toblix

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

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Did you not play Uncharted 1?

I beat the game on hard, and sure the tank area is pretty hard, but once you learn where these guys show up from, just take them out quickly (especially the rpg guys) and keep moving. Keep moving up through the buildings because the tank scene is quite long. Don't try and stay behind cover if the tank is shooting the cover because it won't help. Only attack the tank, when you get an RPG (usually from killing the guys shooting at you with RPGs).

No I didn't play the first one, might get it though.

Yeah I think on my 3rd playthrough and subsequent ones I probably won't find things as difficult. It's not always that easy to take people out if they are behind cover though, because while you are waiting for them to pop out you are getting shot from 20 other directions. In the end I think I switched to one of the pistols which was a bit more accurate than the AK seemed to be and that helped. (I haven't really clocked up that many hours on console shooters either, having been predominantly a PC gamer in recent years, so my accuracy with the analogue stick is probably well below the majority of players). Still, it's a bit annoying getting attacked from so many directions. I'm not really a big fan of turrets either, or people behind riot shields. I just like ordinary combat, shooting ordinary enemies, I don't see why that's seen as so dull. I'd rather have that kind of doable combat throughout games rather than contending with snipers and RPG guys and turrets all the time, and being surrounded. I find it satisfying enough to kill ordinary enemies, making them difficult to kill doesn't really increase the satisfaction or enjoyment for me, just the annoyance. I suppose some people want more of a challenge, I don't really actually want any challenge from a computer game gun battle, all I really want is the simulated experience of shooting people dead, preferably while striking a cool pose (I love the blindfire poses in UC2, and the way Drake sometimes holds the assault rifles sideways when firing over cover). I know that might sound a bit twisted but to me video game killing is just like play-fighting, it's not related to actual violence and doesn't indicate an interest in real violence.

Anyway I will let Uncharted 2 off because the environments are so great and the production quality is so high, otherwise I would probably be hating on it a bit more...

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I beat Uncharted twice, and still died about 280 times on my playthrough of Uncharted 2 on Easy. So yeah, it can be a challenge. Never got frustrated by it up until the boss fight though.

Did you figure out how to kill him? I only let myself get killed once before going online to find out how to it was done, I don't think I would have figured it out myself. I really don't have time for boss fights, I think they're a daft idea that should have died out in the arcades of Japan a long time ago.

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If you die a couple of times, the game actually tells you what you have to do. That's how I found out. :gaming:

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Yeah, I figured it out. By accident, actually. He was running past a thing and I shot it by accident. Seemed to work, so I kept at it.

I found the best weapon by far was the FAL. Accurate, 3 round bursts, very high powered. In absence of the FAL, use the M4. The AK is a piece of crap. The Pistole is good, but has almost no ammo anywhere. For those bullet-sponges at the end of the game, go with the crossbow. On easy, it will one-hit them. Insta-kills are nice. I assume that on higher diffiulties it may take more shots, but it is certainly worlds more effective than any other weapon in the game.

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The boss took me forever to beat, but I knew from the second the battle started what I needed to do. Here's a guy in a room, full of what are essentially exploding red barrels. What's there to figure out?

Yeah I think on my 3rd playthrough and subsequent ones I probably won't find things as difficult. It's not always that easy to take people out if they are behind cover though, because while you are waiting for them to pop out you are getting shot from 20 other directions. In the end I think I switched to one of the pistols which was a bit more accurate than the AK seemed to be and that helped. (I haven't really clocked up that many hours on console shooters either, having been predominantly a PC gamer in recent years, so my accuracy with the analogue stick is probably well below the majority of players). Still, it's a bit annoying getting attacked from so many directions. I'm not really a big fan of turrets either, or people behind riot shields. I just like ordinary combat, shooting ordinary enemies, I don't see why that's seen as so dull.

Sounds like your problem is you need to use more grenades.

When in doubt, grenade.

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Sounds like your problem is you need to use more grenades.

When in doubt, grenade.

Well, grenades are good but they don't last forever, and sometimes even with grenades you're in trouble, like when you are surrounded by snipers. I hate all those snipers lasers shining on me so I can't stand still, especially the way as soon as you kill one another few will spawn somewhere else. What about that courtyard in the monastery, it's so annoying, as soon as you run into the middle a sniper spawns in every direction, one in front, one behind, one left, one right... or that's what it seemed like anyway. Plus you have a guy with a grenade launcher. I hate that, not being able to take cover anywhere without having a laser on your back or a grenade in the face. Does anyone actually like that feeling of being surrounded and not being able to take cover anywhere? I shouldn't be dying every other minute on easy mode. On easy mode they should get rid of at least half of the snipers and rpg guys... keep them for the hard mode in my view.

Anyway, sorry to be so negative, I still love this game to bits, I'll be starting my 3rd playthrough pretty soon. Love this game.

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I did get a teeny bit frustrated at the sheer number of cut-scenes. It was almost like, "Climb a wall, cut-scene, drop and roll, cut-scene, down a corridor, up some steps, cut-scene."

I found the clues at the minimal puzzle bits a bit irritating as well. The game was far too willing to pop up hints on what to look for.

Otherwise, great game. Didn't find it too difficult - got stuck some places but never for too long. I was happy to find the game is quite long - got about 12 hours of play out of it on normal (which obviously includes dying a lot).

Thinking about trying 'Crushing'.

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I finished the fountain room really easily last night. I was going to brag about it here, but then I remembered that I was playing it on easy...

Also, about the cut-scene dissolving, it seemed to me they were just cutting from real-time snowy train scene to pre-rendered stuff. I think saw some hints of compression artefacts in those parts.

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CONCERNING THE LAST BOSS: I prefer to think of

the collapsing bridge segment

as the last boss. That might not make much sense, but it seems more in keeping with the feel of the game as a whole, while being a bit different and dramatic maybe.

NOT CONCERNING THE LAST BOSS: How many times do they do that birds-eye-view of a character nearly falling down a big hole? Of those, how many involve another person grabbing and-or pulling the first person up? It kind of loses some of the drama after a while.

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Yeah, they do that at least 4 times over the course of the story, probably more. It really does get predictable.

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Well I don't know about you guys, but that happens to me all the time. I think they are just trying to reflect real life.

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It kind of loses some of the drama after a while.

The first time it happens, they're maybe going for drama, but it happens *so often* that I find it impossible to see as anything other than an intentional, self-aware tongue-in-cheek joke thing by the end. I haven't counted, but I think it happens way more than 4 times. I'm pretty sure there's 4 in the ice area alone.

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Also, about the cut-scene dissolving, it seemed to me they were just cutting from real-time snowy train scene to pre-rendered stuff. I think saw some hints of compression artefacts in those parts.

I guess you could be kidding, it's often hard to tell, but whether you are or not:

You didn't see compression artefacts in those parts as there isn't any pre-rendered stuff in this game ^_^;;

I'd imagine they are just flattening the last frame of the old scene to a texture and swiping from that, but I'd have to go back and look more carefully. If the old scene is still advancing during the swipe then I guess they are carefully constructed scenes that between them reach the object limit for the engine.

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I guess you could be kidding, it's often hard to tell
I know, but at this point I don't know what to do about it.
You didn't see compression artefacts in those parts as there isn't any pre-rendered stuff in this game
Are you completely sure? If you're right, that's very impressive.

I've noticed that a lot of newer games, like Batman: AAA, have prerendered sequences but with such a high compression quality that the transition is hard to notice. In earlier games the difference was obvious, but now you really have to look.

Of course, if I'm also wrong about Batman having prerendered sequences, it's just a matter of me seeing compression artifacts where there are none. I guess that's both awesome (since it means my brain is attuned to the nuances of modern moving picture compression algorithms) and sad (since it means my brain is attuned to the nuances of modern moving picture compression algorithms).

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I'm pretty sure that Uncharted 2 does use video cutscenes, but it is all rendered in-engine. It's really hard to notice when they're real-time and when they're videos, but I'm assuming the cutscenes in the extras category are all video.

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Apparently the making-of documentaries included with the game highlight the fact that they're videos and not real-time cutscenes, however as you say they're taken from in-engine footage.

I'd imagine the reason they did this was so it could transition so quickly between gameplay and cutscene (it happens a lot), and also so any slowdown can be smoothed away in post-production through frame manipulation.

As it's on blu-ray I'd imagine they didn't really give a shit about doing this despite the gains not being that significant.

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Perhaps I misunderstood the behind the scenes stuff when I watched it, but I thought they explicitly said all the cutscenes are rendered on the fly in engine, for minimal load time and smooth transitions.

I guess the selectable menu of videos does lend credence to pre-recorded in engine vids, but it doesn't exclude the alternative ^_^;;

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There are definitely prerendered cut scenes, but the only real way to tell the difference is to select a different player model for the single player campaign, and watch out for when the Drake model suddenly shows up.

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Yeah Psych, good call there. I think it's fair to say not all of them are pre-rendered because in many cases it just wouldn't be necessary and would be too problematic because of the potential variation in the environment.

eljay, I've not watched it myself yet but your interpretation doesn't sound right. It's always going to take less time to start playing a video than to stream in a load of high-detail models, textures, etc. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they cleverly use the cutscenes to quietly load the data for the next scene in the background whilst minimal processing is being spent on the video, hence how the game has no loading screens.

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I was referring to the fact that a lot of the cutscenes occur in the middle of a continuing scenario, in which case all that stuff would already be in memory anyway. But as Psych points out those probably ARE the in-engine real-time scenes I'm thinking of and the transitional ones are as you suggest.

In all, I retract my earlier statement, well played eyes of toblix.

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In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they cleverly use the cutscenes to quietly load the data for the next scene in the background whilst minimal processing is being spent on the video, hence how the game has no loading screens.

That could've been a possibility if it didn't allow you to skip the cutscenes, which you can.

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Man, when the hell is stuff loaded then? Do you get a small pause or something if you skip a cutscene almost immediately?

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I finished the fountain room really easily last night. I was going to brag about it here, but then I remembered that I was playing it on easy...

Also, about the cut-scene dissolving, it seemed to me they were just cutting from real-time snowy train scene to pre-rendered stuff. I think saw some hints of compression artefacts in those parts.

Blargh I was probably fooled by pre-rendered cutscenes popping up, even in the environment I was already in. I thought that maybe they had their vert count low enough on screen at a time to accomodate rendering two scenes at once (which many games have to do, eg if they support split-screen multi), and were using that to their advantage... but just dropping into a very lightly compressed captured video of an in-engine cutscene is a lot easier.

I work on games which are so small that a multi-minute HD-res rendered cutscene would often occupy a foortprint similar in size to some of our smaller games, so I tend to not ever think in terms of them.

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