REVIEW: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

Platform: PS3

Genre: Action/adventure

Released: November 19, 2007

Current Price: $29.99

Players: 1

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In anticipation of the upcoming Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, I've been playing 2007's action-adventure masterpiece Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for the ihavenolife-th time. An amazing game all-around, it still stacks up, and is one of the best Playstation games... ever, really.

Uncharted stars Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter following clues toward a bounty hidden by Sir Francis Drake and forgotten by time. He is backed by supporting his supporting characters Victor Sullivan and Elena Fisher. However, a group of renegades races him to the treasure, escalating conflict. The narrative is classic action-movie fare, simple, focused, and interesting. The voice acting is among the best I've ever heard in gaming, featuring accomplished VAs such as Nolan North and Simon Templeman. The characters have quite a bit of personality, and bring the game to life. Dialogue is well-written, and keeps the cutscenes entertaining. Graphics and sound are phenomenal, without a doubt, even two years later. The excellent presentation really draws the player into the gameplay, and makes playing Uncharted a fulfilling and satisfying experience.

How does Uncharted play? Just as beautifully as it looks. It has a little bit of everything, and draws influence from a variety of sources, including Tomb Raider, God of War, Resident Evil, and Gears of War. Expect a good mix of platforming, third-person shooting, and puzzle solving. The environments are lush, and wondrous to explore, although gameplay progression is very linear. The difficulty balance is also perfect. Puzzles require a bit of thinking, but they aren't brain-crushers. Jumping sections require some skill, but players don't need lightning reflexes. It's to the game's benefit that anyone interested in playing Uncharted need not worry about anything impeding your momentum through this awesome game.

As for the combat, it's fun and intense, though sometimes frustrating. Nathan can carry two guns at once, one handgun, and one heavy weapon, as well as some grenades. New weapons and ammo are found on the ground, dropped by enemies; there are a total of fourteen or so firearms to pick from. Aiming is presented in the over-the-shoulder view, and firefights usually entail a liberal usage of duck-and-cover mechanics. Some of the large battles, in which Nathan faces a dozen heavily armed mercenaries or more, can be very difficult, which sometimes hampers enjoyment, but there are no serious roadblocks in the game; victory always seems achievable.

To those who would denounce this game for its relative lack of originality, shame on you! Of course, originality drives the industry, but a line must be drawn. Will you really put an unoriginal game at fault, even though every other aspect of it is perfect? You should not, for Uncharted truly is as good as it gets, and it's certainly not fair to ignore the game's merit.

Getting all the way through Uncharted will take 15 hours the first time around. Expect to play through it a few times, however. This game can be addictive, and you won't want it to end. After you finish it, you unlock Chapter Select, which lets you start from any point in the story, alongside a bevy of excellent unlockables. These range from art galleries and making of videos to extra costumes and infinite ammo. For each Trophy you earn, you earn medal points which can be used to purchase the aforementioned unlockables. Incentives to come back to Drake's Fortune include hunting down every last hidden treasure, completing the achievements, beating the game on the controller-smashing Crushing difficulty, or maybe even just to enjoy the story all over again.

Even with Uncharted 2 on the horizon, the first game is well worth your time. It's remarkable, it's never ending fun, and I have nothing bad to say about it. This is a must-play for Indiana Jones fans, anyone who enjoys action/adventure games, and PS3 owners. No exceptions. Play it.

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Audiovisual quality: Highest

Controls: Great

Presentation: Excellent

Multiplayer: None

Length: 15 hours, first playthrough

Replayability: Very Good

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Score: 10/10

-PsychoticPulse

Review: Little Big Planet

Game: Little Big Planet
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: 3D Platformer
Release Date: October 27th, 2008

Creating has never been so much fun. If you like having your own dream world on your television screen, this is the perfect game for you! Little Big Planet has a lot of offer inside such a small game. Let’s start out with the story. I will admit that the story isn’t the greatest, it’s short and the ending was just completely pointless. Putting the story this game has to offer aside, the story mode levels are quite fun to play. Ranging from a peaceful garden setting, to an action packed canyon. Each area in the story offers mini games with some relation to the theme in the area.

Sackboy/girl, my new favourite lovable video game character, being allowed to fully customize your Sackperson is a very fun feature this game offers. Dressing him/her up as a dinosaur, a flower, lion, a ghostbuster, a TV, and the list goes on. Your sack person can look like anything you want. You can change your sack person’s material, hair style, eyes, clothing (both torso and legs) shoes, objects for them to carry. I’ve never had so much fun changing my character regularly.

Level creating, the main thing that attracted me to this game. After watching all these videos on people and the masterpieces they have created during the Little Big Planet Beta, the things people could do to make a level come to life just simply amazed me. I’ve never seen such a feature in a game before. I’m not the greatest at the level creating, but I did have lots of fun working through my levels, seeing what worked normally and what didn’t. What to do to fix my errors, and ways to improve my levels. The level creator offers many gadgets for you to play around with, from basic shapes to explosives to story mode characters. They pretty much have anything and everything you would need to create your dream level, and with future downloadable packages, they can extend your dream to perfection!

Another thing that brought me to this excellent game, the user created content. You can play any level you want, created by anybody. There are many, and I mean MANY excellent user created levels that are even better and more enjoyable than a story mode level. Usually the most popular levels of the week (I think that’s how it goes by) will be on the front page when you go into the user created planet.

Your friends can join you whenever you please! Another great thing about this game, you can have your friend(s) join you whenever in a level (assuming this level doesn’t have the “no one can enter” post near the beginning). Whether you’re playing through the story with your friends, playing the story minigames, or venturing through the user created levels, you’re surely going to have a blast and have a lot of laughs.

Now for my negative thoughts about Little Big Planet. The camera is odd when in a 4 player game, and can get frustrating when someone is either too slow, or going way too fast in the level. The camera will either follow them thus making you unable to see what you’re doing and possibly kill you. Another thing that bothers me is the massive lag this game gets. Some times the lag can get so bad that it’s nearly impossible to complete a level if you’re surprising not kicked from the party. The story is rather short as I said earlier in the review.

Aside those negatives, I would recommend buying this game. It’s fun, creative, artistic, addicting and overall, will give you a good play every time you pick up the controller. I give this game a 9.5/10 and should definitely be added into your gaming collections!


Happy gaming!

-Wafflejaw

Introduction

Greetings fellow bloggers, I have created this blog zone to talk about video games we're interested in. We plan on making reviews, hopefully keep you updated on the latest news in the video game industry, as well as future release dates for upcoming games!

Well I will introduce myself. My name is Andrew, 19 years old, and at the moment, I only own a Ps3. My PSN is Wafflejaw, and I enjoy playing online games with friends, as well as randoms. I've been playing games for many many years now, and I plan on playing for many more. Hopefully if you come accross this blog, my friends and my reviews will hopefully help you pick out a great game to play on your consoles. I haven't been able to play games as much as I could recently because I just got a new puppy, but I plan on picking up my controller one of these days.

Enjoy your visit. We'll be glad to talk to you!

- Wafflejaw