finalark
SNORLAX
Link to original post: [drupal=1559]Review: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune[/drupal]
Naughty Dog is awesome, they made all of the Crash games (and if anyone tries to correct me I would like you to know that the Crash series ended along with the PS1, all of those new games are about Crunch). They also made the Jak trilogy, three of the best games I've ever played. And now they bring us Uncharted, one of the best third-person shooters I've ever played.
I'm a sucker for this game's story, because action-adventure treasure hunting movies are some of my favorite. So if you were to mix together Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and Romancing the Stone you'd get Indimummiromancingjonesstone, or Uncharted. You take up the role of Nathan Drake, a twenty-something year-old who is apparently a decedent of Francis Drake, and is now off on an adventure to find the treasure of El Dorado which his great-great-great (ect) granddad left behind. Along the way he is joined by a TV reporter girl who might as well have the words "love interest" nailed to her forehead and an old sweary guy in a Hawaiian shirt that might as well read "I will die or turn evil." The bad guys consist of modern pirates who are made up of just about every minority you can think of, with the exception of their very white leader. And while the plot is drowning in stereotype it still just manages to have this amusing charm that keeps you from hating the plot and ignoring the flaws.
I'm really reluctant to say this, but yes Uncharted is like a cross between Gears of War and Tomb Raider. Only it kicks the *** of both games and eats them for breakfast. In Gears of War controlling [/s]Bender Marcus Fenix was about as easy as trying to push a cow in a shopping cart, weapon balance was pretty much nonexistent and it's story was less original than Call of Duty: World at War! And Tomb Raider... come on, it's Tomb Raider, do I need to say more? Okay, back on track. The game play is entirely cover-based meaning that you'll spend most of the combat in the game hiding behind cover, waiting for the bad guys to stick their heads up so you can shoot them like wooden ducks at a shooting range. And here's a big surprise: the AI shows signs of intelligence. In most games the AI is so thick that it might as well live in a cave but the AI in Uncharted is pretty good. If you stay in one place to long, the bad guys will charge you (although this usually gets them pumped full of ammunition and not much else). They'll also try to flank you and such. Although there's pretty much a wall between the combat and platforming, which kind of makes me feel like they could have mixed the two to make something interesting. But onto the platforming, the platforming works, and I've never had that "a part of the wall that looks like you can jump on it but you can't" experience that most people claim to have had. There really isn't much I can say about the platforming other than it works and it's a pretty interesting way to string together the gunfights. Our old friend regenerating health makes another appearance but in this case it works. In almost every game with regenerating health you'll be shot up, then have to spend a few seconds behind something sucking your thumb before you can be manly again. But because you spend most of the combat hiding behind something anyway it really works here. And quick-time events decided to pop in and say hi, but they only happen once in a blue moon so they appear when you least expect it causing you to die and forcing you to start the entire section all over again.
I've given the game a ton of crap, but ignore that. It's a load of fun to play, although it's replay value is somewhat crippled by the fact that there's no multilayer. But regardless, Uncharted is a great game that should be in the collection of any PS3 owner.
Naughty Dog is awesome, they made all of the Crash games (and if anyone tries to correct me I would like you to know that the Crash series ended along with the PS1, all of those new games are about Crunch). They also made the Jak trilogy, three of the best games I've ever played. And now they bring us Uncharted, one of the best third-person shooters I've ever played.
I'm a sucker for this game's story, because action-adventure treasure hunting movies are some of my favorite. So if you were to mix together Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and Romancing the Stone you'd get Indimummiromancingjonesstone, or Uncharted. You take up the role of Nathan Drake, a twenty-something year-old who is apparently a decedent of Francis Drake, and is now off on an adventure to find the treasure of El Dorado which his great-great-great (ect) granddad left behind. Along the way he is joined by a TV reporter girl who might as well have the words "love interest" nailed to her forehead and an old sweary guy in a Hawaiian shirt that might as well read "I will die or turn evil." The bad guys consist of modern pirates who are made up of just about every minority you can think of, with the exception of their very white leader. And while the plot is drowning in stereotype it still just manages to have this amusing charm that keeps you from hating the plot and ignoring the flaws.
I'm really reluctant to say this, but yes Uncharted is like a cross between Gears of War and Tomb Raider. Only it kicks the *** of both games and eats them for breakfast. In Gears of War controlling [/s]Bender
I've given the game a ton of crap, but ignore that. It's a load of fun to play, although it's replay value is somewhat crippled by the fact that there's no multilayer. But regardless, Uncharted is a great game that should be in the collection of any PS3 owner.