VB: There has been a lot of controversy about this Eurogamer review where the writer criticized the formula and gave it a score of 80 out of 100. How do you feel about the issues that got raised and what is your response to them?
JR: I think it is completely fair review, I think the guy completely backed up his points. In no way was it unfair and I think that’s great we need more of that. I might disagree with his opinion but at least he has valid points and I think he backs it up. The frustrating ones are the reviews where people trash the game and don’t have a reason why. They just say it sucks. I wish there were more people being as thoughtful as that Eurogamer was for sure. I disagree with the score number but I think we need more of that if anything else.
VB: Yes, score numbers are very interesting. I don’t know how they appear from your side of things.
JR: There are an overwhelming number of critics who look at you and disagree with your decisions. I think that is fine. This year is really great because we have so many games out there that are really good. We are just one of a billion other games. In the last two weeks alone, you have got all the crazy stuff coming out.
VB: There is a lot of talk about game of the year again.
JR: Yeah I think that would be nice obviously. I think in terms of games and the fans, as long as people love playing the games, that’s great for us. There is heavy competition this year. I mean Batman is really amazing. Skyrim is amazing. How do you even pick between those games?
VB: I was curious about the title, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. How did you decide on that?
JR: Well when we were first talk about it, Amy said she really wanted to put the idea of deception – who do people believe and who is deceiving who and also having a sort of double meaning in the title. The title Drake’s Deception is actually referring to Sir Francis Drake actually deceiving others about where Ubar, or the Atlantis of the Sands, actually was. And then on the other side you have got Nathan Drake actually deceiving his friend to taking him along on this adventure. So we fell for that one. We had a whole list of names and that was the one that popped out immediately. We ran with it.
VB: The whole history was interesting, given the different things you weaved into the story.
JR: We spent a lot of time researching the historical mystery and stuff. We found something to latch on to with T.E. Lawrence. You know he is dead and he wanted to go to the Atlantis of the Sands. On top of that, Sir Francis Drake went sailing around the world, and in real life it took him six months to cross the East Indies and it probably should only have taken him about 30 days. In real life, what probably happened was that he got back to England and waited off the coast for three months just to make sure he wasn’t going to be killed because of the revolution. We wanted to tie it in more to a historical mystery that we made up.
VB: I’m curious about what was fiction and what was real history.
JR: That’s what we always try to do. We try to watch out for something that is real and take it one more step into what is possible.