Thursday, January 14, 2010

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

After hearing so much about Uncharted 2 being the most amazing game ever made, I knew I was going to have to play it eventually. I hate jumping into a game series without knowing all the stuff that came before it, and so I picked up Drake's Fortune.

I should say that I started out with somewhat low expectations. From what I had heard, Uncharted is a fun single player experience, but as you're stuck on a tropical island the entire time the settings merge together, and as such it's really only good as a one-time playthrough.

So first let me say, THOSE REVIEWS WERE WRONG.

Uncharted is by far one of the best single player experiences I have ever played. And with all the praise being heaped on Uncharted 2 I literally cannot wait to jump right in. However, let's deal with the details since this technically is a review and not just me saying "IT'S SO AWESOME!". Though it kind of will be that.

Uncharted sets you in the treasure hunting shoes of Nathan Drake, descendant of the explorer Sir Francis Drake. Nate gets a tip about the location of Drake's tomb, and assumedly the treasures that are also contained wherein. Nathan is joined by his long time friend Sully, and Elena, a reporter sent by the people who financed the mission to record everything for a documentary. They quickly find the coffin of Drake, open it up...and find nothing, proving that Drake actually faked his own death. However, he left behind essentially a guide book full of clues towards the location of the fabled treasure of El Dorado (which happens to be a big golden statue and not a city). Before you have a chance to sneeze, pirates come to steal the treasure are upon you and the action begins. From then on it's basically a non-stop action movie involving Spaniards, Nazis, car chases, jet skis, ancient puzzles, and a HUGE twist that officially solidified it as just plain awesome.

Consider it as Indiana Jones: the game. Except better.

Gameplay consists of typical platforming/puzzle solving, third-person firefights, and a fun combination of the two where you can be hanging from a ledge and using it as cover while you toss grenades at your foes. Cover is heavily used in this game. If you're not behind something, you're pretty much dead. Unless you're reeeeal good at headshots. There are also vehicle sequences, one in a truck where you're shooting down pursuers and I think 3 jet ski sequences where you're zipping through the water avoiding gunfire and exploding barrels. Unfortunately the jet ski controls are pretty flunky, and it's a big hassle to stop, shoot barrels, and then keep going, but the car chase was all kinds of fun since all you're doing is shooting down cars and watching them go BOOM. Some of the platforming elements can be hard to get sometimes as well, especially since the button to hang off an edge is the same button to roll, creating some amusing times when Nathan will roll straight off a cliff. For the most part, however, everything runs smoothly and takes little effort to master.

And once you do master it, boy does it all look pretty. The jumping, hanging, swinging, shooting...hell, even when Nathan is just walking or running it looks lifelike. And this is all not to mention the BEAUTIFUL scenery. When I first looked around at all the trees, and the sunset, in HD, I just kind of stood there for a minute looking at how pretty it was. And as for the uniformity in scenery, that's a lie. Every single location looks different from the last and carries its own fun things to look at.

On top of the great graphics and fun action gameplay comes the greatest piece of the puzzle, the characters. What makes a truly great game or series of games last are the characters involved, and these are in a solid place to last for many games to come. The dialogue is hilarious, and it's actually witty instead of trying to be so. Everyone, even the villains, are likable. And much like Indiana Jones, Nathan isn't some big macho guy set to kill an army, he's just a normal guy with some skills who gets into a lot of trouble.

Like any straight single player game, there is admittedly little replay value. However, I have no doubt that I'll be playing through it again at some point, trying to collect the 60 treasures hidden throughout (I found 20) and unlocking some of the harder trophies (like kill 5 enemies in a row with a single punch after softening them up with gunfire), and I'll do it because it's fun and it's challenging enough to always make it interesting.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune gets a 9/10.

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