Well, first things first, even at 15min long it felt like it was over in a heartbeat.
As far as actual control feel goes, its great. The characters move and shoot a bit like Gears, but not in such superhero, unrealistically quick movments when moving to and from cover. I would say the sensitivity on the gun was a tad quick. As for the platforming aspects, it' s doesn' t control as fluidly or as quickly as Prince of Persia, but it makes up for it in great animations, and a realism in the way his body moves. I haven' t seen anything quite so nice before(I haven' t played Tomb Raiders since the first). I like the cover system a lot, it is very gears like, except that he isn' t so firmly stuck to his cover the way you are in gears or GRAW2 for that matter, which gives it a much more fluid, realistic feel. One nice thing is that he will roll towards the cover you want him to latch onto, unlike GRAW where you must be very close, or Gears where your guy almost looks as if he is being sucked onto the wall by some unkown gravitational force, and it is definitely in keeping with the character of the game.
Graphics....not much to say really, anyone with a ps3 has watched the HD trailers off the ps store, and I' m sure a lot of others have watched the HD videos on other sites. I would have to say it is the best looking game on the PS3. Ratchet is great, the draw distances are superb, and the amount of things going on in the scene at once is second to none, but as far as setting a great looking scene, Uncharted is the best on the system, and easily rivals anything on my 360.
Sounds. Great surround feedback, definitely adds to the whole feel of the jungle, though I didn' t really get to hear that much soundtrack, the bits that I did sounded fine. None of the weapons sound bad, in fact most are great, though I wish the AK47 or Kalashnikov had more of a sharp bark to it. It really doesn' t sound like an AK should, it isn' t bad, but it' s not what I expect from an AK when I fire it.
Enemies. They are great, each bullet draws a motion from them, whether they grab their gut after recovering from and abdominal shot, or stumble/fall when shot in the legs, you really get the feeling your bullets are connecting. This is what I like to see in shooting games, as I couldn' t stand unloading clips into enemies in Quake 4 only to see them continue walking towards me without much more than a flinch. Doing a barrel roll on the ground and then popping a guy in the head for an insta kill really makes you feel powerful, without being superhuman. The enemies will flank you, and not only use cover for their own needs, but try and take yours away either through blowing it up(yep, grenades will take down a lot of the cover you hide behind, and they like to use them if they aren' t being fired on), or they flank wide and cut off your angles.
Not only this, but they are smart enough to keep their distance as they flank you and corner you, as they know as well as you do that if they get too close, it will end in a fist fight, and Drake is a lot better in a brawl than these Indie Jones wannabee' s. This isn' t to say I didn' t get my ass kicked when I tried to take 3 of them on at once, but 1 on 1, he lay' s down some pretty heavy moves. Not once did I see him do the same combo, which was nice.
I think my favorite move was using my cover to dodge an enemies bullets as I made my way too him, and then sprinting straight for him as soon as he reloaded. As I got close I punched him with a left, pistol whipped him with my right, and double leg kicked him in the chest(Zangieff style).
Another touch that I like is that you can actually fool them if you move locations quickly while being hidden by cover, or moving when they are behind cover themselves. Too often in video games, the enemies know where you are, even after you deftly move cover and flank their position. This isn' t to say they are dumb, because once they think you are no longer where you were, they will look for any movement elsewhere, but if you are quick and move to a new vantage point, and wait until they look up to shoot a where you were, you can pop up and have just enough time to get a good shot before others notice you.
I will add more later perhaps, I' m gonna play it through again on hard.
< Message edited by Dagashi -- 9 Nov 07 3:17:35 >