Boys may feel the need to be in possession of a motorised vechicular transport and to dress more like their fathers, this ostensibly shows one to be a responsible and capable source of genetic material.
Girls feel the need to speak as if in the company of royalty, as it shows you can take things ‘seriously’ whatever that means, and also to look as different from their mothers as possible.
But not all people afflicted with quarter-life crisis display similar symptoms, just recently I bought a PS3 slim. My doctor tells me my condition has improved immensely since.
Depending on who you talk to my purchase of a gaming console may indicate a reluctance to grow up, even going so far as to suggest a desire to revert to a state of childish play, upon hearing this you can safely assume that the person you are speaking to does not play games. A gamer would see this as a step towards maturity into the realms of a more ‘adult’ oriented gaming experience, especially when considering my only current-generation console up to that point was a ‘kiddy’ Nintendo Wii.
As a justification of my prodigality, I have decided to post reviews of some of the games I play, with an eye to a career in writing about games.
As a start we have ‘Uncharted 2: Among Thieves’, the instrument of my ‘next-gen’ gaming deflowering. As with all first impressions, we look to appearances and Uncharted 2 is undeniably attractive. Uncharted 2 is so attractive if I saw her I would stare blankly at her until she notices me at which point I will look away in reddening embarrassment, hopefully after a couple of such encounters she would approach me and I would not be too distracted by the growing stain in my pants to give a coherent reply and then … I don’t know what happens next I’ve never gotten that far.
The game take place across several different locales including a lush island forest, an urban Tibetan city and the snowy Himalayan mountains, all of which look like they were taken right out of a Discovery Travel and Living program. However the most spectacular views are always relegated to the background, meaning you will only get to enjoy them during the quieter portions of the game.
And there are not too many of those. Continuing with the sexual theme, now that the very attractive Uncharted 2 has you tied down to the bed, you notice too late that her wardrobe has a disproportionate amount of leather clothing, before you know it Uncharted 2 has her hands around your neck.
Uncharted 2 doesn’t give you time to breathe, it starts off with a dramatic escape from a precariously placed train over a precipice in which lies your certain doom and keeps up with more of these situations where not dying is the motivator for advancing in the game and that is a very compelling motivation.
Uncharted 2, though is not the most elegant of story tellers, although that is mostly an afterthought because most of the time you are too busy asphyxiating.
The flimsy plot involves a garrulous, likeable(attractive) protagonist that spouts one-liners that pass off as sarcasm these days fighting his way through impossible odds in the shape of innumerable henchmen and cumbersome ancient puzzles that serve the same functions as a padlock and key, and in the process save the world by stopping the evil and very possible nutcase antagonist. Along the way, the protagonist would also encounter a love interest (in this case a love triangle because it’s a sequel), betrayal of a close associate, plenty of deus ex machinas, not being killed by the villains even though there was no real reason not to and some kind of mystical Macguffin to provide a tenuous air of complexity.
Hey this sounds a lot like Generic Blockbuster Movie Plot #4.
The gameplay does not do much better, the controls are tight and Nathan Drake moves with a realistic weight, players will quickly become puppet-masters pulling on the strings of their Nathan ragdoll. Aiming is also easy to pick up even for a person who is more used to aiming with the Wiimote or mouse. With the controls so well implemented it is a little disappointing you don’t get to do more with the character, there are basically two different types of puzzles in the game, one involves searching the environment for places for Nathan to jump to and the other deals with shape recognition.
The game also sometimes fails to communicate clearly what you are supposed to be doing at certain points, it does provide hints which can be activated by pressing up on the d-pad after the game realises you have been running around in circles for 5 minutes without making any progress, this will point the camera to where you are supposed to go and materialise an accompanying helpful caption. It does have the downside of making the player feel like a complete arse though.
Where the game really shines is in the set piece scenarios that all the jumping and dealing with runic symbols, build up to, these would be the equivalent of the showcase battle sequences with words like ‘climactic’ usually ascribed to them. This is the closest you can probably get to being a hero in an action movie, that is until they work out the kinks in that virtual reality whatsit.
Pity most of the boss encounters are really dull especially the last boss, shooting a exploding things to damage a nearby and otherwise unbeatable enemy, that only appears in … ohhh I don’t know every other game ever made?
Still I had a lot of fun playing Uncharted 2.
But just like having sex with an S&M fetishist, pleasurable though it may be, I do not wish to live through that experience anytime soon.
*Spoilers*
I found it weird that Nathan acted so differently on the later chapter of the falling train sequence. It made me suspect that for the most part of the game we are seeing it through Nathan’s interpretation of how things went down. That would certainly explain how he was able to almost single-handedly defeat Lazarević’s impossibly large army while finding time to flirt with two very attractive women in impossibly tight pants that also happens to be experts in firearms and come up with snappy one-liners. It was all greatly exaggerated.
Yep, deliciously exaggerated
Once we consider this possibility, a lot can be read into the actual nature of Nathan Drake. From the events towards the end of the game, I’d wager that he had been recently watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and probably has played World of Warcraft.
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