Uncharted: Drake's Fortune | trailer (HD)
Finally got to this baby after 3 years (didn't have a PS3 then). First off, the game is absolutely beautiful. Second, never mind that it's a "console game", that snobby arse PC gamers tend to dismiss it. It's a fantastic adventure game full of action, suspense, cliffhanger moments, and sexiness in the tradition of the Indiana Jones movies (
Raiders Of The Lost Ark trailer) and Tomb Raider.
Actually, its lineage goes further back, to the novels of John Buchan (
The 39 Steps, Green Mantle), the silent films of D.W. Griffith (
Birth Of A Nation, A Corner In Wheat, etc.) featuring last minute rescues, and the serial suspense short films of the early 20th century, like
The Perils Of Pauline (links to an actual short clip, 1914).
What I noticed, however, was how Uncharted departs from the Tomb Raider formula, which I think had gotten old and lame in the past several years. In the Uncharted games there's more of a sense of immediacy and intimacy with the characters and how the story unfolds, though that may have to do in good part to the breathtaking graphics and the art direction that favours a more realistic, true-to-life world. As well, the Uncharted games completely embrace the cinematic qualities of the 'old school' kind of action adventure - the race to discover the treasure, a ragtag team of adventurers, daring stunts, and classic story exposition through dialogue, camera angles, facial expressions, gestures, and other filmic conventions.
Nathan is not some quasi-superhuman athlete like Lara Croft; whereas Croft auto-aims as she does quadruple flips over spike infested abysses, we have to help Nathan aim his gun while dodging enemy fire and avoiding speeding vehicles. Actually Nathan seems a bit more down-to-earth, realistic (at least cinematically) - a combination of perhaps James Sunderland (Silent Hill) and Indiana Jones himself, quite vulnerable but also quick witted and as daring as a mortal adventurer can be.
Well, I had just started the game a couple hours ago so I have more to add later. Suffice it to say that I declare Uncharted, like a dozen or so other games that have come out in the past few years - on ANY platform - is an amazing example of the adventure game of the 21st century. A more conservative, traditional site like Adventure Gamers would naturally reject it as such ("puzzles are GOD, action is SATAN"), but I think it has more to do with AG's severe and very, very narrow minded guidelines (they also never covered ICO or Silent Hill 2). But I digress, let's talk topically about these kinds of adventure games that can involve direct action (as controlled by the player) and even violence, and yet remain true adventures in terms of elements like story, exploration, character, and discovery.
Who here has played Uncharted (or Uncharted 2) and what did you take from it that you love? And who plans to play it and why are you drawn to it? What other "21st century adventure games" have you played and why do you think they are also a progression of The Adventure experience?
