Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Review

Developer: Naughty Dog
Price: 59.99$

Game play: 4 stars
Graphics: 4.75 stars
Re-use/Replay Value: 3.5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.25 stars

In Uncharted you play has a treasure hunter by the name of Nathaniel Drake, who’s grandfather,( or maybe its great grand father, don’t really know how many greats there are,) is Sir Francis Drake.

The game starts like this, there is this girl with you, Elena Fisher, that is filming,you, has part of a TV show. After they dig the tomb up, of what they think is Sir Francis Drake’s tomb, they notice there is nothing in there. Elena get’s kinda spooked, and in the distant you hear a lot of roaring jets. Drake says that he has had some trouble and hands Elena a gun.

You’re thrown into you’re first  gun fight, when the boats finally get to your bigger boat, which introduces you to the melee and gun play. It plays in the Third Person Perspective, (you can see the characters body).There is a cover system, you take cover with O,and can roll around to the next cover place, which works really well. The melee system is very good. Many combos are timed, which makes combat a lot more interesting. There is also a lot of variety in the melee combos. The other part of game play is platforming, which you get introduced later to in the game,  is fun, for the most part. Their is not a lot of variety while doing this, you usually just jump from a crack in the wall to the next. Another complaint I have for platforming is Drake feels to heavy. It’s like there’s a 20 pound weight on him, which makes the platforming even worse. But like I said the platforming is fun, just a lot of con’s. Gun battles can  feel to close together, you play in one (that lasted 5 minutes) and within 30 seconds, or less,  you’re thrown into another 5 minute long gun battle. This isn’t all that bad, but can kinda get boring, and the platforming just doesn’t break it up enough. The last tidbit of game play is puzzles. These are pretty fun, but very simple and easy

The squatting guy, and the dude flying in the air are your main enemy’s.

Right at the end of the game, it breaks up the game play in a way I can’t say, or else it’ll spoil the story. This section can get frustratingly hard on higher levers of difficulty’s. But this section shows off the true game play of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Also, the AI (Artificial Intelligence, or how the enemy’s act) is OK or really bad. Some times they just sit the,not even in cover waiting for you to shoot them. And always when you throw a grenade they don’t move.

Although there is some cool sections like riding on a water ski while shooting enemies, or driving a car like you would see in Jurassic Park, through a very realistic jungle, your head spinning at the thought of being pushed of the cliff at either sides. It  all feels like a movie. The only downside to these parts is that there pretty hard.

The best part of this game is that it feels like a movie , a very very good movie. At some cut scenes I almost forget I’m playing a game. This makes the game so much better. It’s the reason why, when you’re deciding what game to play, you’ll pick this one.

The graphics are amazing. The forest is lush and you can see the wind through the trees and vines. The lighting is spectacular, and the effect are amazing. There is some texture pop-in in uncharted. This is where you see, lets say a statue, but you don’t see a texture just the model. I don’t mind these one bit but I know some people will mind.

Yea, that’s in game (although when playing it on your TV looks a lot better.)

Pro’s

• Some interesting game play sections
• Excellent story
• Beautiful graphics
• Feels like a movie

Con’s

• Sometimes to hard
• Platforming  can be really stale
• Not enough game play to break up the main part of the game, gun fights

Game play: There are some great segments of game play, but some can either get stale quickly. Although the gun play is very good, but there is to much.The score is a 4.0

Replayibility: The single player can last you 5-8 hours but you’ll wanna play through at least twice. The replay value is a 3.5

Graphics: The best of the PlayStation 3, The art style is wonderful, and the Jungle is very lush, and looks alive. The graphics is a 4.75

Sound: The voice acting is superb, and themes and FX are good. The sound is a 4.25

Controls: There pretty good but no alternative control scheme is a bummer. The controls is a 4.

Overall the game is a 4.25, anyone should pick this up. Although the price is a little to high, so I would wait for it to go down a couple bucks.