Uncharted 2 has multiplayer... *farts*

Nick is going to give me shit for this one. I hate being Negative Nancy about largely anticipated games, but this multiplayer announcement is just reassuring me that this franchise is going in the direction I was afraid of.

How did I feel about the first game? Uncharted was almost something great. I loved the characters and the acting, the visuals and animation, and especially the Tomb Raider trappings. Unfortunately, the game couldn't be the great adventure game it should have been since it was too busy trying to be the PS3's Gears of War. But the game was 80% Gears and 20% Tomb Raider. The proportions were off--it should have been the other way around.

The combat was adequate (albeit not as good as Gears), but there was way too much of it. The game might have looked like "Dude Raider" at a first glance, but honestly, the things that made Tomb Raider so great were scarce or absent all together. I love Tomb Raider for the physicality of its platforming, its environmental exploration, and its plentiful puzzle solving. Uncharted was almost an evolution of what made Tomb Raider great, but instead was just another shooter. There were around 2 to 3 puzzles in Uncharted and the answers were in a book Drake was carrying around. I was satisfied with the game in the end, but I was hoping the sequel would have more of what I loved, and less of what I didn't.

Well... with the announcement of online multiplayer (not to mention the change of setting), one might safely assume this franchise is probably becoming a pure shooter. Sure there is some light platforming during the shoot-outs, but I seriously doubt the main game will have less of a focus on combat than the first game. And why does it take so long to kill someone? Bah!

I'm still excited, though a little disappointed. Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so.


Brad