Taking elements of traditional platforming,
shooting and puzzle solving and blending them together, Uncharted: Drake's
Fortune offers an engagingly cinematic title with an intense storyline and
impressive visuals. As the game begins, we meet our hero, a lovable rogue
named Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter looking for hidden gems and items.
His adventures are being filmed by an enterprising reporter named Elena
who tags along for the ride until things begin to go awry. Suddenly, their
boat is attacked by a group of international pirates, and barely escaping
with their lives, they find themselves in the deep jungles of a forgotten
island. The game casts you as Drake on your quest to find the legendary
fortune of El Dorado, the clues to which are found in a map you discovered
in a long-forgotten tomb.
When you encounter a group of mercenary
pirates, you'll need to grab your gun, and can shoot at them in either the
standard behind the character mode or use the lock-on button for more
accurate shots. There are loads of guns lying around in the game including
pistols and sniper rifles and you can pick up additional ammo from fallen
enemies as well. It's fairly easy to get off your shots, but you'll need
to find cover when you're attacked by multiple foes. Like many other
recent shooters, instead of using a health bar, the game screen gradually
loses its color as you take damage until things are black and white. You
don't need to pick up a health bar, just find cover and rest for a few
seconds and your health regenerates automatically. This system makes the
battles much easier and helps to keep the flow going. There are a number
of strategies you can use, such as blowing up nearby barrels or using
grenades that you can use to wipe out enemies. Its shooting sequences are
well done, but the game isn't all about gunplay and offers a surprising
amount of depth in its puzzle sequences, too.
Naughty
Dog has done an excellent job in creating a believable, coherent
environment to explore. Uncharted gives you a great deal of freedom when
traversing its environments, with the ability to climb up walls, jump over
gaps, hang from ledges and more during each level. These expansive levels
act as puzzles and there are many points where just getting from one side
to another is a difficult task that requires skill and dexterity. You'll
have to do a lot of thinking and looking around to get through these
sections of the games. It resembles Tomb Raider in some of its approach,
especially when you find yourself in a dark temple. There are objects to
move and puzzles to solve as well, which can be quite intricate. You can
look at your map for clues to and use some of the ancient symbols and
stones as guides in many instances. There are some fairly elaborate
puzzles for you to solve, which require multiple tasks to complete, which
can be time consuming and frustrating or relatively easy. These areas are
very well done and give the player a break between the platform jumping
and gun battles, helping to balance Uncharted's gameplay with some
additional puzzle elements.
While the game feature several different
types of play Uncharted's controls are both responsive and intuitive,
which makes its climbing and running mechanics easy to understand. Drake's
different moves are easy to perform, and most players should have little
trouble getting the hang of things quickly. Most of the game's interface
offers a fairly standard operations for platforming games with the
occasional use of the Sixaxis. In these sequences you tilt the controller
to use its motion senses to provide a balance when walking on an unsteady
object. There are some tricky areas where you'll have to perform leaps
from one high platform to another, which makes things a bit dicey, but you
can usually accurately gauge height and distance without much trouble. In
addition to these real-time areas, the game also features intense
cinematic set pieces where you have to react quickly as a preset sequence
occurs. For example, Drake will find himself running across a rickety
series of ramps that are quickly collapsing and must run and jump quickly
to avoid plunging below. Some of these sections have confusing, rapidly
changing fixed angles, which can be frustrating, but this is a minor flaw
in the grand scheme of things. Additionally, don't have much reaction time
in these areas, causing some frequent and annoying drops, but they add
some excitement to the gameplay. Uncharted's pacing is excellent with an
excellent mix of gunplay, puzzles and platforming that switches things
around frequently, which avoids boredom from setting in.
From
a visual standpoint, Uncharted sets a high standard because its sense of
scale and drama is impressive and effectively showcases the Playstation 3
console's graphic abilities. Each level is quite large and is beautifully
rendered. There's an incredible amount of detail with impressive light
sourcing, realistic water effects, richly detailed plants and fauna life
that creates a real sense of being on an island. The expansive design
creates a sense scale that makes for some occasionally breathtaking.
Everything from dense jungles, to abandoned temples and other buildings is
looks solid and gives the game a firm sense of depth. For the most part,
the cinematic camera angles do a good job of bringing a sense of drama to
the action without becoming obtrusive, though there are some points where
you might fall into a trap accidentally. Uncharted's in-game cinematic
sequences are smooth and highly polished with realistic, believable
character modeling and animation that helps bring things to life vividly.
Superb voice acting, great dialogue and an engaging storyline help to
immerse you into the action without becoming over-produced. The music does
an excellent job in accenting the action, though there are moments of
quiet as well during the puzzle sections that allow you to think, which is
a nice touch. Overall, the game's slick production values create an
excellent cinematic experience that's impressive and easy on the eyes.
Uncharted is a fairly enjoyable and
exciting action game, that effectively brings a B-movie style experience
to life. It's a great game on its own merits, but it isn't without its
faults. Its cinematic approach can be thrilling at points, but it also
makes the gameplay a bit too linear at points. Most players should find
the controls to be quite intuitive and responsive, but there are some
sequences where the game throws a lot at you quickly with fast-angle
changes and little response time. However, these problems are largely
mitigated by the game's dramatic sense of scale, beautifully rendered
environments and impressive character animation. Uncharted's gameplay
unfolds at a solid pace, offering a variety of intriguing puzzles, intense
action and solid platforming adventure that makes for a satisfying, if not
overly difficult experience.
- Michael Palisano
Grade:
A
