Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Developer(s)	Naughty Dog
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Picture format	720p
Released	November 19, 2007[1] December 6, 2007 December 6, 2007 [2] December 7, 2007
Genre	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Ratings	ESRB: T BBFC: 15 OFLC (AU): MA15+ OFLC (NZ): R16+ CERO: C
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3
Input methods	SIXAXIS & DualShock 3

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (Previously known by the development name of Big and known in Japan as Uncharted: The Treasure of El Dorado (アンチャーテッド エル・ドラドの秘宝, Anchaateddo Eru Dorado no Hihou^?), is a PlayStation 3 action-adventure game originally announced at E3 2006 and was developed by Naughty Dog. A demo for the game was released on November 8th, 2007, on the PlayStation Network. Although the US release date was set for November 19th, it was released on the 16th in a few select areas. The Drake's Fortune subtitle is a reference to the famous explorer Sir Francis Drake and his fictional treasure stowed away on the island. In the game, players assume the role of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who alleges to be the descendant of the famed privateer.^[3] It has been confirmed that Drake's Fortune is the first game in the Uncharted series and in January 2008 in an interview between LCI and the co-president of Naughty Dog confirmed a sequel.

Plot Summary

Nathan Drake (left) talks to Victor "Sully" Sullivan on his boat, while Elena calls into her station

The game opens with Nathan Drake (Nolan North) recovering the coffin of the explorer and an ancestor of Nathan (as professed by Nathan), Sir Francis Drake from the ocean floor, using coordinates inscribed on a ring in Nathan's possession. The effort is paid for through journalist Elena Fisher (Emily Rose)'s company, who is there to record the events for a potential blockbuster documentary. The coffin is empty with no corpse, only containing a diary written by Sir Francis Drake, but points to the location of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold where Sir Francis went to find the treasure, proving he faked his death like Nathan had originally believed. With the assistance of Nathan's friend, Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle), they fly to the island without Elena and find clues that El Dorado is not actually a city, but a large statue of gold, and that the statue was removed long ago from where it was kept. However, Nathan and Sully discover a long-abandoned U-boat nearby, with the dead crew's pockets full of gold coins and a missing page from the Drake diary that points to a southern tropic island where the statue was likely taken. However, before they can leave the island, Nathan and Sully are accosted by Gabriel Roman (Simon Templeman), a competitive treasure hunter that has hired the services of mercenaries as well as Atoq Navarro (Robin Atkin Downes), an archaeologist with knowledge of the statue, and Eddy Raja (James Sie), an old rival of Nathan. Nathan refuses to help Gabriel, who then shoots Sully in the chest, just before Elena shows up to rescue Nathan. The two quickly make for Sully's plane and head towards the island where the statue is believed to be located. As they near the island, their plane is shot down; both parachute to safety but are separated. Nathan works his way through Gabriel's hired forces to an old fort where he spotted Elena's parachute. However, he discovers familiar markings in the fort that are referred to by Drake's diary, and realizes that he's on the right path to find the statue. Nathan and Elena shortly are reunited, and flee the fort from Eddy and others of Gabriel's hired forces. The two work their way through a long-abandoned port city and discover, through a log book in its custom house, that the statue did indeed pass through the port and was moved further inland to a monastery. At the monastery, Nathan again uses the diary to locate hidden passages yet found by Gabriel, and end up reunited with Sully, who survived because the diary blocked the bullet, and shows that he is still loyal to Nathan despite appearing to work with Gabriel's men. With Sully staying in a secure location to help Nathan by radio, Nathan and Elena find a series of maze-like passages below the monastery leading to a large treasure vault. They soon turn up to yet another dead end, but find Sir Francis Drake's body, showing that he died on the island searching for the treasure. Before they move on, then encounter Eddy running scared for his life, chased by mutated humans possessing incredible speed and strength. Eddy falls to their attack, allowing Nathan and Elena to escape, finding themselves in a abandoned German submarine base built into the island. With no other way out but by restoring power to the base, Nathan ventures alone into the base, encountering more of the mutated beings. After restoring power, Nathan discovers an old movie reel, describing how the Germans during World War II has sought for the statue, but too late learned that it carried some curse, changing the soldiers that were exposed to it into the mutated beings. An aged letter written by Francis Drake found near the reel also reveals that Drake did not seek the El Dorado statue as treasure but instead to prevent it from leaving the island due to its effects. The letter also describes how his army became cursed by the statue, and how he trapped himself on the island to prevent the statue from leaving, proving he was killed by the mutants. Nathan knows now that he must make sure the statue never gets away from the island to prevent its effects from spreading. Nathan attempts to return to Elena, but finds her captured by Gabriel and Navarro. Nathan makes his way out of the base, through both Gabriel's forces and the mutated beings, and catches up with Sully as they defeat those that are covering Gabriel's escape through the old church in the monastery. They find that Gabriel has indeed found the statue, and as they watch, Navarro urges Gabriel to open up the statue to see what's inside, claiming that the real treasure lies within. Gabriel does so, revealing the mummified "golden man" of legend. Dust from the mummy drifts out of the statue and into Gabriel's face, driving him mad and quickly causing him to enter an early stage of mutation, and is quickly shot dead by Navarro. It is strongly implied that Navarro had planned this from the beginning, and sought the statue not for the gold, but for the ability to sell the mutagen as a weapon. Navarro, still holding Elena captive, uses a helicopter to lift out the statue despite Nathan's warnings that the statue had wiped out the entire colony. Nathan is able to jump on to the statue before the helicopter can fully get away. Navarro quickly discovers Nathan and orders one of his men to shoot him. Elena uses the opportunity to kick the mercenary off the helicopter, resulting in the death of the pilot as the mercenary fires his rifle wildly while falling. In stormy weather, the chopper crashes onto the deck of the ocean tanker used by Gabriel, throwing both Nathan and Navarro some distance away. Navarro flees back towards the helicopter chased by Nathan, and the two engage each other in battle. During the final standoff, Nathan notices that Navarro is standing with his foot in some ropes connected to the statue. Nathan shoves the crashed helicopter over the edge of the ship, causing the statue to fall overboard, dragging Navarro along with it into the depths of the ocean. Nathan finds Elena safe, and they reunite with Sully, who has managed to capture a boat, along with a good amount of treasure for the three of them. As they leave the island, Elena remarks that Nathan still owes her a story for her show, since she lost her camera and footage in the custom house. Nathan assures her that he will deliver on his promise.

Gameplay

During combat, the player as Nathan (left) can use corners and waist-height walls as cover, then take both blind and partial cover fire on his opponents.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune has the player controlling Nathan Drake in a mix of 3D platform game and a third-person shooter gameplay elements. The platforming elements are similar to games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or Tomb Raider: Legend, allowing Nathan to jump, swim, grab and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and other similar acrobatic actions to make his way along the ruins on the various islands that he explores. When facing enemies, the player can use melee and combo attacks at close range to take out foes, or can opt to use weapons. Nathan can only carry one pistol with/without one rifle at a time as well as a limited amount of ammo per gun (each gun has its own max spare ammo) and grenades, but can swap either weapon out with any other weapon of the same type on the ground (i.e., a Moss-12 Shotgun for a AK-47, or a 9mm pistol for a fully-automatic pistol). The third-person shooter elements are similar to kill.switch and Gears of War, where the player can have Nathan take cover behind walls, and use either blind-fire or covered fire to take out foes, and more so to Gears of War, due to the lack of an actual health bar and cover essential to success. The game also includes sections where Nathan must protect the jeep he and Elena are in using a mounted turret, and where Nathan and Elena use a jetski along water-filled routes while avoiding enemy fire and explosive barrels using weapons such as the M79 grenade launcher and the Makarov PM. Throughout the levels are 60 treasures that will glint momentarily at times to indicate their presence; these treasures have no direct effect on gameplay, but collecting a number of these will earn "reward points". Reward points can be earned also by completing certain accomplishments, such as achieving a number of kills using a specific weapon, making a number of headshots, or using specific methods of killing enemies. In subsequent playthroughs of the game, the player can spend these rewards points to unlock special options, such as unlimited ammo or one hit kills. These reward points can also be used to unlock Eddy's gun, known as his 'Golden Gun'.

Reception

Uncharted was well received by many game critics with an average score of 90.0% on Gamerankings^[12] and 89/100 on MetaCritic^[11] with the story and the presentation cited as strong factors. Official PlayStation Magazine Australia gave the game a 10/10, calling the game the "greatest PlayStation exclusive game to hit the market." Blast Magazine named Uncharted the #1 PlayStation 3 game of 2007,^[13] but it did criticize the game's linear gameplay and lack of freedom of motion. ^[14]. Many sites, such as Kotaku and IGN, have named it their PS3 game of the year, but the game has not made the list for overall game of the year at most sites due to strong competition from other games released in 2007 as it is widely considered to be one of the best years for gaming in history. It has also been stated in many reviews that the gameplay is very derivative of titles previously released on many different platforms (Tomb Raider, Gears of War Etc...). Even Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog, has said a sequel for Uncharted is very likely,^[15] sometime in the near future, although Naughty Dog is also considering continuing the Jak and Daxter series. On December 31^st, 2007, in an interview with French news website LCI.fr,^[16] Naughty Dog company co-president Christophe Balestra confirmed that the development of the sequel to Uncharted would shortly begin.

Trivia

• The wetsuits that Drake and Elena wear have the fictitious brand 'Ottsel' on them, an obvious reference to the race of Daxter, from Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter series.
• On the side of the plane in which Nathan and Elena fly reads "Hog Wild", a reference to one of the levels in the original Crash Bandicoot series, entitled "Hog Wild".
• Electronic Gaming Monthly reports that planned future downloadable content includeds new costumes, new playable characters (allegedly from past Naughty Dog games), and a new mode with a set of timed challenges.
• One of the hidden treasures in the game, called "Strange Relic", is a Precursor Egg from Naughty Dog's Jak and Daxter series.
• This game is supposed to be the first in a series.
• While on the docks after the first pirate attacks in the first chapter you can see a hut behind Elana that holds a resemblance to Samos's hut in the Jak and Daxter Series
• Early concept art suggests that Elana's hair was originally a brown color, but late into development it was changed to a dirty blonde.

References

External Websites

• Uncharted Official US Site (English)
• Uncharted European Official Site
• Uncharted Official Site (Japanese)