I played Uncharted 1 & 2 in the span of a week. It may have been the shortest amount of time I’ve taken to play two games and it’s because I never wanted to leave. This was surprising, even to me, because I arrived at the games with very low expectations.

My low expectations were tempered by my dislike of the Tomb Raider series. The original Tomb Raiders failed to capture my interest due to the clumsy, and frustrating control scheme, and the latter entries seemed a little too adolescent in terms of story and character design for me to really get into.

I was expecting Uncharted to be like Lara Croft with a male protagonist.

It wasn’t.

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John Marston is the latest victim to my attention deficit. He is not likely to set his sights on the sands of Mexico or deliver justice to the town of New Austin at anytime soon. He’s a wanderer, his cause a lost one. The reason? I have a short attention span–most of the time.

Niko Bellic, now the focus of my attention, may yet avenge his fallen comrades by bringing vengeance upon the man who betrayed him in the Balkans and left his squad for dead, as he makes a name for himself on the streets of Liberty City.

He’s only two years late.

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Hellgate: London was the Hindenburg of video games. It had majestic ambitions and equally great things were expected of it. High expectations were set in the hearts and minds of fans and gamers alike–Hellgate was set to soar high above the clouds, as a pinnacle of action RPGs and a worthy successor to the throne held by none other than Diablo II.

Yet all it managed to do was to crash and burn. It disappointed fans from day one. And as for me, I was more than a fan. I also happened to work for the publisher.

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Games like the The Witcher and the critically acclaimed Dragon Age have been touted as revolutionary to the role-playing genre for their freedom and multilinear narrative experience. In some ways, they deserve the praise as they have done a lot for the genre.

In other ways, they don’t.

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In many ways, classifying the recently released Heavy Rain is like the starting sequence where the protagonist chases after his son. It’s chasing after an elusive idea, or in Ethan Mars’ case, a red balloon.

While thinking of what to write, my mind keeps turning back to the game’s opening events. Put in the shoes of a distraught father, I’m searching through the crowded mall, trying to frantically find my son Jason. Running down the escalator, I spot a boy with a red balloon in the distance, but soon find out it’s not him.

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