Uncharted 2 and shooters in general

[nanobot_swarm]

Originally Posted by Commissar MercZ

I thought Uncharted was more of an Action/Adventure game in the spirit of Tomb Raider and such?

Anyways this is not unique to games. Almost everywhere you'll find people working off proven concepts. I'd say the most annoying phase shooters are going through is the regenerating health that Halo popularized.

Agreed, whatever happened to health bars? Or better yet, why did Deus Ex's health system never catch on?

[Ihaterednecks]

I hated Deus Ex's health system.

Just give me my fucking health bar.

[Sl4sh]

Originally Posted by crisissuit3

gaming is all about ripping off the other game, and its really hard to come up with an intresting idea that works.

It's not that, it started as publishers becoming afraid of trying anything unique, which is why they push developers to produce something that appeals more to the casual audience. Back in the late 90's, unique and innovative pc games were being developed left and right; but as soon as consoles became the norm, most publishers shifted towards appeasing the casual audience as consoles were the system of choice for casual gamers which also raked in the most cash for them. Soon after, developers became lazy with their game design and here we are now.

[>Omen<]

Originally Posted by RickyL

Really this is a problem with shooters in general now - none of them are breaking any new ground, which is why Wolfenstein had that god awful magic power thing in it. Shooters are now having to put "special powers" in them now just so that they're different from the rest, which is why games like Singularity look pretty good.

Yeah, know what you mean. Seems like they're going for more of an RPG slant to bring in a bigger audience, though often fail at it miserably. In a game like Uncharted I think I'd rather have a Tomb Raiderish element added in vs magical powers. I really dig the physicality of the jumping, platforming and grappling in the TR games, esp Anniversary. To me adding a physical adventure game element would be more rewarding than another gun or two with super powers or some sci fi way of shielding or cloaking yourself. Since Uncharted is a treasure based game, it would lend well to this, esp if you have collectibles along the way that were hard to get to with some good timed traps and/or beasts guarding them. It would be all the more enjoyable if you could actually use the collectibles to upgrade and buy weapons, something TR lacks. For variety sake it's nice to have optional routes to objectives as well, and even optional ways of completing them.

TR games have largely had solo gameplay when reaching big treasure puzzles. How about the option to lure those competing for the treasure into terrain and/or animal traps? IMO they've only scratched the surface of the potential for this blended genre. There's few games that mix FPS and RPG elements well, fewer still that are good at adding adventure to the mix. As games advance, so do the graphics, and it's mostly noticeable in the environments, yet so many games focus on using elements other than the environment. It's so easy to just sketch out a gun, give it some interesting ammo, and call it good enough. I'd rather see them use the terrain more to open up the experience, and I'm not just talking about making more things destructible, that gets old too if it's all the environment has to offer.