Breaking up with Uncharted at 45%

Enjoy this position, because when your tight-panted ass isn't jumping from ledge to ledge like a confused monkey, it's going to be smashed up against a wall, just like this, gun in the air, ready to shoot unnamed non-caucasoid number 54,395.

Oh, when I signed up for this little adventure, Nathan Drake, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought, my, this will be a lark, exploring the world, doing archeology, seeing the sights, sampling the cultures. Sure, maybe we'll get into a gunfight (or 15,000). Maybe we'll have to shoot a villain (or 64,395). Maybe we'll die and have to reload once (or ninety-thrice). The allure was so great that I never considered how angry you'd eventually make me.

I do so love exploring.

I mean, it wasn't always so frustrating, and I somewhat enjoyed the time we spent scouring dark caverns, looking for conveniently placed hand holds for you to leap, sprite-like from; how we'd turn the brightness and contrast all the way up on the TV in order to ascertain just exactly where we were supposed to be going; how the "hint" button would pop up, and after pressing it, I'd still be just as confused as before. The minute or two we'd share exploring before being "surprised" by another hour-long gun-battle was sublime.

It started out as a fine, rather contrived little tale...

Do you remember the flooded bowels of that fortress on an island in the Pacific (we sure had a time getting in; how did those 700 "terrorists" get in before us?), where you died 15 times in as many minutes and I began slamming my fist into my chair repeatedly and accidentally punched myself in the groin? Yes, I couldn't scramble for Easy Mode quickly enough. And then you still died another 15 times before we got through, mumbling to yourself about how ridiculous it all was, and I screamed at the TV that I couldn't agree with you more, that it was entirely ludicrous, one man with a pistol taking on 150 men with machine guns, absorbing hails of bullets as he played musical cover points, then happily trundling, briefly (unless we got confused), around a pretty environment before getting into yet another gun fight... dying over and over... even on Easy Mode...

...

Listen, Nathan, it's not you; it's me. You'd be a lot happier with some other boy, the kind with fast, twitchy reflexes who loves Gears of War and delights in homo-erotic gunfire and grunting, bleeding, dying and headshots. I'm into archeology, you know? Exploring the world! Oh, this beautiful world we live in, but you want to keep me in corridors shooting at black men. Our interests just don't seem to pan out. You told me we'd be doing archeology, but every time we find some little trinket, it gets soiled in the blood of the thousands we shoot along the way.

I wanted to spend more time taking in the sights...

...and less time taking it in the ass.

Really, Nathan, if we could've just kept all this killing to a minimum, like it was in the Incan temple, it would've been a fine, passionate whirlwind of a fling, doing our ledge-leaping and artifact-grabbing. It would have been over much too quickly, but it would have been rather more quality. In fact, I get the impression all this shooting is just here to extend our tenure, to keep me here longer. You can't keep me in a cage, Nathan.

The Prince of Persia won't die once, and maybe I won't put a fist through the TV.

I want to see other people. There's an Arabic Prince with an American accent restoring beauty to the Persian world, and he promises that if I play with him, he won't die even a single time! He's got a pretty friend, too, witty banter, and even a donkey! And frankly, I prefer girls. And donkeys. And witty banter. Who wrote your dialog, anyway, and why were they writing for 12 year-old boys when the box says it's for adults? Nathan, it would be better for both of us if we just moved on. Do you know how many times you've died since we met, even on Easy Mode? You're just not that easy at all, Nathan, and I have needs...

And I get to play with her, too!

I was completely taken in by your promises of seeing the world, but to be honest, I feel all I've seen is you crammed up against walls, getting shot repeatedly while the screen goes black and I swear at my cat. I should have known you'd be just as frustratingly obtuse as your older brother Jak, who made similar vows but just died over and over and made me do bike races that threatened my sanity.

Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons, still the best "uncharted".

I think you belong with someone a little more sadomasochistic than I. Goodbye, Nathan Drake. Maybe we can try again someday, if you learn a little bit more subtlety.

Naughty Dog makes frustratingly difficult games, and whether it's Jak and Daxter (above), Uncharted or Crash Bandicoot, you'll always find at least one scene where you're running confusedly straight into the camera, like an actor with an unstoppable magnetic attraction to the cameraman's face.

Jesse Dylan Watson just wants to find his donkey and go home.

I don't Qare for Qore.

I'm trying to Qope.

Sony's monthly PS3 showthing rubs me the wrong way. Here are some reasons.

1) Veronica Belmont is too damn Qute. I can see the wheels turning in their funny little marketing noggins as they blow hard in the completely wrong direction. Sony knows most gamers are male, late twenties, early thirties, and what do males in that demographic like? Pretty, sassy, bubbly, young little chicas, and so they got the best they could find, stole her from C/Net or where ever she was, and stuck her in the show. Personally, I resent that. I would rather watch a balding old game journalist. It's nothing against Miss Belmont directly; she's a perfectly talented broadcaster. It's against Sony. Don't insult me by pandering to my carnal lust. A pretty girl won't get me to pay $3.00, watch your ads, and hear about games I would normally have no interest in. That doesn't work. I won't buy your show (you can't take a fart without gassing off on a code for a "free!!" episode anyway), and I still don't care about The Incredible Hulk or whatever you're trying to pander this month. It's a useless tactic.

"I'm Qute! Watch Qore!"

Um, unless you're Soul Calibur IV, in which case, appealing to my carnal lust, and incorporating decent gameplay, got me. Boob physics. What can I say.

I don't feel as guilty objectifying digital women. Plus, Taki here makes a more convincing paranormal investigator than Belmont makes a convincing games journalist.

2) Veronica Belmont is obviously not part of the Belmont Qlan. Yeah, I get their plan. I see your scheme again, Sony. You want me to think, gee, a Belmont! If her legendary ancestors can slay vampires, surely that lends credibility to their descendant! Well, sorry, unless she can brandish a whip and/or take on Upside-Down Castle as well as Alucard, she's no Belmont of mine.

Now this is a Belmont! Though, I admit, I can see a family resemblance. Is it the boots? The twig-thighs?

3) It bodes poorly for the health of our industry. It pains me to see Sony make the same mistakes every single console generation. So far, amazingly, it's panned out for them, but as they learn lessons, they happily throw any useful knowledge right out the window when it's time for a new machine, and this time, it's been worse than ever. Qore feels like another bid to convince the public that the PS3 is some fantastic multi-media machine. That may have worked when the PS3 was the cheapest, or at least a competitively priced, Blu-ray player, but these days, it just ends up looking like an expensive game machine without enough games and plenty of useless little doo-dads. The first-party titles have shaped up nicely, but the fact remains that Sony needs more robust third-party backing. The multiplatform releases, which should be better on PS3, usually still end up inferior to the versions on competing platforms, the third-party exclusives are absent (can you blame them?), and there just isn't enough interesting software coming from Japan, which was a huge strength for the PSone and PS2.

Even as a medical Qonsultant, she can't heal our ailments.

4) Qompletely overpriced. $3 a month? $25 a year? So you can advertise to me and give me journalism way below the bar of what I could get elsewhere for free? Are you kidding me?

"Quick, bird! Whisper something insightful about video games that I can 'parrot' back! I got nothing!"

5) Veronica called Aquanaut's Holiday "boring". "That's fine," you might be saying. "Everyone's entitled to an opinion." Sure, but has she played it? Of course not. A game journalist would should at least recognize the title, must be familiar with its history and well-versed in the Japanese games available for Sony's system, as it's one of the platform's main strengths historically, but she didn't even know what it was, picking it up off the shelf of a Japanese game store, making her pronouncement, and tossing it back. And they aired it, right in the segment! Sony to their own foot: "Hello there! Ready to be shot again?" Oh, that Veronica. Isn't she adorable? Now when Sony, or some kind, risk-taking third-party, decides to localize Aquanaut's Holiday, she can interview them about it and pretend it never happened. "I meant it was a shame it wasn't getting a US release when I said it was... Qoring! I said Qoring! Like HardQore!"

"Boring"?? There's some Qold water to the face.

6) Qan't focus. But, in reality, Qore would never cover a game like Aquanaut's Holiday, or something the likes of brilliant Valkyria Chronicles that so desperately needs the marketing boost. Sony completely undervalues interesting, unique third-party software, which is, again, a huge part of what powered the PSone and PS2. Somehow it's always turned around later (uncomfortably later) in their systems' lifecycles, but here, when we need it most, they blither on about games that are already getting advertisement elsewhere. Why not champion some lesser-known titles and show what a far reach the PS3 could really have across the user base?

Qome on. The best Japanese RPG so far this generation, and it sells 30,000 copies? What is wrong with you people?

In the end, Qore is symbolic of Sony's mistakes and problems this generation, and if stuff doesn't turn around quickly, it's only going to get worse, and that's no good for anyone who loves this industry, whether you like Sony or not.

Take heart, though, Veronica; at least you're not Jessica Chobot.

Chobot gets her tongue stuck in the UMD drive every time it freezes.

Jesse Dylan Watson is platform agnostic; they can release on Super NES for all it matters to him.