The Uncharted series has always been a firm favourite of mine, from as far back as 2007 when Drake’s Fortune burst onto the scene.  I had never been a fan of third-person shoot-and-cover games, but I really liked platformers and action adventure games.  So what changed my mind?

Drake’s Fortune delivered the complete package for me: amazing graphics, an atmospheric musical score, a great storyline, likeable, believable and lifelike characters that you really cared about, and at it’s heart- absolutely rock-solid gameplay.

Among Thieves

2009 marked the year that most of the world woke up to the realisation that the Uncharted series of games was something special.  Naughty Dog took everything that they’d learnt from Drake’s Fortune and made the game more action-packed and cinematic with some amazing levels and a wider range of enemy classes.

Adding to this heady mix was groundbreaking technology that enabled the player to carry on with gameplay whilst inside a collapsing building and having a shoot-out on a moving  train.  The scale of those achievements alone, should not be underestimated.

With Uncharted 2: Among Thieves the bar was raised by the release of a highly cinematic game, but with the core gameplay that we all knew and loved from Drake’s Fortune remaining intact.  Let’s go for a hat-trick then, shall we?

Drake’s Decption

Make no mistake, this game is a masterpiece.  What has been achieved by the Naughty Dog team has surpassed my wildest expectations.  The game is even more cinematic than ever: from the burning inferno of a château, to a cruise ship on stormy seas and a fight-out on a cargo plane- this game has it all.  At a cost, which I’ll get to.

Before I start to pick holes in the game, I’d like to share with you what the Naughty Dog team developed for the cruise ship level.  Buried away on the game disc is a documentary piece that explained that originally they were going to ‘cheat’ to simulate the effect of the cruise ship on stormy seas…

Instead, some genius made it possible to simulate the real thing.  The result?  An entire level floating on a fully simulated ocean with dynamic waves that meant the cruise ship never moved the same way twice on playthroughs.  The player is also able to walk on the ship’s walls when it capsizes.  That’s just staggering.

You’re looking sharp

What hits you when you’re paying through Drake’s Deception is the quality of the graphics.  Apparently they’re not much of a step-up from the sequel, as opposed to the graphical jump from the first game to the second one.  You could have fooled me.  In some levels the graphics are verging on the photo-realistic, but a game of this complexity means that slight tearing of the graphics occurs frequently.

The hand-to-hand combat has been fleshed out and feels satisfying solid.  Yet a number of things have happened to the gameplay.  First up, the shooting mechanic has been tweaked somehow.  I can’t put my finger on what Naughty Dog  have done, but they’ve fiddled with it.  They have also disabled the ability to switch the over-the-shoulder view when shooting by default- a feature which is essential on higher difficulty playthroughs.

A more serious charge that can be levied at the game though, is the sacrifice of gameplay for added cinematic effect.  You have multiple levels in Colombia, Yemen, and the desert for example where you can’t go where you want.  The game forces you to turn around and carry on the pre-scripted path.  The Uncharted series has always been linear at its heart, but never has an Uncharted game ever felt so linear!  It suffocates the player, and it acted as a straight jacket on my enjoyment of the game.

Drake’s Glitches

Somehow, somehow, they broke parts of the game.  In a few instances (too many to mention), Drake is left without a gun, and you have to acquire one before tackling the enemies.  I can’t stress this enough: facing several enemies without a gun on the hard and crushing difficulty levels was not a pleasant experience.  I can’t tell you the amount of times I died running to pick up a gun off the floor, or trying to snatch a gun off an enemy in hand-to-hand combat whilst his friends were peppering me with bullets.  You couldn’t make this up!

I also went off the game’s pre-scripted path in Colombia looking for one of the games 100 hidden treasures scattered throughout the levels.  I led the young Drake up a set of steps and just as I reached the top (and the treasure) Drake fell out of the level.  In all my time playing the Uncharted series of games, that has never happened to me before.

Conclusion

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a great game, but not the best one out of the Uncharted series.  Looking back on my Uncharted 2 review, I was perhaps a bit too harsh on what was a sublime game.  So here’s my final thoughts for the entire series as it stands:

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: 4 out of 5 STARS
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 5 out of 5 STARS
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune: 4 out of 5 STARS

So that means Uncharted 2 is the best out of the series so far, with the original and Uncharted 3 in joint second place.  Controversial?  Very!  But that’s my opinion.  I’d be very interested in anyone else’s point of view.

L.A. Noire

This is one of those games I didn’t expect to be buying when heading into 2011.  Then the reviews came rolling in.  The trailers, the countless articles.  I had to get this game.

It just goes to show how far Rockstar have come.  You’ve got a sandbox city, you can play certain cases in whatever order you want, and you’ve got discretion on how you want to play through the cases.  So far, so GTA.  But this time you’re on the other side of the law- you are the law.

I doubt a game like this would have even been possible a few years ago: the advanced motion capture on actors’ faces- detailed enough to show/betray emotion, the look and feel of such a huge living, breathing city, and the noir storyline.  Breathtaking.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 STARS

I’m not going to go in to any further detail about L.A. Noire.  For that, I refer you to Matt Brett’s superb review.  What I will add though is apart from trying to 5-star certain cases, I felt little replay value.  Don’t get me wrong, the game was a tour de force but I’d had enough playing the game once.

Modern Warfare 3

This one’s still pretty much a work in progress for me.  I’ve completed the single player campaign on regular, and I’m working my way through Veteran.  As for multiplayer, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Some may say the Modern Warfare (and inherently the Call of Duty) franchise has grown stale, become a cash cow… etc.  Maybe.  But you can’t say it doesn’t deliver.  I really enjoyed the single player campaign and storyline.  It brought closure on the Modern Warfare trilogy with a few twists and turns along the way.

Now time for… multiplayer!  This is the best online multiplayer experience since, well, Modern Warfare 2.  It feels snappy, responsive, and satisfying.  Black Ops never really felt right to me, and with many bugs on the PS3 version of the game it just killed the whole experience for me.  Modern Warfare 3 is a return to form.

For any naysayers who say that Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer is basically Modern Warfare 2 but with new maps, I wholeheartedly agree with you.  But is that such a bad thing?

Verdict: 4 out of 5 STARS

Assassin’s Creed Revelations

Oh Ezio, what are we going to do with you?  If you’re Ubisoft, then the answer is to trot out the master Assassin for another yearly outing.  In a weird sort of way, for me Assassin’s Creed Revelations is both the best and the worst game in the series yet.

They changed the weapon wheel.  That simple fact angers me more than almost anything else.  Up to and including Brotherhood, I felt in control of all weapons.  Creating two weapon wheels and not being clear about what button/action activates what made me feel detached from the experience somewhat.  Re-mapping eagle vision from triangle to L3 I can deal with, but messing with my weapon wheel?  No sir.

Which nicely leads me on to those stupid bombs.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re a nice addition to the gameplay as they give you many more options: you can play the game your way.  However what I didn’t like was that the game forces you to use the bombs in practically every situation.  The bombs didn’t really fit into my gameplay style, and you can be sure that I’m not going to use them just to achieve 100% synch on a mission.  You’re Ezio, not Solid Snake.

And finally, the plot.  I’m sorry, but in this regard, Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood made a real connection with me as I followed Ezio’s life from foolish teenager to Master Assassin.  Revelations left me cold in comparison as it didn’t really develop Ezio’s story or Desmond’s.  The biggest beneficiary of Revelations?  Altair.  I’m beginning to wonder that a yearly release cycle may not be as beneficial to the Assassin’s Creed franchise as it is to the Call of Duty one.  It’s time for Assassin’ Creed III.

Multiplayer?  Let’s not even go there.  For my multiplayer fix, I’ll be playing Modern Warfare 3.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 STARS

I immediately wanted to vent my frustration and write a critical post on this blog, but I held my tongue for the most part.  I calmed down, and I had other games to play through in the meantime.

So what’s changed?  Well after the game’s release in March, Q Games released a patch in July that for me solved two main problems: the acid walls in the giant creature were made less deadly, and the player was now granted the ability to save the game mid-level, and come back to it.

This second point was the biggest deal breaker for me before the fix.  Nothing illustrates this better than the final boss fight.  You’ve got to get through a very tough level, and then right at the end, you’re faced with what’s possibly the toughest boss fight of them all.  Save the boss fight for another day?  If you did, you’d have to play through the whole level again.

It also occurred to me that the original game was a bit too easy, if anything, and at least PixelJunk Shooter 2 offers the seasoned gamer a fair challenge.  Now after beating the final boss, and a congrats from Dylan Cuthbert himself, I am now once more at peace with PixelJunk Shooter.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more diamonds to find, and scientists to rescue.

Now, I’m going to level with you here.  When I made that announcement, I didn’t really expect that I would do it, although it would give me the incentive of public humiliation if I didn’t.

The Special Ops missions were as bad as I imagined and it took myself and a dedicated friend many hours looking at ‘game over’ screens inching ever-closer to completing each Op.  Snatch & Grab and Acceptable Losses were difficult, but satisfying to complete on Veteran, but Wetwork was particularly frustrating as we managed to subdue all enemies a couple of times, but kept messing up the final breach and clear.  As you can imagine, we were screaming victory chants down the headset when we beat that one.  Victory never tasted so sweet, and the ‘ping’ when the Star 69 Trophy popped up was totally worth it.

So now, over a year later, I can breathe a sigh of relief and bask in the buzz of completing something that has been a huge challenge for me and a fitting end to a game I have really enjoyed playing for the past two years.

Impossible?  As someone once said, the impossible just takes longer…

So, what you’re going to find a bit further down, is a list of my top 20 favourite games of all time.  Whilst I’m a child of the 80s, you’re not going to find anything like that on this list as they don’t really stack up with the masterpieces I’ve played (my opinion!).

Sure, there was Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive and Bomb Jack on the ZX Spectrum, but so what?

Here’s the list in full:

1. Uncharted 2 // PS3
2. Uncharted // PS3
3. Age of Empires II: the Conqueror’s Expansion // PC
4. Metal Gear Solid // PSone
5. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood // PS3
6. Assassin’s Creed II // PS3
7. Burnout 2: Point of Impact // PS2
8. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit // PS3
9. Portal 2 // PS3
10. Half-Life 2 // PC
11. Modern Warfare 2 // PS3
12. Batman Arkham Asylum // PS3
13. Spyro: Year of the Dragon // PSone
14. Gran Turismo 2 // PSone
15. Driver // PSone
16. Ape Escape // PSone
17. L.A. Noire // PS3
18. inFamous // PS3
19. The Matrix Online // PC
20. Halo // PC

There you go.  This list may be pretty controversial to some but hey, we’re all individuals, right?  You might get an inkling from perusing that fine list that my introduction to gaming was on the PSone and PC.  Those were the days…

Of course, I’ve decided to publish the list now to see how much it will change over time, because when I come up with a revised version, you just know it’s going to have Uncharted 3 on it for starters, right?

If you had to think of a video game that could be called art, then it would have to be Limbo.  For a game that’s relatively short, with basic gameplay at its heart, it makes a big impact.  The music, the Noir visuals, and the puzzles all add up to a great little game.  In other words, it’s gameplay done right!

I’ve since moved on to playing some of the bigger releases this year such as DiRT 3 and L.A. Noire but Limbo still sticks in my mind as a small game with big presence.  It is a platform/puzzle game cut to its bare essentials, but with such high-impact visuals.

I’m not going to go on about this game anymore as I’m already treading on familiar ground here.  I just needed to get a shout out for this game, mainly for PS3 owners who like myself, will not have had the fortune of playing it last year.  A must buy!

inFamous 2 didn’t really deliver on my request for shades of grey when dealing with moral issues.  Instead, in the sequel, it’s more or less business as usual: save the civilians, or kill the civilians.  What these clear moral choices offer is the opportunity to really exaggerate the qualities of good or evil on your play through.  I suppose this sits well with the comic book feel to the game, but I believe gamers are ready for an experience a little more nuanced.

Gameplay wise, I can’t really fault Sucker Punch because they deliver a nice sandbox city that you can roam and explore outside of missions until your heart’s content.  Zapping enemies with your electric bolts and throwing lightning grenades is as fun and as satisfying as it has always been, and zipping along power lines and flying about with your static thrusters feels fantastic.

Except there’s something about inFamous 2 that I don’t quite buy into.  The whole game is about becoming powerful enough to battle the Beast, but I feel as if you’re spending half of the game earning back some of the powers you lost at the beginning (even though you’re told otherwise).  Admittedly you don’t lose all of your powers, but as the game progresses through inFamous 2, I just don’t feel like Cole is getting significantly more powerful.  You could say he’s Cole, version 1.3.

What doesn’t help in this regard is *spoiler alert* the ice soldiers.  You’re effectively combating other super heroes and super villains in this game, and to boot some of them can even fly!  But as Cole, you can’t.  This is a niggle as whilst I can’t fault the gameplay, you’re not left feeling like the most powerful person in the game.

inFamous 2 delivers a couple of nice twists in the storyline, and combined with the gameplay, you’ve got a solid game.  The leap in graphics is particularly noteworthy: the way the lightning dances and flows around Cole in the dark is a highlight, and amongst the I would therefore have to give inFamous 2 a respectable 8.5 / 10.  It’s great fun!

Sure, you may get a good deal in your supermarket or local entertainment store if they’ve got a particular game on offer.  However this tends to be the exception to the rule.  So what’s a thrifty gamer to do?

One option which is a particular favourite of mine, is if you can hold off on buying a game, then do so!  If you wait a few weeks to a couple of months games can fall significantly in price.  Yet this doesn’t help the thrifty gamer who needs their wallet saving from a day-one purchase, or a game that’s recently come out.

The solution is to buy online.  Yet how do you know if you’re getting the best deal?  If you want to hedge your bets you can go with Amazon as 9 out of 10 times they’re usually the cheapest.  But not always.

You need the InvisibleHand.  InvisibleHand is a plugin for your web browser that gets you the lowest price on shopping automatically.  It shows a discreet notification when there are lower prices available on the product you’re shopping for and then gives you a link directly to the lowest price.

A recent example is inFamous 2.  I went on Amazon where it came up as being £34.99 (free p&p) but the InvisibleHand told me that I could save £2.00 by getting it at Best Buy for £32.99 (free p&p).  So I did.  It’s not much, but if you make a similar or greater saving over the next few games that you buy, that could go a long way to paying for another game.  It makes sense!

Oh, and to get the InvisibleHand, go to http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/.  You’re welcome!

Disclaimer: I am in no way connected or affiliated with the InvisibleHand, making no money for referrals or for writing this article.  I wrote this article simply to share the knowledge.

Any fan of the series will immediately be able to tell where Age of Empires Online gets its pedigree from.  Looking at gameplay and the historial period covered, Age of Empires Online seems to be a hybrid between the very first Age of Empires game released and Age of Mythology except with a few twists and many refinements.

You can also see heavy inspiration taken from Age of Empires III with the concept of a Capital city and plenty of gameplay additions from that release.  However, whereas Age of Empires III was criticised for slowing down the gameplay, this has been rectified in Age of Empires Online.  It almost feels as fast as the great classic, Age of Empires II.

So, what’s the idea behind Age of Empires Online?  Whereas previous instalments in the series were games that you installed on your PC and played primarily in single player, you could only play multiplayer on a LAN network, or through the rather clunky Ensemble Studios Online servers where you needed a separate account and login (Or as we used to do with Age of Empires II, connect over the internet by typing in IP addresses).  Age of Empires Online gets arounds this by trying to make the online as seemless and transparent as possible.

Sign in is through Games for Windows Live (Xbox Live) and once you’ve signed in, online is pervasive.  You can invite friends to join your party just by typing in their gamertag and either play co-operative campaigns with them, or fight each other in online battles.  You can go to the PvP arena and battle complete strangers for glory.

Your Capital city is always present, and remains online whilst you’re not playing.  It’s worth mentioning that no one can attack your Capital city, but they can visit it to purchase items from your shop and to trade with you.  You can upgrade your Capital city and purchase additional upgrades for your civilisation.  This is the key difference with this game, and previous instalments in the series: you no longer have access to all upgrades for your civilisation.  Instead, you need to level-up and purchase your upgrades.

The game is chock-full of upgrades: everything from military units, armour, weapons, to buildings, technologies and materials are purchasable, upgradeable and customisable.  The series that defined real-time strategy has turned to role-playing game.

The game has a cartoony art style that defines and separates it from its more realistic looking predecessors.  There’s no need to panic though.  I can assure you that the rock solid Age of Empires gameplay that we all know and love is present and correct.

I’ll post more thoughts on Age of Empires Online after I’ve played it some more, but for now my first impressions are very favourable: another Age of Empires classic, updated for the modern, social, online environment.