My first home entertainment gaming console was the Sony PlayStation. The first major game that had me, and my sister, and any friends who were over, transfixed to the ol' boob tube was Crash Bandicoot: Warped. My sister and I would play for hours, trying to one-up one anothers' progress, fighting over who had first crack at the controller as soon as we got home from school. Aside from Mario and Sonic on our friends' old NES and Genesis consoles, Crash was the first console mascot that we became invested in, thanks to the awesome developers at Naughty Dog.
PlayStation's first mascot... not quite an Italian plumber, is he?
Flash forward ten years, give or take, and Evan Wells and the boys at Naughty Dog once again had me glued to my television -- and sold on the PlayStation 3 as a gaming console first and blu-ray player second -- with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. And let me give it to you straight: console gaming does not get much better than this. (Author's note: well... *points at the soon-to-be-reviewed sequel* But that's for another blog!)
Released in 2007, a year after the PS3's launch, Uncharted puts you in the boots of Nathan Drake, treasure hunter and alleged descendant of British explorer Sir Francis Drake, around whose journal the events of the game revolve. Nathan Drake, voiced and acted by the versatile Nolan North (see: Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, Dragon Age, et. al.), and his roguish pilot and confidant Victor "Sully" Sullivan are on the hunt for the fabled city of gold, El Dorado, which Nate believes that Sir Francis discovered, and kept secret, hundreds of years previously. Along for the ride is Elena Fisher, a plucky reporter who is definitely more than eye candy in this very testosterone-laced adventure epic.
And on your left...
Oh, and epic doesn't begin to describe this game. Naughty Dog set out to master the action-adventure genre, and with Drake's Fortune they came pretty darn close. Graphically, this game is nearly perfect: light flickers through leaves as you move through densely packed jungles; rocks crumble believably under your feet as you jump from one unstable block to the next; and water cascades around you, moves in response to your motion, and clings to your clothing as you traverse level after breathtaking level.
That's one small leap for a man
Compelling characters, story, and environments are all well and good, but without a rewarding gameplay experience those factors can all be for naught (e.g. Enslaved). Luckily, Uncharted does not disappoint. Employing a fairly standard cover-based strategy, Nathan Drake can be a regular force of nature, mowing down foe after foe with an arsenal rivaling some small armies. L1 to aim and R1 to fire are standard, and even without Auto-Aim turned on it is easy to lineup headshots with the Right dual-analog stick. Platforming can be tricky if you don't time your jumps correctly, but is never frustrating and is usually fairly linear -- which can be disappointing sometimes as you'd like to test Nate and see if he can't find other inventive ways around obstacles. Overall, the basic gameplay mechanics are nothing new or unfamiliar, they have just been been tweaked and fine-tuned to make one entertaining sequence after another just that much more fun.
If you have a PS3 and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is not on your shelf, you are missing out on one of the best games that this generation of consoles has to offer. If you don't have a PlayStation 3 yet, this game is just one of many reasons to consider it for the future. Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot introduced me to the PlayStation; Uncharted made me a PlayStation fan for life.
YAY I helped...I contributed the tagline for pic number 2! Strong work as always!!!
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