Uncharted Concepts

I saw some rather interesting similarities in the situations that you were put in that I have noticed are a common theme in most climbing action/adventure games these days (aka Uncharted, Uncharted 2, and Prince of Persia[newest]).

So the game play was generally very rhythmically climb, fight, climb, fight, cut-scene.... but while playing through Uncharted 2 I could tell when a gun fight was going to occur in an area I was climbing through based on the population of hip high walls in the area. If your a fan of yahtzee/Zero Punctuation you may know about hip high walls from his review of Gear of War 2. But basically it is a conundrum that 3rd person cover games face, in that they want to provide many places to hide in large area's and therefore end up with semi-blended in hip high walls strewn all over the landscape at exactly the same height as each other. Now GoW is a little more shameless about this than Uncharted was, but Uncharted 2 it is noticeable, especially in the mountain top village. Perhaps different levels of cover some being better than others would have been appropriate, perhaps we as the gaming masses are not ready for that level of variability and are comfortable with knowing that when in cover we won't get shot.... except from the side or back. I eagerly await the day when the enemy model will also not be the same height all the time.

The other thing that I noticed was the consistent trend (except for the last act) to fight to a climbing puzzle, unlock the climbing puzzle, do the climbing puzzle, then fight your way out of the puzzle. The 3 major instances of this that I can think of in Uncharted2 are, the finding of the golden passport, the reveal of the location of Shamballa, and the location of Shafer's expedition which is not exactly the same, but close and equally predictable. I feel I could complain about the predictability of this but I also feel that it is a good manipulation of the intensity of the game, and follows a good intensity curve scheme. It familiarizes you with the area you are about to fight in, while letting you cool down from your previous combat and enjoying the climbing puzzle, then when you are fighting the guys coming to get you after you solved the puzzle your knowledge of the area is good enough that you are comfortable with the high intensity fight that follows, and allows for a frantic pace which emphasis's the "escape" sensation. I think this could have been varied with some instances being the way that it was in Uncharted where your entrance to a puzzle dungeons was not as commonly your exit as well. Perhaps in Uncharted3 they will find a happy medium between these two ideas.