Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Review
If you’ve ever wanted to re-enact an Indiana Jones adventure on a tropical island, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is the ultimate wish fulfilment.
Indy had fun shooting and whipping Nazis, but in Uncharted shooting a seemingly infinite army of pirates never actually manages to be any fun. If this was just an adventure game with the occasional puzzle it wouldn’t matter, but for an action adventure game that largely relies on “stop-and-pop” shooting mechanics, bad gunplay is a kiss of death.
Filling the shoes of young treasure hunter and bon vivant Nathan Drake, you have to navigate tombs and murder hundreds of lightly armed pirates on your way to discovering the lost treasure of Sir Francis Drake. Whilst the environments are shockingly beautiful and a joy to explore, bumping into any of the aforementioned pirates ruins the fun completely. Their t-shirts must conceal highly effective bullet-sponges, requiring them to be filled with unreasonable amount of lead as they duck and like scalded chimps the moment you open fire on them. The unwieldy melee combat doesn’t provide much of an alternative.
For Uncharted’s one major flaw it has dozens of positives. Drake and his leading lady, the tough but likeable Elena are both superbly well written and benefit from voice-acting that sets the standard for engaging performances. The graphics are so pretty it’s all you can do to not just stop and gawp off into the jungle. It’s just a shame that the combat often serves to ruin the experience.
