I Hate Uncharted 2

You probably won't hear anyone else say it. Ever. But I'm going to go ahead and say it: Uncharted 2 is a horrible game.

Now before you turn all Judas on me and, if I remember my Bible correctly, serve me my last supper, let me just say that I'm not saying it is a horrible game in order to be some counter-culture douchebag for the sake of being a counter-culture douchebag. I'm being a douchebag for a totally different reason: because it's fun.

But it wouldn't be fair to just say it's awful and leave it at that. Surely I must have some compelling reason to make such a bold claim. I do and it's two words long: sleep deprivation.

I never had the priviledge of playing the entirety of the first Uncharted. It came out at a time when I was just starting to get into non-RPG console games and they required a type of dexterity that's wasn't quite necessary in PC FPS games, which was my other milieu at the time. PC FPS games require twitch reaction of a godlike level in order to headshot the bastard terrorist who just jumped off the roof and tried to land on your back. And by "godlike" I mean Michael J. Fox twitch like reflexes. Console gaming, on the other hand, requires more deliberate movements and my thumbs just weren't accustomed to it. It was like going from 1980s cocained fueled business parties to Terri Schiavo's last birthday "party." Too soon? How about this colorful analogy then: Playing console games that required any sort of aiming made me feel like a T-rex trying to masturbate.

And so I played Uncharted for about ten minutes, grew red faced with frustration and deemed myself unable to play it properly and promptly forgot about it.

But now, a scant few years later, my thumbs have evolved to a level where aiming no longer feels like I'm slogging my gun through air as thick as peanut butter. The monsters approaching me at a ponderous pace no longer threaten to bolt at me with unexpected quickness and the need to swing my arm in a long pendulous motion to do a 360 degree triple multi-headshot railgun kill is a mere vestigial skill developed in a more barbaric age. I can now take my time to aim with prepared precision instead and have become a creature of strategy instead of pure instinct.

Uncharted 2 has the facade of console aiming but the inner soul of a PC FPS (even though it's third person, I know). The action is quick and relentless and moves, I feel at times, a bit too quickly. I can take my time to aim at individual soldiers but they press on relentlessly, forcing my old age gamer instincts to kick in and flail around for survival. Ducking for cover is for chumps. However, if it were a computer game I'd probably feel it was too slow.

The tension created by clunky aiming, partly just because of the medium but mostly due to my continued preference for the mouse, and waves after waves of pretty smart, most likely underpaid asshole henchmen, is palpable and if anyone were to walk into The Virtual Happy Funzone - which is what I call the place where I game - they'd undoubtedly feel a slight change in atmosphere. It's a combination of Old Spice Swagger, Tag Wild Card scent and determination that I call "The Gamer's Musk." It manifests itself only when a game has me so enthralled that I forget to take a shower. Or go to the bathroom at all for that matter.

While playing last night I kept saying to myself "Once I get to a safe spot I'll quit and finally get to bed." And just as I walked into a seemingly peaceful city a god damn tank came barreling down, smashing walls and firing its cannon at my head. Once the tank was dispatched, the rumbling of its engine no longer terrorizing the denizens of that quiet town, I let out a sigh of relief and reached for the power button only to find myself on a wild jeep chase, leaping from exploding car to exploding car while shooting and being shot at and almost falling off of cliffs and I think thats a pterodactly in the distance swooping in towards me carrying a chainsaw that also shoots grenades and happens to have the awesome power to turn men into crazy Goat-yeti monsters that want nothing more than to suck my blood - bipedal chupacabras I think they're called - and after dispatcing all mine foes I, perhaps foolishly, once again felt it was safe to turn off the game. That's when the pterodactyl came back to life as a zombie magician and I just said "GODDAMN IT I NEED TO SLEEP!" and turned the monitor off. But not the game. I couldn't bring myself to do that. The action DEMANDS it goes on, even if you cannot. My little buddy Drake is probably still being ripped apart by that beast as I write this.

And that is why Uncharted 2 is a horrible game. It has awakened the gamer that hibernated inside of me for the past few years that had been lulled into slumber by uninspired gaming and a painful transition from the precise mouse to the galumphing analog stick that made me shy away from the new generation of action gaming. Ones that required aiming, anyway. And now I feel like I'm sixteen years old again, staying up all night long playing Counter-Strike and throwing my hands up in triumph or yelling at the monitor in disgust or just feeling something in general. And that's something that hasn't happened in a very long time. The feeling part, especially. And feelings hurt.

And so, Uncharted 2, I hate you. I hate you for making me stumble bleary eyed into work Monday morning smelling faintly like pizza. I hate you for giving me that spark of hope that made me look forward to playing games every day. I hate you because I'm older now and I have responsibilities and I can't sit around all day playing you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a diamond the size of a beach ball to save.