Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PlayStation 3)
Naughty Dog Studios, known for their previous Jak and Daxter games, have taken a slightly different turn for their first venture onto the PlayStation 3 with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. However, while the franchise may be new, Naughty Dog’s excellence in both engaging gameplay, inspired graphics, and well-developed story stand out, and make this title one of the best games for the PS3 to date, with the promise of future games in the series.
Taking cues from modern-day adventure movies such as Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune centers around Nathan Drake, self-reportedly a descendant of Sir Francis Drake. Drake is joined by his buddy Sully, he provides planes and boats to get to exotic locations, and the financial backing of journalist Elena, who’s here to capture Nathan’s latest hunt on film.
Nathan has learned of the location of El Dorado, the fabled City of Gold, through his legendary ancestor’s diary and soon learns that it is not an entire golden city, but instead a huge statue of gold. Nathan works at tracking down the statue, while at the same time avoiding the mercenary forces of rival treasure hunter Gabriel Roman. However, Nathan comes to realizes that there’s much more than just a statue to be found, as explained by the mysteriously abandoned ruins and World War II-era German bases that he encounters during his quest.
The game’s story is well paced with the action, interspersing game-engine based cutscenes for many of the critical moments. Furthermore, the story is well-written with just enough twists and turns so as to keep the player on the edge of his seat and turning Nathan and his cohorts into enamoring characters.
The bulk of the game is spread between platforming elements and combat. The platforming side is very similar to the recent Prince of Persia games, where you have Nathan run, climb, jump, swim, grab and scurry along ledges, or swing and climb up vines. Most of these are pretty straight forward- subtle but consistent visual clues help you identify what surfaces are climbable. Even then, if you point Nathan to what you think is an accessible ledge, his pose will help you identify whether he’s ready to jump or just looking in that direction. Some of these routes do have minimal time elements to them, in that ledges may crumble if you wait on them too long, but checkpoints through the game are well placed that you won’t have to do any long section over too many times. More importantly, these sections help present some of the great outdoor vistas that have been created, while at the same time playing to the gamer’s sense of adventure.
The combat system strongly emphasizes the use of tactile cover and well placed shots instead of spamming ammo. Nathan can only carry a pistol and a machine gun, shotgun, or sniper rifle at a time along with a handful of grenades, though he is free to swap out weapons with those dropped by defeated enemies. Ammo is not necessarily scarce but careless use of ammo will require you to resort to fisticuffs. However, melee combat does have its benefits; you can use it after sneaking up on a foe, and defeating a foe this way can net you a special ammo bonus. Waist-height walls, corners, and columns can call be used as cover, allowing for both blind fire as well as partial cover fire, and also allows for swapping of shoulders to get a slightly different angle on a foe.
The AI is decent in the game, making use of cover well and covering fire to allow comrades to move up towards you for flanking, so standing around and waiting out a fight is usually not going to win the game. The combat difficulty is well balanced, allow you to get use to the rather sensitive aiming scheme along with the other aspects of combat, but never really simply tries to defeat you by spamming you with enemies (save for one single section, but its understandable there). One unique aspect of the game is the use of the tilt feature on the SIXAXIS to direct the length that you throw a grenade, still allowing you to run and look around - it’s a bit tricky to remember that this feature is there, but provides more flexibility than, say, tossing grenades on Gears of War which fixes you in place until you throw it.
In addition, there’s a few extra vehicle based sections; one has you manning a mounted gun on the back of a speeding jeep, trying to take out the mercenaries chasing you. Two other sections have you on a water jet ski, avoiding rocks and other obstacles in addition to gunfire and explosive barrels that float in the water, with the aid of Elena who can help take out enemies at a distance. These sections are good additions to the game- who ever heard of an adventure movie without some sort of chase scene?- and help to fill out the overall experience nicely.
The graphics are gorgeous, capturing lush jungle landscapes, ruined cities and temples, and abandoned bases quite well, with rather large draw distances and nary a perceptible slowdown. The characters are well modeled and move very fluidly, aiding by the help of motion capturing cameras during production of the game. One aspect that I was impressed with is that characters actually appear to get wet and then dry out over time after walking through water or swimming; subtle details like that help to really round out the experience. Voice acting is great - the characters definitely help to bring you into the story and keep it moving, and ambient and other sounds are well done. The soundtrack also helps round out the sensory experience, again very reminiscent of adventure films.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune may not be the best game of it’s type, but Naughty Dog’s attention to detail and gameplay coupled with an intriguing and engaging story help to make this title one of the best story-driven action-adventure games in a long time. It’s not a PlayStation 3 system seller, but between this and the previously released Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, the Sony is finally seeing some system exclusive titles that really show off the capabilities of its console.
Primotech Rating: 
