Why I am not a Big Fan of Naughty Dog
I have been
bitching about Naughty Dog on my Twitter Page a lot lately or at least
complaining them at a high volume rate, and these Tweets or anything anti
Naughty Dog tend to attract a lot of non mutuals who tend to waste my time with
their drivel so I am hopefully going to bury the hatchet here and really get
into as to why I haven't been a fan of them as much as other people especially
how Nakeyjakey's "critique" was a big time joke and all he did was complain
while using that super misused term "ludonarrative dissonance".
Okay, now that's out of the way, one of Naughty Dog's most overpraised series
is Uncharted and particularly Uncharted 2. And I will note that I am a fan of
the Last of Us and respect that game a lot more than the Uncharted games while
I don't think TLOU is super amazing, it at least does more with it's gameplay
and story than the Uncharted series ever did so I won't bash it as much on this
blog post. Plus Uncharted 2 is probably the most "critically immune"
out of all of Naughty Dog's games. And I will also say that Navacanno's
critique on Uncharted 1 and 2 is absolutely worth watching and should be
watched by anyone who has an interest in games as medium. I may repeat stuff
here that he already said too.
Alright, the first thing that tends to praised about the Uncharted games
particularly 2 is the "story". The first thing I want to say is that
it's not really the story that makes Uncharted's story "interesting"
or at least why people flock to them, it's the witty dialogue and bantering.
The story in Uncharted 2 doesn't break new ground at all, it's basically
Indiana Jones set in the modern day and without the liberties of taking place
in the past that makes Indy stories work. And to be really honest here, while
not the same kind of game or story, it's pretty obvious at this point that
Naughty Dog relies on the same tropes that made you get attached to the world
and characters that Valve used in Half Life 2, which is funny to me considering
Half Life 2 gets a lot of anti hype nowadays. They both have long sections of
down time, they both have you interact with the characters by doing things in
game, they both tend to use set pieces in between the quiet time, and both tend
to throw in some random gimmicks inbetween shootouts. Where with Half Life,
while not having a great story in own right at least feels more immersive and
personal due to the first person perspective, and never cutting except load
times, the story at least feels like it fits a game where with Uncharted, it
uses cutscenes and cinematics like film while using the same tropes that HL2
uses and the result feels less impressive due it trying to be a game and while
also being a film.
Now next and this might be the "meat" of the blog is two aspects of
Uncharted's gameplay: shooting, and ugh "platforming".
The platforming in Uncharted has to be one of the most laughable and weakest
implantations of the concept I have ever seen in the medium. Where with games
like the Prince of Persia Sands Trilogy, and especially later games in the
Sands Trilogy like Two Thrones while being a series of timing tests at least
requires you to think and be aware of when to jump and when to movie out of the
way. Two Thrones especially adds more to the platforming by adding jump boards,
knife rest holds, columns in for the Prince to slide and rest on and moving
columns to time your jumps. It also feels like a fast paced rhythm game where
you are timing moves very quickly and carefully, and it all feels very good to
pull off without dying or using the sand rewinds. Dark Prince sections adds
more to platforming too where you have to watch health. But he gets his own set
of moves like swinging, pulling columns, and hanging which adds more to the
timing tests plus his sections have enemies to deal with.
Now what does Uncharted do? Leap. What do you do when you want to get to
another part of the level? Leap. What you when you make to another side? Leap.
Compare that to what I wrote about Prince of Persia to that of Uncharted.
Uncharted's platforming isn't so much "platforming" as it is just
going to a straight linear line disguised as a platforming course.
Hell, even the older God of Wars did a better job with this. You at least had
combat during climbing sections and you could use light, heavy attacks and grab
while movie around and you had to watch out for obstacles too.
I will say that Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy somewhat improved the platforming
by adding the grapple hook but even then it's still the bare minimum to me.
It's just pressing L1 randomly inbetween your usual linear romps disguised as
"platforming".
Now I will get to shooting. Okay it'd be way too easy for me to unfavorably
compare the shooting in these games to the shooting game powerhouses like iD
Software and Monolith Productions. So instead I will compare them to 3
franchises, Ratchet and Clank, the newer Tomb Raider games and Halo.
Ratchet and Clank is a series in some ways like Uncharted, it also has pillars
of gameplay that when compared in someways to full on games of their type might
not compare as much. While Ratchet has basic platforming, it at least makes up
for it with it's shooting. While Insomniac has been a bit too quantity over
quality when it comes to their weapons, they at least got the act of combat
down. In the Ratchet games, you aren't taking cover behind hitscan weapons
waiting for health to regen instead you are jumping around avoiding projectile
weapons while you also using projectile weapons. It was combing it's act of shooting
and jumping long before Uncharted. In fact Ratchet in some ways feels like a
"bullet ballet" to me due to how much of a rhythm there is to
shooting and firing your weapons.
Now next is the newer Tomb Raider games, while they don't have great combat, I
can at least give them credit for using FEAR's AI system known as "goal
oriented action planning" where and I am putting it simply here is where
each enemy AI character has a goal for them to do in the game world and for
objects for them to interact with. Add the enemy variety and them throwing
enemy "barks" at the player and it does lead for some engaging and
interesting combat encounters than just sitting behind cover waiting for health
to regen and then getting out at the occasional grenade throw. You have to more
around and watch out what enemies do and be mindful of when you attack in the
TR games. The TR games do at least more engaging things with their enemy
encounters than "self adjusting difficulty" that the Naughty Dog
fanboys seem to think is interesting.
Now finally, I will compare them to Halo. Now Halo especially the Bungie games
might just be some of the most overpraised shooting games ever and their
fanboys are basically just a bunch of whiny teenagers, I am not going to lie
that the way Bungie managed to use aim assist in a way where the skill ceiling
didn't lower is rather impressive and didn't need to resort to cover systems
like Gears of War and especially Uncharted did. Halo for a console shooter
managed to have some impressive AI, large environments, and quite a bit of
gameplay decision making with melee attacks and grenades is something that I
still find to impressive where Uncharted basically copied ideas that other
games were doing at the time, and was one of the franchises that created the
cover shooter "dark age" in the 7th gen.
I will mention Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. While both games feature way better
combat than the trilogy did. I still feel like regen health and hitscan weapons
hold them back. And while the Uncharted fanboys bring up the whole Nathan
Drake's "luck" bullshit when excusing the regen health I argue it
ruins and lowers the skill ceiling that Uncharted 4 and LL's combat could have.
I feel like a simple fix to this is to take a cue out of Resistance Fall of
Man's playbook and have parts of your health that can regenerate and have
enemies drop health packs when killed. That way it makes the games way less
biased towards stealth and these games' stealth mechanics are way too simple to
make stealth play ever satisfying.
In conclusion, I could go on about other aspects of Naughty Dog I don't like
how the Jak games lost their identity after ripping off GTA, how Uncharted 3
tells the best story in the series despite the fandom constantly complaining
about it, how ND's set pieces are Crash Bandicot boulder chases with more flash
than substance, how the Druckmann era of Naughty Dog has an over reliance on
down time. I feel like they could all make their own posts which I could do but
I feel I wanted to rip apart Uncharted particularly 2 because I really can't
stand that game.
