Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Back when Uncharted: Golden Abyss debuted at E3, I picked up a sniper rifle in the game, zoomed in with the scope, and found that by moving the PlayStation Vita itself, I moved where I was aiming in the game. I wasn't sold.

"The aiming was way too sensitive and really hard to get a quality shot off," I wrote in June. "This was made obsolete by the fact that when I clicked to go to zoom, the game snaps to the nearest target."

Jump ahead to today, and you can imagine my reaction when I picked up Uncharted: Golden Abyss and was told that Bend Studios had added "Intui-Aim" to every weapon. Yes, when you aim a gun -- any gun -- in Golden Abyss, you're going to be able to move the PlayStation Vita to move the reticle on the screen.

Now, here's what six months of development can do: the Intui-Aim stuff wasn't bad. At first, the movements I was making were too small and really not having Drake get his handgun where I needed it, but when I had a bad guy way up on a staircase, I made a wide swing and really saw the reticle respond. If I actually rotated my body rather than making subtle adjustments, the game picked up what I was throwing down.

Would I ever play Uncharted: Golden Abyss like this? Hell no. It's a nice little novelty to show the family the gyroscopes and pixy dust inside the Vita, but it's not how I want to play Uncharted. And, to its credit, Golden Abyss won't force me to use Intui-Aim. Just like the ability to tap the front screen to crawl over logs and trace climbing patterns, you don't have to use these Vita bells and whistles. You can turn them off and play the Uncharted you already know.