Naughty Dog has received more than its fair share of criticism since the pre-release of Uncharted 3. People are buying into the latest in the Uncharted series and seem surprised when they're playing a fairly linear story-based shooter. Who knew?
Some people have claimed the shooting mechanism has changed from previous games in the series, and not in a good way. As you move your left stick in a circle, the reticule on screen moves in a square and this, apparently, has an effect on your ability to get headshots while an enemy is moving. This is on top of a rather sluggish feel to the whole thing.
I have to agree that, in my short time with the game, I've noticed aiming is nowhere near as easy as it was. I didn't see it as a flaw, per se, but I imagine it'll get much more annoying further on in the game.
Naughty Dog have issued a statement (well, a blog post) stating that this isn't a mistake, this new system was meant to be in place and it’s not all that different to Uncharted 2.
"First off, the guns fire in a completely different way in Uncharted 2 compared to what you're experiencing now in Uncharted 3. Keep that in mind, as it affects your perception of gun combat as a whole since it's very easy to want to compare the two sets of mechanics between the two games. In Uncharted 2 the bullets would leave the barrel at a pre-set deviation when you were aimed in. What this means is that the bullets would not fire straight out of the barrel all the time — they could come out at an angle. Therefore, you could have a target clearly in the reticle and still miss it by a wide margin. This was frustrating, because it was difficult to tell why you were missing a target.
"As a result, we wanted to be sure you had a better grasp of whether you were hitting or missing a target. In Uncharted 3 the bullets now fire straight out of the barrel 100% of the time. However, we have recoil — where the reticle moves/bounces as you fire. Therefore, it is easier to tell if you are missing or hitting a target. Now it is much more obvious when you are hitting or missing based on the reticle itself.
"Aiming is identical to Uncharted 2 – we took a look at the values side by side. We did adjust the sensitivity to be MUCH higher in Uncharted 3 to give you a more precise feel. With Uncharted 2 it was pretty much guaranteed you would aim in one of the 8 directions and it was hard to deviate from that (imagine it being almost like a traditional 8-way arcade stick). With Uncharted 3, you can deviate from the straight path from each of the 8 directions much easier and more precisely.
"We also changed how the enemies move in Uncharted 3. Your foes can run faster to their desired position than in Uncharted 2, which changes the flow of gun combat as well, from what you were used to if you're coming off fresh from Uncharted 2."
There are still a lot of complaints in the comments on that post, some even accusing Naughty Dog of flat-out lying about the issue. I've not played it enough to pass judgement, but we'll see how things go.
