Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)

I'll have one Tomb Raider, à la Indy, hold the cheesecake.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

There's no reason to expect much from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The developer, Naughty Dog, is commercially successful but creatively middling (their Jak titles have ranged from pretty decent to pretty bad). The game seems to be an unabashed rip-off of Tomb Raider, with the difference being that the main character is a dude, which out-Tomb-Raiders Tomb Raider for unabashedly ripping off 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' The prospects are not good.But then you actually play Uncharted and discover that Lara Croft has nothing on Nathan Drake. This is a spirited, muscular and charming adventure with excellent pacing, tons of character and plenty off ooh- and ahh-worthy next-gen tech. Lara Croft was largely an appeal to testosterone, but this is a game that understands what was good about 'Raiders of the Lost Ark:' a charismatic lead, with a little romantic comedy to lighten the adventure, and enough guts and grit to keep it from being entirely kiddie. Throw in some solid combat and just the right number of scripted set pieces, and Uncharted ends up being an outstanding six to eight hours of entertainment.

Nathan Drake is a great lead character. He's more Indiana Jones or John McClane than the Arnold Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris characters who serve as leads for most computer games. He's more everyman than superhero, which is an important detail videogames rarely capture. Consider that Gordon Freeman is no longer the everyman who was late for work in Half-Life. Now he's a taciturn superman, inspiring the resistance fighters with his superhuman exploits and called to some strange destiny by the otherworldly G-Man. But Uncharted understands that the most relatable heroes get beat-up and weary. They're scared of being shot and more than happy to cower while the bullets fly. Drake gives a panicked yelp when grenades land near him and he seems uncertain about whether or not he's going to make that jump. He's not just the avatar that you play and reload when he dies. He's a stand-in for the audience, playing out the sense of peril for us.

The gunfights are a real treat, combining adroit running-and-gunning with meticulous ducking-and-covering. The levels are laid out with plenty of cover, veritable playgrounds for shootouts. The artificial intelligence does a good job of moving around and trying to flank you, taking advantage of the levels. Unfortunately, grenades are clumsy for being tied into a clunky Sixaxis motion tilting gimmick. Also, post-battle ammo hunts could have been simplified. But unlike the Tomb Raider games, it doesn't seem like the shooting bits in Uncharted were folded into the adventure as filler.

The only sequences that feel out of place are a couple of Jet Ski levels. These look good enough, but they get frustrating for requiring some marksmanship. What should have been wet-and-wild waterslide thrill rides are instead save-and-reload crawls where you have to remember to shoot a floating barrel or some distant guy with an insta-kill rocket launcher. The sensation you feel after most of Uncharted's set pieces is 'That was a blast!' After the Jet Ski rides, it's 'I hope I never have to do that again!'

The puzzles are basically formalities. There's nothing particularly challenging about them, and if you think about them too much, they break the game's internal fiction. Uncharted regularly has you solving some centuries-old puzzle that unlocks an impenetrable door into some inner sanctum -- only to discover a dozen generic bad guys managed to get there ahead of you. These sorts of contrivances might be understandable in a lazy Tomb Raider game, but they mess up the otherwise smooth flow of this adventure yarn. Still, you can't very well plunder ancient ruins without pushing a stone block or two.