Manufacturers Description

Taking full advantage of the power of PS3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is developed using proprietary technology that promises to impress players with incredibly realistic characters and lifelike environments. Building on its legacy of extraordinary storytelling, Naughty Dog has created an elaborate plot that will have players guessing at every turn.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, brings players into a world ripe with realism and unexpected juxtapositions. A fallible hero akin to those depicted in pulp-adventure genre films, Nathan Drake brings a humanity and believability never seen before in video gaming, enabled entirely through PS3 technology advancements.

A 400-year-old clue in the coffin of Sir Francis Drake sets a modern-day fortune hunter on an exploration for the fabled treasure of El Dorado, leading to the discovery of a forgotten island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The search turns deadly when Nathan Drake becomes stranded on the island and hunted by mercenaries. Outnumbered and outgunned, Drake and his companions must fight to survive as they begin to unravel the terrible secrets hidden on the Island.

Features:

• Using maps and ancient artifacts, uncover clues and unravel mysteries to find a forgotten island and a treasure that was thought to have never existed
• Explore exotic locations. Traverse through living jungles and spectacular 400-year-old ruins.
• Drake's companions and allies play an important role in the adventure through cooperative mechanics, gun play and exploration.
• Experience fast-paced gunplay: use a variety of environmental elements for cover, shoot enemies off of moving vehicles in high speed chases and more.
• Use an array of hand-to-hand fighting moves to put your enemy off balance. Anything from wild haymaker punches to running drop-kicks.
• Naughty Dog's advanced animation techniques allow Nathan to switch seamlessly between movements and achieve a whole new level of believability in gameplay. Nathan can reload his weapon while dodging bullets and find cover behind a wall, all in one smooth natural motion.
• Characters express lifelike emotion using gesture and facial expression through the use of Naughty Dog's proprietary Wrinkle Mapping Facial Animation system.
• High-definition range lighting delivers full floating point color calculations yielding an unequaled level of realism and detail.
• Hyper realistic water through physics based Wave Simulation paired with cutting edge Refraction/Reflection rendering techniques.
• Utilizing next generation rendering techniques such as Bump Mapping, Parallax Mapping, Blend Shaders, Global Illumination, Runtime Shadows and Real Time Shadows, Naughty Dog has created a vibrant living environment.

GameDaily Review: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - PS3
by Chris Buffa on Friday, November 16, 2007

Sony's known for great first party games, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is no exception. Developed by Naughty Dog, creators of the Jak and Daxter franchise, this PlayStation 3 tour de force takes you on a thrilling journey through a tropical paradise as you, adventurer Nathan Drake, attempt to uncover the lost treasure of El Dorado. Plenty of shenanigans ensue, with you dashing through a lush jungle and ancient ruins, fending off pirates and jumping over a waterfall, all the while enjoying a phenomenal cinematic experience.

Uncharted is a third person adventure that borrows elements from Tomb Raider and fuses them with good old fashioned over-the-shoulder gunplay. Throughout the course of your journey, you'll navigate past the aforementioned waterfall, climb ledges, hit switches to solve puzzles and ascend mountains. When the action heats up, you'll whip out your pistol (or AK-47), shotgun, grenades and a host of other weapons) and engage slimy pirates in thrilling gun battles. As is the trend these days, like in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, you'll need to take cover to survive, so much of the fighting entails peeking behind objects, popping off a few shots and then hiding until the enemies empty their clips or seek refuge. Just watch out for grenades, as bad guys have a nasty habit of chucking them continuously.

To read the full Uncharted: Drake's Fortune review go to GameDaily


Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Game Play

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune has the player controlling Nathan Drake in a mix of 3D platform game and a third-person shooter gameplay elements. The platforming elements are similar to games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or Tomb Raider: Legend, allowing Nathan to jump, swim, grab and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and other similar acrobatic actions to make his way along the ruins on the various islands that he explores. When facing enemies, the player can use melee and combo attacks at close range to take out foes, or can opt to use weapons. Nathan can only carry one pistol with/without one rifle at a time as well as a limited amount of ammo per gun (each gun has its own max spare ammo) and grenades, but can swap either weapon out with any other weapon of the same type on the ground (i.e., a Moss-12 Shotgun for a AK-47, or a 9mm pistol for a fully-automatic pistol). The third-person shooter elements are similar to kill.switch and Gears of War, where the player can have Nathan take cover behind walls, and use either blind-fire or covered fire to take out foes, and more so to Gears of War, due to the lack of an actual health bar and cover essential to success..... More info at Wikipedia.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune".