14
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
Platform: Playstation 3
A lot of you guys who are fans of this series will agree with me having this game so highly on my list. Uncharted, in my opinion, was revolutionary for the platforming genre. Not that they did anything new but they revitalized an almost dead game style. It also helps that I’m a history buff and the whole story, which is incredible, is based around the journeys of Francis Drake and our hero, Nathan Drake, trying to uncover the buried secrets.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is the first of the Uncharted Trilogy and one of the numerous exclusives of the Playstation 3. Uncharted is an action-adventure mixed with a lot of platforming. The game is done in a third person perspective. Nathan Drake, our main antagonist, uses guns and his close quarters combat to subdue enemies. The Melee can be as simple as punching and kicking but can get more in-depth as you unlock combos and chain attacks. If you can time your combos and chain attacks correctly you can deal massive damage to a single foe or a group of enemies. The combat works perfectly and with the addition of a cover system; you can strategize before your next move in a fire fight. As you play through the game you will gain new weapons although you are limited to a pistol, a rifle and grenades. So you have to think if you’d rather take a Mossberg shotgun or an AK-47. Something I also really enjoyed about Uncharted was the scarcity of ammunition. Sometimes in long gun fights you will use up a lot of your ammo and you can collect from fallen enemies it still becomes frantic as you look for a new clip. Not only can Nathan fight but he can jump, swim, climb ropes, and swing on ropes and scale ledges. Those platforming elements work very well although there are times I couldn’t clearly see where I was going and would sometimes find myself falling off a ledge and having to do everything over again or just simply falling to my death. Not a major problem because platforming is mostly trial and error. To keep with the cinematic feel of the game there is no health bar so when you are getting pelted with bullets your screen will slowly turn black and white and it’s of your best interest to find a place to hide until you can recover your health. Uncharted also gives you some unique vehicle levels. You’ll ride in the back of a jeep with a mounted machine gun as you take down truck loads of enemies or you’ll be in a jet ski trying to make it safely through a sunken city. They are a nice break from the norm and keep the game from feeling monotonous. There are also numerous hidden treasures to collect that will help unlock extras such as new costumes and making of videos. I personally never collected everything but I did get enough to get some new costumes which made my second play through kind of fun.
The story of the game is very Indiana Jones like. The game starts out with our hero, Nathan Drake, on a deep sea exploration. He is looking for the coffin of Sir Francis Drake who is a distant relative. He is accompanied by series mainstay Elena Fisher. As they uncover the coffin and open the cover they discover the coffin is empty but contains a diary full of writings and pictures. As if things couldn’t go any better the two of them are attacked by pirates. This is a great way to start the game as you are learning the controls while you are being bombarded with bullets. It’s a very high adrenaline moment and really gets you into the swing of things quick. Luckily Nate and Elena are saved in the nick of time by Sully. Sully is Nate’s left hand man and pilot of a plane that lands on water, I can’t remember the name of it but you know what I mean. So after looking through the diary, Nate sets out for El Dorado, the lost city of gold. That’s as far as I’ll go with the story. If it doesn’t interest you then I don’t know what to tell you because this is one of the finest stories in a video game I’ve ever played. Sure there are parts I don’t like about it, mainly about ¾ of the way through. It’s a little unbelievable for my tastes but it really doesn’t hurt the overall feel at all, if you can just look past the unrealism. What really pulls the story together is the beauty of the setting and the absolute top notch voice acting. The game itself is one of the most beautiful games I’ve played in my life. The next two games in the series get better graphics wise but Uncharted really is a breath taking game and the lighting is probably what does it for me. Ok, I lied, when you go in the water your clothes get wet and they stay wet, a small detail but it shows that Naughty Dog wanted this game to be very detail driven. Finally the voice acting is better than any game I’ve ever played in. It feels movie quality and the writing is anything but cheesy. I can’t quite explain how good it is unless you play it for yourself.
This is one of those games that defines a console and it did a damn good job of selling from Playstation 3s. If you are a fan boy of the Xbox and don’t even care about this game then I feel bad for you son. Xbox can’t hold a candle to this game and if you don’t believe me then watch the video and see what you’ve been missing.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWUO_AvXHxQ"]UNCHARTED: Drake's Fortune Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]