With all these blockbuster games hitting in my birthday month (Nov 20th, thank you Mass Effect!), it's been a busy two weeks of gaming at my house. In the past two weeks, I've finished Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, I'm working on Super Mario Galaxy and Saturday saw me complete Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
It's no secret that my Xbox 360 gets a lot more play than my PS3, but let's face it, if there were more games for the system I'd spend more time on it. Well, if Sony can bring more games like Uncharted to the system, I'm going to have a tough time ignoring it in the future!
I've seen a lot of footage of Uncharted over the past six months, so my anticipation was running high before I put the disc in the console. I had read reports of how it could only be developed on the PS3, and while I took those with a boulder-sized grain of salt, I was curious whether the final product would validate those claims. In short, it does.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is everything a great game should be. It grabs your attention with the opening frame and holds it firmly to the end credits. It's filled with memorable characters, both pro- and antagonists, that drive the story forward and leave you wanting more. Technically, it is a showcase for the hardware it is designed for, in this case, the PS3. For the first time, I finished a PS3 game and wondered if it could have been done on the Xbox 360. Honestly, I don't know the answer to that question, but the fact that I even wondered about it is a testament to the quality of Naughty Dog's work on Uncharted.
Is the game perfect? What is perfect? If you are looking for things to pick apart in the game, you could do that with anything. The Mona Lisa has a crooked smile, but isn't that what gives "her" her charm? Yeah, the grenade explosions could be bigger in the game, but then you couldn't avoid them as well. There could be more platforming in the game, but I only say that because the platforming that's there is as good or better than in any previous game. It could be a bit longer, but only because when it ended I wanted to keep playing. It could be a bit more difficult, but that might detract from the fun. Clearly, the developers want you to finish Uncharted and they give you help to that end.
When I form my opinions of a game there are a few basic criteria I look to as the basis of comparison. Graphics, gameplay, ability to mesmerize, story, and replay value. On all these fronts, Uncharted is an unmitigated success. Rarely does a game with no multiplayer component warrant subsequent play-throughs, but Uncharted does.
Excuse the cliche, but if you're one of the 94 million or so gamers straddling the fence of buying or not buying a PlayStation 3, Naughty Dog has just made you an offer you can't refuse. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a game worthy of the $460 you will spend for the combination of a PS3 and the game.
