Uncharted: Drakes Fortune

With more of TNL buying a PS3 I felt Uncharted really needed its own review.

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune follows the main character, Nathan Drake, his partner, Sullivan, and the adventurous reporter, Elena Fischer. The story begins off the coast of Panama, as Nathan and crew find the lost coffin of Sir Francis Drake, the famous explorer. Its contents are what fuel the rest of the game.

Lets get this out of the way, a lot of hate this game has received has been mostly "its not original." Naughty Dog was never shy to say their inspirations, and Uncharted borrows the best from Gears of War, Tomb Raider, and a dash of Indiana Jones story. Where others may fail to merge these gameplay styles together, Naughty Dog did quite a fantastic job, not to say the game isnt without its quirks.

If you've played Gears Of War, the control scheme is nearly the same. Holding L1 will throw you into aiming mode, and R1 to fire, a press of the R3 button will swap your aiming from left or right shoulder. D-Pad is used to change from between the 1 of 2 weapons you are allowed to hold at a time, grenades, and reload (reload can also be done with the R2 button).

The X-Button serves as your jump button, and circle as your cover button. One of the larger complaints I've heard about Uncharted (although not very bothersome to me) is some complaints on how sticking to cover feels, its probably something more of personal taste, but Circle will have you sticking on to walls and low ledges for cover from fire. What i do love about its cover system is your ability to hang from a high wall and shoot over it, not just from either sides.

Lastly Square in post combination with Triangle serve as your melee. Throughout the game you will learn and get new melee combos that lay on more damage. The Melee system has a bit of a learning curve, as naughty dog wants you to enter these button combos with respective timing. When you press Square for the first punch, the second that punch lands, you are to hit the next button in your combo. Drake can do a variety of finishing moves at different speeds to suit your needs of battle (while in melee mode you will still be fired at, so speed is key).

Personally i felt that Uncharted lacked 2 key gameplay features, that although do not harm its gameplay in any way, but i wish would be added into its already confirmed sequel. The lack of a dedicated run button was what struck me almost immediately in the game. Instead, Nathan jogs at his own pace in any normal situations, but in high tension platforming sequences, and large firefights he will sprint like crazy, but this flaw is minor. What i felt Uncharted could have REALLY used is a stealth system. Nathan doesnt have the ability to really crouch and creep (he does crouch when in cover depending on your walls height) and he does have some more stealthy finishing moves, but there was never really an instance where you could stealthily take down your enemies one by one.

From Tomb Raider, Uncharted takes exploration and traversal, platforming, and puzzle solving through the jungles in similar fashion, and youll be equipped with Francis Drakes journal to give you clues along the way. Uncharted is a bit more forgiving of long traversal sequences then past Tomb Raiders have been, and its been in this that Uncharted has one of its greatest aspects going for it, Virtually Zero loading times. Besides the Initial loading when you start playing the game, the game will never show you a loading screen, and if you happen to make a jump to far and die, it instantaneously reloads you to the last checkpoint you've reached.

Replay factor? Well some of us have gained an appreciation for achievements. Uncharted has its own set of achievements (dont be surprised when these extend to into the elusive PS Home trophy room). ranging from number of head shots, to pulling off certain combos, to finding the many treasures hidden around each of the levels. On top of that Uncharted unlocks many gameplay extras, such as Mirror Mode, higher difficulty, even color scheme swaps and avatar changes, and my favorite, "Next Gen Filter" :lol:. The game also rocks 5.1 DTS surround sound, and for those who have or are waiting for them, Full DualShock 3 support. I highly recommend to any Gears or shooter fan to play this game right off the bat on Hard Difficulty.

Incase you were wondering, Uncharted does upscale to 1080i, so those with 1080i sets need not worry. However it seems that the games v-sync issues seem to stand out more in 1080i then its native 720p. If you can play this in 720 over 1080i, id recommend it.

Uncharted is an absolute must have/must experience game. It is without a doubt PS3s best game out so far, with its mix of new and fresh gameplay emerging from this generation, and amazing graphics to top it off.

Uncharted

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Nathan doesnt have the ability to really crouch and creep (he does crouch when in cover depending on your walls height) and he does have some more stealthy finishing moves, but there was never really an instance where you could stealthily take down your enemies one by one.

That would be a cool feature, but it would be out of character for Nathan to be some kind of stealth assasin.

i didnt mean like an assassin, but more sly and shit.

At least some kind of stealth in it, im sure you can add portions where its wiser to creep by then get into insane firefights.

I'm not saying this to be a dick, but I'm surprise you got through high school English with your writing.

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Originally Posted by Nash

I'm not saying this to be a dick, but I'm surprise you got through high school English with your writing.

except thats the only reason you would want to say it.

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Originally Posted by B-Ri

except thats the only reason you would want to say it.

Now that I think about it, you're right. My bad.

Nash is pretty worthless, but he's right on this one.

B-Ri, take some writing classes in college before you attempt any more of these.

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Originally Posted by Compass

Nash is pretty worthless...

Bbobb likes it when I post pictures of my fiancee and I sometimes give away free stuff, so I'm still good for a thing or two.

Damn man, at least capitalize your I's when writing a review.

Might as well submit a review. Great game but even with some rewarding achievements (which is really nice for a change) I didn't find myself coming back that much to it. The shooting isn't that satisfying and the platforming could have been done better. I only give it a four on the technical side since the bluring bugs me, I seem to be the only one suffering from it though which is strange =/ Characters and music was ace in my opinion.