Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Review - It's starting to show its age.

 By Sam Coles:

2007 was an interesting year for the 7^th generation of gaming as we got great titles such as Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy and of course Uncharted: Drake’s fortune which released exclusively for the PS3. When the game was first revealed it was immediately compared to Tomb Raider aptly nicked named “Dude Raider” as they shared similar traits with treasure hunting. However when it was released it was met with critical acclaim and spawned 2 more sequels on the PS3 and a final instalment on the PS4. How does it fair over the years? Let’s find out.

Uncharted is about a young explorer named Nathan Drake where he convinces people that he is related to Sir Francis Drake. He is in Latin America looking for the lost treasure of El dorado which later on he finds out that it is cursed which cause horrific things to those who seek it. He is accompanied by Victor Sullivan or Sully for short who acts as his mentor and father figure as he chain smokes cigars throughout the adventure. You’re also in the company of a young journalist named Elena Fisher a competent yet very nosey reporter. The characters are great and charismatic although the main villains are two dimensional and just want the treasure as they manically laugh.

The gameplay is a mix of third person shooting and platforming the shooting is okay not the best as the aiming is terrible and very loose compared to the later instalments and it also doesn’t help that game has questionable hit detection sometimes. When you’re not being shot at you’ll partake in some platforming and this is great as it gives you time to breath as you traverse dangerous cliffs with bottomless pits to dark and ancient caves. However the climbing controls do feel a tad archaic as Nathan will not take in the fact that you want to grab the ledge next to you he will refuse to latch on to it. The controls are showing their age and to be fair the game is nearly 10 years old now and it was the first in the series so they had to start somewhere.

The environments look fantastic even to this day with lush tropical jungles with deep and detailed foliage but the environments do get a bit samey. The character models on the other hand have not aged gracefully with stiff animations during cutscenes and lip syncing that is off in some scenes, plus some character models look too clean with no blemishes.

Uncharted Drake’s Fortune is a good game but it does have a lot flaws that suck out the fun of the experience sometimes with clunky controls, but it paved the way for a fantastic series that put the PS3 on the map. It’s super cheap on PS3 or you can pick it up in the Nathan Drake Collection on PS4.