User blog:TyrantRex/TyrantRex's thoughts on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Note: This isn't a proper review, but rather my thoughts and opinions on the game!

I recommend listening to this while reading this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTo7nwpsuZg

Background
Naughty Dog, Naughty Dog, Naughty Dog... Crash Bandicoot is my favorite PS1 series, Jak & Daxter is my favorite PS2 series, so what about Naughty Dog's PS3 series Uncharted? I've never played them before for two big reasons: But then my brother came to visit for a few weeks and brought his PS4 along with his copy of the Uncharted Collection and SOMEHOW convinced me to give at least the first game a chance.
 * 1) My brother picked an Xbox 360 over a PS3, which means I couldn't check the Ratchet & Clank Future games either... seriously why aren't they on PSN either???
 * 2) I don't like shooters. And I'm not a fan of realistic games. And... Uncharted is a shooter with realistic graphics.

The Game
First off, why am I not a big fan of realistic games? I've felt that realistic games have less creative visuals because they're forced to stick with well, realism. Usually they have less color or variety, many of them seem to have the same ugly murky color palettes of washed out greys and browns... ugh that's not asthetically pleasing at all.

...that being said, Uncharted completely surprised me. The colors vibrant, nothing looks ugly or washed out, there's a surprising amount of creativity in the visuals here, and despite the early PS3 graphics being more noticeable due to the game being upscaled to PS4, it's still a very eye pleasing game to look at. The only exception is the later parts when you're underground and everything looks grey, but I can accept that because it's the point, contrasting the earlier brighter parts of the game with the claustrophobic later parts. One thing I find kinda funny is that the ocean water is a very cartoonish blue, almost looks like pool water rather than ocean water.

Interestingly, I got a surprising amount of Jak & Daxter vibes from the setting, exploring the ruins of an ancient civilization trying to find out why they disappeared and discover their lost treasures? It's very reminiscent of exploring Precursor ruins eventually going underground to find the truth behind their disappearance in the Jak games. It probably was a coincidence, but still worth nothing. Nathan Drake is a surprisingly likeable character too, kind of like Jak from the first game only able to speak.

When it comes to the gameplay I'd say there's three types: platforming, puzzles, and shooting. I'll say it took me a bit to get used to the controls, mainly how pathetic Nate's jump is, I'm used to more acrobatic characters that can make really long jumps. But then I remembered that Nate is an ordinary human and the controls are supposed to feel like a normal person, once I adjusted to that it was no longer a problem. The platforming itself is quite good, given that Nate is a normal person it's focused more on climbing than making jumps, they get plenty of use of climbing to cross obstacles and get around tricky places. This are easily my favorite parts of the game and luckily there's plenty of them. There aren't that many puzzles and they aren't very complicated, but still fun to solve and a good change of pace. I like how Nate keeps using the journal to figure out how to solve puzzles. There were a few chase sequences where you run towards the camera, totally not a Crash Bandicoot callback.

AND.THEN.THERE'S.THE.SHOOTING. I don't like it. It's frustrating, I can barely hit anything, can hardly move without getting showered by bullets, takes forever to get through waves, constantly run out of ammo, I never know where I'm getting shot from, the list goes on. By the half way point every time I ran into a shooting section my reaction was a frustrated "UGH... again?!"

Why do I dislike shooters in general? Basically, I had an eye surgery that didn't exactly go well, now I have a VERY hard time seeing anything anything from a distance and I can't recognize small objects especially when they're moving. Wearing glasses doesn't help much either. And shooters well... the aiming reticle is always a small icon on screen and enemies are always small moving objects hidden at a long distance... want to guess I struggle with them? Accurate aiming is basically impossible for me (don't even try to ask me to play darts, that's a hazard). And honestly, even if I could play shooters normally, I don't really see the appeal in shooting.

Doom 2016 is the only shooter I could play with no problem, and that's because it is specifically designed around close range combat, accurate aiming is NEVER required in that game since the enemies are always in right front of your face, instead the combat is more about maneuvering around enemies to dodge their attacks, using weapons to weaken them, then finishing them off with a melee attack when they're stunned. Uncharted's shooting on the other hand is based around long-range combat and hiding behind cover, trying to get closer to the enemies so I could have ANY chance to hit them got me killed most of the time.

I'll be fair here, this isn't a complaint against Uncharted, it's a me problem from not liking shooters, and despite that I still made it through to the end of the game. And putting the shooting aside, everything else the game does is really good.

So yeah, Uncharted was a pleasant surprise shootingnotwisthanding. Will I check the other ones? Ehh... no, but it was good to give the series a chance.