Off the Charts
Uncharted is an extremely promising start to what could be the first true Indiana Jones-style adventure game, but it's going to take a little work.
Published: November 18, 2007
It's also where Uncharted gets a chance to brazenly flaunt what are, hands down, the best visuals I've ever seen in a game. The things that Naughty Dog did with the PlayStation 3 hardware are mind-boggling. This is what everyone imagined PlayStation 3 games were going to look like at launch, and though it took about a year or so, we finally have evidence that maybe this system really is the most powerful one on the market.
One look at the water during the opening shoot-out or the absolutely insane draw distances once you're on the island or the way that late-hour sunlight bathes everything in a ruddy orange will absolutely confirm that this system is an absolute beast. If this is an example of what a first- or second-generation game is going to look like, the stuff we're going to see five years from now... well, it makes my head hurt.
But it's not perfect. Sure, there's a ridiculous amount of detail in the jungle flora and detailed textures are thrown all over the place. The fact that everything is streaming off the hard drive and disc means that aside from the initial load, you'll never see a break in the action the entire way through the game. On rare occasions, this can mean a slight delay in textures or foliage getting loaded in, but it's rare. More disconcerting, however, is the way Drake doesn't seem to connect well with the undulating jungle terrain.
On flat surfaces, it's fine, but the much-vaunted animation system that blends all these little dodges and flinches that Drake makes while taking fire can't hide the fact that the inverse kinematics on Drake's legs betray some of the detail in his footing. Because the animations for the jumps are apparently being calculated on the fly, there are moments of pop and things like heft and momentum don't really carry through. It all gives the game a slightly floaty, disconnected feeling, and as pretty as it all looks in stills, in motion things can break down a little.
I will say this, though: whoever made it so that most platforms could be overshot by a little bit and Drake would grab on saved me from more than a few cheap deaths. Yeah, I still plummeted to my doom on more than one occasion, but being about to jump out and grab a ledge from a non-perfect angle made the traversal parts far, far more entertaining and forgiving than they would be in other games. It actually caught me by surprise the first few times because you could take a jump at the wrong angle and still catch one of the other faces of a platform. Good work, guys.
The audio in the game is far more solid. Sure, some of the weapons can sound a little wimpy (I'm looking at you, 9mm pistol and AK-47), but others have a ton of oomph. Everything else sounds absolutely amazing, though, including the fantastic voice work by Emily Rose and Nolan North who play Elena and Drake and also supplied the mocap acting sessions. Drake is an almost instantly likeable character, and it's thanks almost exclusively to North's performance.
The decision to use Greg Edmonson of Firefly fame to score the game's cinemas and interactive bits alike was an absolutely brilliant one. The soundtrack is at times emotional, deeply unsettling, driving, aggressive and haunting, and not one lick of music in the game is anything but dead on in delivering an aural backdrop that pulls the whole presentation together. It's been a good year for soundtracks; Lair, Warhawk, Call of Duty 4, these games have provided scores that were good enough to be released as stand-alone albums, but Edmonson's work trumps them all. God damn do I love this game's soundtrack.
Uncharted has the makings of an absolutely killer new franchise for Naughty Dog. Their ability to craft a storyline and characters that draw the player in almost instantly is what is going to give the series heart, and the game's presentation is beyond reproach (I know it's a minor thing, but the end credits actually have closing credit music that perfectly syncs up with the end of the game just like a movie, and I can't remember another game that's done that as well -- if ever). Now that the legwork has been done in creating an engine that can kick out the best graphics you'll ever see, they just need to work on plugging in that all-important gameplay that has been Naughty Dog's signature for going on well over a decade now.
They took a big risk in doing something other than a cartoony platform and in many respects Uncharted is a success, but slightly sloppy gunplay and some absolutely infuriating parts of the game hold it back from being a true killer app. On sheer graphical merits alone the game is a must-buy, but as a complete game, we'll have to wait to see how the sequel turns out to know for sure if this is gaming's equivalent of an Indiana Jones flick.
