Naughty Dog has taken a gamble of straying from their past IP's of cartoony platformer to a more realistic approach (environments, characters, etc.) of platforming with the addition of 3rd person shooting with a cover system made popular by the Killswitch & Gears of War franchises.
In Uncharted: Drake's Fortune you assume the role of Nathan Drake who claims he is a descendent of the legendary Sir Frances Drake. You start off by finding an empty casket which were suppose to house the remains of Sir Frances Drake but instead you find a diary that leads you to an uncharted island in the South Pacific.
The first thing you will notice in Uncharted is the amazing visuals of lush green jungle environments to the beautiful scenic vistas off the coast of the island you crash land on. The character models are finely detailed and the textures are very pleasant to look at as well. Naughty Dog has put in a few overlooked details such as Nate's clothes becoming wet when in water (and slowly drying off) as well as the amazing sunlight that literally seeps through the lush vegetation of the jungle environment. The water detail is one of the best I've seen and looks fantastic.
During his adventure, Nate tags along a couple friends. One is his long lifetime friend Sully and the other is Elana, a news reporter who gets caught up in all of this. The characters, both protagonists and antagonists are very deep and rewarding and all have great personal personalities and traits that really bring them to life in the story. It's hard to create such captivating characters for a game that isn't all that lengthy.
The game is split between platforming, puzzle solving and shooting enemies. The pace at which you do all of these is well balanced but I wish there were more puzzle solving aspects and that the puzzles were much harder to solve. The shooting could be tightened up a bit but still good in my opinion. The enemies take quite a lot of bullets to fell and sometimes it's hard to get that headshot in and the aiming isn't very lenient.
The musical score for Uncharted is absolutely fantastic and the use of instruments meshes so well with the environment you are in. I still listen to the Uncharted soundtrack regularly, that's how good I have found the game's score.
There has now been a patch to include the Trophy system for the PS3 so new comers and also fans can experience Uncharted once again and get those trophies to show off what they have accomplished in the game.
All in all, Uncharted is a fantastic new IP from Naughty Dog and I know for a fact that it has many, many people hooked to the franchise. This is a franchise that I hope will have many sequels and build up on the amazing game this first iteration has brought forth for Playstation gamers.
A must play and a game that deserves to be in your game library.
November 19 marks 15 years since the release of the Uncharted game that started it all.
I hope they don’t make another until the end of the ps5 lifecycle…. Show us a better jungle
VGChartz's Issa Maki: "I finally have a proper designation akin to what I've always referred to internally as 'the line that must be crossed' or 'The Line', for short – ludonarrative dissonance – the separation from a video game's story in relation to its gameplay. Why isn't PETA all up in Mario's grill for jumping on turtles and killing fish, or charging Samus Aran with the extinction of the Metroid species? Ever notice how fire has that habit of making bosses in Resident Evil stronger? Read on my friend, for I endeavor to imbue you with the ability to engage in basic queries concerning the concept."
KeenGamer: "Which Uncharted game is the best? Uncharted is widely recognized as one of the most groundbreaking and consistently great franchises in gaming. For both long-time fans and newcomers to this action-adventure classic, here’s a ranking of the franchise’s four main games."
No Golden Abyss -_-, otherwise I agree with the order.
UC2: Best overall
UC4: Best graphics, best gameplay, best locations, best environements
UC3: Best set pieces IMO (the boat and desert fights will always be amazing)
UC1: A rough Draft of what was to come
UCGA: Basically UC1 on Vita
Great list and great article nicely writen and explained. Although for me personaly i would put Drakes Fortune above Drake’s Deception and Uncharted 4 is absolutely my favourite of the franchise and number 1 for me.
U2 is the only game playable on crushing without causing a great amount of frustration. Not to mention just how much influence it had that they redid some of U2s set pieces like the caravan twice, and armored truck chase in U4.
I'd rate it as the following.
1.) Uncharted 2
(Close to perfection of any game I've played in years. Single Player/Multiplayer/Co Op all amazing.)
2.) Uncharted 3
(On par with UC2 multiplayer/co op wise minus the kickbacks [aka killstreaks]. I really liked the Lawrence of Arabia story.)
3.) Uncharted 4
(Single player is amazing. Multiplayer was meh. Co Op had potential. Absolutely hated the health revive system it slowed down the game way too much. Always preferred the fast pace action of UC2/UC3. Made it way more fun that way. Recoil was too ridiculous that most people in lobbies would only do hip firing, using power weapons and using that OP grappling hook to melee people after dropping them. Nobody wanted to revive anyone.)
4.) Uncharted
(It's the first in the series so it's hard to judge. Though I loved the story.)
I agree here but it’s also a series you can play from front to back and truly enjoy. Story-wise, they are all great and flow so well. I wish they threw both Golden Abyss and Lost Legacy on this list. Lost Legacy is the best mechanically in my opinion. You can see it’s stepping stone framework for TLOUS2.
uncharted 2 is one of the few games that actually surpassed its pre-release hype.
I am a single player gamer...I barely ever touch a multiplayer component. The only exceptions over the years have been the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, TLOU factions, and the Uncharted 2 multiplayer. The Uncharted 2 multiplayer saw me spend more time playing it than all my other multiplayer experiences over the years combined. That game really was a masterpiece all around.
I agree completely, those are all stellar MP experiences, coming from another SP gamer who only occasionally gives MP some time.
Come to think of it, the step between Uncharted 1 and Uncharted 2 is huge. It goes from the weakest in the series to one of the best games ever made.
I think I'm going to play all of them again soon.
is multiplayer still up for the remastered trilogy? or did it never have UC2 mp?
why are the graphics only 9.0? you say that they are the best but you only give it a 9.0
And users. That way high rated user reviews count more, and high rated reviews too. High rated reviews from high rated users are the best you could get and therefore the most worthy of having more weight on a weighted average of the scores.
BTW, this review is so lame. One paragraph? "It takes you in with a stranglehold"? Come on, you can do better than that... I'm not trying to bring you down, I want you to do a better job reviewing games.