Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Treasure hunter, Nathan Drake (ancestor to Sir Francis Drake, supposedly), believes that his alleged ancestor faked his death in order to cover up the discovery of El Dorado. Drake sets out to find El Dorado himself, joined by journalist Elena Fisher, and his mentor/long time friend, Victor "Sully" Sullivan.

This game was one of the early system sellers that saved the PlayStation 3 from its bad launch. The game is an action-adventure game with third-person shooter elements, and mild platforming. It is mostly linear, with some room for exploration, and a strong focus on storytelling. Melee combat is also available, including a timed combo attack, with a few quick time events peppered in. Gun play is pretty tight, with plenty of action segments. The brutal combo in the action is a very useful mechanic; when done correctly, the fallen enemy will drop twice as much ammo! And speaking of ammo there are tons of weapons to use like the Desert-5, Wes-44, Dragon Sniper, M4, etc. It also has some light platforming and puzzle solving sections to break up the action, although the puzzles are bad and incredibly simple mainly because the game solves them for you since you can look at Francis Drake's journal and there's the answer spelled out for you (duh!). Also, additionally, remember, as I said earlier, despite the linearity, there are still opportunities to explore. Keep an eye out for treasures; there's a lot of them! I got all 60 of them.

The story is superb, with memorable characters like Nathan Drake (one of PlayStation's most recognizable characters), Elena Fisher, and Victor "Sully" Sullivan (all of whom become mainstays in the series). The soundtrack is remarkable, especially the score that plays at the main menu. In Chapter 17, the game gets more interesting in that it becomes partially survival-horror, much like The Last of Us (which is also made by the same studios and is very similar). Nate is in a poorly-lit WWII-era Nazi bunker full of Descendants that make no noise aside from their growls, with a nightmarish soundtrack.

Indonesian hitman Eddy Raja is a great minor villain who is bombastic and in your face. His over-the-top reaction to things along with James Sie's performance, makes him a delight to watch on screen. Aside from him, the villains are forgettable and bad. Something that the franchise suffers in greatly. Gabriel Roman is a boring antagonist who does nothing more then sit on the sidelines and only interacts with Nate twice in the whole game. Atoc Navarro is even worse; he is Roman's hired gun, doesn't do anything, and only usurps him in the penultimate chapter to become the villain who wants the curse inside El Dorado with no build up or foreshadowing whatsoever.

The SIXAXIS controls are clunky and are mandatory to balance when navigating slim beams and the only way to throw grenades. Because of the clunky shooting mechanics (among other things), there are a number of frustrating segments.

1. For some reason, Drake's hit box can extend beyond whatever cover he's in, leading to unfair damage.
2. Chapters 8 and 12 are hands down the worst levels in the game. Nate and Elena have to ride a jet ski to get around in these levels (Nate drives while Elena shoots) all while trying to avoid/blow up red barrels (which on anything above Normal will kill you instantly) and take out enemies that are in your path. The jet ski that handles very poorly which maneuvering almost impossible. The upside to this is that Elena has infinite ammo. Chapter 8 isn't so bad, due to Elena wielding a grenade launcher, and taking place on a flat, calm riverbed, making it easier to move around and find cover to pick off both the enemies and barrels. Chapter 12, however, is beyond frustrating. You have to climb up a series of rapids and falls which makes the vehicle controls even worse since you have to basically fight the falls in order to get up them, the barrels are constantly moving down the rapids and some of them can't be seen until right after you climb the top of one leading to cheap deaths, and there's very little cover making it easy for enemies to pick you off. Elena also doesn't have a grenade launcher, but a handgun, which requires more shots and more precise aiming to pick off enemies. And if at any point do you die, you're forced to do the whole thing over again.
3. The levels with the Nazi bunker. The main enemy of these levels are the Descendants which are very fast, hard to aim at, can kill Nate with 1-2 very quick melee attacks depending on difficulty, and there are no other guns aside from an MP40 which requires almost an entire clip just to kill them with it.
4. It gets worse right after. Once you get out of the bunker you now have to fight off Roman's men as well as the Descendants. If you're not careful one of those creatures can sneak up and kill you from the other direction while you're in cover, and waiting for them to kill each other doesn't work because fresh enemies pour in the further you progress.
5. In the penultimate chapter, Drake has to return to the cathedral. The cathedral is filled with laser-sight enemies and two or three with rocket launchers, all of which can kill you in one hit. This leads to playing reverse Whack-a-Mole where you have to kill the rocket launcher enemies quickly while also taking immediate cover from the laser-sight enemies.
6. The final level. It's a "boss fight" against Navarro where you have to fight his goons that are behind indestructible cover while Navarro himself is invincible and popping shots off at you with a one-hit kill rapid-fire shotgun (though he shoots in a very predictable pattern that is easy to avoid once you learn it). The cover you are given is not invincible, cover itself is limited, enemies are at a range where they can kill you almost immediately, and you're not given any grenades. In addition, not only is Navarro's "boss fight" frustrating, but it's really dumb and feels tacked on. It's a series of gunfights followed by a sequence of quick time events. When you do finally face Navarro, he knocks the gun out of Nate's hand. You then have to hide behind cover, let Navarro shoot it two times to which he stops for a second allowing you to run to another piece of cover. You do this three times to which on the third gives you an opening to attack to which you do a QTE, do this QTE again, and then the fight is over.

Like many first entries, this one hasn't aged well and are missing some aspects that have become synonymous with the franchise.

• The entire game takes place almost entirely around the coast of Panama where El Dorado is located. Meaning you'll be seeing a lot of old ruins and jungles.
• The dynamic between Nathan and Sully isn't like long time friends, but more like business partners. Sully's supposed death early on is handled relatively calmly by Nate, a much different reaction from how he would respond in a similar scenario in Uncharted 3. Furthermore, when Nate does discover Sully is alive and working with Roman (implying he's turned traitor) he is reluctant to believe Sully could be a backstabber but nonetheless confronts him about this after rescuing him, something that seems out of place given their characterization in the sequels.
• Nathan is also more of a devil-may-care wisecracker in the opening levels of the game, though after Sully's apparent death and the escalating danger of the hunt he does start to wonder whether pushing on is worth it. The sequels are more consistent in portraying him as cautious and circumspect from the outset.
• Elena herself is a much more gung-ho and reckless character here than she would be later on. After crash-landing on the island, she heads straight for the Spanish fortress without bothering to regroup with Nate, forcing him to fight through hordes of pirates until he can find her. Later on, it's Nate who decides to abandon the quest so that they can both make it out alive, while Elena tries to goad him into continuing, and it's only when she discovers that Sully's alive that Nate is convinced to carry on. From Uncharted 2 onwards the dynamic was reversed, with Elena's more recognizable characterization as the voice of reason who pushed back against Nate's recklessness being established and serving as the basis of their development in further games.
• The gameplay is much more akin to Gears of War than the subsequent Uncharted entries, and mostly consists of taking on large groups of enemies, with adventure and exploration segments occasionally breaking up the action sequences. This leads to MANY gunfights that go on for way too long and gets really repetitive after awhile. The subsequent games in the series balanced out these two gameplay types, eventually tilting towards the adventure style as it progressed. There's also the absence of stealth mechanics so killing any enemy, regardless of how you do it, will instantly alert every other enemy in the area to your presence. Although, the game more often then not forces you into gunfights.
• The melee combat mechanics consists of a combo system and there are no evasion or blocking mechanics; either your combo succeeded in defeating the enemy, or you took damage from their counterattack.
• Gunplay also has some minor differences, such as there being no option to adjust the zoom of a weapon, and SIXAXIS-based grenade controls. The PlayStation 4 remaster would remove the latter feature and remap grenades to the analog stick.

One ordinary man. One extraordinary adventure. This is Sony's new favorite interactive franchise.