If you’ve ever played one of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted games, you know that protagonist Nathan Drake routinely faces off against dozens of gun-wielding baddies who want nothing more than to pepper him with bullets. Firefights see the screen turning progressively more red as Drake is hit and eventually dies, but according to some of the series’ developers, he wasn’t getting hit with those bullets at all.
Naughty Dog animator Jonathan Cooper revealed on Twitter that the user interface grows red to symbolize Nathan Drake’s luck running out — rather than being hit by the bullets, he’s nearly getting his by them, and his death occurs when a fatal bullet finally hits its target. Cooper jokingly referred to it as “ludonarrative consonance,” poking fun at a term that has been thrown around regarding the disconnect between on-screen actions and a game’s story.
Amy Hennig, who served as creative director on the first three games, confirmed that this was the team’s intention, as well, adding that it was “aligned with the spirit and tone of the films” to which Uncharted paid homage.
Hennig was primarily referring to the Indiana Jones films, which saw Harrison Ford’s character survive certain death time and time again, often while defeating waves of enemies. Perhaps the most notable and infamous instance of his near-invincibility was in the polarizing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where Jones climbs inside a refrigerator to avoid being killed by a nuclear bomb.
The decision to make bullets miss Nathan Drake is contrasted by Naughty Dog’s approach in The Last of Us, where Joel has to bandage and heal himself after being shot. Inspired by survival stories like The Road, this is a tonally and thematically appropriate choice, and fits with the post-apocalyptic setting.
Killing other living beings hits Joel — and especially Ellie — hard in The Last of Us, while Nathan Drake doesn’t really seem to care. Perhaps it’s because his rivals seem to have an endless army of minions to send his way. but we wouldn’t want to watch Drake in a therapy session to discuss his actions.
If you have a PlayStation 4, you can play the original three Uncharted games as well as Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy right now. The prequel Uncharted: Golden Abyss is available as a Vita exclusive.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.