User Review : Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

What we got here is one of the best games available on the market today...

Now I know that Uncharted has been out for a year and a bit, but to me it is the best PS3 that I myself own. Personally, I think that what we got here is on the best games available on the market today, and thank God it's on PS3. Now, I am a huge fan of Naughty Dog, and have bought their games since Crash Bandicoot hit the shelves in the 90s. I played through Jak and when I got my PS3 this was the first game that I wanted to buy. I got it and I was immediately hooked.

Story: The story is about Nathan Drake, who believes he is the son of Sir Francis Drake. He is on the quest of the El Dorado, on the way meeting enemies and perils. The story kept me interesting and guessing, with a huge twist at the end to keep you thinking. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but you're in for a treat!

Graphics: Now there is not enough that I can say about these graphics. The cutscenes are pretty amazing, when I first saw them I was a bit skeptical because I thought the colour was a bit off. It turned out that it I was too use to playing dark and gritty games. The eyes are rendered fantastically, where in some cutscenes you actually noticed the minute movements that they make like they do in real life. The mouth moves realistically. The acting is solid, and the motion catching really works for this game. In game, when you run and walk the clothes on Nathan Drake, the main character, crease, his muscles bulge on his chest and it is all pretty mind boggling, especially if you are making the jump from PS2 to PS3 like I did. The effect on water is pretty cool, when you jump in, the water ripples and it all seems like one entity, unlike Assassin's Creed, where the splashes looked like they were just tacked on. Explosions are nicely down, but the environments can be a bit static, some plants move, but some are don't respond at all. Destructible environments are not that good, with only rocks being able to be destroyed, crates and walls don't respond at all. Ragdoll effects are used but are limited. When someone dies, they only move when you pop off a grenade beside them. When you walk on them they don't respond. Shadows are impressive, when the sun shines through tress, every little bit of light and shadow is shown, and it is very impressive. When Nate swims, his clothes get wet and get plastered to his back. Overall it is a very polished game. The best news is, apparently it only uses 35% of the PS3's power.

Gameplay: Standard 3rd person shooter, utilising cover and popping up to shoot and such. The game is played in such a way that if you go all guns blazing, that if you don't die in 15 seconds you'll just run out ammo. You are only allowed two weapons, one primary weapon, like a pistol, and a sidearm, like an AK or shotgun. When you finish any gunfight, you are forced to scavenge for ammo off dead bodies, that's how sparsely ammo is. At times, gunfights are pretty intense, forcing you to do crazy stuff, like run up to a guy on a machine gun and shoot him in the face with a shotgun, commandeer the gun and then finish of the rest of the enemies with it, blowing up a few barrels for good measure. There are melee moves as well, but there are only two combinations. There is the fast and furious combo, where you press square five times to do a five hit combo, and there is the brutal combo, where you press square, triangle, square to do a three hit combo, which drops more ammo. Recommended only when you have precious little ammo. The downside to this gameplay, is that sometimes it can get very frustrating especially in the harder levels where checkpoints get fewer and far between. The waves of enemies get a bit repetitive too, as you find yourself rolling your eyes as the third wave of mercenaries vaults of a fence. AI is perfect, with enemies attempting to flank you around cover if you stay there too long, a great way to keep up the action. Your allies also help greatly, with them never getting them in the way, and they actually kill enemies, rather than just softening them up. They kill them in the same amount of shots as you do. Platforming elements are melded into the gameplay nicely, giving you a nice break in the action. SixAxis is used moderately too, but to good effect. You use it to balance on logs, and also if you tilt it back, you can jump of a rope, useful if you don't want to slide down. It would've been nice if Naughty Dog had incorporated a bit more platforming elements though. There are also plenty of collectibles, like medals for 10 headshots, which give you points that unlock bonus material like slow motion or bonus featurettes, there are also 60 treasures to collect. Good luck finding them all, I've completed the game at least five times, and still only have 48.

Sound: Sound is good, with the voice acting being one of the best in games today. Explosions are nice and the guns have a nice crisp sound. Everything is nice an responsive, with comments by Drake and enemies never getting repetitive. Music is good, with the right type of music for the occasion, with some tension pieces put in for good measure.

Replay Value: With different difficulty settings and rewards and treasure to collect, as well as features such as Tech Dives and the making of the game. The game itself will give you 10 hours if you don't rush, and the features and rewards will keep you going for another couple of play-throughs.