Favorite female characters in video games (Part 1) - Gaming Thoughts

Over the years, there have been a good many video games that featured female characters of note. Some were protagonists, others were antagonists while others fell somewhere in between on the spectrum. Different characters resonate with us for different reasons, and  some are more memorable than others.

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The Last of Us - PlayStation 3 Review

Without a doubt, The Last of Us has been one of the most anxiously awaited gaming titles of 2013, and for good reason. Naughty Dog has built a pretty solid reputation for itself on the Uncharted franchise, a series I am quite fond of personally. Their most recent release, Uncharted 3, was a game I reviewed quite highly.

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Gaming Thoughts - Full circle with Lara Croft and Nathan Drake

First off - wow, the E3 coverage has been entertaining and busy. I will continue to get articles out this week, even if it is just small bits on trailers, games or nuggets of news that caught my interest. I already have a few things queued up to auto-post throughout the day. Also? The traffic through here has been awesome - some of my all-time highs, so thank you for dropping by. This morning's article more or less puts the finishing touches on my Uncharted reviews and thoughts, leaving me with a handful of other reviews coming up including some new releases - two for the PC and one for the PSP (not everything has to be about cutting edge consoles this week, does it?).

Having just spent a lot of time recently with the Uncharted series, I began to think back on not only those games, but what I would guess was the primary inspiration of that series - Tomb Raider. I played a handful of the Tomb Raider games in the past, back Lara was much more stiff and her world far less exciting to explore. All the same, her ability to explore and interact with her environment was exciting and largely new at the time.

However, the Tomb Raider games did not age very well, and the series suffered a series of missteps along the way. Tomb Raider did eventually start to regain its footing, but not long after the Uncharted series blasted onto the PlayStation 3 scene, and the parallels were glaring.

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Unearthed: The Trail of Ibn Battuta Episode 1 - PSN Review

Having just come off of playing a bunch of Uncharted over the last few weeks, I have to admit I was curious to see what Unearthed would be all about. Just by the description you could tell this game was trying to emulate the Uncharted series, but in case there was any doubt - then you start playing it.

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Free Fable 3, E3, lots of posts coming soon... - Updated!

Good morning - I hope everyone had a nice weekend? Mine was good - busy, but good. Equal parts yard work, playing Persona 4 Golden, playing Magic: The Gathering both with cards and on the PC with my son, playing Rush Bros with my son, watching the season finale of Game of Thrones and more. Oh, and writing lots of reviews.

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It's that time of the year...

When I get to use my birthday as an excuse to take a day off of work (technically yesterday I took off - had to get my license renewed. Boy was that fun) and play some video games.

I am not going to lie - I kind of want this cake

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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - Playstation 3 Review

This is the first of my scheduled posts while I'm out camping with the family this week. Hope you like it. :)

I was a *bit* late to the party with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. This came out for the PS3 a few years ago and did so with a good deal of fanfare. I finally picked this and its sequel up around Christmas time and just had a chance to play Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and came away impressed. It holds up quite well despite being a couple of years old. The game clearly draws inspiration from the Tome Raider games and Indiana Jones movies, with high production values that give it a summer blockbuster feel.

Graphics - 8:

Everything looks good. There is a lot of polish in place on the cinematic scenes, and the various lighting effects and varied locals from deep passages to lush jungle vegetation really help sell the story and overall adventure. There are times where your pre-canned animations look a bit odd, and you see clipping and tearing with some of the set pieces as you interact with them, but even at a few years old this game's visuals please.

Sound & Music - 9:

The voice acting is very good and really immerses you in the storyline. Sound effects are good with a wide range of convincing gunshots, explosions, grunts and more - though sometimes the firefight sound effects and comments can get a bit repetitive. The music fits the action, the scenes and chases perfectly.

Gameplay - 8:

Platforming is fun, and seldom frustrating. Some felt it was a bit too easy, but I enjoyed it. The fight scenes are usually good, though they can get frustrating from time to time due to the huge swarms of enemies that seem to never stop. I can appreciate that the chase/vehicle scenes add a nice bit of variety to things, but they did not always control as well as I would have liked.

Intangibles - 7:

There's some rewards and bonuses, and they've added trophies retroactively to this PS3 exclusive. That said, the game was pretty short and having played through it once, I did not really have an urge to play it again. The lack of online/multiplayer hurts the game's lifespan a bit too, unfortunately.

Overall - 8:

That said, it can be acquired pretty cheaply used, and if you enjoy these hybrid adventure/3rd person shooting games, I think this is among the best I've played to date. I had a lot of fun with it, my kids enjoyed watching me play it. My oldest kid is not much of a gamer, but she watched more than 90% of the game, even choosing to do more of her laundry folding in the living room just so she could watch it. She said it was like watching an interactive movie. When I teased her that it really wasn't interactive for her, she said it was because she could point and laugh at me every time I died. Doh!

More Uncharted: Drakes Fortune Videos

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