Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

[Formalhaut]

Right, I've been handed down this game from my older brother, who has moved away, and I've never really played adventure/shooting games like this. I've been doing some research, and one thing that has cropped up again and again is the difficulty of the gun battles. Now, I'm not really experienced with gun battles, sans GTA IV (Whose gun battles are relatively easy, you have so much health to burn) and this game employs a Call of Duty esque health system, where only a few bullets can down you.

Are the gun battles really that difficult? And is the game itself difficult?

[krissy]

no, you'll be fine.
u2 is one of the best games of the generation so i hope you get it after finishing this tho

[Formalhaut]

I've actually got both of them, I've just never got around to playing them!

[DMKA]

No, they aren't very hard, they just require patience and keeping your eyes open. The only reason people thought they were hard is because they were impatient, because some of the gun battles are quite elaborate and drawn out, moreso than any other game I've played, even moreso than the other two Uncharted games, for the most part.

But I hardly ever play shooters and can't aim for crap, I had no problems, so I don't think you will.

[Slothy]

The only problem I ever had with the gun battles in the original was with headshots. There was a bit of a weird thing that happens in the game sometimes where a headshot won't kill instantly because of the way they made the health and damage systems work. Say someone has 10 health, sometimes a headshot will only do 9.99 damage instead of the full 10 and kill them. It was fixed in Uncharted 2 and 3 though.

Aside from that, no, the gun battles aren't that bad. If you really run into trouble or have a hard time, you can just run through on the easiest difficulty. I believe it compensates with a bit of auto-aim (I know it does in Uncharted 2 anyway).

[Jowy]

These games are the main reason I want to get a PS3.

[Del Murder]

The controls in U2 are a lot better than the first one. I played U1 after playing U2 and it was quite an adjustment. The aiming in the Uncharted games is pretty easy so you shouldn't have an issue.

[krissy]

u2 and u3 are honestly some of the most fun games ever
i didn't know that about the headshots in u1, although i knew something was up with that, i thought it was intentional that headshots didn't always stick

[Slothy]

u2 and u3 are honestly some of the most fun games ever
i didn't know that about the headshots in u1, although i knew something was up with that, i thought it was intentional that headshots didn't always stick

I wondered about it when I first played it. I originally thought there was something off about the hit detection but never gave it too much thought. Then maybe two years ago on Gamasutra I saw an article where they explained their was something wonky about the damage calculations. They ended up fixing it in Uncharted 2 by just switching the health and damage from floating point numbers to integer values I believe so it couldn't round to .99 or whatever anymore.

Actually, I just found the article. (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134566/the_secrets_of_enemy_ai_in_.php?print=1) The whole article is interesting, but scroll down to Health for the specific mention. I guess it wasn't just limited to headshots, but all damage an enemy would take. I have to say that it did feel much more consistent in Uncharted 2.

[Formalhaut]

Right, I've played the first two chapters, and after spending like three minutes trying to decide my camera controls, I played it. I died in the first "tutorial" chapter, which wasn't a good start, and during the second platforming chapter I must have died about three or four times!

I really hate dying in video games, so I guess I'm just going to have to get used to it..

[krissy]

uncharted isn't very punishing about dying, there's checkpoints pretty much everywhere
i remember getting frustrated with the platforming in the first one too at the beginning though

[Bolivar]

Yeah, I really wouldn't worry about the difficulty at all. On normal, you might have to retry some latter fights once or twice, but that's about it. Jump in, there's a lot more to this game than shooting, and you're bound to have a lot of fun :)

edit: Ooops! Haha, just roll with it, I think it'll become intuitive after a while.