Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Comments by Kristan Reed

I actually read this review first instead of skipping to the score and it read like a 10. Good read BTW. Pretty unexpected to be honest, I was expecting a solid but not great game. Glad I've ordered it now especially considering most of my Most Wanted have turned out turkeys.

Played the demo on Sunday and it's lush.

There is a bit of tearing during some of the camera moves, but there also a beautiful cinematic affect applied to the gfx when you turn the camera quickly. Kinda like motion blur but very subtle.

However it was the DTS surround mix that blew me away. The music is quite beautiful but the in game sound really adds to the atmosphere.

I'm glad the full game looks like it is going to live up the the demo after the Heavenly Sword/Lair debacles.

Now I need to crack on and finish COD4.

"The demo was great but technically I didn't think it showed anything that couldn't be done on the 360."

It's always risky saying that this or that game couldn't be done on 360, because hopefully we haven't yet seen the best that that system has to offer. Down the line it may well offer something with as impressive technical chops, or better. So you're always going out on a bit of a limb when you say something like that..particularly when it's a first or second gen PS3 game you're referring to.

That said, it is easier to say that it's not yet matched on 360.

"By focusing on keeping things fun"

"a linear action game"



Well that's an oxymoron.

I kid, I kid. ;) Or do I?

I wasn't expecting a nine... The videos have looked a little ropey IMO.

Good for the PS3 though. Hopefully this will shut up the naysayers now and the system can start to prove itself.

Good work ND, back on form after a couple of dissapointing Jak games.

I love it when people argue with a reviewer's OPINIONS, especially when they've not played the game themselves.

Nice review though krudster, with the stupid amount of great games out this christmas I was gonna let this one slip past me. But now I think I'll drop assasins creed.

I'm so glad the PS3 has a game I want to buy. Who's touched their PS3 since buying it? I played motorstorm and resistance for about 5 minutes each and thats it.

Of course, it's all blind speculation to say this or that couldn't be done on another system, but I did say it "makes me wonder" rather than a statement of fact. I await a 360 game to appear that looks as good as this, basically. They just upped the ante.

Personally playing something like Motorstorm makes me think "I wonder if the 360 could do this?" and then I'll play PGR4 and - whilst accepting the game mechanics are quite different - PGR4 will also prove the 360's graphical fidelty can still "wow" me.

Anyhow - Uncharted - 1080p or not? The demo ran in 720p on my machine.

Good news the rest of the game holds up to the demo's promising start.

Hopefully this will get some bundle love for xmas.
Ratchet and Drake's would make an amazing pack-in.

Also, my Xmas list of games is growing. I was looking forward to shutting myself away with Mario and The Orange Box next month. Now there's this to consider too. And possibly Ratchet. And Metroid Prime 3. And I'm only starting to scratch the surface with PGR4.

And I haven't finished Bioshock yet!

I did finish Halo 3.

\does special spartan dance

peterfll: Don't buy Metroid Prime at the same time as Ratchet n Clank. Big mistake... for MP.

I appreciate that Kristan really digs the game and that's fine, but I'd still encourage you all to grab the demo before parting with any money. I have a lot of respect for the Naughty Dog pedigree but I personally was very disappointed with the Uncharted demo.

For one thing, the v-sync tearing problems that plagued Jak 2 and Jak 3 is back. The characters appear to be instantly despisable, as well suffering a bit of "uncanny valley" syndrome. The gunplay seemed deeply unsatisfying too - a tiny little reticle, the auto-aim not really forgiving enough, and taking far too much bullets to bring down even the first few enemies you encounter. The platforming elements seem to work well enough, but the lush foilage looks like garish green walls rather than dense jungle, and the whole thing feels like a sub-par corridor shooter with some thin platform elements tacked on. Lastly, the tilt-sensor shit for balancing when crossing narrow beams etc is utter shit, and there was no option to turn it off.

I'm just speaking about the demo. I haven't played the final version of the game yet, so I can't really disagree with the review but as I say, play the demo for yourselves and decide whether the game deserves your hard-earned.

Uncharted is in 720p with 1080i support.

Oh god if I could get a discount on R&C when i'm buying UDF i'll dance the streets naked. o_O

Great stuff, I'll be picking this up for sure, and it will join Folklore and EoJ in my growing collection of PS3 gems.

Steroyd

"zero loading times in the whole game like the demo? I found that absolutely amazing that they weren't even hidden in the cutscenes ala Heavenly Sword, I want to know where and when the game is loading all this stuff? Damn Naughty Dog and their technical wizardry."

Answer

The cutscenes are all prerendered using the game engine (so you can not tell the difference graphically) - allowing it to load in the data while playing them.

Here's the link to the article that Naughty Dog mention this...
http://www.psu.com/PSU-talks-Uncharted-w...

disc - can you elaborate? Would be good info for purchasing considerations.....

Kiigan: agree the environments look a little hyper-realistic, I believe this was a conscious design decision by ND. Agree with your comment on despicable characters; interesting isn't it? I just accept these things without question. I wonder if you can shoot the annoying bird side-kick?

The only game that makes me want a PS3.....

Still not buying one tho!

"Uncharted is the first game I've seen to date that makes me wonder if it could be done on the Xbox 360"

answer = yes

"Uncharted is in 720p with 1080i support. "

Yeah I wondered about that remark on "1080p glory" - unless you've got a very large screen and you'e sitting close to it most people aren't able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, especially as most HDTVs don't actually render either resolution and scale the image anyway.

"Uncharted is in 720p with 1080i support. "

So it was just more fanboi fodder. Tsk!

The review reads like a 10.

I cant wait for Dec 7!

@frod

Maybe, but there are better games out where you dont have to trawl through hours of dullness to get to some good stuff. Kristan memntioned it in the review as well.

People say ICO etc are too short, but I'd much rather an 8 hour constantly great experience to a 20 hour game that has really dull bits between the good. Resistance especially was really dull.

(an Xbox fan)

Read the Halo 3 review.
Read this review.
Be surprised at the numbers at the end of the reviews.

Anybody who owns all three consoles will be bankrupted this winter.

Confirmed.

All I'll say regarding the demo is that my first impressions of the game were broadly in line with everything Kiigan is saying. But that just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be, because halfway through the game I couldn't believe how much my opinion of the game had evolved, from mildly impressed but with serious reservations to realising it was one of the best of the year thanks to one 'wow' moment after the other.

Sounds good, but seems more fitting to rent at that length. =/

This is the game I've been waiting for.

Interestingly, Naughty Dog claim they only used around 30% of the consoles graphical power:

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager....

Makes you wonder how their games by the end of the PS3 life cycle will look like...

Great review. I was almost anticipating a 10 by the end of it. :)

This is the first PS3 game that actually makes me feel like I want a PS3 in order to actually play something, rather than just the usual "ooh, shiny toy" compulsion I get from time to time.

The cutscenes are all prerendered using the game engine (so you can not tell the difference graphically) - allowing it to load in the data while playing them.

But why no loading screen pops up when I click on skip cutscene? Like I said it doesn't do it like Heavenly Sword.

SeeThroughAll
'Anybody who owns all three consoles will be bankrupted this winter.

Confirmed. '

We need to set up a self help group for multi platform owners who have problems not getting 'must haves' for ALL the platforms.

Sometimes getting urges to get the game on day of release even though you still not finished MP3, Eternal Sonata or whatever!

Too much of a good thing, soooo many good games!

Heeeelllllp!!!

/Ponders if bank robbing would help to fund my gaming lifestyle

Maybe it just manages the HDD cache more efficiently.

But, thinking about it, when has Naughty Dog ever let us down?

I'd have to say Jak II.

LOL all i want to say to the Xbots out there... is to shut up talking shit, put one finger up the ass, smell it, get real..., go out and buy it.

Great game, i knew it.

quote from the reviewer "Uncharted is the first game I've seen to date that makes me wonder if it could be done on the Xbox 360, and as a huge admirer of the software line-up on Microsoft's system, that's saying a lot

** 30% SPU use

Almost the same info on the article I linked above


PSU: The core engine for Drake's Fortune was built from the ground up. How does the engine itself come to utilize and take advantage of the PlayStation 3's core architecture and features?

Balestra: The main thing about the PlayStation 3 is the Cell processor and more specifically the SPU's. We are only using 30 percent of the power of the SPU's in Uncharted. We've been architecting a lot of our systems around this and we were able to take full advantage of that power. A big part of our systems is running on SPU's: scene bucketing, particles, physics, collision, animation, water simulation, mesh processing, path finding, etc. For our engine, the cool thing about having the SPU's is the fact we can minimize what we send to the RSX (the graphic chip), it allows us to reject unnecessary information and get the RSX to be very efficient.

If it is 720p with 1080i how do you get it to display in 1080i? I have a 1080p display, so it natively supports 1080i, but the PS3 switched to 720p for the demo.

I apologise profusely for potentially lighting the touchpaper again on this topic but yes, on a 46" Bravia set, you can see a difference between 720 and 1080.

If it is 720p with 1080i how do you get it to display in 1080i? I have a 1080p display, so it natively supports 1080i, but the PS3 switched to 720p for the demo.

I'm not an expert, but some people say it's a - still unfixed - firmware glitch and the workaround is to force 1080p from the XMB, disabling any lower resolutions.

krudster said:

"But that just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be"

Well that's fair enough, and it wouldn't be the first decent game to suffer a lacklustre demo. Certainly in the case of Uncharted, the demo did the game no favours at all. I was wondering what changed your view on the gunplay though - did you just learn to forgive the fussy aiming system, or did it improve somehow in the full version of the game? Shooting seems to be such a central part of the game, I was surprised that it felt so unrefined, unforgiving, and old fashioned.

SeesThroughAll

I agree - perhaps unlike Heavenly Sword - my guess is that it starts to stream data to the HDD near the end of the level for the start of the next level as oppossed to starting only when the film kicks in.

Naughty Dog actually said (for those who can't be bothered to read the article ;)

Talking about movies, I wanted to mention they are pre-render using our engine on the PlayStation 3. The only reason we did this was to eliminate any loading time before or after a movie and make our memory management easier.

Oh i'm definately pre-ordering now, Play.com has it at £32.99!!!

Found an interesting Naughty Dog interview from Jak-era when looking for what they had to say on Drake's development.

Q) What percent of the PS2’s power are you using?
A) People think of systems as glasses and ask: “how full is the glass”. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works. Any developer who gives you a “percent of system used” answer is blowing smoke.

:D

Anyone who has a game that supports a certain resolution but yet the game defaults to another simply needs to change their display settings.

For example: If in COD4 you want 1080p, go to display settings and uncheck 720p and 1080i, leaving 1080p checked - the game will then run at 1080p (unless your TV does not support it, in which case it will go down to the always-selected 576p).

I am assuming this is the same for UC:DF.
Uncheck 720p and 1080p and this will leave 576p and 1080i selected - and the game should run at 1080i.

The PS3 always automatically tries to run at the config best for your TV, if this isn't what you want, you'll need to adjust the settings as above.
it's also a good way to prove if a game can run at a certain resolution.

"Oh i'm definately pre-ordering now, Play.com has it at £32.99!!!"

MovieTyme has the US version for £31.99, and it's out a few weeks earlier. :)

Sounds great.

I *heart* Isla Fisher, btw.

MovieTyme has the US version for £31.99, and it's out a few weeks earlier. :)

Damn you 1up'ing me. *shakes fist*

The box-art for this game is surprisingly good too; it gives me that Indiana Jones vibe and I like it!

Have to say I was expecting to see a 10 at the end of that review. What was the problem? Game length was the only criticism I remember reading about.

Anyway, well done the PS3 for finally having a good game.