Uncharted review

Review: Uncharted Drake’s Fortune.

Here it is, Naughty Dog’s latest: Uncharted- Drake’s Fortune, a gorgeous cinematic game. It puts you in control of Nathan Drake, a reckless treasure hunter and descendant of sir Francis Drake, Nathan finds sir Drake’s lost diary at the bottom of the ocean, it contains clues on how to find the hidden treasure of El Dorado. Along with tomboyish TV Reporter Elena and fellow grave robber Sullivan our hero embarks on an action packed journey.
This could be the story premise of any Hollywood blockbuster action flick and that’s exactly what Uncharted feels like. With incredible graphics, the lighting effects and animations are the star here, filmic camera use and a sweeping orchestral score it’s like the best Indiana Jones game that was never made. The story isn’t very highbrow, it doesn’t try to be and it doesn’t need to be. Great facial animations really bring the characters to life and help you to empathise with them. This is tale full of twists, cheesy one-liners and action filled cut-scenes.

Uncharted consists of three main gameplay components: shooting, platforming and, occasionally, puzzle solving. The shootouts are cover-based; you get behind an object, pop out and shoot. There is a huge chance that this would get stale but the great enemy AI keeps you on your toes. They will flank you, use all the weapons you use and get behind cover to make life really hard for you. The cover system works well, occasionally you stick to the wrong wall or pillar but it’s extremely easy to use.
Then there’s the platforming…pure bliss. Nathan leaps from pillar to wall to ledge with one beautifully lifelike animation; it looks so graceful and feels so good that those rare moments of camera problems are easy to forgive.
All this shooting and jumping can get a bit tiresome. And that’s were the puzzles come in. They’re often very easy, a quick peek in Drake’s diary often solves the problem, but they work well as moment of relaxation.

High praise here but the game is definitely not flawless; towards the end the gameplay relies a bit too much on gunplay, this breaks the near perfect balance between the serenity and calm of the platforming and puzzle sections and the frantic action in the shoot-outs that the early levels managed to maintain so well. Even though this makes it feel like the game is building up to a big conclusion it still breaks the game and must be said. Other minor quibbles I have with the game are the existence of a few weird animations, some texture pop-in and a hell of a lot of recycled character-models, every bad guy looks like the one standing next to him. There’s also some occasional slowdown, nothing that ruins the fun though.

All these minor problems really don’t matter when a game can look as good, sound as good and be as much fun to play as Uncharted.

David Henry 13/05/2008

Metal Gear Online Beta

Yesterday evening I finally managed to get the Metal Gear Online (MGO) Beta up and running. Well sort of... There are so many technical issues that it almost stops being fun. Which is a real pity. The controls are still a bit clunky, but way better than in previous Metal Gear games. The gameplay is a lot more tactical than most online shooters, you need to stick together. And when it works it's great fun. But that's the problem, imagine this: You and five of your men are sneaking around when suddenly, gunfire from behind! Each of you run for cover and take aim, you're doing great! Two, three headshots! Awesome! And then, just as you move in for your final kill, a black screen with white letters pops up: Connection error, you have been disconnected from the host.

Nooooooooo!

GTA 4 Launch....

So, on Monday at midnight me and Caspar are heading over to Replay Videogames for the midnight GTA 4 launch event. There will probably be nothing but a few nerdy guys in video game T-shirts, but whatever. It'll be fun! Maybe I'll film it, maybe I won't. There will definitely be a written report. So look forward to that!
Also: I'm playing through Uncharted and hope to have the review up within two weeks.

Dave

Freerice.com

Wow, I got turned on to this great site, freerice.com, by GFW magazine's podcast. Basically, it's a vocabulary game. It shows you a word and four answers, one of these is a synonym for the word. The game adjusts to your vocabulary level, so it feels fair. But the cool thing is that for each word you get right, the advertiser donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
So you're playing a fun game and helping people get food in third world countries. We need more of these initiatives. I recommend everyone check it out. It's great.
Dave

Kooks

I really love the Kooks, their music is so honest, it isn't as overproduced as a lot of the other bands nowadays. I managed to get hold of some of their B-sides and demos, some great songs there! Anyway, I can't wait for Konk, the new album.
Dave

Spring cometh, not so much...

Never mind my previous post, that just got shot down! I just saw on the news it's going to be raining all day tomorrow! Well, let's hope the official day of the coming of spring, also known as coming Thursday, actually means spring! Please God...













Please..

Spring cometh!

Yes! Finally springtime is upon us, well officially on Thursday but whatever. Over here in humble Eindhoven the wind has finally stopped torturing me on my runs and the temperature went up! I'm overjoyed at this change in the weather, the black clouds and gusts of wind were getting a bit depressing!
That's all for now.
Dave

Muziekavond van Maerlant

So on Wednesday and Thursday I performed at my school's music evening. Apart from some sound problems, the gigs were great! Here's the link to my youtube profile: http://www.youtube.com/user/aragornkid so you can check out the videos!
Peace Out.
Dave

Nick's Japanese name

Nick's Japanese name is 吉国 Yoshikuni (good fortune country) 大輝 Taiki (large radiance).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Zoe's Japanese name

Zoe's Japanese name is 吉国 Yoshikuni (good fortune country) 和子 Kazuko (friendly child).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Marij's Japanese name

Marij's Japanese name is 石川 Ishikawa (stone river) 美晴 Miharu (beautiful clear sky).

Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

My Japanese name

My Japanese name is 吉国 Yoshikuni (good fortune country) 明 Akira (bright).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

She needs to know (song)

Just a song I wrote:

She needs to know, where she will end up

She wants to know, if she will make a friend

Some people call her crazy, I don’t

She might be just that, but sweetly so

Will you have her now…?

Janie, have you found a home?

Janie, have you made a friend?

Janie why do you cry in the cold November rain?

I don’t know…

It’s 10 pm, no one’s taken her

She’s standing there, looks so sad

Her head hangs low, oooh oooh

What will it be, what will it be?

Will you have her now…?

Janie, have you found a home?

Janie, have you made a friend?

Janie why do you cry in the cold November rain?

I don’t know…

David Henry 01/28/2008

Mister/Meneer Mist (Gedicht/Poem)

This is a small poem I wrote, the Dutch and English versions are here:
Dit is een klein gedicht dat ik geschreven heb, de nederlandse en engelse versies volgen hier:

Meneer Mist

Diep verzonken in mijn gedachten

Voel ik zijn aanwezigheid

Niet vervelend of plezierig

Maar ergens daar tussen in

Hij is hier ergens, ik weet het zeker

Maar als ik kijk, is hij weg

Telkens weer gaat het zo

Het lijkt wel also hij een spelletje speelt

Hoe ver je ook zoekt en hoe diep je ook vist

Je vindt hem nooit, meneer Mist.

Mister Mist

When I ride my train of thoughts

That’s when I feel his presence

It's neither pleasant nor unnerving

But somewhere in between

He’s here somewhere, I’m positive

But when I look he’s gone

Time and time again this happens

He’s playing his game

You reach and reach and try and catch

But he’s too quick, that mister Mist

Rockstars!

Me and my Dad, real Rockers!

Guitar Hero 3 Review

Guitar Hero 3 (PS3)

Review by David Henry

Nowadays everyone has heard, heard of or played a music game. It’s turning into a true pop culture phenomenon. The moment everyone realised this was the release of Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2. The game shipped with a small Fisher Price looking plastic guitar, on this guitar were five coloured buttons and a strum bar. Pressing the right coloured button at the right time and strumming the strum bar resulted in music playing from your TV-speakers.

Now the third Guitar Hero game is out and, it’s still fundamentally the same game. Is this a bad thing? No, not necessarily it isn’t. The main gameplay elements are extremely solid, the guitar notes are well laid out and there’s a great set list. However, if you’ve played Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2, you might not be very impressed by the changes.

This time around there’s a huge set list of over seventy songs, and a pretty diverse one at that. Everything from Santana to Slayer is here, something for everyone. Some might argue that there’s too much metal, however I disagree because for every Korn there’s a ZZ Top.

As for the difficulty of the songs I felt that easy and medium were a bit too easy and hard and expert a bit too hard. At times it can be incredibly frustrating when you get stuck on a certain song, however, if you jump into training mode, you’ll often get past it with sufficient practice.

Graphically the game looks good, nothing out of this world to be seen here, but it gets the job done with some nice effects and lighting going on to spice things up a little.

The big new thing in this iteration is the inclusion of two “rock gods”, namely Slash and Tom Morello (oh, and wannabe Bret Michaels is in there as well). Neversoft would have you believe that this is the best thing since sliced bread, this is however simply not true. It’s not revolutionary at all, in fact, it’s pretty half baked. Progression now “revolutionarily” goes like so: song- song­- song- song-Rock God encounter (a.k.a. song)-song-song etc. Does that sound mind blowing? Not so much, huh? Well it’s still cool to play as Slash.

There’s another new thing here, not promoted as much by Neversoft as Slash and co., namely the new guitar. It’s based on a Gibson Les Paul, probably the most iconic guitar shape ever. The little devil plays great. There’s one small complaint I have, being that when you try to activate the star power by tilting up the guitar, sometimes it doesn’t react and you have to flail it upwards a few times to get it to work.

And then the crème de la crème: Online Play! Yes it’s here and it’s great. Being able to start up the game choose quick play online and be playing someone from across the globe in under a minute is just pure bliss. All sorts of filtering options are in place as well so if you want to play against say, only medium players, just click the option and you’re ready to go.

So we have: great songs, Rock Gods, the best guitar controller around, people flailing around a room and all of this awesomeness online! Sounds like Guitar Hero to me. Like I said that’s not a bad thing but if you’re a veteran of the series the only real incentive to buy this version is probably the new Gibson Les Paul controller.

If you’re new to the series though, now is the time to hop on board. It’s a great game, frustrating at times but boy is it fun!

If a game can keep you occupied from 8 pm till 5 am it must be doing something right.

David Henry

01/26/2008

FoldingAtHome

Hey there everyone!
Yesterday I switched on my PS3 and I decided to do some FoldingAtHome, I realised that, apart from being a great idea, it´s really mesmerizing to put on some calm music in the background of the application and just gaze at all the lights on the map... anyway just thought I´d share that!
So if you haven´t got the cash to buy a new game, help the world and calm down with FoldingAtHome!

Dave