Review: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mike Bantick   
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Finally a PS3 exclusive you can be proud to own, something to thumb your nose at other console owners as you take Nathan Drake through a tomb raiding pulp story line with a smattering of Gears of War style gun play.

Yes Uncharted wears its influences on its sleave.  From the first moments of the game you are reminded of video game heroine Lara Croft as if she had been given yet another graphical polish and then shoe horned into an Indiana Jones movie in a male lead role.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
 drakespack.jpg Developer
Naughty Dog
Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment
Rating
M
   
PS3


And the story of Drake tracing the ancient footsteps of his famous ancestor, Sir Francis, in a quest to locate El Dorado - the legendary “city of gold” – is told with the same laid back heroism that befits the pulp action genre we inhabit with this style of game.

In fact, the cut scenes direction, voice acting and background score throughout this game are a highlight that should be mentioned from the outset.

As is the graphical presentation.  Developer Naughty Dog has gone out of its way to harness the PS3 power required to present dense swaying foliage in tropical jungles, ruined creeper encroached cities and underground caverns in luscious detail.  Character models of enemies, Drake and his cohorts are likewise given exquisite work to draw the player into the world of action treasure hunting.

It is lucky you are easily drawn into the game in this way, because if you sat back and started thinking about the situations presented, you would instantly realise how ludicrous the whole thing is.  Huge hard to find and trap laden temples with wide open ‘back entrances’, enemy pirates that inhabit levels that take Drake ten minutes of wall scaling, vine swinging and rope pulling just to reach and written clues to a much sort after treasure surviving the ravages of hundreds of years whilst sitting on a candle lit desk in the middle of the jungle.drakes1.jpg

But of course plot holes are par for the course in this kind of adventure, and soon sheer fun of the chase will take control of your senses as Drake and his buddies, Victor “Sulli” Sullivan and TV doco maker Elena Fisher, lead you through a relatively short but satisfying romp.

How about the gameplay?  Read on


 
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