For some reason, we’re still out on this shipyard, looking for Sully. Hopefully, it won’t be too long until something happens in the story.
Between this and the fights back in the ruins, I’ve been left wondering how much I actually like this third Uncharted game. Later on in this batch of episodes, I start to lament whether or not I enjoy the combat of this franchise until the people in my chat remind me that while playing through Uncharted 1 and 2, I was both in a noticeably better mood and had more fun with the game overall. This raises the question of what is it with Drake’s Deception specifically that causes me such revulsion whenever I’m given a gun and told to shoot the British, which should be one of my favorite hobbies.
I think a large part of my frustration does stem from the updated melee system. While it looks cooler and animates better than the previous melee system, it trades a lot of functionality for that added style. It’s not a bad decision to spend a few seconds to quickly take out a guy in front of us with a few punches, then immediately dip back into cover to heal from the gunshots we took in the other PS3 Uncharted games. However, because even one melee fight against even a single enemy takes so long to resolve in this game, it is a far less viable option for taking out foes.
While the animations are playing out and you’re ducking and throwing bad guys, everyone else is actively taking potshots at us. Most of the time, that means we’re a sitting duck likely to be killed either immediately after or often during the brawl. And if we happen to be fighting enemies with laser sights, then we’re in deeper trouble. The button that controls our grabs during melee happens to be the exact same button for dodge rolling and taking cover, which throws off the aim of the laser sights that will otherwise kill us in one hit. Numerous times I’ve tossed enemies around when my true aim was to roll or duck so I wouldn’t die to the guy with a laser aimed squarely at my skull and died as a direct result.
There are only so many times that can happen to us before it begins to take its toll on our fun.
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