Masem’s Gaming Blog

While Naughty Dog’s more recent Jak and Daxter series was generally met with good reviews, the last few games in Naughty Dog’s series have been rather lackluster. While certainly I’d love to see PS3 version of the franchise, it is understood that, just like Insomniac Games before them, Naughty Dog has attempted to bring new IP to the PS3 in the form of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Naughty Dog did not miss with this one: the game is a strong contender for being one of the top PS3 games, doing an excellent job of mixing strong gameplay elements among plot development to give one of the more entertaining titles I’ve played this year.

Review Helpfulness: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Story: A

After recovering the diary of Sir Francis Drake from his coffin hidden under the sea, modern-day explorer Nate Drake, along with the help of his buddy Sullivan and reporter Elena get a clue to the location of El Dolrado – the fabled city of gold. However, Nate isn’t the only one seeking the treasure, and those others have many more resources at their disposal to find its location. In the flavor of Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone, or The Mummy, the game provides a great cinematic experience, with just enough twists, turns, and surprises to keep you wanting to play forward through the game, but giving you enough points to relax and absorb the characters, story, and rather impressive environments within the game. All cutscenes use the in-game engine and makes for nice smooth transitions between game and story. It would have been a bit nicer to get a bit more background characterization – the lead foes Drake meets are apparently “old friends” but how Drake knew them, its not well understood.

Gameplay: A

Uncharted is an excellent combination of acrobats and other feats of skill found in Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider games while combining a rather fluid and versatile third-person tactical combat system as from Gears of War. Each of the game’s 22 chapters has you controlling Nate through rather dangerous territory as he seeks out the fabled treasure.

Nate’s able to jump, climb vines or use them for swinging jumps along walls, and scurry along thing ledges to get around both natural obstacles and the fallen remains of the ancient ruins that he explores. Most of these parts are pretty straight-forward, once you’ve found where you first get a hand-hold for climbing and even these are colored brighter than other parts of the walls or cliffsides to make them easy to find. Sometimes it may not be as obvious but if the game determines you’ve been running around clueless for a few minutes, it will offer you a quick hint, focusing the camera onto where you need to go or what you may need to do to get out of the current area. While it’s still possible for Nate to make blind jumps and fall and die, you can pre-direct Nate to the area you want to go and he will either reach for the next ledge, or otherwise retreat back to a safe position, helping you to figure out the right path around. Only a few times you need to act quick due to a crumbling precipice, but the next step always tends to be obvious (a precipice a few feet away). It may not be as deep as Prince of Persia, but the mechanisms work and with excellent camera angles, always making sure you can see where you are next to go, the acrobatics help to give a sense of exploring and adventure to the game.

Of course, if that all there were, the game would be rather boring. That’s why you’ll need into prolonged firefights with henchmen in order to make your way through the levels. The game is not meant to be taken as a typical shooter: ammo is very limited, and though while you can pick up ammo dropped by others to refill, it certainly doesn’t grow on trees. Thus, the game makes you focus on taking cover and using well-aimed shots to make your mark instead of running right up into the midst of foes. The tactical cover system is very comparable to Gears of War, possibly even being a touch better to use as it allows for pressing against walls, crouching behind low barriers, leaping over these as needed, and rolling away from one barrier to the next (if there’s one close by) to stay out of the line of fire. You can blind-fire as well as take partial cover aiming when behind obstacles, switching shoulders if possible and needed, but the enemies are rather accurate, and if you keep your head out for too long, you’ll die from too much damage. Like most modern games, if you have been hit, you just need to stay out of fire for a while to recover your health. Of course, this isn’t helped by the fact that some barriers can be shot away, so every battle situation requires you to quickly size up where are safe hiding spots, and which ones may only be temporary points.

The game limits you to one small gun (pistol or mini-automatic) and one larger gun (rifle, shotgun, or full-size automatic) along with a number of grenades. You can swap with any weapons laying about, particularly those of fallen enemies, and especially useful when you just need to get a few accurate shots to pick off snipers then return back to your close-range weapon. Grenades are thrown with help of the SIXAXIS , using the tilt to help set distance – a mechanism that takes a bit of work to get used to but ends up being rather convenient. Nate however also has his own two fists for melee attacks, and a handful of combos exist to help take down foes quickly – if dispatched in this manner, the foes will drop extra ammo as a reward.

The enemies do show some intelligence as a group, using flanking tactics or combining covering fire while others move closer to you, and thus combat is not as trivial as it may seem. The game does a pretty good job of balancing the weapons in the game, so that you learn to work with the less accurate and powerful weapons early on as to make the use of the more accurate and deadlier ones more efficient, while at the same time teaching you that “cover is good” for a large number of reasons. There are a few annoyances in that enemies will rush you in nicely assigned waves, or may come from where you entered a level despite having no one follow you previously, but (save for a couple areas), the number of foes are fixed, and so even with repeated deaths you can learn the patterns needed to beat them.

Outside of these areas, there’s a few points where you’ll use a jetski to make it through water-logged areas, with Elene on back to provide firing support when needed. Another section features you and Elene fleeing on a jeep with a mounted gun that you’re in charge of to keep the enemy off your tail. There are also points where you need to use reactive commands, responding as quickly as possible to indicated buttons as they appear on-screen while help to shake up some of the more dramatic points in the game. There’s also a good handful of Indiana Jones-like puzzles, and at these times, you’ll be able to pull out Drake’s diary to get the clues you need to solve the puzzles, helping to support the cinematic “treasure hunter” motif of the game.

Uncharted features extras similar to what Naughty Dog has done in the past, though these feel similar to Xbox 360 achievement points or the progressions one can make in Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer. Scattered about the levels are 60 treasures, the only hit they are there is a subtle glint of light every so often. Finding these treasures helps unlock “reward points”, but you also get these for completing the game, killing a number of foes with a specific weapon, or achieving other targets like a number of headshots. These then can be “spent” to unlock cheats (like special skins or infinite ammo) on subsequent replays through the game, making it possible to collect more reward points. This is a nice system that can help make somewhat short games gain additional replay value.

The only major problem with the game was primarily the camera when you are generally running free through some areas without need of acrobatics or firefights. The camera can sometimes swing too fast, and a couple areas where I had to make a 180 degree turn to a different passage, I ended up back the way I came into the room. However, where the camera matters the most, in combat and when scaling walls, there really wasn’t any problem.

Value/Replayability: A-

Playing through on the second hardest difficulty level took me about 10 hours, and definitely felt to be the right length, just enough to leave me wanting more but still giving me a fully satisfying experience. With the multiple difficulty levels and additional rewards through treasures and other achievements, there is definite replay value in the single player experience. Unfortunately, the game does not contain any multiplayer which I think would have helped to benefit the game because of the strong cover system, but maybe that will be something in a sequel.

Graphics: A

Just as Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction demonstrated the power of the PS3 to render sci-fi environments, the graphics in Uncharted demonstrate how well the system can recreate more realistic and lusher environments. While there are cases of repeated textures and obstacles, its certainly not a distraction from the game. The water effects get special mention, whether from the various waterfalls you’ll come across to how, if Nate should get wet, you’ll see his clothes look wet for several minutes until they get a chance to dry out. The characters expressions within the engine are great, and help for the various dramatic scenes performed within the engine.

Audio: A+

The soundtrack for the game is well done, providing great dramatic music at many key points and to support firefight. Environmental sounds are pretty good as well, with the caw of birds, dripping water, or background of guns firing at times. The voice actors really help with their roles during the dramatic scenes, and it also helps that Nate will utter some self-support while cowering behind cover infrequently – enough to give him more character without being too repetitive.

Overall: A

For a (mostly) new IP game, Naughty Dog has hit a home run with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and has given themselves a new franchise they can easily build of off. The game shows the polish that the company is known for with only a few wants (better camera system, and multiplayer), and does a fantastic job of intermingling story with gameplay without bogging down either. It’s not quite a system seller for a PS3 – not everyone can get into this type of game to justify the hardware expensive, but it is definitely worth your time if you already own the system to get yourself a copy of this game.

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