If you haven't been following the situation, all you need to know is that the North American demo of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune ended up being region locked (which is not normally the case for PlayStation Network demos), and PS3 users from Europe and Japan were not pleased to find that the 1GB+ download wouldn't work on their system. The PlayStation blog eventually caught "fire," and hundreds of angry replies directed at Naughty Dog were posted.
Christophe Balestra, Co-President Naughty Dog, posted an update the next day stating that they company was not aware of the ability to download PSN demos from other territories, and said that locking other countries out was not their intent.
We absolutely did not plan the demo to be region locked. As soon as we figured out the problem existed, Sam Thompson called me and I jumped into my car, drove to the office and fixed it right away. It’s an honest mistake and we didn’t try to prevent anybody from enjoying the Uncharted demo. I feel even more sorry because most of the people who experienced the problem are in Europe and I’m European myself.
And then, like magic, hundreds of angry replies turned into hundreds of mini love letters to Naughty Dog, and all was well in the PlayStation world.
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
11:00 AM on 11.11.2007
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how cool of Naughty Dog to acknowledge the others and get it fixed asap..
The demo is pretty fun. The graphics are quite impressive and the characters/story seem like they'll deliver in a big way. The one liners from the main character are quite hillarious. I was hiding behind a wall and an enemy threw a grenade at my feet. The main character looks down at the grenade and says, "Oh, great." which was good for a few lulz.
The music is simply amazing. Nuff' said.
The gameplay is literally like a mix of Gears and Tomb Raider, but it still makes it it's own somehow. For example, the enemies will duck and weave to get out of your line of fire. The platforming bits were breifly shown in the demo, and if done right, it should be a good destraction in the final game.
The demo was extremely short, but I wanted to continue playing when it was finished. It'll be a solid game for sure, but no GOTY material. I'll certainly be picking this game up on release day.
Like how once enemies see you, they know exactly where you are, even if you're behind solid rock.
Also I suck at this game.I can't even beat the demo on Easy. ;o;
Dude, I played through the demo the first time on Easy and had trouble. The aiming took some getting used to, and the enemies are pretty clever and deadly. Especially when the start ducking and weaving. ARG!
I played through again this morning on Medium and did much better. I'm sure the first level is a nice tutorial, and considering that the demo is part of the 4th level it's easy to understand a certain level of suckage.
As to the few of you who were having trouble...I played through it the first time on Normal and died once, and then tried Hard and died many, many times during the big firefight in the first area with the pillars. The demo was great, though; like VWGTI, I was like, “Aw, that’s it? I want to keep playing,” at the end of it. The demo really convinced me that this game is worth buying, and it’s even better to know that Naughty Dog is behind their customers 100% when it comes to issues like this.
I may have to sell 1 kidney in order to buy this though.
To tell you the truth I'm broke @ teh moment.
( Probably wait til X-mas & pick up Unreal 3 too! )
I went into the RED after Pre-Ordering Assassin's Creed over this weekend.
* You gotta do what you gotta do * : (
I've been salivating over this for a long time because of my obsession with Naughty Dog (I dream about a Jak and Daxter sequel at night) but I am sadly PS3-less and will be for a good while.
Knowing that the game seems to be as good as I thought it would be makes my inability to purchase it hurt THAT MUCH MORE.
Also, freaking love the demo, but I don't quite get how the melee works yet.
Although I'll give Gates mad props for his charity work.
As far as I'm concerned, if Macs could play all the games that I enjoy on the PC, I'd leave Microsoft in a heartbeat. OS X is so much more stable than Windows ever was.
The demo was NOT region locked. Region locked implies the game posted some kind of "this game will not play in this region" message. It didn't, it was a bug pure and simple. They haven't elaborated but it's likely that different regions show different logos and menus during startup. For example PAL machines might have to show the SCEE logo or display the language / locale menu. But since those resources weren't in the US demo it fell over with a "please insert disc" error.
Sony & Naughty Dog bent over backwards to fix the issue even though they didn't have to. They deserve praise for turning the situation so fast.
Anyway, the game is looking great. I think it's going to be a popular game this Christmas.