later on in the game enemies are pretty much bullet sponges. Besides that, though, there are not really any major flaws to speak of. Naughty Dog got some flak for its abbreviated campaign mode in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and it’s apparent that they’ve taken the time to make their second go as polished as possible.

It’s been said that every story has already been told. It would seem that the creative minds at Naughty Dog hold the same to be true for video games, and it’s a concept that they really ran with when they made Uncharted 2. Some would criticize it for the fact that it’s really just a combination of some of gaming’s greatest hits. But even if Uncharted 2: Among Thieves brings no new ideas to the table, the experience it brings feels breathtakingly original: A polished story with a charming cast of characters that keeps its hold on you until the final cutscene has played out.

TF2 and a gamer's drought...

This summer has been mostly devoid of any substantial gaming - some Space Invaders Extreme here, some casual flash games there, but I've found one light at the end of my dark, empty tunnel of games: Team Fortress 2.

I'll tell you, I was always skeptical of TF. As a fan of Counter-Strike, I've always liked the harsh difficulty curve of Valve's online shooters. The idea of a class-based, team-centered FPS always scared me - who would ever want to be a medic?

But, as any gamer knows, when there's nothing else to play, you go with what you've got, and I had TF2.

And thank God for it.

Team Fortress 2 has more personality than many single-player games I've picked up, as well as some of the most memorably loveable characters ever to be rendered into cel-shaded life. The art direction is inspired, the violence and content perfectly tuned to its audience, the gameplay balanced impeccably.

But the thing that I love most about TF2... wait for it... is the teamwork. Unless everyone on your team is pro-level, the only way to win is through altruism and, in a strange way, role-playing. It takes intelligence and strategy to balance out a team, but somebody has to do it sooner or later, lest the rock-paper-scissors class styles be thrown out of balance. Everyone on the team counts.

You don't often find multiplayer games where players are meant to carry out specific tasks. It requires intelligence, selflessness, and strategy, but in the end, using each character's specific abilities will result in a bountiful harvest of frags and captures.

Enough about TF2. It's great - go play it - there's not much else I can say. I'm hoping to get a PS3 when I get home - so maybe by the end of this summer I'll have some MGS4 to blog on... I hope.

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Are we taking full advantage of our medium?

I recently read a post by Variety and Kotaku journalist Leigh Alexander, who mused over the Citizen Kane of video games - a game that "will blow the doors open on games' sophistication and cultural relevance to a larger audience."

To avoid beating around the bush, allow me to say that I believe this game will come.

That isn't to say, however, that that's going to happen any time in the near future - probably not even in the current generation. The problem is, nobody's tapped into the full artistic potential that games can provide. Sure, in the current generation, we've seen blockbuster stories (GTA IV) and experienced some truly moving in-game action (Call of Duty 4), but one area in which games have not seen much growth is the area of artistic interactivity.

In an interview I conducted with That Game Company's Jenova Chen, we talked about games as art and what they are capable of. Chen believes that all entertainment should serve as "emotional food" meant to positively affect an audience's mood. We also talked about interaction in games, and what interaction implies. When it comes down to it, the biggest individualizing aspect that video games have over other media is interactivity. But hardly has that been used to its advantage.

Bioshock was one game that used the interactivity of the video game medium to provide a commentary on its players. "Would you kindly" became a phrase that broke the fourth wall in some ways, comparing our positions as players to that of the brainwashed protagonist that we thought we controlled. The moment was a testament to the power of that untapped artistic interactivity I'm talking about - the kind of interactivity where your actions contribute to the art and the game's message as a whole.


Another example, Passage, was a short game that had a great deal to say about life. If you haven't played it, play it now and then read the creator's statement. As you can see, every interaction in this game is also in direct correspondence with the game's message. If you pick up the woman on your path, exploration is difficult. If you hunt down treasures, you will find that some chests are deceiving. Later on, you begin to recognize patterns on the chests and gain real experience in achieving success.

There is direct manipulation of the interactive medium present in these examples. The experience and knowledge you get from playing the game has its own reflection in reality. Getting married also implies the same thing - you feel the consequences of your actions, and that triggers emotional involvement. That involvement comes to a head at the end of the game, as your beloved wife dies and you reach senility. When you finally reach a game over, you're dead - there's nothing else.

Our actions in games rarely ever hold any meaning. We kill, we grind, we collect, we solve, and we platform, but rarely do we do anything with any sort of weight or consequence. To leave that consequence untapped is to leave behind the ultimate potential that video games can offer. For people to see first-hand what games do bring to the table, we need to find it ourselves first. With video games, we can make interactivity work for our artistic intentions, and that hasn't been recognized yet.
Until it is, I'm convinced that we won't see our Citizen Kane for a long time.

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Now playing: Rebelution - Safe and Sound
via FoxyTunes

Review: The World Ends With You

While good games can get away with doing gameplay right and having passable storylines, great games are expected to do everything - sound, visuals, gameplay, and story - with a certain level of competence.

But great games also have to do something else - they need to progress gaming in some way or another.   They need to present elements so fresh they'll change  the way other developers approach their products. In this sense, there seems to exist an unwritten statute for, one prerequisite for the "important" video games - they need to be revolutionary.

The World Ends With You is characterized by its refusal to play by this rule. While it’s definitely a revolutionary RPG, it seems destined to cult status for its quirky storyline and strange, frenetic combat mechanics. Without big sales, it won’t see many imitators. Without imitators, it will always be the first and last of its kind - a game that didn’t quite please mainstream audiences, but which  managed to feel simultaneously  fresh and familiar.

TWEWY gets off to an awkward start, opening with a cutscene that evokes the feel of an anime Dashboard Confessional video. Neku, the game's main character, is introduced as an anti-social jerk who, strangely enough, has recently been murdered. He regains consciousness as a ghost in an abandoned version of Tokyo known only as “the Underground,” and is given the chance to win his life back. It’s all very convoluted, and only gets more complex from there. But the overload, while initially overwhelming, intertwines itself with the game’s overarching themes of death,  friendship, and the prevalence of technology in society. While the storyline of TWEWY might be a mental overload for lots of players, there are other instances in the game where such extravagances feel familiar, and sometimes even comforting.

There are some people who have grown tired of that classic "Square Enix look." You know what I'm talking about - lead characters in extravagant, gender-ambiguous clothing. Hairstyles only achievable through the liberal use of gallons of gel and hairspray cans. Buckles everywhere. Shoes that would make even a clown do a double-take. They're all present in TWEWY, but for the first time that I can remember, they actually work. This is mostly due to the fact that the game revolves around a more flamboyant, alternate Japanese style. It doesn't have to replicate the idea of a stylized spirit-Tokyo; it is the idea of a stylized spirit-Tokyo. If the Final Fantasy series bent Japanese stylistic standards to create their world cultures, the entire universe of The World Ends With You is built on that style.

Moving forward with the theme of maximalism, we now reach TWEWY’s gameplay.  Many have criticized the combat's steep learning curve, and while this is definitely not a pick-up-and-play affair, there's enough flexibility within the system to allow for even newcomers to learn the ropes of dual-screen combat. I remember playing through the my first battle and thinking, "No way I can control two characters at a time. I can barely control one!" Eventually, I learned that the top screen is less of a priority, and more of something you have to just keep an eye out for and use strategically to set up fusion combos. There's no doubt that fighting in this game is complicated, but it's actually fun, and once you get the hang of it, you feel that there's an amount of real skill and finesse that goes into the gameplay. Being able to keep track of two things at a time becomes a second nature, and there's a sense of pride that comes with the ending of every battle.  You feel cool.

With its maze-like story, thumping soundtrack, dizzying combat, and neon-bright art direction, The World Ends With You always has something to tell you. Look here, press this, swipe that, equip this, listen to her. But unlike Final Fantasy and other franchises that might seem similar, The World Ends With You doesn’t act as a transport to another universe. Instead, it’s an amplified signal of our own reality, a near-perfect conjuration of the chaos of teenage life in a dense urban environment.

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Video Game Reviewing: My Rundown

If I ever want to review games, what better place to start than now?

Before I review my first game, though, I'm going to go over my little review philosophy, and how I'm going to be critiquing my games.

To set one thing straight, I want to answer one question that most reviewers fail to bring up:

Why am I reviewing games? While I suspect many review to recommend or discourage prospective customers from wasting hard-spent cash, I believe game reviews can surpass that standard. So, while my main focus will be to recommend and/or discourage, I also want my reviews to serve as a discussion of a given game's contribution to the gaming medium. I want the person reading my review to be able to come back and connect with it in a way they couldn't before playing the reviewed game.

No numbers, no letters, no crap. We live in a world where games like Madden and Katamari Damacy are graded along the same scale. I'm not gonna deal with number or letter grading stuff. I'm just talking about games realistically, so you're going to have to read if you want idea of what a game I'm reviewing is all about.

Transparency. Since a game I love may be one you end up hating, I'll make up the difference in-between and let you in on my biases and whatnot. I really am trying to help you out here. : )

Honesty. I'll tell the truth. I have no reason to lie.

Ultimately, I'm going to include in my review what I think'll help you make a decision you won't regret when buying a game. That's my main goal, and I'll do anything I can to stick to that.

Let's start the reviews!

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Super Smash Bros. Duel! - Final Destination, No Items.

Last night, I was at a friend's house with some old acquaintances from high school. And they started playing Brawl for fun. Now, my character is Solid Snake, and I'm proud of the fact that I know how to use him pretty damn well. So I put my little gold coin down on Snake, and wait for the match to start. As the load screen comes up, I realize that I'm fighting against only one of my friends, on Final Destination, with no items.

Unfamiliar with the item-less play style, I do a little complaining: "I'm not used to playing like this..."
To which a douchebag spectator replies: "What, with other people?"

Mid-way through our match, said douchebag spectator leaves, wishing my opponent good luck on his way from his seat. In my rage, I lost the match by a stock life.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I have a big problem with crap like this. Do you really have to give me flak for playing Brawl for fun, and not competition? Honestly, people! I personally think that Brawl wasn't meant to be played the way they were playing it that night. It takes out all the fun!

One of my friends made a good argument: "If you play with items, the game becomes about who gets the better stuff, and not about who's the better player".

But to me, that's just not true. The fun of the game is making use of the items and improvising with them. It adds a factor of randomness to the Smash mix, and it adds excitement and some truly crazy moments to the gameplay. It also requires some level of skill to play with items, as one must know what each one does, and how to use them, to do the most damage. Conversely, if you know how to dodge or avoid an item, then you are the more skilled player and that works out too.

If Mario Kart gave you the option to turn off items, would you do it? Sure, they add a rubber-band instability to races, but they make it fun and interesting. Or else it's just may the best man win, and Mario Kart isn't a sport. To some, Brawl is, but at this point, I'm not into gaming for pure competition. It sort of ruins the experience for me, mostly because I'm not a competitive person. When I am a competitive person, I make sure that what I'm doing is fun, and not just for the purpose of showing off that I'm better than someone else at something.

If that's the way you like playing games like SSBB, that's fine. It's a personal choice, and I respect it. I don't personally enjoy it, but it's okay if you don't like playing that way. Just don't be a douchebag about it. Please.

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Previously on Non-Virtual Reality...

It's getting pretty late, but there's something I wanna talk about.

Let's talk about Alone in the Dark. This game, developed by Eden Games and published by Atari, is doing something really different. When I heard they were using episodic content, it wasn't a big deal. I kind of just glossed over it, and figured it was another survival horror game, just another Resident Evil ripoff.

And even if I wasn't wrong and this game ends up sucking major donkey butt (which doesn't seem to be the case), AITD might change the way people play games. We like talk about games becoming more cinematic experiences, but did we ever think that eventually we would be able to fast forward and rewind our gaming experiences? That's exactly what Atari is allowing us to do. When you pick up the game, pretty much the whole thing minus the ending is unlocked. Of course, playing through the whole thing is no fun if you start at the end then work your way to the beginning. But it does do some very interesting things for gamers who don't want to commit hours of gaming at a time. Each couple-hour-long "episode" ends in a cliffhanger. This allows gamers to commit just a couple of hours to the game at a time if they choose to, and just go into the next episode if they feel like playing longer.

According to Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's CEO,

...Video gaming has become an exclusive experience. The complexities of some of the newest games have alienated those who used to play games with their entire families.

And he might be right, but this new gameplay mechanism really shows that Nintendo isn't the only company that can change and broaden the appeal of gaming experiences. I honestly think that this game will cause some sort of a shifdt in the gaming market that will eventually lead to broader audience appeal. It's opening up the boundaries of video games. The concept in and of itself, after all, is focused on making gaming something manageable, something you don't have to devote a monstrous amount of time to. This new style of video gaming is more welcoming than that more "hardcore" games, like RPGs, where collecting one item can take the same amount of time as beating one level in a game of any other genre.

I don't think that Alone in the Dark will be the game that revolutionizes the way people play games, nor do I think that it will be the game to make more people play games. I do commend the people over at Eden, though, for doing something differently and taking a risk. If more developers made decisions like these, we could break out of the constraining norms that make the audience of modern gaming such an exclusive one. And besides, I can totally see myself playing by episode. Totally.

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