Playing Uncharted 4. Or vice versa.

It usually takes me a while to get around playing video games. I've still got a copy of "Batman - Arkham Asylum" for the Xbox 360 in its shrink wrap. Must get round to firing that up.

Anyhoo, I've started playing "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" properly this weekend. It's very, very, good game. In fact it's like taking part in a movie. The production values are sky high, everything is polished to perfection and I'm really enjoying it.

These games are so clever that they can play themselves. And during some of the gameplay I'm wondering if that is what is happening, and I'm just watching. When I'm jumping around and hitting all the hand-holds, or shooting with unerring accuracy, it sometimes feels that the game is doing all the work and just leaving me with the impression I'm in charge.

I remember talking to someone about game development using the Wii Motion Controller. They were talking about how they managed to implement a particularly complicated gesture the player could make. They said something like "We just look for when the controller goes nuts, and assume the player is making that gesture". And nobody had ever complained about this.

I guess at the end of the day, when you write a game you are after giving a good experience, and one way to do this is to give the illusion of being in control while the game runs. I know it's the same with Forza 3. The game is giving me an impression of driving, and leaving out lots of control issues, not to mention the awful consequences of making a mistake. 

Having said all this, the game is hugely impressive and shows, yet again, just how much of a cinematic feel that modern games have.