Ben-DutkaWe expected Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception to be around 10 hours in length.
And according to GamesRadar's Nathan Irvine , who played an early code of the highly anticipated title over the weekend, we're probably right.
He said it took 8-9 hours to complete although we imagine it'll be closer to 10 for most people, as critics and journalists tend to move quickly through any given game. He also said it was pretty damn amazing (no surprise there) and added that in fact, "everything is bigger." That's obviously in comparison to past iterations but one could interpret that statement in a variety of ways. Uncharted 3 won't be open-ended, of course, but is he implying a little more in the way of exploration? Or is he simply talking about the size and scope of each environment from a linear standpoint?
Either way, it's good to know the campaign isn't 5 hours or something, and we should probably remember that the game is only a few weeks away. Yep, November 1…got your calendars marked?
Related Game(s): Uncharted 3
10 hours, eh? The previous installments seemed longer somehow, but I guess in retrospect they weren't. Oh well, doesn't matter, this will still rock my collection day one!!!
I will pay 300$ for an uncharted even if it lasts for an hour, expensive quality foods don't come in a huge bucket
@stay3R, agreed 100 percent. I'd MUCH rather have a 10-hour single player campaign where I adore every minute of it than a 15-hour campaign where I "only" enjoy two thirds of the experience. Make sense?
Hi5 telly, thing is people should realize that who is making this game and what is the name of this franchise, playing Uncharted is like sleeping with kim kardashian on a royale suit of burz al arab, even if it lats for 30 mins its actually well worth it
Sleeping with Kim Kardashian would be worth it? To each their own…
@STAY3R 360
I like Kourtney Kardashian more than Kim 🙂
Kardashians are over rated. I don't get it.
No.
Uncharted is like sleeping with Alessandra Ambrosia or Adriana Lima. Because let's face it… Uncharted is beautiful, funny, and visits places all over the world.
It can't be like the Kardashians… Nothing about Uncharted is plastic.
Exactly as I expected.
More importantly if you don't score it a 9.5 or better, Ben, I'm going to throw a temper tantrum in the comments section of the review.
Last edited by jimmyhandsome on 10/11/2011 9:29:37 AM
I doubt you'll be the only one.
But as I've said before, it'll get what it deserves. If that deserved score is an 8.5…oh well. 😉
We all know it will deserve more than 9.5, I deeply trust in ND
It's definaltely going to be in the 9's that's for sure but a solid 10 would feel like a platinum.
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 10/11/2011 11:39:21 AM
My guess it will get a 9.6
9-10 hours is PLENTY for the potentially greatest game in history.
Kinda disappointed that it's only 8-9 hours but at least that's longer than most games out there.
I think is a fair length for an action-adventure game 😉
I think it's short too. I can remember when the 'campaign' length for some of the last wave of shooters was announced to be as short as 8 hours there was a lot of discussion about them being too short. I'm not sure why 8-10 hours is now considered fine, when less than 2 years ago it was considered short.
Maybe is an effect of the 4-5 hrs. length games we've seen this generation
I also think it's a short game. It's sad to see PS exclusives follow the rest of the industry in this regard.
Why is length of the game such a big issue for a lot of people?? Especially in action/adventure games, but pretty much any genre but RPGs (and maybe a few others like RTS/Strategy), that shouldn't affect whether the game is great or not!
People don't go asking before a big new movie comes out if it's only 2 hrs long, or if it's 3 hrs long, (funnily enough when it comes to movies, it's usually the other way around with people complaining it's too long)
It should be about what they've done with those hours, how fun and varying they are to play and how they are able to keep you interested to keep playing! THAT's what Naughty Dog does BEST.
Sorry but I'm not a collector and won't go my way out to collect all those treasures or something.
And I'm not fond of replaying the same story over and over again, playing on higher difficulty is fun at first but once I conquered it I'll find it boring afterwards.
8-9 hours is short but compared to some which is 4-5 hours long, this is OK but could have been longer.
Last edited by Snaaaake on 10/11/2011 7:38:12 PM
Crabba,
Why is it an issue? Oh I don't know, perhaps because a lot of gamers grew up on games that lasted more than 8 hours? Perhaps we just like a long adventure? Perhaps it's a value for money thing, or perhaps it's just that we want the game to last as long as possible because we enjoy playing it?
Highlander, I've been a gamer quite a long time myself, basically since the early eighties, and just like today there have always been shorter as well as longer games, and I don't have preference for either. For me it's more about quality than quantity.
Game developers only have x amount of time to develop a game, so either they spend it making a great 10 hour game, or they have to spend the same amount of time on a 100 hour game, which one is going to be more polished, have more attention to detail and have more variation, everything else being equal? For me I'll take that 10 hour version every time*!
(*Disclaimer does not apply to RPGs, RTS & Strategy etc like I said before)
I don't care how incredible a game is. I won't be buying it if it's going to get me less than 10 hours of play time.
I get the quality over quantity piece, but my time's worth money. If I can't get at least 2 dollars per hour out of my purchase, the purchase doesn't happen. Shorter games will be bought at reduced prices.
I should add that both uncharteds got me over 20 hours each. UC2 probably closer to 30-40 hours. I didn't get either full price. So the investment was worth it.
Hm, but if your time is worth money then you'd be better off with a shorter game, since you'd get more $/hr out of your purchase if the game is shorter. The math is a little off there, unless you get paid to play games 🙂
I agree that my time is worth something, and not just money, so I'd rather play a great game that takes less time and still gives me the same experience and the same amount of entertainment.
"I don't care how incredible a game is. I won't be buying it if it's going to get me less than 10 hours of play time" Are you actually being serious here? So it could be the best game ever made, but you're not buying it because it's not a 20 hour game.
How in the world does that not make sense? I'm not wasting my money on home entertainment that gives me a return of $3/hour or more. My time is worth money, and if I'm going to invest my money in something, it had better be within my range of what I'm willing to pay per hour returned. It's all investment. And when it comes to entertainment, you need to limit your investments since it's not a necessity.
It's pretty A-B-C, actually.
As for the best game evar? Well, no. Not right away, I won't buy it if it's short. Once its price drops down to where I can get at least $2/hour or less from it, then yes. I'll invest. $60 for 10 hours is way too much for home entertainment these days.
If an incredible game will only give me 5 hours, then in my opinion, it's not very incredible. And before I buy it, it will have to drop down below $15 close to the $10 mark or lower. Which won't take long for short games. If it's 10 hours long, it needs to be less than $30 if I'm interested in it. If I'm only moderately interested, then you won't see me buying it until it's around $20 or maybe even less. If that takes 3+ years, so be it. I have plenty of -good- investment titles I continue to enjoy. I bought WKC2 full price, sure, but I'll be getting hundreds of hours out of it.
I'm smart with my money. I don't buy things just because I want it. I won't part with my money unless I can justify the purchase. It's also why I don't live off consumer debt. The only debts I have are long term invested "good debt" like a mortgage. Or my $50k line of credit I borrowed from the bank then invested. (I make more interest off the investment than the interest I have to pay. It's basically free money.)
Last edited by Underdog15 on 10/14/2011 9:47:53 AM
Underdog, It doesn't make sense because you're referring to it as 'my time is worth money', which per definition means you want it to take LESS time per money unit, otherwise your time is obviously not the issue here.
If you instead simply said you want more hours value out of money in hours per dollar spent, then it makes sense.
I wouldn't agree with it, but it'd make sense.
If you said games are to expensive, now that I could agree with, and the part about waiting to pick up a game to save money, now that makes perfect sense to me.
To me a game just doesn't give me more value just because it takes longer to finish it. No wonder all-multiplayer-shooter-games is the only thing selling nowadays, when so many people have this attitude. I blame a lot of it on games being so expensive now, if a game was more inline with movie prices around $20-$30 maybe people wouldn't be so stingy about it…
Uncharted 2 was a "10 hour" game. Last time I checked the stats screen in single player I had 40 hours of playtime. I also have 40 hours put into the multiplayer, and I'm the definition of a "single player gamer."
That's 80 hours since launch. I'm pretty sure that is the most I've ever put into a console game this generation. So there you go underdog, less than a dollar per hour. Unless you plan on only playing this game from start to finish relatively quickly, and never touch the multiplayer or single player again. In which case, I don't know if I can call you a gamer, and your argument on "getting the most out of your money" would fall pretty flat.
Thats another thing. If you want to get $2/hour, why not buy Uncharted 3 because you KNOW it will be very good, and then make sure you just play 30 hours of it? That would only be 2 plays through the campaign and maybe a weekend or two with the online. And then who knows, it might even be FUN and you'll play even more than that!
Although I'd like more, I'm totally fine with 10 hours.
I wonder what the replay value will be like. In infamous and Heavy Rain for example, you have a motive to go through the story more than once. Or, if the online will hold it longer. I just want my games to last as long as possible, especially if it isn't a yearly franchise.
Then again if we can pay 10 dollars to see an hour and a half film in theaters, or 20-30 dollars for the DVD/BD, the value of 60 dollars is worth it for this. Well, ESPECIALLY this. It'll probably be one of the best 10 hours of my gaming.
I think whats important here is that the ten hours will be jam packed with action, explosions, crumbling buildings, train wrecks, dehydration, gun slinging, hit pounding action. To top it off you will have one of the best stories ever. I played and platinumed both Uncharted's and they both seemed to clock in around the same time when i played them for the second and thrid time.
Whats interesting is that it felt longer. I assert this to the action of the game and the constant feeling of urgency. Seconds seemed like minutes and munites like hours. I don't believe that drakes deception will be any different with respect to time. Conclusion, if you thought the first two were long enough, then the third surely will meet that expectation if not exceed it.
umm thats no shock considering thats about how long every uncharted game was
Really? The previous games felt 12-15 hours to me. Though I like to take my time.
I never understood these estimated times for games. Most of the time they say it takes 10 hrs and I spend 15 easily to complete it, but maybe that's because I don't enjoy rushing through games, don't skip cut-scenes and generally take my time looking around, picking up treasures and what not.
If people are so concerned about how long the game is, why then do so many people say how quickly they finished game x in 5 hrs, when they easily could have played twice as long if they don't rush through the game as quickly as humanly possible.
Hmm the other games seemed longer than that by a couple of hours. I really hope it doesn't take me 8-9 hours that will be a little disappointing. I'm almost certain 1 & 2 took me around 12 hours. Of course I don't rush through the games.
By the way this is my favorite franchise ever, and my favorite games. So that'll be the reason I'll be disappointed, cus I never want these games to end. Not cus I'm hating on the game.
If you look at old reviews, I'm sure they say the same thing about the first two games (taking 8-9 something hours that is). I wouldn't worry about it.
I don't care how long the game took other people to play cus I can guarantee I savor every min. Of uncharted more so than the next. All I'm saying is if it takes me 8-9 hours I will be disappointed. If it turns out to be the same length as the other two then yes all will be well.
If you look for every treasure (without a guide of course), play in hard difficult and then go in crushing mode trying to get every trophy available… I'm sure we will spend more than those 10 hours
That was the same for me, never touched a guide when I was finding the treasures, only except for a couple, cause for me there was some tricking areas that I thought I got tricked on, haha.
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 10/11/2011 11:44:43 AM
Yeah, if you're going to play on multiple difficulties, find all treasures etc, you'll be spending a whole lot more than 10 hours, that's for sure.
I was looking for the treasures my first time (re)playing through Uncharted 1 (after clearing game data to get the trophies) and was surprised when I ended up with only like 45/60 treasures, they have some pretty mean hiding places for some of those…
Sounds like my Oct 29th bday present has a hand-picked winner! 😀 I can't freakin WAIT!
Hmmm… I'm not happy with this at all. The previous games seemed to be to be considerably longer than that. If I played through on easy mode and skipped cut scenes, then I could conceivably have finished in that kind of time, but my impression was that both Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves lasted considerably longer than 8-10 hours.
A pity that a game that I am anticipating as much as I anticipate this seems to be shrinking the SP portion of the game. I say 'seems' because without going back and replaying I couldn't say for sure how long it took to play through. However if it's only 8-10 hours, that's going to take approximately 3 reasonable gaming sessions to complete, which for a $60, AAA, blockbuster title seems on the pathetic side. I know that there's always the online aspect and I can replay in different difficulty levels. But you know, Uncharted was never about the online, it was always about the SP mode. This time round the heavy emphasis was on the online beta and online portions.
Hell, in Uncharted 2, it seemed to take an hour or two to beat the train alone. I'm sorry, but this 'campaign length' (I even hate the sound of that phrase since it makes it seem like the campaign is not the central aspect of the game) discussion just seems a bit off base. 8-10 hours is short. Two years or so ago, we bemoaned the length of the 'campaign' in games like Vanquish and the various Call of Duty/generic wargame/shooters. Nor do I remember the story in Uncharted being described as the campaign mode before. Campaign mode or campaign length were phrases used to describe the cursory story mode in shooters.
Sorry, but this entire discussion leaves me feeling extremely concerned about Uncharted 3 and the future of SP games. Frankly, if I am reviewing it – which I shall – if the story takes less than 10 hours to complete, it's gonna get dinged for being short.
I pretty sure u were thinking about RPG games when u made a comment, consider how long rpg's are and getting the most bang for ur buck out of the player. If u don't think a game is worth 60 bucks, rent first. I have some games that I bought for retail price and some of them felt much cheaper. And of course everybody reacts different on different games
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 10/11/2011 11:54:16 AM
Pretty sure I wasn't thinking about an RPG when I made the comment actually. Since I've platinum'd both Uncharted titles, and have only bothered to platinum one other game (Burnout Paradise) so far, I think I know when I am making a comment about Uncharted and when I am commenting on an RPG.
The game has SP. The game is full of surprises and explosion. Every cutscene is rendered twice, one in HD and another in 3D. Also, it has multiplayer. It has a little bit of everything and everything is top notch, people are saying its 3D will revolutionise 3D like Avatar did HD. ND said it will be the "go to" MP game. ND has put in a lot of work in to this game and you're dissapointed in a 10 hour long campaign? After all that hard work… Besides, I bet thats just the average time on regular difficulty.
Last edited by Killa Tequilla on 10/11/2011 11:58:29 AM
I don't recall Uncharted 1 or 2 taking much longer than 10 hours? Unless off course you took your time looking for and collecting all the hidden treasures like I did. I think the 10 hour campaign length for a story-driven game like Uncharted is the perfect length, to be honest. You don't want to drag it out to the point where the gameplay starts to feel repetitive or the story starts to suffer.
To me, and it seems like others, anything shorter than the 8-10 hour mark would be considered "short". Killzone 3 comes to mind. That game takes about 4-6 hours to beat your first time through. To me, THAT is a short campaign.
Uncharted 1 and 2 took me no longer than 10 to 12 hours and that was if I was taking my time. 8 to 10 does sound short but you have to keep in mind the guy was probably rushing through the game. Not looking for all the Easter eggs and treasures. Like TrophyHunter said, looking for all the treasures, trophies and playing the game on harder settings will take you way past the 8 to 10 hour mark. Plus if you want to platinum the game you're going to want to play it again on Crushing which you cannot do until you beat the game on normal or hard first anyway.
I wouldn't worry about the length Highlander. I think it will feel just as long as the previous installments.
This reviewer probably played on easy, running and gunning to get through it so he could write his review.
Not having played the game yet, I'm not about to pass judgement on ND who has built up plenty of goodwill in my eyes for what they have provided to me in the past. Highlander, don't give up the faith just yet! And don't forget, they give us a product that we would actually *want* to play multiple times.
@TheHighlander, okay then.
Does in that come hand to hand, finding treasures and get a sweet trophy out of it?
3 votes down come on, ur dreaming heads out.
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 10/11/2011 4:00:59 PM
@AlexanderTH3GR8
Not sure what you're saying there…
@MyWorst…
I'm not giving up, but we (this community) have discussed campaign length in games before in the context of the length of the campaign mode in some of the high profile shooters. From memory, the campaign length discussed at that time was 8 hours, and it was the consensus at the time that that was a short campaign mode, but because the game was primarily an online multi-player game, that wasn't a problem.
Conversely, it was quite clear during those discussions that a short story of campaign length in other kinds of games was considered a problem. So here we are now discussing the SP story mode duration for Uncharted 3, and we're talking about 8 or so hours. So, are we to excuse that brevity of the SP mode because the game is a great online shooter? I'm sure a lot of people will say yes to that. However the Uncharted series has been held up as one of the definitive single player, story heavy games of the generation.
So, if 8 hours was considered short, but OK because it was an online shooter. Why is 8 hours OK for a game that supposedly focuses on that single player story mode experience? Seems to me that a lot of people are forgetting the discussions on this topic in the past, and are letting their perceptions of story length in games be shaped by this trend of multi-player action vs solo, story driven gameplay.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 10/11/2011 4:47:44 PM
Just for fun, I looked at IGN's review of the first two games, and just like I suspected according to them Drake's Fortune was an 8 hour game "My first trip through Nate's story took me a little more than eight hours to complete" and Among Thieves a 10 hr game "The game is give or take about 10 hours in length".
So, I'm pretty sure U3 will be about the same length as the other two games, since the length completely depends on how you play it.