Uncharted is fun, the sequel is a lot better as there are a LOT less stupid/annoying sections (god I hated the zombies in the first game, as Nate moves so sloooowly and they're like ADHD sufferers without Ritalin). The level design in the second game is a lot more involved too and some areas are very impressive visually, which is always a nice bonus.

As for IL-2; best console flight sim I've played in years. Get it now, along with a HORI Flight Stick EX (if you're using the 360 version). Just amazing.

Love the original Il on PC. That on LAN play was pretty special. I'm guessing the sequal isn't the fruit of one man's obsession like the original?

I have Uncharted on loan from someone, perhaps I should give it another chance. It didn't seem to contain much game from the little I've played to date with no real peril or puzzles to hook me. I also wanted to punch Nate repetedly in the face about 20 seconds after his opening dialogue. Maybe he becomes more likable with extended exposure.

Yeah, there is actual character development, the cocksure banter has a subtext which is nice.

The second one they fiddle with the controls a bit, it a totally useful way. And they actually use the notebook later on in a fashion that is quite interesting, its also different enough and varied enough to feel like a stand alone experience, very little retreading, they push the idea that you can stealth sections if you want.

But I think thinking it as a Tomb Raider game is completely wrong, it simply isn't... its a gun game in exceptionally well crafted environments.

The demo for Uncharted 1 was again quite mis-representative in so much as you are dumped into a firefight with no context, and its only the narrative and context that drives you through what is essentially a very confident, yet typical, 3rd person cover'em up.

I chose to play this one as the gfx are more interesting than that of Gears of War, which is like looking at Warhammer 40k fan fic.

Fair play I mean Gears is pretty drab and very little Blue Sky. Gears was all about the squad dynamic though and the environments and set pieces were totally engineered to force you to exploit the environment and the squad. I actually quite enjoyed that aspect of the game, but gave up about 2/3 of the way through.

From what you've described Uncharted sounds more like Stranglehold, but with some climbing bits. That probably doesn't do it justice tbh. Perhaps this demands another look based on your impressions? If it had Chow Yun Fat in it I'd be all over it like a rash.

Double Post!

Balls Triple Post >_<

Balls Triple, a great vintage.

Completoided them all on Hard, I can imagine it being a tedious procession on anything but. Uncharted 2 takes a little while to find its feet, gets a bit pleased with itself with the stealth... which isn't that terrible late 90s stealth, but more just a delaying of an eventual firefight.

The set pieces, the opening and the way the story is constructed is very impressive and really does drive you through the game.

This is something my goatee stroking self has been considering, since there hasn't been any new genres of any note in the last 20 years, these more "mainstream" games NEED to fall back on location and narrative, or else its just the same tedious mechanic over and over and over again. The normalisation of FPS games, the safeness of it all, just so tedious. At least we aren't quite in that pit yet, but if these studios want to continue to produce these "big budget epics" they are going to have to fall back on the tinkering of existing formula.

Rambling aside, other than further proving the end of what games are to me, Uncharted is a totally reasonable cover'em up, with some nice narrative ideas and very impressive environments, in both creativity and construction and I can recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to engage their brain on any level what so ever.

I just had a thought, they should product an Xbox 360 / PS3 compatible television, with changeable crosshair hud acetate overlays, think of the processing savings with this innovation! And whats the point of this 1080p nonsense when you end up concentrating on a 20 by 20 pixel square all the time anyways?

Working at home going well then?

w**king from home.

I'm playing Uncharted 2 at the moment, its kind of enjoyable, but also sketchy here and there.

So... the voice acting and what not is pretty good, but the one liners grate a little, and the story is set to 100% cheese. Deliberately, I'm sure, but it is a bit tedious.

I didn't know what to expect gameplay wise, the combat seems quite duff for starters, and the climbing seems super simple and not particularly taxing at the moment (up to Chapter 6).

There was one crappy bit early on where you have to disable an alarm above a locked gate, and up until that point everything had been sorted by climbing around ledges, so naturally I start looking for ledges to get me above the gate. 5 mins later I jumped into the gate itself and realised it was climbable, something the game hadn't signposted at all.

Then immediately after that there is a room full of clearly marked guard dudes in white shirts with the most rudimentary stealth action needed to get by them. The cover system is a bit wonky, you don't seem to stick to things well enough, and it is a bit too picky about switching walls whilst covering. Anyways, you need to take these guys down stealthily, but it wasn't clear at all what would alert them - noise? proximity? crossing their torch beams? Seems to have been mainly the latter two, but it wasn't very obvious. The NPCs were just stood around doing nowt, I couldn't tell if some were meant to be snoozing as well, and the area was very open and samey. 20 mins of tedious trial and error was the only way I could find a route to take down who I needed to without alerting someone. Annoying.

Then later, once I was armed up and in the jungle, there was a reasonable shoot out, but it seemed harder than it needed to be, with very limited ammo, and poor visibility - again trial and error led to discovering I was meant to take down a guard tower, which was obscured from my standpoint. The weapons based combat itself seemed fine, but the AI is a bit kooky, dudes walking right up to you if you take even the slightest cover, when they could have easily taken you out with a headshot from where they were.

Contrast with... some great bits of environmental design, and occasional moments of puzzley goodness. The opener trying to scramble out of a train wreck was great, some really impressive camera work, nice pacing, and great looking too. Also impressive was traversing a bombed out city street, with half demolished buildings, and needing to work your way through them as they collapsed. Here the set design was really, really good, loads of attention to detail. The jungle itself looked superb too, and I really liked the weird blue torch of CSI lighting effects used to follow a blood trail.

So yeah, mixed. I'd go with maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10 at the moment. Get rid of the bollocks plot, most of the dialogue and combat, and it might be kind of good. Suggests I should check out what the heck they've done with multiplayer.

The comparison with Gears of War doesn't quite work. The cover system and combat in GoW is much, much better than Uncharted, but GoW doesn't have anything like the same level of exploration as Uncharted.

Story-wise, the full on macho bullshit plotlines of Gears are far more entertaining than the muted character based nonsense of Uncharted for me.

The mythical artefact stuff is pretty good fun in Uncharted, there probably isn't enough of that, but the character driven stuff is so hackneyed it hasn't engaged me at all. More Shia LaBeouf than Harrison Ford.

Its a pretty competent 3rd person game with cover...?

Thats about it. The Archaeological elements and swinging around things are totally bland. Its just about finding ledges. The combat is point and spray.

I'm not a great believer in in game narrative or performance... its a waste of time and effort, like decent graphics and branching paths.

But hey.

I mean the new water mark is Heavy Rain! Although not third person, it transcends genres and even puts Sega Rally in the shade.

I would think the high water mark is Mass Effect 2 no? That appears to offer much of the branching nonsence of Heavy Rain, but they actually remembered to put a game in there too. Only played the demo of ME2, but I was quite taken with it.

Picked up Uncharted 3 on a "cheap" fluke at Sainsburys. Its the same as 2 except they've updated the combat to be a little more cinematic, still completely button mashing tastic but there are some nice environmental face cracing moments.

I don't bother with online so no idea about that, single player though generally they've moved away from temples and its slightly more contemporary in the locations sort of, 2 suffered from, here is a giant temple in a round, have a look around, oh here is a thing, oh noes here comes the enemies, now its slightly less obtuse, same format though.

Worth a punt if you don't want to play a real game,