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Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune : PS3
It’s taken me far too long to get to play Uncharted. I was told a while back that this was ‘just like Prince of Persia’ and as soon as I started the game and began the running around the jungle jumping off things and climbing things, I too was ready to write my review as ‘this is just like Prince of Persia’. In fact, it’s so like playing the prince, that my fingers were responding with muscle memory to do the moves; same buttons, same things, same places. The only difference between Nathan Drake and the prince is that the latter can run along a wall and the former has to do something silly involving a vine to traverse the same distance. So is it a case of ‘Uncharted is a Prince of Persia clone’, the end? Absolutely not.
You see, despite all appearances to the contrary, Uncharted is not just a Prince of Persia clone, it’s also a third person shooter and the skills needed are kind of a mesh between Prince of Persia and Dead Space. That’s right, Uncharted is a mix of two of my favourite games; before I was an hour in, Uncharted and I were already very very good friends. It has one other lovely quality which I’ve discussed before when reviewing games; it is bright and colourful. It almost uses a palette as vibrant as Ratchet and Clank. Imagine that? A game which is a cross between Prince of Persia with Dead Space that looks as shiny as Ratchet and Clank? Yup, that’s Uncharted.
It gets better though. Not only does it feel and play like these brilliant games, it also has an engaging storyline, fun and believable characters and a sense of humour, no boss fights really (hurrah!) and a real sense of adventure. This is like being Indiana Jones; no, this is better because I always felt the Indy films were a little dry, and this is never dry.
Uncharted is a marvellous game. Though I touched the tutorial level on Sunday, it was Monday morning when I sat down to play it properly and it was so addictive and so much fun (and also, unusual for a game these days, suitable to play with Alicia watching and helping) that once the activity for the day was over, I went straight back to it and at 2:30am on Monday night / Tuesday morning, I watched the credits roll. I don’t think I’ve played a game that was so addictive that I nailed it in a day for a long long time, but Uncharted was just that - and it’s got good replay value; some great trophies and the knowledge that it’ll be a buzz to play through again on hard.
Of course, it’s not without its flaws. There’s a particular mini-game-esque level that was so bloody hard it had me swearing my head off and threatening to throw the controller out of the window, but I got past that. Oh, and without getting too spoilery, there’s a point where the game drops into almost being Dead Space, and that occurred at about 1am where I was a little tired and not in the mood to be Dead Spacing it… Not the game’s fault, as it’s a great section but I did find myself thinking ‘really? Dead Space? Now? Do I have to?’.
There is no doubt that I’m going to run off and get the sequel and I’m already looking forward to the third game in November this year. Uncharted is another one of those reasons to buy a PS3 and if you are lucky enough to own a PS3 and haven’t played it yet, do go out and fix this fact.
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tekkani posted this
