Xavier's Blog

Ever wanted to live like a Treasure Hunter. Travelling to exotic locations in search of treasure, Traversing deadly cliffs and narrowly escaping enemies. Well in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune you can.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is an action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Combining platforming and third-person shooter elements, the game charts the journey of protagonist Nathan Drake, supposed descendant of the explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he seeks the lost treasure of El Dorado, with the help of friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan and journalist Elena Fisher.

 

When you first start Uncharted you are immersed into a cinematic experience that delivers and has immersion. Naughty Dog the company behind the legendary Crash Bandicoot series has gone all out in this game. It's quirky humour and intense battles form together to make quite a unique game.

Now the gameplay side of things.
Uncharted is a third-person shooter mixed with the 2D-3D platform element. That is probably its primary downfall. While in platform mode, the game has the annoying 3D camera (not all the time but quite allot) which means that some areas that you need to get to are not visible and sometimes completely off screen. 

Now the combat system of the game is quite unique it is the usual third person shooter with a melee system fused into it. The game also features a cover system. Where Nate will use walls and pillars as cover and also any object that is about waist height.

One thing that annoyed me about the the weapon systems is Nate can only carry one pistol at a time, and may also carry one rifle, whilst there is a limited amount of ammo per gun; picking up a different handgun or rifle switches out that weapon for the new one.

This game has several similarities or may even be inspired by the Indiana Jones series and even the National Treasure series. Yet it has its own twist on the treasure hunting genre. The hero Nathan Drake is a Mans-man, he just seems to be really realistic as just an everyday guy.

All and all I give this game a rating of 8 out of 10. For its immersion in gameplay and quality characters. But on the downside it has the Bad camera choices and annoying choices with gunplay.

 

Happy Gaming

Yes making games to be realistic is cool, I do not disagree with that. But sacrificing the story and key gameplay elements, just so you can have
buildings supports break. That I do disagree with. I have noticed this more and more recently that games are focusing less on the story and more on
the graphics and realism.

I remember the days of good games like Monkey Island.

 

Now this was -wait is- one of the best games I have played. It
doesn't have the best graphics -Heck it runs in dos- but it has a unique and intriguing storyline which carries on into 3 sequels. Yes 3.  And all
of those sequels like the original are great. and the physics engine there is none, this is originally a point and click story.

 

 

 

Now we have games like Fracture

  which is based on a new Physics system. Yes the whole games is based on the new Terra-deformation.
When I first saw this game I thought No Way. You can tell a game will lack a good storyline when they either: Include the Physics engine in
Advertising the game or Include it on the Box or as in Fracture keep it as a core gameplay element which the story is based around.

Including a new Physics system in the game but still keeping a good storyline is very rare, Take a look at The Force Unleashed. Yes it had 2
excellent new Physics systems, And look at the storyline. I would say it nearly had it. If they had spent just that little more attention to detail
they would have had a great game.

The two Physics systems that were introduced are

Pixelux Entertainment's "Digital Molecular Matter" (DMM) for dynamically destructible objects, and NaturalMotion's Euphoria for realistic non-player character artificial intelligence.

 

Happy Gaming

Well in less than 12 hours another year will have passed us by. Quite shocking. So I thought I would take the time to look back at this year.

This year started out quite sad with the death and funeral of Sir Ed. May he Rest in Peace.

It then took a turn with the olympics (the only cool thing I can think of) but this years olympics didn't do it for me.

Then we New Zealanders had our elections yipeeedadooo

Oh and just recently I started a Deviant Art thing cause of my small passion for photography

http://indescent-x.deviantart.com/

Go on check it out I know you want to.

 

Well have a fantastic new year and all that

"The sun will always shine on you, if you de-cloud your mind, body and soul"

Xavier Smith

Well it is that time of the year again... Were children go insane as well as their parents. Yes I am talking about christmas... Ahhh what fun.. well it is in every other place but whangarei or whangarainy.. Yes it looks like it will be a fun and enjoyable wet christmas.....
At the moment I an hanging with my dad. who is over from Papua New Guinea (OOOOOOOOHHHHH) and It is really fun. Well I better run with a hop skip and a jump...

LOVE TO ALL
AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS...

 

Fable 2 is a game that has been awaited by many for several years. And I must admit I am/was one of those people.
Here is the general Information about the game:
Fable II is an action role-playing game developed by Lionhead, published by Microsoft Game Studios.
The sequel to Fable and Fable: The Lost Chapters, it was originally announced in 2006 and released in October 2008.
The game takes place in the fictional world of Albion, five hundred years after Fable's setting, in a colonial era resembling the time of highwaymen or the Enlightenment;
guns are still primitive, and large castles and cities have developed in the place of towns. Unlike the original, the player may choose to be either male or female.
Creative Director Peter Molyneux has played a major role in presenting this game to the public, as he did in the lead up to the release of the original Fable.

Now onto the actual gameplay.
When I first started playing Fable 2 I was greeted with a marvelous cut scene which showed how the world has changed since the first Fable.
Starting of as a child and Collecting 5 coins, Doesn't that soud very familiar . Yes it is you had to do the same thing in the first Fable.
Working my way through the game I noticed several other similarities between Fable 2 and Fable. I wont go into detail about those for people who haven't yet played the game.

Also one thing I noticed about Fable 2. When Peter Molyneux was advertising this game he promised us it with the universe, but we could at least expect total freedom.
BUT we got quite allot of freedom but not to the extent that Peter was talking about. Such as not being able to kill children. (hey when your evil it is fun) that is taking
away from the freedom of the player.

Also as in Fable those dreaded invisible walls come back. Although the world is more vast than the world in Fable it still limits on some things. As in (Wraithmarsh) when you discover
the ruins of (Oakvale) I really wanted to explore them but sadly an invisible wall blocked my way.

Even though Fable 2 has flaws what game doesn't, All in all Fable 2 offers a New(ish) storyline packed with new characters and introduces a wonderful AI system for you faithful friend your Dog.
I do recommend that if you have a liking to RPGames that you do try this one out. And if you do like it I also recommend looking for that original or the Expanded Fable or Fable: The Lost Chapters.

My final rating is a 9.0 out of 10.
For its Unique system of gameplay, Improved combat system and the many other features that made my gameplay superb. Also for how they developed the storyline to fit in with weather your
character is in a relationship with someone, That is quite unique.
Not a perfect 10 for the slight flaws that the game does have which draw back from its immersion.

I have notice that games these days are mostly cinematic experiences. Yes it makes a game great in has great immersion. But sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Lets take Heavenly Sword for example. This game had great potential BUT it was too cinematic in a way that it seemed to draw me away from the story. Yes it had those horrible lengthy cut-scenes.

On the other hand there are games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This game is cinematic and doesn't have those lengthy cut-scenes BUT this is a game that lacks in immersion Every time I became completely involved in the game I saw a NPC get stuck on a 2 inch rock. And I was pulled down from my mystical wonderland of oblivion and thrown back into the world of reality.

And there are games in the middle Lets look at Fable 2.This game was promised with the universe from Peter Molyneux but all we got was a master piece of a game. In my eyes anyway. OK it does have its flaws: The main storyline looking allot similar to Fable and those annoying invisible walls and even being promised total freedom and not being able to kill children (Makes me sound like a serial killer, But it is taking away from our freedom). Yet apart from these flaws they made the game a cinematic game that has immersion and no lengthy cut-scenes (in total cut-scenes add up to about 6-7 min's) Yet there is allot of game play-cut-scenes but you can skip those and still walk around while they are happening.

Check out my gamespot page at

http://www.gamespot.com/users/Indescent_X/

See my next blog for my review of Fable 2

Well I have started playing FABLE 2 on my xbox 360... Fable 2 is sooooooo cool.

I have also started creating my own programs for computers. I maybe uploading some of them here. some are also edited versions of commercial programs.

I may start up another blog featuring links to programs and movies using torrents. But I don't really know yet. I will do it in my spare time.

Also my dad is coming over at Xmas but work will not let me take the time off. So I will most likely be handing my resignation on the 15th.