Shooting

You aren't There

HIGH The hallucinatory sequences in Ubar and Yemen.

LOW Gunfights on the water and in a sandstorm magnify the significant deficiencies of the gunplay.

WTF These guys are really staying in a burning building to shoot at me?

Two Halves of a Trick Coin

HIGH Driving a tank, running into an enemy tank, frantically trying to shoot each other, and then getting out and destroying both tanks with rockets.

LOW I have to launch the game through a web page? Is this 1998?

WTF OH MY GOD GUYS COME LOOK I'M FLYING THE HELICOPTER I'M SO COOL *crash*

Kotaku's Luke Plunkett recently wrote an opinion piece entitled Why It's Stupid to Hate Call of Duty So Damn Much. Intrigued by the headline (and always a sucker for a well-considered opinion piece to counter the never-ending stream of gaming "list-icles" out there) I decided to see why people were stupid to hate on what is essentially the biggest game franchise in the world at this moment.

Do not Waste Your Time Playing this Game

HIGH Giving up.

LOW Everything before that.

WTF Why was this made?

The iVideo Game Apple would've Made

HIGH My son telling me to jump back onto my horse after I chased down a moving truck with it, jumped into the back, and took out a bad guy.

LOW You’d think Drake has Wolverine-like healing powers after crashing through the floor for the umpteenth time.

WTF A middle-aged Sully convincing a teenage Drake to stay with him. There has to be some international law against that.

We're joined by Reviews on the Run host (and GameCritics alum) Scott Jones, who speaks publicly for the first time about his controversial Uncharted 3 review. Afterward, Chi and Mike take a Crater Lake-deep dive into the successes and failures of the game. Plus: Is gameplay an endangered species, and how on Earth do we find the time to play all these video games? With Chi Kong Lui, Mike Bracken, Richard Naik, and Tim "Deepak" Spaeth.

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Links:

• Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Review

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

HIGH Guys in creepy clown masks doing what it takes to get the dough.

LOW Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive.

WTF Haven't I seen every aspect of this game in a movie before?

While it's hardly high art, Gears 3 generally manages to craft a satisfying enough experience—except in one regard. For some odd reason Epic Games made the strange decision to saddle Marcus not just with his usual team of cohorts (Dom, Baird, and The Cole Train), but to also add in some new characters as well. The additions of female characters Anya and Sam to the mix works out well enough, but the decision to add Jace Stratton to the team is a disaster.

Space? Where? All I've Seen is this Ugly Planet

HIGH Combining the jetpack and war hammer for devastating results.

LOW The overwhelming sense of boredom that came over me when there was still six hours of game left.

WTF Does anyone honestly think that that giant armor looks cool?

A Beautiful Waste

HIGH The Dead City section is a varied high point in the campaign.

LOW The end of the final mission is a turpid joke.

WTF Who races a "time trial" once the Apocalypse has gone down?