Techtite Game Reviews ---

There's no reason to beat around the bush here: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is the must-have title for the Playstation 3. Ratchet & Clank is all well and good, though it's pretty hard to convince an adult to buy a $399 game system to play a game with a fuzzy character as its mascot: just ask Sega Dreamcast about that one. No; not only is Uncharted the newest must-buy title for the PS3; it's quite frankly one the most fun experiences I've had in a game all year.

Yeah, I know what those Xbox 360 fanboys are asking you: is it better than what they have? Well, let me tell you a little story about that. I remember the Xbox 360's first year on shelves. This was months before Gears of War, and a year before Halo 3. I remember the first exclusive game I ever played on the Xbox 360 that was worth a darn; it was Dead Rising. That was no less than 9 months after system launch. Playstation 3 has similarly only been on the shelf for less than a year as of this game's release...and if this is the sort of game we can expect in later years, things are looking mighty good.

Let's give the 360 fanboys time to write their "oh yeah...?" retorts about the last paragraph, as I talk about the game itself. The idea is simple enough: you're a rogue looking for ancient treasure. However, as in all treasure quests there are others who'd like to beat you to it. There's a rival treasure hunter, a batch of mercenaries, and an old enemy ready to shoot you before you get there. Assisting you on the mission is a perky female reporter looking for a big story, and your wise cracking old buddy who I suppose would be played by Bruce Campbell if this was a movie.

This might start sounding like a Tomb Raider game with a dude in the lead role. Not exactly. While I like the direction Tomb Raider has gone in since Tomb Raider Legend, there's a lot this game gets right that Lara Croft has yet to offer. Like the Call-of-Duty-style health meter of the lead character, which means you only need to find a place to hide in a gun fight to get your health back, and not search every nook and cranny for a band aid. This allows all the action to keep on coming and coming with no health pack quests to slow you down.

This is a good thing, when such gun battles are (sorry; the comparison fits) not unlike Gears of War in their complexity. This isn't the sort of game where you run into a battlefield with guns blazing and hope not to die. You must find a place to hide, hug the wall/rock you find there, and peek out to shoot your enemy...or enemies, as it were. These gun battles are very intense, with both realism (no "flesh wounds here; bullets can kill instantly) while maintaining the easy interface of a video game (your grenade's most likely trajectory is shown for you as you aim).

Of course; what good are gun fights if your enemies aren't as intelligent as they are in this game? Enemies seek a good place to hide, and crouch behind cover, just like you do. If they have grenades they use them, forcing you to jump and roll to safety. The good news: just like you they are vulnerable to bullets, so there's no cheesy "boss battles" here where a seemingly average Joe can take a bullet to the forehead and lose only "one third" of his health. These are realistic battles that maintain the fun of the video game.

Yet what makes all this so much fun is the atmosphere of the game. Treasure hunting is the goal here, and that means imaginative locales (a derelict submarine on a waterfall, for example) and some nice puzzles to solve. There are even a few chase scenes, like any action story should have. Yet at no time does the easy-to-grasp interface or the story interfere with the fun of the game at hand. One moment that I really liked was a race through a flooded ancient city, via a jetski. The hero is driving while the person riding behind him is shooting, yet here's the fun part; the interface of the game makes you able to control both characters. So in other words; the game has one character realistically drive the boat while the other realistically shoots the gun, giving you control of both. Cool...!

Gripes are only of the nitpicking variety, though they're worth mentioning, and yes, they did reduce the game's final rating by (gasp!) half a star. For one thing there's the occasional puzzle where you have no idea what to do next, yet keep dying. The good news is that this is a game with unlimited lives and very generous "checkpoints," so you won't have to backtrack too far after falling to your doom, to try and try again! However, it can sometimes be a bit challenging when trying to climb the side of an ancient tower and you keep falling, with no apparent sign of what you're doing wrong until minutes later. It's not a major annoyance, though it can be slightly annoying, just the same.

This doesn't detract from the enjoyment of having played what is irrefutably the first must-have title of the Playstation 3. It may have its rough edges, though the intriguing story, engaging gameplay and characters you love to keep seeing on screen, all lead to a treasure quest you simply have to complete all the way to the end.

	Final Rating : Deep Impact. Remember when Dark Rising finally made your Xbox 360 purchase worth a darn? Well, that's what Uncharted is like for the PS3.
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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

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