If Only Uncharted was Left Uncharted

Well, the plan was to marathon through all three Uncharted games with a friend over this long break at college.  We managed to pound-out the first game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, but I’m not sure if we’ll get through the next two.  Here are some reasons why:

Rolling around protection, smashing buttons to reload or to aim or to seek cover, Drake’s blown to bits by ridiculously placed grenade snipers.  Attempting to aim - which only leads to hip-firing - gets my face plastered with bullets from suicidal maniacs charging my barricade.  Enough being said about that, the controls are a bit harsh to handle, not helping with the difficulty.  Set on Medium, the waves and waves of copy-paste enemies take a ridiculous amount of ammo to put down, straining already tight weapons - only a handgun and a rifle are allowed to be carried at a time.  It took my friend and I ten shots - ten! - to put a goon down.  All this is tough but forgivable, except that the game forces the player into kill-rooms, making it unable to proceed until insurmountable odds are, indeed, overcome (after much frustration).

But enough on combat; now to navigation!  I’m not a regular player of platformers, but the climbing and jumping of Drake had quite tight handling.  If all platform games work this nicely, I will have to delve into them more often.  The dark-side is that the background can be deceptive at points.  More than once, my buddy and I fell away, having tried to nab a ledge we saw that the game said wasn’t there.  

Past combat and navigation, the delivery of the story is top-notch.  The characters are witty, the dialogue skillful.  The unique persons of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune give an adventure that is easy to trace a journey through.  In regards to the tale the game tells, it’s a pleasant adventure for buried treasure.  Such a jaunt has not been heard of in this console generation.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune has a good story.  The game also carries off a solid platforming experience.  Where Uncharted falls off at is how it tries to be a combat game, and fails miserably, even with an unreasonable army of mercs spread along the path; that downside breaks the game into a series of frustrating and unbelievable encounters.  If a player can get past that, more power to them, but at least for this gamer, the rest of the Uncharted series very well may remain uncharted.

Take care with other games this holiday season!

• + Fun writing; adventurous dialogue.
• + Memorable and witty characters.
• + An unforgettable treasure hunt.
• + Good platform handling.
• - Deceptive level platform layout.
• A fix: Add more places to traverse, even if those areas don’t naturally lead to where the player is to head to.
• - Limited and hard to control weapon choices.
• A fix: Tighten the combat controls if combat is to be relied on so heavily.  Augment the weapon selection even a little more to allow for broader options – the PS3 can certainly handle it.
• - Generic enemies with numbers that are legion.
• A fix: Don’t substitute quality combat encounters with rushes of shallow cannon-fodder.
• - Unrealistic difficulty levels.
• A fix: Cure some of the previous ailments, and this one might just be solved!