Castlevania's David Cox Wants To Criticise Uncharted For Simply Being Very, Very Good. At Least We Think He Does.

We liked Uncharted 2: Among Thieves because it was the best game of 2009. The gameplay mechanics, stunning visuals and fabulous scripting, pacing and voice acting were all key components for its success. Many hail Uncharted 2 as one of the best games this generation - but for some reason, in an interview with PSM3 magazine, Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow's producer has felt the necessity to undermine Naughty Dog's success, claiming the game didn't "redefine action games".

“Visually Uncharted 2 is beautiful and it impresses me technically. But does Uncharted 2 redefine 3rd person action games? I don’t think that it does,” said Cox.

Cox carries a fair point. There are lessons developers could learn from Uncharted 2 absolutely - the pacing, writing and voice acting are the current pinnacle in their field - but few would argue Uncharted 2's campaign defines the action game experience. Then, few people have made that claim, so we're not sure why he's even bringing it up. Most are happy to concede that Uncharted 2 is one of the most polished and enjoyable action game experiences of all time. Definition has nothing to do with the subject.

“Uncharted 2 is a great game and I enjoyed it immensely. The standouts are the story and the voice acting," added Cox.

“[But] Uncharted was a single format release. If any game is going to set a benchmark for a genre it would need to do so across multiple platforms.”

Hmm. Yeah. We're not sure what Cox is trying to say here. From glancing at the quote we get the distinct impression he's trying to say games such as Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64, Halo, Final Fantasy VII and Ico are not defining experiences. But surely he can't be that narrow-minded can he? Perhaps what he's trying to say is that you benchmark a genre when competing platform holders look to a game exclusive on another platform and try to imitate it?

Surely he's not saying Super Mario 64 failed to set a benchmark because it was exclusive to Nintendo 64. Nobody's that silly are they?