Only problem I ever had with Uncharted 2 and 3 were replayability. The first playthough they are pretty mind blowing and have some amazing set pieces to go along with a great story. But on the second playthough when you know where you have to go. The scripting is very apparent and can feel pretty broken. Other than that, they were great gaming experiences for me

YES. I agree with most of this article. The filler, repetitive kill waves of cookie cutters bore the hell out of me. The linearity and the lack of exploration in the story is just painful when playing the games two or three times for a Platinum. Give the player some choice. Branch out the pathway to have him decide which path he should go, and add alternate events and cut-scenes to make the story more dynamic. It's not that Uncharted games are bad, but they leave so much room for improvement and none of the sequels are huge improvements over the first game.

give us multiple ways to do an objective, that would add so much to the replay value.

The only two complaints I could point out for Uncharted is what they did to the online in U3...they ruined it. They had a great, skillful, simple online in U2 which was unique compared to other online games out there and then added a bunch of crap like every other online out there, in U3 which made it unbalanced as hell. The second complaint is the AI in U3, why did enemies charge at you when you were shooting at them, basicaly ignoring the cover system, i'm not saying I wanted to pick them of one by one in cover but at least make enemies move around...just not charge at you then start a fist fight only for other AI's to gun you down.

God I hope ND go back to what U2 online was like in U4. Like anyone would miss those changes.

wow yall complaining about the climbing

Because Drake's animations are top notch, the transition from animation to another can sometimes can be pretty jarring especially in UC3. Also, enough with the Hollywood cliche, UC1, UC2, and UC3 pretty much share the same plot, Drake goes on a treasure hunt only to discover that it's far greater than the few golden coins he's after so the whole plot radically shifts to world domination forcing him to resort to playing the hero. All three of them ND! Just why!

Edit:

I would also like to see the main team work on a new IP before going back to UC4.

but despite all, Uncharted is still one of best and most successful games of this generation if not all time.

there's always more room for improvement in any game and i believe Naughty Dog are well aware of all that and i'm also sure that a quality studio like that will have more surprises in the future.

The one thing I agree with most is the Linearity. Not that I have an issue with it, just that I would love to see future games in the series open the game up a bit more for more environmental interaction and exploration, and being able to climb almost anywhere, so that there's even more ways to play through the game.

As far as the Enemy Types, Uncharted is grounded in reality (for the most part) so I don't think that's going to change all that much in the future unless ND goes with a more Sci-Fi approach. Since there's already been a few Sci-Fi related instances in the Uncharted games, I don't see why Naughty Dog shouldn't consider a future Uncharted game that ramps up on the Sci-Fi a little bit more because it would increase the chances of more varied enemy types than just Mercenary, after Mercenary and I'd love to see that.

As for the Climbing being Easy, platforming in most games this day and age (unless they are actual platformers like Mario and others) is relatively Easy, so I don't think that's going to change much in Uncharted. But, in future UC games I would like to be able to climb on more objects/structures in the game and not being so limited as to what you can and can't climb on.

Always thought UC had too much combat, which breaks the immersion for me. Everything about UC is pretty believable until you realise that this untrained treasure hunter is killing wave after wave of mercs who kill for a living.

I know they have tons of shooting for all the gun heads, but how about skipping the sections where you HAVE to kill everyone just to move the story forward.

Would love to be able to go thru the entire game without firing a shot if I didn't want to, stealthlike.

First of all the climbing being 'easy' as people keep putting it, I can't tell you how many times I fell to my death in the mountains in Uncharted trying to find the right place and time to jump from one thing to another or how many times I fell out of the train trying to get to the top. In the the usual way of gamer exaggeration, people act as if it was so simple to climb in dangerous situations. I have seen people fall down chasms trying to make their way across them and people act as if a baby could do. Also as I CONSTANTLY point out people played Prince of Persia and many FPSs with just as much or more linearity as Uncharted does and they never griped about it as much as they do now.

POP was a great game but there were no extra ways of doing things or other places to go or anything to find. So I never understand the CONSTANT whining and griping about how linear UC is when people play tons of games that are linear and never point it out as much as they do with them. It's like as soon as a PS3 game gets too high a score suddenly people wake up and find all the faults they ignore for other games. I played the latest Zelda game and realized how awkward Link's motions animations where and yet you never hear anyone say it. But with UC that is all you hear about.

Also listening to the enemy type like my friend said the game is grounded in reality. They already went over the edge with Yeti like monsters and wild men with cross bows so I don't know if people were expecting devils or demons or aliens or centaurs to pop up out of the ground or something. So in short UC2 was not perfect like most games are not but the stupid things people nitpick about it just shows how much people reach when trying to find fault in a game. Like the people saying Helgan in KZ3 was grey and bleak looking. They were on a war torn,burnt out, industrial planet. I don't know if you were expecting bright orange buildings, with red stripes and blue flowing lakes and clear skies.

Not being on PC ;)

Would prefer harder jumping/climbing, harder enemies.

Shoot and cover work fine imo, but as always tweaking isn't a bad thing either.

I actually really like the first game, feels raw. except the explosions.

I expected more to the end of UC2. But all are great games.

I'm hoping they leave uncharted4 for PS4.

As for games this gen. For me i've played many.

DEADSPACE
UNCHARTED'S
ASSASINS CREED'S
BF3
KILLZONE'S

And many more.

Most underated game.

KILLZONE3. The game is blast from start to finish. I implore you to play it.

I would've added the online in Uncharted 3. It was a huge step back compared to U2. Why ND!

It's like Naughty Dog and Guerilla Games sat in a room and said 'lets create a really awesome online experience and then take it all away with the next entry, you know for the LOL's.'

The hand to hand combat is pointless and scrubby in Uncharted 3.

1) It's pointless. There's no reason you'd choose to fist fight when you have the option to shoot an enemy. There are several sections in the game where it tries to force you into a fist fight (like the bit in the burning mansion where that big guy shows up) but if you are smart you can just run away and shoot them while running - there's simply no reason to fist fight.

2) It's totally scrubby. There's absolutely no skill involved in the fist fights, and as such they aren't fun and are unrewarding. I recently got the trophy for defeating one of those big guys without taking a hit, and to do it I figured out that all you need to do is simply mash square and triangle at the same time until the fight is over. That's it. There's zero gameplay there.

When will people learn open world doesn't equal better. Uncharted is the best at what it does and an open world unevenly paced change wouldn't make it better.

main issue is that it's too good and makes my other games look boring

the issue i can think of though is the climbing, it's not that fun

"Linear" for some reason has become something of a negative label and I don't see why. Having something be linear is not a weakness. Not everything needs to/should be GTA.

The one about shooting animals in the jungle is downright stupid. The new TR has you doing it for necessity unlike previous titles that had you battling tigers that attack you and not other s*** in the jungle just for the hell of it. It was stupid in 95 and it's stupid now. I'm glad UC left out gunning down animals.

UC is Linear. So are most games. But UC is not all corridors. The shipyard section of UC3 allows you to complete that section how you want. People act like the entire game is on the rails. Most TPS have you funneled from one waist high wall to another for 8 hours. At least UC breaks up that monotony by climbing buildings or lamp posts and using the entire environment as cover.

Has anyone played Golden Abyss on Vita? It's still linear but less so than the previous games.

When a game company strives to make a game inspired by movies they aren't likely to go free roam. If it were a medieval game or something then maybe they would but it just isn't as likely to be free roam unless they have more inspiration for side stories and quests.

talk about nitpicking lol
all the uncharteds are fantastic

People seem to love Gears though, which suffers from 2 of the 3, and one of them isn't even an option

The thing Uncharted gets wrong (besides barely having gameplay) is that it only sells 700K in a month when XBox exclusives actually sell 3 million.

Aiming. I thought they would have nailed it by the 3rd but it was worse!!! I didn't even finish the3rd because of it

Uncharted doesn't have dull repetative enemy types. All the enemies act differently depending on who they are / what weapons they have etc.

No one complains about any other shooter having too few enemy types. When you want your game for the most part to be realistic-ish (as in human), there's only so many 'enemy types' you can include.

It's linear but if it wasn't it'd have to make a lot of sacrifices, it's not a fault but a design choice. The climbing could definitely be more engaging. I don't think it's right to add more climbing-related deaths because it'd be frustrating after a bit, some of the rope swinging in Uncharted 1 sort of annoyed me. But maybe increasing the number of climbing combat encounters and such would make it more interesting.

Yeah the enemies have always been dull and uninteresting

linear gameplay is over rated. it takes away the suspence in the story which is what uc is all about. imagine uncharted if it was like red dead. i found myself walking aimlessly around huge areas and in the end i forgot what i was meant to be doing.still havnt completed that game.which shows how the plot of the game didnt take me in in ways uc does. nothing wrong with uc series. naughty dog are boss devs. end of story. disagree if u may but ya only be lieing to yaself.

no game is perfect, not even Uncharted!
That's fair enough so the next one is better.

buhh, i played all 3 uncharted's but in heinsight to games like heavy rain, uncharted has pretty bad cheesy storytelling and sooo much repetitiveness. i honestly don't think naughty dog are the "kings of cinematic storytelling" like people say, cause their storys are really cheesy, repetative and sometimes badly written(uncharted 3).

quantic dream are making true interactive story games that arn't repetative, although i am really looking forward to last of us, looks much better than uncharted !

These points can be applied to many games other than sandbox, which only takes out linearity, the other two points would still apply. The fact that they bring so many aspects together seamlessly is what makes UC series so great.

Here we have a rare specimen: a level-headed writer

I love Uncharted, but there isn't much to explore.

Shoot some guys...
Walk down this narrow path (the only way you can go)
Shoot some more guys....
Watch cutscene
Solve a puzzle
Walk....walk...walk...(walkin g is gameplay now).

To me, after finishing an Uncharted game, I feel great. Wow, great story, great action, great set pieces... but there isn't much of a reason to play it again because the story is going to be exactly the same. The enemies are the same. The set pieces are the same. Everything is scripted for you.

yes, the climbing should be something like assassins creed..
But still one of the best games of the decade.

Out of his 3 critiques, I would mostly agree with the combat getting to repetitive at times.
I personally dont mind linear games. It all comes down to taste, and how much free time you have, I guess.
He starts out saying that overall the series is top-knotch, but, just could be better. Nothing wrong with criticism, imo.

Linearity isn't the devil. Far Cry 2 might have more square miles of open jungle, but there was nothing really worth doing imo. Uncharted keeps the pace up, you don't spend half the game doing arbitrary chores and fetch quests. Both styles have their plusses in the end.

Bring back non cinematic hard core games like Socom, Syphon filter, Last gen splinter cell, Last gen Hitman, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Last gen Medal of Honour

Uncharted is great but gaming is becoming diluted just like the music and film industry. Whether it is auto tuning in music or reality shows in TV e.g. Jersy shore or Kim Kardasian.

We need to return to the good old days of gaming where gameplay was paramount.

We gamers are encouraging this trend in the decilne of quality in gaming by supporting expensive DLC, casual gameplay made popular by COD and developers releasing unfinished games that we pay full price for because they know a patch can be released a few months after release.

This is why in this current gen, companies who value financial profits over quality of their games are having massive success. Activision, Capcom are making a lot of money by using these cheap tactics and other companies want a taste of their success so most games in the market are influenced by COD.

Last gen, Rockstar, Zipper, Kojima productions, konami, namco were all at the top of the gaming charts and this encouraged other developers to concentrated mainly on releasing quality games.

This trend can also be blamed on the gaming media e.g. IGN, gametrailers, gamespot etc who give Activision, Capcom, EA extremely high reviews so that people can buy games that lack quality.

This might also explain why most japanese developers are struggling this gen. They tend to focus on the fundamentals of gaming i.e. gameplay and quality with decent presentation.

While most Western developers are having more success because the majority excluding a few focus on graphics, presentation and Hype

I am sick to death of these self proclaimed "Journalists" claiming that Linearity is somehow a bad thing. So what? Some of the most popular games are linear but you don't see people complaining about that do you?

This idea that Linearity being a dirty word needs to stop.

It seems no matter how good a game is, someone will find something bad to complain about. I like the Uncharted the way they are and it add variety to the market. So many FPS feel the same just different weapons and setting sometimes.

It was too Awesome?!

I have always preferred Tomb Raider over Uncharted just because the emphasis was always on the exploration and puzzle solving. UC was always a pretty straight & narrow path and all the answers to the puzzles are in your book so it takes away any kind of challenge in solving them.

Uncharted : Drake's Fortune has 2 sections the likes of which were missing from the sequels. There was a part where you got on jet skis and had to steer yourself upstream avoiding explosive barrels. Some people online have complained about this part but it stands out because it didn't hold your hand- it was taxing and you were in control of the vehicle. The subsequent sequels had you jumping off vehicles but no maneouvrable vehicles (unless you count the limited movement available on the horses in Uncharted 3). Naughty Dog clearly wanted to make the games more movie-like with no getting stuck behind scenery but in the first game there was more challenge and more sense that I was controlling the flow.

The first game also featured a section where you see a plethora of upside down platforms with signs. It's the largest looking puzzle in the entire series and reminiscent of an M Escher painting (an idea used in the film Labyrinth too). It's a very arty statement - it could have been from a game like Ico. But the sequels dispensed with such artiness. By the way, the ending of Uncharted 3 is, I'm afraid, woefully too similar to that of Uncharted 2.

Only 3 faults? Pretty good.

Absolutely a big impact on PlayStation but I'd say leadership is the key factor. When leadership changes so does the studio. Leadership is so important for the counties success of a developer.

I might be hated and downvoted but I don't care:

I wouldn't mind Sony to give us a remaster of the trilogy for PS5 and finally releases it on PC, or even remake Among Thieves.

It was such a well made game, you could tell how much love was poured into it.

Such a shame Amy Hennig got forced out and never got to be there when Nathan Drakes story ended.

That’s definitely an opinion.

One of the best ps3 games of all time imo. The adventure I felt in that game is still one of the best I've ever played. They did amazing with MP as well, god I miss it.

U2 set the standard for PS exclusives, and a standard for how stories were told in SP games in general. The seamless transitions from gameplay to cutscenes, fancier camera work, cinematic feel in in-game set pieces, organic voice acting/line delivery. Devs can deny it all they want but everybody was trying to be U2 after it's release. I prefer it over U4 even cause it's a much more straight forward game in its genre.

Final fantasy 7

From the very start the train sequence was wow… one of the best most memorable opening i can recall.

I love UC2, beat it many times on PS3, and beat it once for PS4, played tons of multiplayer as well. Most important? I wouldn't agree. A game that cemented the entirety of the PlayStation branding against its competition, not just a single company, would be more important.

Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo. Or if you want to count GTA III since it was a temporary exclusive and propelled PS2 hardware sales beyond what anyone could have ever imagined. After a single year on the market, PS2 took over nearly the entire console marketshare to itself.

i havent played 1,2,3 been a later bloomer only played thiefs end and lost legacy am i missing out

Absolutely is. It made uncharted 1 look so mediocre. It also set a bar so high, not just for gaming, but for Action Adventure games. I played the MP religiously and made some amazing friends through it. I especially loved mercing the ND devs.

Hopefully ND comes back swinging with the next game release. They sure know how to make quality storytelling