What is it?

3rd Person, Linear, Cinematic, High Adventure, Platforming, Action-Adventure

What’s good?

Exotic locales, globetrotting adventure, incredible characters including one of the most iconic anti-heroes of all time, griping storyline, intense action sequences, easy platinum trophy

What’s bad?

Admittedly the game shows its age but considering the game is a decade old that is to be expected. Aside from the age and some less than stellar controls there is not much to complain about.

Released 2007	Naughty Dog	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Completed: 2015-10-12	Completion: 87%	Highest Trophy: Platinum

Full Review

In Uncharted: Drakes Fortune you play Nathan Drake, a seasoned treasure hunter. This may sound innocuous enough but man what a treat. Nathan Drake or Nate is one of the greatest video game characters of all time if not the greatest. He’s funny, rude, sarcastic, aggressive, devious, selfish and he makes mistakes, big mistakes while always finding a way to be endearing. The voice work is second to none in this series and Nolan North is pitch perfect as Nate. Left to his own Nate would likely carry the entire franchise on his shoulders but luckily for us he doesn’t have to. In Drake’s Fortune he is accompanied by two sidekicks Elena Fischer and Victor “Sully” Sullivan.

Elena is a journalist trying to make a documentary about Nates treasure hunting but things don’t really work out so well for her when he ditches her somewhere in Panama to go off on a treasure hunt with his mentor and partner Sully. Luckily Elena isn’t gone for long. She’s smart as hell, maybe even smarter than Nate himself. She’s able to track him down determined to get her story but once again finds herself in troubles reach. Unlike a typical damsel in distress ie: sorry Mario your princess is in another castle, Elena shows us that not only can she match Nate’s wit and sarcasm but also his thirst for adventure and his knack for getting out of sticky situations. The two have an undeniable chemistry and it really raises the quality of the game to have two such electrifying leads playing off each other. They sort of have the same kind of vibe as Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson in the movie Fools Gold, just better. Emily Rose does impeccable voice work to ground the character and to say Elena is cute is maybe the understatement of the decade. She’s one of the all time great female characters in gaming. She’s smart, capable, funny, tough and able to dish it out in spades. More often than not she tosses out just the right amount of verbal ju-jitsu to put even Nathan Drake in his place leaving him stumbling for words. Total crush worthy.

On the flip side Sully is Nate’s partner in crime, literally as at the end of the day they really are just a pair of thieves and con men. Sully comes across as more than just a partner and sidekick though as he plays the older and wiser father figure to Nate. That being said, whereas Nate seems to have more of a desire for adventure and greatness, Sully is much more about the money. Just like the other characters in this game, the voice work is fantastic and Richard McGonacle brings a welcomed gravity to the character like Ian McKellen to Gandalf or Liam Neeson to Ra’s al Ghul.

The story itself revolves around Nathan Drake’s attempt to locate the final resting place of his ancestor Sir Francis Drake who was buried at sea. Interestingly enough Sir Francis Drake is a legitimate historical English naval captain and privateer who was labelled a pirate by the Spanish. He was actually buried at sea in a metal coffin and that’s where you find yourself in the opening moments of this game, recovering the coffin of Sir Francis Drake. You see Nate has an heirloom ring that allegedly belonged to Sir Francis and it has coordinates to where he was buried. Unfortunately there is no body to be found only a dusty old notebook. To Sully’s elation the notebook seems to give clues to the location of the lost city of El Dorado or the lost city of gold. With gold in their eyes they leave their reporter friend, Elena, behind and head out to find fortune and glory.

The adventure takes them from the coast of Panama to a rusted out U-Boat off the coast of Peru to an ancient monastery in the heart of the Amazon. It turns out El-Dorado isn’t a city at all but a giant gold sarcophagus and at some point in the past the Nazi’s were looking for it as they believed it could be used as a weapon. Think of the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark. During the adventure things are complicated by a competing treasure hunter who has hired a band of mercenaries to ensure he gets to El-Dorado first. To Drake’s horror he see’s Sully murdered in cold blood and Elena kidnapped not to mention he gets shot out of the sky while flying Sully’s plane.

There’s a fair bit of climbing old ruins, platforming, jumping along cliffs and solving interesting puzzles along the way. The story also has enough discovery moments where you unearth new clues to push you forward along the path to finding El-Dorado. It’s all pretty linear and very much on rails so there’s not a whole lot of exploring to be had but it has a near unparalleled cinematic quality and feels epic in its delivery. To be fair there are a ton of hidden collectibles that you can scavenge if you want to go for the trophy. Some you will stumble across without even trying others you are unlikely to find without a guide. As with all of the games in this franchise it is chock full with hours and hours of cut scenes. Normally that would be a knock against any game but with Uncharted’s addictive narrative unfolding I don’t ever recall being burdened by the cut scenes. It was like an interactive movie and it was great.

The game is not without flaws. And seeing that it is ten years old some of those flaws are much more apparent today than when it was originally released. The overall controls for the game are clunky and I remember jumping to my death on more than one occasion when it should have been an easy jump from an edge to a platform. It reminds me of Assassin’s Creed in that aspect but where that was a much more integral part to of Assassin’s Creed gameplay it’s just not as much of an issue in Uncharted. The other major gripe I have is the enemies. You’ll find yourself in a number of staged firefights and enemies tend to keep coming until you pass by an invisible trip wire to turn off re-spawns which is annoying as fuck. The AI logic tied to difficulty levels is also fairly horrible. Enemies just become bullet sponges with perfect aim who do way more damage. But again it’s a decade old so that was sort of par for the course.

Well that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. The game is an epic treasure hunt adventure with some of the most endearing characters in any medium. I wish I had played it back in 2007 as it probably would have blown my mind but regardless it’s a classic. If the numbers at VG Charts are correct and only 6 million PS3 players bought this game and then only 5 million people bought the Re-Master there is still a substantial amount of gamers who have yet to experience this game and this franchise for themselves and I urge you to remedy that as soon as possible. Oh and I tried to avoid any spoilers but just as a tease for anyone who has yet to play it and may be thinking of it... There may just be some zombies in this game too!

If you are interested in reading more you can read my FULL UNCHARTED FRANCHISE memoir right here.

How does it rate...		Other games in that category...
3rd person game	A-	Horizon Zero Dawn, Tomb Raider 2013, Assassins Creed: Black Flag
Open level game	A-	Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Journey, Metro 2033, Dishonored 2
High Adventure game	A	Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, The Last of Us, Rise of the Tomb Raider
Action/adventure game	A	GTA 5, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Infamous Second Son

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If you are curious to see how I have ranked other PS4 games you can see the full list here: https://steemit.com/gaming/@johnquake/current-gen-game-rankings-ps4

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Putting my money where my mouth is here is my personal Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune trophy list: https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/3938-uncharted-drakes-fortune-remastered/Johnquake

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* Note: These ratings are based on my personally rated games as of the time of this posting. Additions and Alterations made after this date will not be reflected in the written review. For anyone wondering why I include a link to my trophy profile the answer is simple enough, it's an easy way to verify how much of the game I have actually played whereas with most reviews it's unclear if the reviewer had only spent a handful of hours on a game they praise or slam.

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The best Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Trophy hunters resource:
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/game/uncharted-drakes-fortunes-ps4/guide/