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12-09-2007, 07:41 PM
|  | Get Off My Lawn | | Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Boston
Posts: 16,740
| | | Review: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune PS3
Game: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Platform: PS3 MSRP: Rating: Teen Time to Complete: 7-9 hours 
A year after the Playstation 3 launch, one of its most anticipated games has finally arrived. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune takes you on an outstanding adventure of mystery, action, and yes, horror in this modern day third person blockbuster. You take on the role of Nathan Drake, who believes he is an ancestor of Sir Francis Drake and talks about a mysterious treasure that Francis Drake had supposedly uncovered but lost shortly after. Your journey begins on a boat where Nathan believes he discovered Sir Francis Drake’s sarcophagus buried out at sea. A woman journalist, Elena, is covering and funding Nathan’s expedition and also accompanies him throughout the game. Nathan also gets help from his out of shape sidekick Sully, who provides the comic relief.
After months of jokes referring to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune as “Dude Raider”, Uncharted impresses on all levels. The gameplay is not startlingly new and can be summed up as “Tomb Raider meets Gears of War”, but there is nothing wrong with taking established gameplay genres and working on perfecting them.
Gameplay:
Instead of a big-breasted woman jumping from ledge to ledge and pillar to pillar to reach hidden caverns you assume the role of the charming Indiana Jones-like adventurer, Nathan. Uncharted plays very linear for there is only one path to take and no deviating to the next scripted cut scene, but the game does a great job hiding it. Most of the pathways and ledges are hidden pretty well in the games ravishing environments and most of the time wasted is trying to figure out which way to jump next, but the game makes up for these simplistic pathways with frequent gun battles.
The gunfights in Uncharted happen often and keep the game fresh and exciting. It utilizes the same duck and shoot gun battles perfected started in Kill.Switch but perfected in Gears of War. Uncharted adds a nice stylistic twist to the system by adding in a bit of funny commentary when Nathan is being gunned down while ducking for cover behind walls, rocks and other structures. Nathan gets to carry around two of each kind of weapon: a rifle and a sidearm. Nathan can also wield shotguns, sniper rifles and grenade launchers that are dropped by pirates and enemy mercenaries. One of the most interesting aspects of Uncharted is that there is barely any HUD information on the screen at any time during gameplay. Except during gun battles, the gun you have equipped will appear in the top right with a picture of how many bullets you have left in your clip; there is no other clutter on the screen providing an amazing sense of realism.
Since there is no HUD, there is no indication of how much life Nathan has left as there is no life bar. If Nathan gets shot, the colors on screen begin to fade to black and white. As the screen approaches black and white, the thump of Nathan’s heartbeat will become louder. Nathan can get his health back to normal by getting behind cover and waiting for the screen to turn back to full cover. On paper this may seem an easy task, but the amount of enemies on screen and the flow of incoming enemies makes this very difficult in some situations. Although weapons play the predominant role in the fighting scheme, Drake does have the ability to engage in hand to hand combat.
One of the more scrutinized parts of any game is how intelligent the artificial intelligence is. On normal difficulty the AI comes off very aggressive. Enemies will wait until Nathan is reloading to fire back and if Nathan fires at enemies who are hiding behind walls enemies will wait until the fire stops to begin firing again. Even if Nathan is firing at running enemies, they will try and roll away from Nathan. The AI comes off very intelligence and aggressive. If Nathan retreats to cover, enemies will move closer.
There are several other gameplay elements to the game that will keep the game from being a bore. For example, there is a Jeep chase scene where you take control of a gatling gun and grenade launcher while Elena drives. There is also a couple of jet ski driving sequences where you also have the opportunity to control Elena firing a grenade launcher on the back and then of course the puzzle element. The puzzles are nothing too difficult or time consuming but some puzzles will add that flare of excitement and mental breaks from the countless gun battles and chase scenes.
For a single player campaign, Uncharted can be beaten in seven to nine hours in normal difficulty mode. The game does attempt to increase its replay value by adding 60 hidden treasures players can find over the course of the game. I my first play-through I found only 21/60 treasures in seven hours and twenty five minutes. Like most achievements, it unlocks concept art and pre production sketches of the game.
Graphics and Sound:
By far, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is the best looking console game to date, period. No question, developers Naughty Dog went to extensive lengths to make this a very realistic experience. It is not just the cut scenes that look stunning or the near perfect voice acting to go along with it, but the kinds of animations built into every movement of Nathan. Whether he is running, walking, jumping or rolling, they all emulate lifelike motion never before seen in a video game. Then there is the little things like trees and leaves that move as Nathan runs through them; the reflection of the water or even how Nathan’s clothes look after he swims in water.
The voice acting and story need extra praise in this game. You can almost feel the chemistry between the actors on screen as they joke back and forth. Nathan Drake, voiced by Nolan North, sounds almost exactly like Nathan Fillion (and looks like him too) adding tons of personality to Nathan Drake making him more likeable. Even though there are extensive cut scenes in the movie, it does not disrupt the gameplay. If anything, it adds charisma to the characters, making players seem to care about what happens to each other. Combine the voice acting with top notch graphics and an appropriate soundtrack and you have yourself a game with a near perfect presentation.
Multiplayer:
n/a
Pros: Unprecedented realistic character animations, great dialog and voice acting, cutting edge graphics, crisp controls, fun and interesting characters, neat plot twist
Cons: no co-op?
Bottom Line: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a wonderfully designed single player campaign that impresses on all levels except (the multiplayer aspect). No off or online co-op mode puts a dent in the replay value but not by much. The gun battles, puzzle solving, and adventures of Nathan Drake may have just replaced Laura Croft of Tomb Raider fame as cyberworld’s greatest adventurer. This is a sure new franchise for the Playstation 3 and with hopefully, many sequels to follow.
Discussion here :
E-mail: Dukefrukem[at]straferight.com
If you liked this game try: Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary,
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Last edited by Dukefrukem; 12-09-2007 at 07:43 PM.
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12-09-2007, 08:07 PM
| | Fragged
| | Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 930
| | WoW another great review I havent heard of this game
I still prefer Tomb Raider sorry, I think its the breasts 
but hey this game looks cool |
12-09-2007, 09:10 PM
|  | m00tini! | | Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Some Hotel Somewhere
Posts: 26,122
| | | omfg I love the review...but I really LOVE the new review layout and score card! awesome work Dan and Duke! |
12-09-2007, 10:23 PM
|  | Assault Whore | | Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Boston
Posts: 5,632
| | | awesome review
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or pm bacon_x Quote:
Originally Posted by DennyCrane
Halfway through, the loss of Assault, Frank, ASG clan, etc hit him and he wept in his maple syrup puddle.
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12-10-2007, 07:53 PM
|  | The Viking | | Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Annapolis, MD
Posts: 10,766
| | | 9.6 wow, i thought this may not be too good but damn
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12-12-2007, 06:03 PM
|  | Jack pwns my FACE | | Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Well above sea level.
Posts: 15,745
| | | You think that this game is good enough to move people to buy a PS3 just to play?
Almost looks it to me!
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12-29-2007, 08:36 PM
|  | Hanging Out | | Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 36
| | | Just got the game yesterday ... based on Duke's review! Looking forward to it. |
12-29-2007, 08:49 PM
|  | Assault Whore | | Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Paris - France
Posts: 991
| | | i'll order it tonight.
Great review. |
12-30-2007, 09:39 AM
|  | Gimme ur moneyz...NOW!!! | | Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: The Dairy State
Posts: 1,366
| | Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig  omfg I love the review...but I really LOVE the new review layout and score card! awesome work Dan and Duke! | awsome review, love the score card also
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12-30-2007, 12:45 PM
| | Assault Whore | | Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Boston
Posts: 5,632
| | | this game is awesome.
my bro bought a ps3 for it
__________________ Head CSS Admin- for assistance please contact me at
steam-mattik13
AIM- mattik13
matt@straferight.com
or pm bacon_x Quote:
Originally Posted by DennyCrane
Halfway through, the loss of Assault, Frank, ASG clan, etc hit him and he wept in his maple syrup puddle.
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