Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

When you start up Drakes Fortune, you are put into a very intriguing cut scene, curious and mysterious, revealing the excelling graphics not to mention sound with exceeding original music and voice acting. In your awe you are then put into the game play which is beyond awesome matching Gears of War to the finest degree, in the shoes of Nathan Drake, you are to uncover a incredible story too. Uncharted is argubly the finest franchise, not just Naughty Dog has come across but Playstation as a company too. It's what Unchrated does best, and by no means innovates the action genre but polishes it too a fine sheen excelling in every category.

In the first thrlling scenario you are thrust into the shoes of Nathan Drake whom is wishing to find his late ancestor's discovery veiled in a complete mystery. Where he discovered something, guarded in mystery and never to be revealed again. Although you alone couldn't fund this whole expedition, where you find his friend Elena who works for a television program. Nathan wants the treasure where Elena wants the story but it's not just you two facing hooligans to find this treasure; you are pitted with a old late 50's huski called Sulli. "Up to my eyeballs in debt" he says. This is where the enemies come in, Sulli's sold the plan of Drakes treasure to his dealer who loaned him huge amounts of money which ironically Sulli couldn't pay back. In doing so, Sulli was forced to reveal his plans to him.

Uncharted doesn't just keep you glued to your screen with its light hearted story and novel twisting plot just at that but the missions fail to get repetitive. You''ll have plenty of changes from environments to on-rail sections. Just when the environments start to overstay their welcome, you'll start to see light at the end of the tunnel and then there'll be cinematic on-rail chases while Elena is driving and you're harpooning rockets away.

Uncharted can take you no more than eight hours if you are well challenged but after your first play through it can take less and less each time. The difficulty is scaled nearly perfectly and you should never feel to punished unless you're using all the game play's mechanics to your advantage. Which is also saying, the game may seem a little hard at first because you may not be familiar with the game''s mechanics but it's when you do start to pick them up, things will get interesting.

The game encourages plenty of replay value through bonus costumes, treasures, video clips and unlockable guns. To unlock these bonus features, you must collect treasures which you'll pass along in the game. It's not just the 60 treasures you'll be trying to find but challenges to complete like "so many kills with a specific gun". You'll get 10 points for every challenge or treasure you get and prizes will range from a 100 to a 1000 points. You'll also find that you won't need to start again once you unlock something so you'll need to complete every challenge and pass every treasure to unlock everything.

In addition, trophies have been intergrated to add more replay value aside the trophies are very much the same to the challenge and treasure completions. Although this is still great since you'll be earning bonus bits and trophies simultaneously. What makes both, the challenges and trophies so good, is that there neither so easy or hard to receive but just right.

The AI is superb but there's one little annoyance. When the AI moves from cover to cover, they'll move very slowly but at the same time they'll shoot. While this is ok, it's the fact that when they do shoot at this stage they'll horribly miss and it's easy for you to simply pick them off. Having said that, it's immensely satisfying when you're just picking them off by using such a strategy. Back to basics, the AI is generally fantastic in the way they'll never stay in cover to long and they'll try to advance now and again. They'll also try to flush you out, which works well because of the physics. This is because, there are some destructible segments of cover in the game, so it stops you continuously camping.

The platforming is one of the main focuses of Uncharted's enchanting game play. For one, you could be climbing and switching upon ledges as you climb a cliff, and while doing so the ledges will start to crumble and make you think you're racing against the clock but in reality the game makes you think you will providing a believable cinematic experience. Simply traversing across cliffs and dungeons is incredibly satisfying and what also makes the platforming so enriching is how tight and responsive the controls are, which work very fluidly with the games pacing in between jumps and movement.

The game play in terms of shooting is exceptionly well done, tight shooting mechanics result in a enjoyable yet fairly realistic experience where the guns feel and shoot  just right and are also followed with realistic recoil. All guns are balanced and you'll use each and every gun you'll come across to a fine degree, ammo is quite scarce which encourages regular weapon rotations as well. Some specific guns will also come naturally at given situations for when a sniper may seem fit in a long ranged battle, it'll be there.

Uncharted also implements close combat take downs which requires quick time button mashing. There aren't a huge amount of combos to pull of but they're all so cool, varied and so flashy that they'll get better every time you watch them. Sometimes you'll tredge a whole battlefield just to get that satisfaction from brutally taking someone down. 
 
Yet Uncharted just continues to impress by duplicating however never false copying the original games innovation. In this case Uncharted perfectly clones the cover style of Gears of War but in doing so, is given the Uncharted fresh, physical, well animated feel to it. It never lets up and it may not be quite as fluid nor visceral as Gears of War but the cover's not the focus.

The game also takes a huge twist within the plot, one that also spices up the game play as well as keeping it fresh. Without giving anything away, it's how surprising and unpredictable the twist was yet at the same time ties together any unanswered questions you may of had. 
 
Uncharted also features puzzles, and early in the game they're a nice change of pace and break it up without feeling force-fed but then things start to get even more fast-paced and frantic later in the game and the result is of clunkier and harder puzzles tow hich just break up the pace, and lowers the atmosphere down a notch or two. There's also a few moments where the level design fails to connect from one place to another seamlessly without pulling your teeth out as to where to go next. These elements are certainly prevalent through your first play through but become hardly an annoyance thereafter.

The graphics of Uncharted are stunning, for their timed release they're still easily up there with the best graphics on the Next Gen Consoles. The cut-scenes take a more comic feel to them but they still somehow feel "life like" thanks to their realistic animations and superb voice acting. These cut-scenes only further your cinematic experience.

The in-game graphics themselves are fantastic and combine both; presentation with technical graphics to pull of a mind blowing sentiment. The detail and texturing is incredible, the frame-rate may ocassionly slow down or there may be some pop in at the start of a game play segment but it's a small price to pay for what you're getting. So small, to the point I nearly didn't even mention it. The lighting and shadowing are even more the striking as the wind swathes tree branches back and forth, so will the lighting and shadowing effects. Not only that but when you finally see the light at the end of the tunnel its realistic lighting is shown down through the cave walls. The physics are also surprsingly put into the mix, you have destructible cover and lakes which give of water physics on to character models. Naughty Dog have used their engine to create nearly every diamond possible.

The orchestral score is mysterious, soothing and thumping. Uncharted has an array of original sound tracks which fit perfectly at any given situation of a chapters start middle or end. The dialogue and voice acting make the comic like graphics some what feel "life like" because the animations are followed with such well staged, scripted dialogue and voice acting. Nathan, Elena, Sulli and even the villians just simply sound right and they're given the best lines possible to suit.

Pros
+ Cinematic, perfectly recorded game play.
+ Fantastic light hearted plot and well paced.
+ Innovating cover and take downs implementations.
+ "Life-like" feel thanks to superior animations.
+ Handful of mission variety and on-rail sections.
+ Superb lighting, physics and texturing effects.
+ Dialogue is scripted to bar none with perfect voice acting.

Cons
- Level design can sometimes fail to connect fluidly and seamlessly.
- Puzzles feel as if they break up the pace.  
- Occassional graphical blemish or pop-in.  
- Ridiculously short.

Uncharted sums up the nearly perfect game, just only if it weren't for the ridiculously short length.  Sway this aside and you'll see Uncharted has it all;  in being, the story is both light-hearted and twisting, the game play is fluid and innovative and the audio/visual design doesn't disappoint in the slighest, but simply complements everything else Uncharted has to offer in one of the best, memroable packages the Playstation has to offer.