Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Firestreak

Firestreak

Solid Zoid
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I know this isn't technically supposed to be out yet, but gamestop sold to me yesterday. I'd say I'm about halfway done, and this is one of the best games I've ever played. I haven't seen Mass Effect with my own eyes to compare, and haven't bought Crysis yet, but barring those two, this is by far the best looking game I've ever seen. I'd say the standard before was with gears, ratchet, cod4 and heavenly sword all near the top and hard to declare a definite winner... but believe me this beats them all. This not only looks great as a standstill, but it looks amazing in motion. The character animations are by far the best I've seen, the way they react to the environment and the way they transition from animation to animation is absolutely convincing. By contrast, all its graphical rivals are just games with great textures on top of solid, plastic action figures.

The demo worried me a little about the platforming aspect, believe me, it's great. To top it all off, the AI is fantastic. Your friendly AI is like a co-op friend, actually shooting people not just there for show. The enemies are all tactically intelligent and they constantly try to flank you. It makes the game become more about just finding cover when you're dying and minimizing your time exposed to being about defending your weak points and trying to keep the enemy at bay. Every encounter has the battleground setup to provide a unique experience, and you have to try and use whatever advantage you can find just to survive some of the harder battles.

The storyline is terrific. The characters are interesting with great voice acting, probably around the same level as Heavenly Sword. There's a lot of cool unlockables, not all of which I've seen. The game uses a system similar to xbox live achievements, only you get points toward unlocking by accomplishing, for example. 30 kills with the ak47.

Only complaint is that I want more guns. Been spoiled by Ratchet maybe but I like lots of variety in weapons now.
 
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Roommate bought this today and it looks awesome in action. He's not very far yet, but I can tell this one will be worth adding to my collection when I finally bite the bullet and invest in a PS3.

Crysis on the other hand needs some work, though it was still an unbelievable game. I was extremely disappointed in where the game leaves off once you beat it too. Expansion packs and bug fixes are on the way...It's worth buying but maybe not until they patch it a couple times. The current menu lag is the biggest drawback to owning this game early.

No idea what Mass Effect even is so I can't compare.
 
Anaeran said:
No idea what Mass Effect even is so I can't compare.
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Think GoW meets Oblivion.

As far as uncharted goes, it is wonderful. I spent my whole 4 hour shift playing this game and its about the most fun i've ever had with that short of a play on a game. PS3, 360, or otherwise.
 
Oh yeah, something I noticed last night. This game doesn't have loading times. You'll just be walking around and suddenly, "Chapter 12" pops up letting you know you made it to the next level. I hear Haze is going to do this too, very cool and the first time I recall seeing this since back in the cartridge days. When you see how massive and detailed these levels are, you will wonder how the hell they did that.
 
Firestreak said:
first time I recall seeing this since back in the cartridge days. When you see how massive and detailed these levels are, you will wonder how the hell they did that.
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you never played Soul Reaver then :P that was the "first CD" game (or so it was claiming at the time, and I don't know of any before it) without loading screens other than the first one when you start the game/load a save.
 
Thanks for the headsup on this game Fire. Looks like I will be picking this one up after I finish Assassin's Creed.
 
Finished this game, 9 and a half hours on normal mode.

Looking forward to unlock all the extras, this is not the kind of game you only play through once. I'm not gonna say this is PS3's Gears of War like a lot of people are calling it. As a single player game, it's actually far better. It has no multiplayer however and I think with the trademark PSN dedicated servers, it would actually be pretty fun to play online deathmatch. Maybe in the sequel, but I'm not really hurting for games to play online now. If you have a PS3 you should own Warhawk anyway.
 
Played around unlocking stuff today. The filters are pretty hilarious. "Next gen filter" basically makes everything oversaturated and gritty like Gears of War style. Going to do a second playthrough on Hard in mirror mode, basically the maps are all flipped left and right, it actually adds a lot to the second playthrough even though it's tactically the same. It doesn't feel familiar anymore.

I'm shocked that this thread isn't booming with impressions, you guys all owe it to yourself to pick this game up. It's the best single player game you can get on PS3, and that includes multiplatforms. Between this and Warhawk or COD4 for online, you're good to go this holiday.
 
The game is great fire, i am just a little overwhelmed at the moment with all these games. CoD4 taking so much time, AssassinCreed is so damn beautifull and MassEffect coming Tuesday... My god i cant wait. I am trying to balance Drakes in there but i am not able to let the story and gameplay sink in. It has nothing to do with flaws, the game is great. Its more about me having too much to do in all these games. I dont want to ruin it so i am waiting to get deep into it.
 
Just got the game 2 days ago...
Playing very slowly
Loved it especially where Drake speaks Indon
Too funny HAHA

"Buka Pintu!"
"Siapa ni? Bicara sekarang."
"Sialan lu. Cepatkan buka pintu!"
"Ah Tahi..."
 
This game is actually pretty damned good. It's definitely among the most beautiful games on any system. The animations are very fluid and very realistic. The best part is that during gun fights, you can tell they went for "Amateur" because of how he stands while shooting and how it doesn't seem like he is trained at all. So far it's pretty cool, I am only on the part after the plane crashes early on. It sort of feels like a Tomb Raider game, but has a bit more Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed feel to it while moving. You can leap between ledges, wall climb, and all other cool moves like Altair did in Assassin's Creed. So far this is looking like a great game.

Best part is THE CHARACTER FINALLY CAN GET WET! Never in a game before has a character actually gotten wet where their clothes become dark and damp and won't dry until you spend some time in the sun.
 
The movements and facial expressions are all so realistic because they actually had real actors wearing sensory equipment fully acting out each scene. They weren't just regular voice actors, which is something I don't think I've ever seen in a video game until now.

There's a little video clip in the extras about how they did it. Pretty cool stuff.
 
Well I just finished the game. I was hoping for a bit more, but overall, it was very much worth the play through. I will probably go through again on the hardest difficulty since I played through on the next step down.

So for my final review on top of what was already said. Graphics and animations were beautiful and the best I have seen in a game to date. There was only one instance of clipping that I saw, but I was basically trying to turn the camera through a wall. Voice acting was pretty decent. The controls were very fluid. The camera was nice and controllable for the most part, but every so often, it would get stuck at a weird angle. And I am not sure if it was my TV, but some of the scenes were pretty dark and they didn't give a flashlight/torch on all of the ones that got darker.

As far as AI goes, it was a bit iffy. When you had a partner fighting with you, they didn't really do much except draw fire. I don't think they can die, as I have seen them both take heavy fire and just run away. Enemy AI was decent, but lackluster at parts. Most of the time, they would duck and cover and fire at random intervals from different sides of the cover. Sometimes though, when they thought they were in cover, some body part and at certain times, their entire body would be sticking out. It allowed for easy kills when they thought they were under cover.

The only other problem I had was jumping from vines. Sometimes it just seemed to not want to jump when I hit jump, and instead of jumping, would fall straight down.

Besides the slight problems, the overall feel of the game was basically Tomb Raider + Indiana Jones + Prince of Persia.

8.5/10
 
Trophy support patch has released worldwide today.
 
I've been thinkin' about pickin' this up lately. I'm a huge Tomb Raider fan and everyone I've talked to about it tells me Uncharted is basically Tomb Raider for dummies (some loved it, some hated it). From YouTube I gather it's pretty much a weak Tomb Raider (puzzle wise and platform wise) fused with Gears (action wise). I guess what I want to know is this; Tomb Raider is very puzzle oriented and compared to that, how puzzle oriented is Uncharted? Also, can you turn off the weak ass "help me solve this puzzle/get here I'm lost function? Part of the fun, to me, is the whole "figure it out yourself" aspect with puzzles. I know the game has tons more gunplay and far more simpler but if it's just another action game with a good story I'll just rent it.
 
Hints are offered with a button press, but you don't have to press the button.

The game definitively isn't worth buying simply for its puzzle element. It's probably its weakest point out of what it tries to do.

If you're going to rent instead of buy, be sure to download a saved game where crushing difficulty is onlocked, it REALLY makes the gameplay exciting and keeps you on your toes. This is a multiple playthrough game for me, but it's long enough that you might not want to beat it then beat it again within your rental period.

To me it's good enough to replay every few months, though it's not like it has an online element you're going to be playing longterm. Definetly one of the best single player experiences out there though. It's kind of like playing through a movie, it's very cinematic.
 
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Pretty fun game so far. Wished I would have bought it instead of rentin'. Though, as much as I'd like to buy it I can't help but think this game is horrible for my PS3's life span. For some reason, it's the only game that does it too, the fans kick on ultra high in my system after the game has been on for about 10-15 min. I also think it's ridiculous for a game to have this much screen clippin'. The impressive graphics aren't worth a shit if they clip like mad, mostly happens in high traffic areas or areas with lots of movement, i.e. waterfalls, grenades, etc. The game also suffers from slowdowns in these areas, I missed a jump from lag with no internet connection :bb:
 
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