Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Review

Reviewed on the PS4.

So, here's a game that I didn't think I'd ever be playing, let alone reviewing, but here we are. I'd purchased a PS4 Slim w/ Uncharted 4 package a few months ago and immediately put Uncharted 4 to the side thinking "Oh, I'm never going to play this. Maybe I can sell it.". After finishing both World of Final Fantasy (review coming at some point) and FFXV (check out my review for this here), I was feeling a bit RPG burnt out and figured I'd try something different. Since Uncharted 4 was one of the only non-RPG games that I owned (aside from music games), I figured maybe I could give it a shot. But hang on, that's the fourth game in the series! You can't just start on that! With that in mind, off to Best Buy I went to pick up the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection. A bit of an undertaking to start off a saga of 4 games, but from what I'd heard, they weren't too long. And apparently they're also rather good. How does the first installment fare? Let's find out.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

Story

Nathan Drake has followed in his ancestor Sir Francis Drake's footsteps and has become a treasure hunter. At some point, he receives a tip-off on the whereabouts of the coffin of Sir Francis and armed with camerawoman Elena Fisher, they find his coffin in the middle of the ocean and haul it onto the boat, only to find that it's empty, aside from a small notebook. Immediately the boat is set upon by pirates. Is this just a coincidence, or is someone else also after the contents of this coffin? Being overwhelmed by the pirates, pilot Victor "Sully" Sullivan arrives just in the nick of time to whisk you both to safety. With Nathan and Sully able to examine the Notebook, they realize the contents hold the key to finding the city of El Dorado. With Sully in debt, he convinces Nathan that it's a good idea leave the girl behind and find the city. This is where the adventure begins.

It's a fantastic, but basic set-up for a story that's obviously not going to be as straight-forward as "Head to El Dorado. Find treasure. Leave. Live happily ever after". Early into the journey, Sully is shot by Gabriel Roman, the man he's in debt to. Though Sully has the notebook on him, Nathan has no choice but to leave him behind and escape. He eventually runs into Elena again who promptly smacks him in the face, but agrees to help him find the treasure and well as the actual location of Francis's body. I'd often heard these games described as something similar to a Hollywood movie, and I'd definitely agree with that sentiment. The cut scenes certainly play out like they've been meticulously cut together by some big director and you just know that there's going to be many twists and turns before the closing credits roll.

Surely enough, many twists and turns do happen. Sully is spotted alive and seems to be helping Roman and his partner Navarro locate the treasure using Francis's notebook. Sully certainly seemed like a bit of a seedy character from the start and even after you finally catch up with Sully and get him to explain what's going on (with the notebook in his pocket blocking the bullet and Roman taking him prisoner), I was still convinced that he was working for Roman all along. Turns out I was wrong and that he really did have good intentions. I like when this happens. It sort of ruins the fun when you're able to accurately predict what's going on.

Roman and Navarro eventually get to the treasure first, which is a giant statue made entirely of gold and jewels. However, Navarro appears have to ascertained that there is more to meets the eye than just the cash value of this statue. He convinces Roman to open the statue up, which releases a virus that transforms him into a savage zombie like creature (explaining why you've been coming across similar creatures in the ruins up to this point). Killing Roman, he takes the statue for himself with the plan of selling off the virus to the highest bidder. Drake is hot on his tail and after an epic chase sequence, stops him and lets the statue sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Certainly a truly epic, but short and simple story that really sucks you in and keeps you guessing. It was certainly everything I was expecting based on my limited knowledge of the series and I was not let down. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the direction of the rest of the series is going. I'm sure it'll be even more epic than this.

Score: 90/100

Gameplay

I went into this game knowing that there would certainly be elements of the gameplay that I wouldn't be too fond of. I'm not really a big fan of shooters or anything like that, but wasn't really too sure of how much of that there would be in this game, though I figured there would be some. Turns out, there was a hell of a lot. Especially towards the end of the game, where it tended to get really frustrating in some areas due to the cover mechanics being a bit dodgy or just way too many things firing at you on the screen. While most of these sections required you cover and then pop up to aim at and enemies (getting head shots is particularly satisfying when it happens), some of the later sections were more of a run and gun style due the enemies changing from people who would try and pick you off with gunfire to mindless zombies that run at you, trying to get within melee range to stab you to death. It was a bit messy due to the fact that they can pretty much just pop up behind you and one shot you, leading to screaming at the screen and throwing the controller more often than I'd have preferred. Then the game decides to mix people firing at you with zombies running at you and it just gets a bit too much. Also, you can get within melee range and combo enemies to death, but it's a bit of an afterthought.

The other half of the gameplay is the more Tomb Raider-esque platforming and exploration sections. Now these I actually really enjoy. There are 60 random treasures hidden throughout the game, which give you the incentive to really look around and explore each individual area. Every 5 treasures you find adds a bonus or cheat that's unlocked once you finish the game. I ended up with 47 of them at the end of the game, which I felt was somewhat decent. I imagine you'd need a walkthrough to find all 60. The controls work really well in the platforming sections for the most part. There's not a huge amount of precision required since Drake will sort of magnetize to edges and platforms where possible, though you certainly still need to make sure you're jumping accurately. Sometimes it was hard to tell where to jump to next, and on a fair few occasions you would end up falling to your death. This is all part and parcel with puzzle platforming though, so it's not really too big of a problem.

There's also some vehicle sections where you're driving a jeep or a speedboat. The jeep ones weren't too bad, as these had Elena driving while you fired at oncoming enemies, but the speedboat ones were quite terrible. The fact that they made it so you can't drive and shoot at the same time on these is a really stupid oversight. I have to assume that this is addressed in the sequels.

Score: 65/100

Character Development

Not a huge amount to cover here. I imagine a lot more of the surviving 3 characters backstories will be fleshed out in the sequels, so at the moment it only feels like we're beginning to know them. That said, I think we know just enough about them to get a real feel for their personalities and be interested in them. Nathan and Sully obviously go back a fair bit with Nathan being the good-natured up for anything hero and Sully being the counterpoint to him; a bit sleazy, motivated by money and "having a woman in every port", as some of the in-game dialogue mentions. They have a strong rapport with each other, and the dynamic between them is certainly a friendly one. I'm interested to see where this relationship goes. Good stuff.

Elena is pretty much the love interest for Drake's character. Though things are a bit frosty between the two of them initially (especially with Drake and Sully abandoning her at the port), things tend to heat up when they meet up and Elena gets Drake out of some rather tricky situations. The game ends with Drake and Elena about to go in for a smooch when Sully interrupts. Quite confident she will be back for the next game, but I suppose it could be like a James Bond situation. He never seems to have the same love interest in the next film. Either way, it's all a bit predictable, but it doesn't harm the game or the story at all. Sully doesn't really seem to care about Elena and seems more concerned about her getting in the of way of finding treasure. That's about the only interaction they have that I can recall.

The villains in the game seem to have pretty two dimensional personalities, though it's apparent that there seems to be some history between them and Drake/Sully. I would say that maybe we'll get some more backstory to them, but since they're all apparently dead, that may not happen. Who knows though. I wouldn't be surprised to see at least one of them return in the sequels.

Score: 75/100

Graphics

Since this is a remaster of a PS3 game, don't expect top marks here. For what it's worth though, it does still look quite pretty. I know that the PS3 version was a big deal when it came out and it seems to have held up fairly well over the years. Textures are really sharp and the environments are colourful and vibrant. Since I'm more of an RPG fan, the lack of variety when it came to the environments irked me a little. I suppose you can't have the whole gamut of possible environments in every game, something else in addition to the forest/ruin environment would've gone a long way I think.

Animation of Drake is pretty impressive most of the time. His run animation can look a little bit stiff, but when making jumps and climbing walls and such, he looks great. Sometimes in cutscenes, his face can look a little bit overly animated, which is not too much of a shock considering Naughty Dog's pedigree prior to this game. Enemies seem to move around, fire at you and die in a convincing fashion. No complaints, though it's a bit hard to analyse their animations when all you're trying to do is get them the hell out of the way so you can get to the next section.

Score: 75/100

Sound

A game with this sort of production value should have amazing sound, and of course, it delivers. The orchestral soundtrack appropriately swells in the midst of dramatic action sequences and is dark and brooding while navigating your way through the ruins of El Dorado. A lot of care and attention has been dedicated to crafting a soundtrack that matches the general atmosphere of the game and it works perfectly.

The voice acting and sound effects are excellent. Some of the best voice acting I've encountered in a video game. Considering the fact that they were trying to make a game that's similar to a movie, it's important here that they had the best possible quality to make sure that their cast felt like more than just video game characters. I'd go so far to call them video game performers, or actors.

Score: 95/100

Conclusion

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this game, but I was pleasantly surprised. Despite the somewhat low-ish overall score, I enjoyed my short time with the game. If there were approximately 50% less shooting sections and 50% more exploration/platforming sections, I think I'd have had a lot better of a time with it. None the less, the story was good enough to make me want to play the next game in the series. Next review: Uncharted 2!

Total Score: 80/100

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