QJ.NET reviews Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

The Sony PlayStation 3 definitely packs a lot of pixel-crunching power, but without titles, all that muscle under the hood is pretty much going to atrophy. Thankfully, we have companies like Naughty Dog to come up with titles that can truly show what the console can do – one of these being Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. But does it give the PlayStation 3 the workout it deserves, or is it just another walk in the park? Find out in this QJ.NET review.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune for the Sony PlayStation 3 has been quite the throw from left field in this gaming generation, what with its developer Naughty Dog known for the awesome Crash Bandicoot series that pretty much became an icon in the PlayStation One era, as well as the Jax and Daxter series that also grabbed its share of fans. From imaginative platformers that not only pushed the hardware it was running on but also the player’s reflexes, you’d think they’d have come up with something similar in this Cell-powered generation of Sony’s console.

Contrary to that, Naughty Dog instead came up with a game that could be very well summarized as a Tomb Raider without Lara’s female endowments, or Gears of War with a forest setting. However, underneath the exterior is a game that definitely deserves its title as an exclusive for the Sony PlayStation 3. It looks great and plays even better, the level of production is literally off the scale – it’s the closest thing we’ll probably ever get to living a grand treasure-hunting adventure the likes of Indiana Jones often goes off to. That is, if one can get past the rather disturbing feeling that you’ve done it all a couple of hundred times before.

Let’s start with a little back story about the game. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune puts you in the shoes of Nathan Drake, a wise-cracking adventurer that believes himself to be a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, a guy who may or may not have found a great heap of treasure somewhere that may or may not be El Dorado.

Joining him in his quest for the motherlode is Drake’s best friend Sully, a cigar-toting hardass that likes to spit expletives now and then. There’s also Elena, a spunky female TV journalist hell-bent on getting the scoop of a lifetime, hopefully with tank top and luxurious blonde hair intact. You’ll need their help, as the game not only pits you against some very cleverly-designed tombs – er, ruins, but you’ll also be going toe-to-toe with a capable workforce of about a thousand or so armed pirates. Aforementioned group of pirates is of course led by a shifty fellow with a sharp taste in clothes and a British accent (in case we mistook him for something else other than really, really evil).

But not to fear, as the game gives you quite a few tricks to survive – one of those being the ability to scale cliffs or any climb-able surface like a man-spider, and the other being able to take cover behind conveniently-placed walls and pillars, before poking out into view to pop a pirate head or two with hot lead.

While it’s certainly clear that Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune isn’t exactly about breaking new ground, it does explore the tried-and-true genre of ruin-spelunking (and third-person shooting) with brilliant success. Scaling cliffs and crossing chasms with Nathan can only be described as pure platforming heaven. There are no control issues to speak of when it comes to controlling Nate, with the adventurer more than capable of tackling even the sheerest of cliff walls or the widest of chasms with the greatest of ease.

Dispatching pirates with firearms on an over-the-shoulder perspective has never been more fun, and there’s a real sense of challenge in that you immediately see the wisdom of Naughty Dog implementing the duck-and-cover mechanic in the game – because if you treat it like any other third-person shooter and simply go into the fray with guns blazing, you’re not going to live for very long. Yes, the AI is that smart, and  yes, it’s that hardcore.

I could rattle off a whole list of what’s great about Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and in fact, I will. Nate is incredibly well-animated, and every movement he makes – from the half-stumble that he does whenever you’re directing him through uneven terrain or the look of fear and panic that he gets whenever an enemy’s grenade lands near his feet  – oozes personality and realism.

The voice-acting also complements the overall adventure movie-like feel of the game, with each character sounding so completely natural and real that you can’t help but fall in love with them (moreso when they actually help you in a firefight, and by helping I mean actually manage to kill someone else other than themselves). The graphics are some of the best we’ve ever seen rendered on the PlayStation 3, and the fully-orchestrated soundtrack is suitably epic to tie up the experience into one that definitely deserves to be called next-gen.

However, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is not without its faults – and while it’s not inherently broken or flawed in any way, the massive deja vu attack is almost off-putting. Oftentimes, you’ll wonder how Naughty Dog went from making whimsical, addictive platformers to a game that is pretty much a salad of gameplay mechanics that has already been done and better. It’s not to say that the game itself is unoriginal, it’s just that it feels like one giant reference than a fresh IP from a company that came up with a character who could hold his own against the likes of Mario and Sonic.

If Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune sounds at all remotely familiar, that’s because it is. The game makes no attempt to stand out from the titles it borrows heavily from. Taking cover will make you wonder when the aliens are going to show up, and the timed button sequences will often leave you with a cold dread that somehow, gods and goddesses from an age-old civilization has something to do with the fact that waves upon waves of pirates are trying to riddle your frail body with bullets.

It also doesn’t help that the single-player mode – the game’s only mode, as it has no multiplayer – is criminally short, with the game clocking in at around eight or nine hours at the most. Granted, those eight or nine hours are some of the most beautiful and action-packed hours I’ve ever had, but the brevity of it leaves you hanging. Not to mention that the stark contrast between the breezy platforming and the insane shooting segments make the experience a bit lopsided.

Despite these nitpicks, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune deserves a purchase – or for the more economical of gamers, a rental. It has more than enough to keep you rooted to your seat, holding your controller in a white-knuckled grip of pure tension and fun, with production values guaranteed to not only enchant you but blow your eyeballs out of the park. The platforming lends itself to some of the most harrowing don’t-look-down segments, and the gunplay is definitely something that both the casual and hardcore crowd can definitely rave about. It’s not the title that the Sony PlayStation 3 is waiting for, but it’s definitely something to tide us all over.