Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Uncharted is a great showcase of what the PS3 hardware can do and the beginning of a potentially great franchise. As is common with Naughty Dog's games, the difficulty can be a bit uneven, but it's still a really fun game. There are two main aspects to Uncharted's gameplay, the shooting and the platforming. The shooting plays a lot like Gears of War, with the perspective over the shoulder while aiming and a very similar cover system. You're a little more helpless though, being a basically normal guy instead of an armored space marine, and you can only carry a few clips worth of ammo for whatever weapons you happen to be carrying. Most fights are pretty manageable, but a few are a little too tough - enemies are pretty good about using cover and surrounding you, and sometimes things seem a little stacked in their favor. You're rarely at a loss though, because the controls are nice and fluid. The aiming works well, and you can usually maneuver pretty well, although once in a while you'll stick to a wall you didn't want to instead of rolling. The platforming is like the recent Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider games, and it's nicely responsive and fun, although Nate seems a little too nimble climbing walls and those sections rarely provide much challenge. The infrequent puzzles are the same way - the focus testers must have been pretty clueless if the developers thought they had to basically spell out all the solutions in Drake's diary.

While there are a few missteps in the game, it's biggest strong point is probably presentation, in all aspects. The graphics are pretty amazing. The environments range from dense jungle to dank caverns to ruins of man-made structures, and all are very impressively rendered and interesting to look at. The characters all look great and animate pretty well. Once in a while something Nate does will look pretty janky, but in general his smoothness between animations is commendable. The music is a great, unique orchestral score, everything sounds the way it should, and voice acting is consistently good. They're usually part of the expertly handled cut scenes that make the rather standard video game story play out in an entertaining way. It feels like an old pulp adventure, and it's as close as I've seen a game come to being as believably presented as a movie. Everything wraps up in a satisfying way while leaving enough of a hint to assure fans that a sequel is on the horizon.