You need to play the first one through. It's excellent. It was such a pleasant surprise to me. The sequel does look amazing. I just hope we get more ancient locations to explore.

^

Yes. The first Uncharted was probably my favorite gaming experience of 2008.

Missed Valkyria Chronicles, did we?

Nah, didn't miss it. Just didn't get far in it.

Ugh, I still haven't tackled Chapter 7 yet.  To be honest, I'm apprehensive as to what's in store.  >_<

But I'll definitely look up the first Uncharted again.  Probably closer to the sequel's release date, so that if I do end up enjoying it, the wait will be that much more tolerable. :)

I jumped onboard quicker than anticipated; picked the game up today, and am currently on Chapter 5: The Fortress. 

It's pretty excellent, for sure.  I'm very much digging the streamlined Tomb Raider exploratory mechanics, and unlike recent games in said series, there's nary been an incident where the controls pissed me off with frustration.  No bullshit checkpoint load system to have to contend with, either.  The cover/shooting mechanic works well -- it's a far better replication of Gears of War than I expected.  And the cast voice work is solid.  Nate's a pretty likeable hero, and I really love his main theme.

Rather glad I'm coming into the game late, especially now that there's Trophy support. :)

I went ahead and ordered Cross Edge (PS3) from Rosenqueen.  It looks like a decent-enough RPG, plus Morrigan is hot. 

At this point I wish there was an option to view what someone else is playing on their PS3.  With that and voice chat, I could walk you through the level (but where's the fun in that?).

Has she ever been anything but?

While it would certainly be handy to have a veteran second-in-command when I take to the field, you're right.  Besides, Valkyria Chronicles would be a game that I'd want to beat all by my lonesome without any outside help.  As such, I've resisted the temptation to read any sort of in-depth FAQ/walkthrough or watch any online strategy videos.

It's a great game. And the good news is that it only gets BETTER. Surprising given how awesome the setpieces are early in the game.

New direct feed gameplay of Modern Warfare 2, straight from E3: 

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 … fare/50039

If I'm to play just one more first-person shooter in my life, it's definitely going to be this one.

Just watched the E3 Uncharted 2 trailer. Whoa. I don't think I've ever been this excited for a game before.

Yeah, it's definitely looking amazing.  Good to see Drake in top wisecracking form, but as someone who has yet to complete the game, perhaps it was a bit of a spoiler for me to see..... Elena return.

I'd say I'm a little more than halfway through the first, and while it's remained to be an enjoyable affair, I'm seriously hoping they'll tone down or better pace the battle encounters for the sequel.  The constant waves of enemies that flood any given area has been getting kind of ridiculous.

I think the sequel would also benefit from more enemy types. I enjoyed shooting up humans... but after a while, it felt like that's all I was doing and they didn't differ that much from each other (aside from the weapons they carried). However, if you're irritated at the wave of enemies now, wait until the last few areas.

Started "Uncharted" over again, this time on hard. The game is spanking me like a little bitch. I thought it was tough on normal... but I'm dying all the time on hard. Still, the difficulty seems fair. If my tactics go wrong the first time, the game usually doesn't set me back too far in the area and I have a second chance to try something else. Or a third time. Or a fourth time. Believe me, THIS HAS HAPPENED.

Sounds like Gears 2 Hardcore syndrome for me.  Still haven't beaten that game on Insane yet, by the way; I mean, who the hell can do this shit, anyway??  (Except Amazingu, natch.  But insane is as insane does.... right, Amazingu?) ;)

Also, **BIG UNCHARTED SPOILER** hooray, Sully's alive!! :D  I thought that was him in the E3 '09 trailer.

Well, I made it to Chapter 10 so I must be doing SOMETHING right. The parts I tend to dread (especially on Hard) are the ambushes where you're surrounded on all sides. The Castle section where you drop into the bluish watery area was especially tough (and yet, I died less than when I did that part on Normal. I must be getting better at headshots).

Oh, and the rocket launcher users are never appreciated...

Beat Uncharted on hard. Took 8 hours and 32 minutes, 15 minutes longer than it took on Normal. It goes without saying that I had a BLAST. There's one difficulty level left (the infamous "Crushing") and I think I'll tackle it maybe a week before the second game is released.

Crushing had me pulling my hair out in some places, but I just had to earn all the medals. (Unfortunately, this was before the PS3 trophies were introduced so I'd have to do it all over again if I want the credit.) Two particular areas seemed almost impossible at first. One was a large cistern room with dudes that step out from behind the pillars and like to one-shot you; probably the same watery area you mentioned, Wanderer. I used a cheap trick I read about where once you reach that point, instead of dropping down you can backtrack until you hear the "battle" music start (I don't remember if you have to go all the way back to the courtyard for this), and when you return to the watery room all the enemies will have spawned and you can shoot them from up on the ledge, using the wall as cover.
The second area was on the ship at the end, where you have to shoot all those waves of enemies before they blast apart the crates you're hiding behind. But there were some boxes halfway through that I didn't know I could jump back over to get some relief.

Anyway, Uncharted was an awesome experience, like Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones rolled into a Clive Cussler tale. The E3 footage for the second game looks pretty dynamic (and I must mention those distant mountains--sexay), I just hope there will be enough time spent out in natural surroundings or ruins since that's what I loved most about the first one.

There's going to be jungle scenes again, at the very least.

The graphics and effects for the first game are still quite stunning by today's standards.  Especially the lighting of the sun in the jungle, and those high peaks of mountains overlooking spacious bodies of water.  Not bad at all for a late '07 title.  I'm just hoping Naughty Dog cleans up the screen tearing issues for the sequel.

I remember thinking the graphics were very nice when I first played the game but once I got to the area with the German sub, I was stunned. Just gorgeous.

I didn't notice the screen tearing as much in the second half of the game. Or maybe I got used to it. It is distracting in the early jungle areas.

And, final area spoilers:

Yeah, the final battle is tough, no matter what difficulty you're on. On Hard, you can take less damage and that's especially a problem with the grunts that Navarro has with him. The latter has always been a one-shot kill guy. For the first two areas, I stayed to the side and picked off the enemies without being threatened by Navarro. In the third area with the rocket launcher guy, I had to get more creative.

I will be closing this thread to new posts within the next few days.

As I explain in the Films 2009 thread, though there's plenty of great discussion about the recent games here, I would prefer to see it go in separate threads for each game instead of one long, winding thread.

That said, feel free to respond to previous posts in the thread over the next few days before it closes.

This is just a small, random thought but it's about a 2009 video game: does anyone else think the logo - the "Crystal Bearers" part - of "Final Fantasy: Crystal Bearers" is as ugly as sin?

I agree.

I love the ads for it down here. One of the blurbs of critical acclaim says "Best Final Fantasy in ages". I remember when that sort of comment kind of went without saying.

Ugh, yes.  Worst looking logo ever.  I have a pamphlet from either TGS or a Square Enix Party from back before they'd even shown anything of the game that has a MUCH nicer logo (much more in line with the font/logos for the other games in the series).  I wish they'd gone with that.

...hmm, I need to dig that thing out and maybe scan it.

Does anyone know if Star Ocean: The Last Hope is indeed the last Star Ocean game? I had no clue but this review kind of implies it:

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/starocean4/review.html

"It seems rather fitting that the end of the long-running Star Ocean series would come around full circle to revisit where the series first began--with the degradation of our beloved homeworld and with humanity teetering on the brink of annihilation."

I mean with "Last" being in the title, it makes since, but "Till the End of Time" sounds kind of final as well. I just didn't hear anything about it being the last game in the series.

Yoshinori Yamagishi (producer) confirmed that "Star Ocean: The Last Hope" would indeed be the final Star Ocean game at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3 … c=PREVIEWS

It was sad news for me as I always enjoyed the Star Ocean series. Oh well...

never say ne- um, final:

http://neogaf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=388684

maybe he means a new Star Ocean, maybe not. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of the series but Star Ocean 2 had this crazy hold on me where I can get about as far as the town where you meet Bowman and then I go find a dungeon and gain 50 levels and invest skill points and then go "oh god, what am I doing with my life?"

but I think everyone agrees Star Ocean 3 and 4 were just ridiculous, even if some really enjoyed playing them.

I'd actually like a new Star Ocean game to address the ridiculous twist ending of 3. It was handled horribly, but I think there's some real potential there - a few other games/media have handled this in various ways, but I'm envisioning a title that cuts out all the anime bullshit and focuses on (spoilols) how responsible 4D beings are for actions they take and events they cause in the Eternal Sphere. Have the storyline look at whether a created being can be more moral than it's creator, and if 4D beings can be brought to "justice" by Eternal Sphere residents. Maybe even have a war between the restored Eternal Sphere and the 4D beings. Call the game something like "Star Ocean: Apostasy of Reality". Whatever.

also while looking around I found this on Kotaku, sourced from GPara:

I wonder how Yoshinori Yamagishi feels about Minato Koio, character designer for Star Ocean 2. If I remember correctly, s/he was actually pushed away by Enix after making a pornographic SO2 doujinshi, which goes a long way towards explaining the far more generic art in the PSP remake.

Interesting... Well, good or bad, I'd definitely be down with a new Star Ocean. Unless they go the route you're predicting (which would be cool), I wonder what else they could try? I always thought that Yamagishi's reasons for not wanting to make another SO game were kind of lame. Series and stories have been written out of much tighter corners many times before this. Not to mention that the corner that SO backed itself into wasn't all that great anyway...

That brings to mind a really interesting question. How does the industry view after-market things like doujinshi, anyways? Is it on shaky legal grounds that comics like those are produced independently in Japan?