I struggle mightily with the PS3 controller. I'm not actually even certain the one I have isn't counterfeit or something; I only got a PS3 about a year ago. It's probably just decades of Xbox controller muscle memory, but I can't hit jack shit with the sticks on this DualShock. The stick height, width, position, deadzone and tension all feel wrong and it's like trying to game with mittens on. Basically this is all my way of saying I played on Easy because I was completely incapable of hitting anything. And I'm glad I did too because Uncharted is a real romp.
No one can accuse the folks at Naughty Dog of not giving a shit, that's for sure. Everything about this game demonstrates a AAA studio firing on all cylinders. The acting was engaging, the levels were super detailed and (mostly) well paced. I ended up liking it better than the Last of Us due to the wider variety of activities and emotional texture. Good checkpointing (with a couple rage-inducing exceptions) kept the action moving forward at a good pace.
Of course, the cost of this level of polish is in player freedom; as gorgeous as it can be, the game is still ultimately a tunnel down which the player is consistently pushed. Every step, every handhold is as pre-ordained as hopscotch; while it can be fun to follow a narrow path and not have to worry about going the wrong way, it can also start to feel like Guitar Hero after a while. The prompts are different, but you're just pushing the button they want you to in the order they want you to push it. Even the climactic final fight is a QTE for maximum cinematic flair (and minimum player agency).
The main reason I'm giving it kind of a bad score though is that I felt like it took too long to get good, and most of the climbing was super annoying. There was no freedom to it, you could only climb on the paths they laid out and most of the action amounted to trial and error: "Is that a handhold? I'll try jumping--well now I'm dead. How about that... is that a handhold?" Sometimes your boy would fall 15 feet and be fine, other times he'd fall 5 feet and die instantly.
I was also kinda grossed out by the demographics of the characters. Especially with Nathan Drake being so obviously inspired by Lara Croft, it felt bad playing this chinny white man protecting his white girlfriend and their white dad from endless waves of bloodthirsty brown-skinned people. The whole time I was thinking "at least it's less racist than Resident Evil 5" but then Drake's final quip is "Adios, asshole" right before he blasts the last Hispanic person off the face of this island and his whole Caucasian contingent laughs and watches the sun come up on a new, whiter, day. I think calling this "dated" would be undeservedly generous.
Regardless, I had a good time; I'm going to try the second one next since it seems to be the fan favorite; now that my thumbs are warmed up a bit maybe I can even try it on Normal.
No one can accuse the folks at Naughty Dog of not giving a shit, that's for sure. Everything about this game demonstrates a AAA studio firing on all cylinders. The acting was engaging, the levels were super detailed and (mostly) well paced. I ended up liking it better than the Last of Us due to the wider variety of activities and emotional texture. Good checkpointing (with a couple rage-inducing exceptions) kept the action moving forward at a good pace.
Of course, the cost of this level of polish is in player freedom; as gorgeous as it can be, the game is still ultimately a tunnel down which the player is consistently pushed. Every step, every handhold is as pre-ordained as hopscotch; while it can be fun to follow a narrow path and not have to worry about going the wrong way, it can also start to feel like Guitar Hero after a while. The prompts are different, but you're just pushing the button they want you to in the order they want you to push it. Even the climactic final fight is a QTE for maximum cinematic flair (and minimum player agency).
The main reason I'm giving it kind of a bad score though is that I felt like it took too long to get good, and most of the climbing was super annoying. There was no freedom to it, you could only climb on the paths they laid out and most of the action amounted to trial and error: "Is that a handhold? I'll try jumping--well now I'm dead. How about that... is that a handhold?" Sometimes your boy would fall 15 feet and be fine, other times he'd fall 5 feet and die instantly.
I was also kinda grossed out by the demographics of the characters. Especially with Nathan Drake being so obviously inspired by Lara Croft, it felt bad playing this chinny white man protecting his white girlfriend and their white dad from endless waves of bloodthirsty brown-skinned people. The whole time I was thinking "at least it's less racist than Resident Evil 5" but then Drake's final quip is "Adios, asshole" right before he blasts the last Hispanic person off the face of this island and his whole Caucasian contingent laughs and watches the sun come up on a new, whiter, day. I think calling this "dated" would be undeservedly generous.
Regardless, I had a good time; I'm going to try the second one next since it seems to be the fan favorite; now that my thumbs are warmed up a bit maybe I can even try it on Normal.
7 Comments
Hi @Cragjs91 happy Saturday!
To be honest, I'm not really bothered by the grave robbing stuff. Like intellectually I know it's some gross colonizer bullshit but it's kind of easy for me to overlook as part of the genre. Like how Batman refuses to kill the Joker because of... what morals or something? but he's perfectly fine blowing up 100 cars on Main Street in a car chase. It's just what the formula calls for. Plus, Drake is like a rogue or whatever; an antihero not a hero. But most of all I just don't really pay attention to the story of these kinds of games; it's just Macguffin, waypoint, shootout, climbing, cutscene to me. When they talk and stuff it's just to give me a break before the next action sequence; I'm not really paying close enough attention for anything they say to really get under my skin generally.
My reaction was more visceral; for me it just feels bad participating in what looks very much like a race war. Everything you said is true; pit your lily white protagonists against any brown-skinned population and it's going to come off a little ethnic cleanse-y.
It's just like with Resident Evil 5 or the Witcher 3. It's like, yes, you could have a world in which all the bad guys are stereotypes of tribal Africans. You could even have an entire massive open world with thousands of NPCs where every single character, even "The Black Ones", are whiter than Mitch McConnell's buttcheeks and there's not a single person of color in the entire game. But does it really improve the narrative to do that?
Any time I look around at a game world and think "boy, white supremacists would LOVE this" it makes me feel a little itchy. I mean look at the user reviews for Thirsty Suitors, a game that just came out. There's a certain subset of gamers that are deeply triggered by any representation of any kind of diversity. Especially in this case where it feels like a followup or at least homage to Tomb Raider, it's hard not to see Uncharted as a big step backwards when it comes to diversity. It really feels like they said "Let's do Tomb Raider, but get this: we're gonna make Lara a MAN! A straight, white, cisgender MAN! That way we can appeal to everyone, even the bigots that hate literally everything."
Whitewashing the population obviously isn't a solution but to me a simple solution is some kind, any kind of diversity in your good guys. Like, do ALL the good guys need to be white? Does EVERY person of color need to be irredeemably evil? What if, instead of having a main character descended from a slaver, he was descended from the guy in the coffin? What if the girlfriend or the dad was a local? It wouldn't suddenly make grave robbing ok, but it would make it feel less like a racist fantasy scenario. Having a Black protagonist didn't solve the issues of Resident Evil 5, but at least it helped keep the game from looking like straight up KKK propaganda.
But honestly, all of that was just kind of a low hum of discomfort for most of the game. I was willing to write it off again as part of the formula; white guy goes to exotic place and has wacky adventures, it's a trope that's been done a million times but whatever. And maybe it's a weird line to draw but "Adios,amigo asshole" was the last straw for me. That sounded very much like a dog whistle, like Trump talking about "bad hombres". Here, in the moment of his Good White Man triumph against the overwhelming forces of Evil Brown Foreigners the mask comes off and he explicitly acknowledges the overt racial overtones that have been running through the whole game.
If it had happened at any other moment it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much. But the fact that he uses Spanish only then, as a cocky one-liner while we the audience are supposed to cheer as we watch the last person of color left in the game drown and all the white people celebrate... for me it's just a step too far.
Hopefully that answers your questions. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts. Cheers!
To be honest, I'm not really bothered by the grave robbing stuff. Like intellectually I know it's some gross colonizer bullshit but it's kind of easy for me to overlook as part of the genre. Like how Batman refuses to kill the Joker because of... what morals or something? but he's perfectly fine blowing up 100 cars on Main Street in a car chase. It's just what the formula calls for. Plus, Drake is like a rogue or whatever; an antihero not a hero. But most of all I just don't really pay attention to the story of these kinds of games; it's just Macguffin, waypoint, shootout, climbing, cutscene to me. When they talk and stuff it's just to give me a break before the next action sequence; I'm not really paying close enough attention for anything they say to really get under my skin generally.
My reaction was more visceral; for me it just feels bad participating in what looks very much like a race war. Everything you said is true; pit your lily white protagonists against any brown-skinned population and it's going to come off a little ethnic cleanse-y.
It's just like with Resident Evil 5 or the Witcher 3. It's like, yes, you could have a world in which all the bad guys are stereotypes of tribal Africans. You could even have an entire massive open world with thousands of NPCs where every single character, even "The Black Ones", are whiter than Mitch McConnell's buttcheeks and there's not a single person of color in the entire game. But does it really improve the narrative to do that?
Any time I look around at a game world and think "boy, white supremacists would LOVE this" it makes me feel a little itchy. I mean look at the user reviews for Thirsty Suitors, a game that just came out. There's a certain subset of gamers that are deeply triggered by any representation of any kind of diversity. Especially in this case where it feels like a followup or at least homage to Tomb Raider, it's hard not to see Uncharted as a big step backwards when it comes to diversity. It really feels like they said "Let's do Tomb Raider, but get this: we're gonna make Lara a MAN! A straight, white, cisgender MAN! That way we can appeal to everyone, even the bigots that hate literally everything."
Whitewashing the population obviously isn't a solution but to me a simple solution is some kind, any kind of diversity in your good guys. Like, do ALL the good guys need to be white? Does EVERY person of color need to be irredeemably evil? What if, instead of having a main character descended from a slaver, he was descended from the guy in the coffin? What if the girlfriend or the dad was a local? It wouldn't suddenly make grave robbing ok, but it would make it feel less like a racist fantasy scenario. Having a Black protagonist didn't solve the issues of Resident Evil 5, but at least it helped keep the game from looking like straight up KKK propaganda.
But honestly, all of that was just kind of a low hum of discomfort for most of the game. I was willing to write it off again as part of the formula; white guy goes to exotic place and has wacky adventures, it's a trope that's been done a million times but whatever. And maybe it's a weird line to draw but "Adios,
If it had happened at any other moment it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much. But the fact that he uses Spanish only then, as a cocky one-liner while we the audience are supposed to cheer as we watch the last person of color left in the game drown and all the white people celebrate... for me it's just a step too far.
Hopefully that answers your questions. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts. Cheers!
I get your issue on a gut reaction level, but that's all it is to me. It's an emotional response to something we've been conditioned over the past decade or so to be sensitive to. Not to say that we conditioned this response for no reason, but sometimes we see boogie men where none exist. To me seeing as any change of this game's characters could have similar arguments made against it:
1. if Drake was a black or brown person, that doesn't make the indiscriminate killing any better.
2. If the location was changed to Western Europe or North America where he can indiscriminately kill white people we could argue a lack of diversity.
3. If the location remained the same but the enemies were changed to white people we could argue white washing.
It's a lose-lose scenario where regardless of what you do, someone could think of a rational argument as to how it is racially problematic. I think both sides of the political spectrum have become a little too sensitive to whatever triggers their demographic nowadays, be it the right calling any piece of media with a woman, POC, or LGBT character in it "woke" or finding any lack of diversity or white on non-white crime a dog whistle or white supremacist adjacent. This isn't to say that both sides are totally wrong, I've seen some things that I would consider racially insensitive and I've seen some things that I would consider inclusivity pandering and I dislike both (and yes, one is morally worse than the other obviously, not trying to do a both sides are bad thing here). I honestly just feel like a lot of people right now both on the left and right are caught up in a frenzy by grifters who are making money off of their anger because they know they get a ton of clicks/views off of rage content complaining about how bad the other side is and that type of content is easy to make, whereas providing genuine well thought out content takes more work. I checked out the reviews for that game you linked and that's just gross, a bunch of losers wasting their time writing negative reviews for a game they've never played. Some people are just basement dwelling weirdos that aren't worth your time or attention, but just remember it's a vocal minority. Most people don't act like that. Sorry to get so deep on an uncharted video game review, such a simplistic game doesn't deserve all this thought haha. And thanks for engaging with me respectfully.
1. if Drake was a black or brown person, that doesn't make the indiscriminate killing any better.
2. If the location was changed to Western Europe or North America where he can indiscriminately kill white people we could argue a lack of diversity.
3. If the location remained the same but the enemies were changed to white people we could argue white washing.
It's a lose-lose scenario where regardless of what you do, someone could think of a rational argument as to how it is racially problematic. I think both sides of the political spectrum have become a little too sensitive to whatever triggers their demographic nowadays, be it the right calling any piece of media with a woman, POC, or LGBT character in it "woke" or finding any lack of diversity or white on non-white crime a dog whistle or white supremacist adjacent. This isn't to say that both sides are totally wrong, I've seen some things that I would consider racially insensitive and I've seen some things that I would consider inclusivity pandering and I dislike both (and yes, one is morally worse than the other obviously, not trying to do a both sides are bad thing here). I honestly just feel like a lot of people right now both on the left and right are caught up in a frenzy by grifters who are making money off of their anger because they know they get a ton of clicks/views off of rage content complaining about how bad the other side is and that type of content is easy to make, whereas providing genuine well thought out content takes more work. I checked out the reviews for that game you linked and that's just gross, a bunch of losers wasting their time writing negative reviews for a game they've never played. Some people are just basement dwelling weirdos that aren't worth your time or attention, but just remember it's a vocal minority. Most people don't act like that. Sorry to get so deep on an uncharted video game review, such a simplistic game doesn't deserve all this thought haha. And thanks for engaging with me respectfully.
@Craigjs91 thanks for your reply!
I really don't want to spend a bunch of time Talking About Race on the Internet; I absolutely agree with you on the rage factory situation which is why backloggd is the only social media account I have. If it puts your mind at ease, I am certainly not enraged; it's a 15 year old game and this is just my subjective reaction. I'm definitely not trying to be prescriptive and play armchair designer; I'm just reporting the feelings I had while I was playing it.
I do want to push back a little on your statement that racial violence is "something we've been conditioned over the past decade or so to be sensitive to." I don't know where you're from but here in America racial violence is a very real thing that happens every day, and has been happening for America's entire history. Maybe in the past decade there's been a bit more awareness of it in mainstream white culture. But for Black and brown people it has been the lived experience of the last four centuries, not some recent thing. Racists may be a vocal minority, but they're also a deadly minority with powerful friends.
I'm sure you weren't trying to minimize the effects of white supremacy but that's kinda what it sounds like when you bring up stuff like "inclusivity pandering." I just can't imagine what that means other than "this has too many Black/brown/queer people in it" which... I've just never seen that as a problem. Up until very, very recently American media has been extremely whitewashed, to me a little course correction when it comes to representation is long overdue. I'm definitely not trying to call you out and god knows I'm not trying to turn this into any kind of "debate" but I do believe that racial violence is a real problem with real impacts and "inclusivity pandering" is... just not.
Anyway I mostly just wanted to say that yes, I 100% agree with you about the Twittersphere and all that performative rageaholic nonsense, but that's not what this is. I'm not calling anyone out or saying Naughty Dog is racist or calling for a boycott or whatever. I was just genuinely uncomfortable feeling like I was playing out some white supremacist fantasy, those feelings impacted my experience playing the game so they went into the review.
I probably won't reply again on this topic since this kind of quagmire is exactly why I canceled all my other social media accounts haha. But I do appreciate your comments and the fact that you've taken the time to reply thoughtfully. Thanks for the chat!
I really don't want to spend a bunch of time Talking About Race on the Internet; I absolutely agree with you on the rage factory situation which is why backloggd is the only social media account I have. If it puts your mind at ease, I am certainly not enraged; it's a 15 year old game and this is just my subjective reaction. I'm definitely not trying to be prescriptive and play armchair designer; I'm just reporting the feelings I had while I was playing it.
I do want to push back a little on your statement that racial violence is "something we've been conditioned over the past decade or so to be sensitive to." I don't know where you're from but here in America racial violence is a very real thing that happens every day, and has been happening for America's entire history. Maybe in the past decade there's been a bit more awareness of it in mainstream white culture. But for Black and brown people it has been the lived experience of the last four centuries, not some recent thing. Racists may be a vocal minority, but they're also a deadly minority with powerful friends.
I'm sure you weren't trying to minimize the effects of white supremacy but that's kinda what it sounds like when you bring up stuff like "inclusivity pandering." I just can't imagine what that means other than "this has too many Black/brown/queer people in it" which... I've just never seen that as a problem. Up until very, very recently American media has been extremely whitewashed, to me a little course correction when it comes to representation is long overdue. I'm definitely not trying to call you out and god knows I'm not trying to turn this into any kind of "debate" but I do believe that racial violence is a real problem with real impacts and "inclusivity pandering" is... just not.
Anyway I mostly just wanted to say that yes, I 100% agree with you about the Twittersphere and all that performative rageaholic nonsense, but that's not what this is. I'm not calling anyone out or saying Naughty Dog is racist or calling for a boycott or whatever. I was just genuinely uncomfortable feeling like I was playing out some white supremacist fantasy, those feelings impacted my experience playing the game so they went into the review.
I probably won't reply again on this topic since this kind of quagmire is exactly why I canceled all my other social media accounts haha. But I do appreciate your comments and the fact that you've taken the time to reply thoughtfully. Thanks for the chat!
Sorry for the confusion, when I said the conditioned statement I meant it in a positive way. To elaborate a bit, an adjustment in awareness was needed and we have made it, or are at least way more aware of the issues than in previous decades. But a downside that comes when you become aware of a trend is sometimes you see the trend where it isn't, if you get what I'm saying. I didn't mean at all that we shouldn't be sensitive to racial discrimination. Again, thanks for remaining respectful even though we may see things a little differently and I hope you don't think of me a white supremacist. I would make a terrible white supremacist seeing as I am not white.
Haha @Craigjs91 no I didn’t think that; I figured I was misunderstanding. Thanks for clarifying and I’m glad we’re on the same page.
Isn’t that, like, the magic of the internet though. We’re having a super polite discussion about a topic that we almost completely agree on, but still somehow I think you’re dismissing racism and you think I’m calling you a white supremacist. I really hate the internet so much lol.
Isn’t that, like, the magic of the internet though. We’re having a super polite discussion about a topic that we almost completely agree on, but still somehow I think you’re dismissing racism and you think I’m calling you a white supremacist. I really hate the internet so much lol.
Haha well put. The internet definitely doesn't seem to bring out our best in terms of interpersonal communication.
Craigjs91
6 months ago