Treasure and curse

by ERIK LEIJON

Few games in 2007 were as exhilarating and as frustrating as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3, SCEA, Naughty Dog). As a third-person action-platformer, the house that Crash Bandicoot built has created not only the most lush and beautiful environments of any game this year, but the storyline—not much different from a typical episode of Relic Hunter—is enough to keep you enthralled after the initial thrill of witnessing the graphics wears off. Conversely, the gameplay is woefully archaic and repetitive by comparison.

Protagonist Nathan Drake, a cross between Indiana Jones and a Cirque du Soleil performer, risks life and limb searching for the treasure of El Dorado. The levels are a mix of tropical island and ancient ruins, with Drake making death-defying jumps across chasms, climbing vines, hanging from ledges and tightrope walking across logs. The scenes that predominantly feature mystifying acrobatics perfectly fit the action-packed storyline, and look incredible, in no small part due to Drake’s lifelike animations. This is the best looking game on the Playstation 3 thus far.

What nearly submerges this title are the gun battles and close-quartered combat with an army of faceless pirates. In the fight scenes, the enemies are too numerous and seem to be arriving from all directions. These segments don’t feel as movie-like as the rest of the scenes; all Drake can do is sit behind some cover and pick off dozens of these enemies one-by-one. It’s impossible to play stealthfully and avoid these fights, and for some unknown reason, it takes at least five shots to kill one of them if you miss the initial headshot. Once shot, instead of slowing down, the enemies run around at even greater speeds, unaffected by the wounds. Drake can also land punches if the pirates get close, although he rarely has to since there is always more than one gun-toting low-life on the screen. The gun battles are long, the AI usually repeats the same sidestep dodge and overall it pales in comparison to the platforming sections.

I loved looking at this game, and enjoyed searching the closed environments for treasure, but I would roll my eyes every time I heard gunfire. It’s still a good game and the story mode and production values are befitting of a Hollywood blockbuster.

More stealth please

I mentioned Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Multi/Activision, Infinity Ward) a few weeks back, and sadly my overall impressions of the game haven’t changed since. First, any game that features regenerating enemies smacks of laziness. Notice how if you sit back the Ruskies/terrorists just keep coming, but if you aggressively move forward, the enemies behind you disappear. I doubt “out of sight, out of mind” is an approved combat technique for the Marines.

In the “One Shot, One Kill” mission, as well as the “Heat” mission afterwards, the only way to succeed is to run away from the combat, since you’re both outnumbered and surrounded. It seems like a complete waste to present these massive action-packed scenes with dozens of enemies and the only appropriate action is to run. Too often the game becomes simply about running from checkpoint to checkpoint. Call of Duty 4 looks incredible, and the Chernobyl stealth mission suggests how immersive and tense this game can be, but the arcade-style terrorist chasing levels did not resonate as much.

For a game that prides itself on perfectly capturing the war-is-hell feeling, I felt very detached when the missions degenerated into mindless shooting, especially when the only way to separate friend from foe (since they look almost identical) is that my buddies have name tags.