Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Review (PS3)

Worth it’s weight in gold!

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is like a breath of fresh air for the PS3. After months of waiting, we finally get a PS3 only title that is worth the purchase of the console. On launch there was only Motorstorm & Resistance that made us go ?wow?, but since then nothing available for the console has made me say ?hell I’m glad I spent all this cash on my PS3. Nearly all top titles since where available for the 360 also. In 2007 Microsoft were winning the console battle of the giants hands down (I am not Including the Wii in that statement as it offers something different to the console market) with its own exclusive 360 only titles such as Bioshock, Forza 2, PGR4, Halo 3 and Mass Effect (just off the top of my head). It was about time Sony started to fight back. Ok, so we did get the likes of Lair, Heavenly Sword and Ratchet & Clank. The only problem was the first 2 were average at best (Stunning graphics but uninspiring gameplay) and while R&C was great fun it certainly wasn’t as awe-inspiring and genre defining as say Super Mario Galaxy.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is an excellent game, only let down by the fact it emulates too many of it’s peers instead of innovating

Nope it’s taken Naughty Dog, the people behind Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter, to come up with the goods. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is an action adventure in the style of Tomb Raider & Indiana Jones. It is an epic story based around Nathan Drake, a modern day fortune hunter and his search for the long lost treasure of El Dorado (wasn’t that a dodgy soap opera years ago based in Spain or somewhere?).
Our hero & his friends embark on this adventure after finding a clue in the 400-year-old coffin of Nath’s ancestor, Sir Frances Drake no less. This takes them to a forgotten Island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean (a bit like the one in Far Cry). Things take a turn for the worse when they get shot down and then stalked by Mercenaries.

The environments for this game are absolutely stunning, from the decrepit tombs to the photo realistic waterfalls, this is a living-breathing masterpiece. This is what people expect when you say high definition graphics. All aspects of the graphics in general are some of the best seen on the system so far. Character animation is spot on and the lighting and water effects are up there with Bioshock. To help make this Island feel like a living breathing environment Naughty Dog have not cut corners on the acoustics either Hook your PS3 up to a decent surround sound system, and you will believe you are there. Sound effects and an atmospheric score make this a joy to your ears.

So to the gameplay, well Naughty Dog have obviously looked at all the best third person action games from the passed few years and incorporated some of the best features from them to create this wonderful engrossing game. Take the ingenious cover system from Gears Of War, the acrobatic movement from Prince of Persia, the real time events from Res Evil 4 and the overall gameplay from recent Tomb Raider games and you will have a full picture of how this game plays. Now this is a plus and a minus point as far as I’m concerned. Plus in that this game doesn’t really need a tutorial, the movement & combat feel natural and instinctive as it feels like you have played this game before. It’s a bit like playing Halo 3- you know exactly what to do as soon as you have picked up the pad, and took a couple of seconds to get back into the flow of the controls. The minus is that the game doesn’t as fresh an exciting as it should- remember the feeling you had when you played gears of war or resident evil 4 or even Bioshock for the first time. That is missing from this game.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is an excellent game, only let down by the fact it emulates too many of it’s peers instead of innovating. But when it’s done as well at this game, and is so fun and intuitive to play, I almost feel guilty not giving it a full 10/10. I believe this is the first game in a possible franchise. So I urge all PS3 owners out there to buy this game pronto, so we will in fact have the next instalment of this excellent video game experience.