Nathan Drakes first adventure is definatly worth playing.
The game starts off near the coast of Panama, then South America and then your led to a forgotten jungle island in the Pacific. You will spend most of the game on this island, fighting enemies and solving riddles and puzzles. This is all strung together by an amazing story that will keep you guessing till the end. You, along with Elena and long time friend Sully work together for much of the portion of the game. You eventually discover that the island was once a Spanish colony that died out because of mysterious reasons. I wont spoil any details but I will say that it all comes down to El Dorado.
The gameplay is divided up between combat, exploring, climbing and solving puzzles. You will do a lot of climbing and jumping. You will be swinging across vines and shimming across cliffs to advance. When combat occurs, you will be doing a lot of shooting in the third person style. Unless, your on the easy difficulty level, a few shots will kill you. Fortunately, there is always some form of cover that you can take and shoot from. When your hit, the screen will start to turn black and white and it gets worse if you continue to get hit. You can heal your health similar to the way Call of Duty does it by simply taking cover and waiting until your health returns to normal. You can only carry one primary weapon, such as an assault rifle or shotgun, and one sidearm along with a batch of grenades. You can take weapons from fallen enemies as well by swapping out your current equipped weapon. Fortunately, the weapons are real world weapons including the AK-47, SAS-12 and the M79 grenade launcher. The controls to move and shoot are not bad at all. But, the game uses the Six-Axis controls a lot and to throw grenades, you hold the grenade button and move the controller up or down to aim. This may sound like a great idea to use motion controls but in the heat of combat, this can be tough and is sometimes, not worth it. Melee combat can happen as well, when your too close to an enemy, you can engage him in hand to hand combat. In most cases, just button mashing the square button will get him but if you wanted to carry out a brutal combo that looks cool, there are button combinations that can do that.
Uncharted has great graphics, despite the fact it came out in 2007 and most PS3 games that came out in 07 dont have great graphics. The water effects look amazing and if you go into the water, Drakes clothes look realistically wet and the clothes slowly dry off as you advance. The jungle environments look spectacular. Old Spanish structures look amazing and detailed as well. Even the sky is worth taking a look at, in the begininng of the game, go out to the front of the U-boat and take a look at the sunset, you will see what I mean. Overall, this is the best graphics of 07.
The sound is amazing. The characters, both the heroes and the villians have great voice actors. Their facial expressions match what they are saying. Great dialogue and a little bit of humor make the heroes of this game very likable. The music is amazing as well, it will be fast-paced when combat occurs. Then when combat ends, it goes back to a smooth pace. When your in certain dark environments, the music will sound mysterious and haunting.
Unfortunately, there are some negatives as well. Sometimes, during combat, Elena will run out in front of you when your in the middle of shooting. The game doesnt allow friendly fire so the bullets will pass right through her but it will still throw off your aim. During cutscenes with Elena, sometimes a portion of her hair will be jagged to the point were it will look like a giant knot. Also, there will be areas that look like you can climb but it wont let you, even though, it looks just as reachable as an area that you have to climb. There are also unfinished textures in certain corners of levels. Most of these issues never bothered me and unless your some kind of perfectionist, it shouldnt be a bother to others as well.
The Good: An 8 to 10 hour long adventure filled with great acting, graphics, music and mystery. A likeable cast. A great story that will have you guessing to the end.
The Bad: Some unfinished textures, no form of multiplayer, six-axis grenade controls can be tough.
Overall: Nathan Drakes first adventure is definitly worth playing if you havent done so already. Even though Uncharted 2 improved on everything that Uncharted 1 had to offer, its still a great game that you shouldnt miss. This game is my 2007 game of the year.