Great game. Easily replayable. (spoilers)

User Rating: 9 | Uncharted: Drake's Fortune PS3
I picked Drake's Fortune up for twenty five bucks, and when I saw Uncharted 2 for twenty, I got a little iffy, but I went through with it anyway. Boy, am I glad I did. As soon as I went through that first mission, shooting at speed boats and punching guys over the railing, I knew I had made the right choice.


Combat: It is AWESOME. Mixing up firepower with your fists is great, allowing you to shoot one enemy from afar, then pumble the guy who is creeping up on you from the side. The weapon's aren't of that much variety, though, and you'll go through an entire combat mission with only four gun choices. That's not a lot. And it seems kind of ridiculous to have four pistols, and only five other weapons. I believe that in single player, Drake's Fortune is better than Drake's Deception, but Drake's Deception has more weapon variety.


Graphics: Man, they are gorgeous. From the trailer that I watched, it really didn't look like they were that good. But boy I was wrong. The jungles look realistic, and Nate actually gets wet when he jumps into water. That just isn't something that you see in games anymore. The game allows plenty of time for the graphics to shine, having you outside most of the time instead of walking through tight corridors. Now, that's not to say that you won't be doing some claustrophobic tomb raiding.


Story: Excellent. Great dialogue mixes with an intriguing tale that will leave you feeling great once the story is done. The characters feel very realistic, and you'll find yourself laughing at some of their back and forth arguments. I wasn't a huge fan of the zombie Spaniards that you encountered near the end, but it was kind of nice to have a little I Am Legend/Resident Evil flare to the constant archaeological gameplay. Navigating the zombie infested corridors was actually pretty scary. You never know when one of those...things will jump out and scare the crap out of you, and that has its own thrilling charm. Having the El Darado statue bare a curse and have that zombie/mummy thing inside was cool, but it was a little disappointing for me to have an archaeological game became an archaeological/sci-fi game. The puzzles were actually pretty good, but they were a little easy. There weren't a ton of them, and it feels really good to move that one last statue and see that secret passage open out of nowhere.


Replay value: The early combat missions are easily replayable, especially the ones in the forest, but I didn't find much interest in thr later ones. I didn't really like the fact that the story had to take such a dark turn over the second half of the game, but that might appeal to other people who are fans of the scary, creepy kind of stuff, i.e. Deadrising, Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil, etc.


Overall: Uncharted Drake's Fortune in a great game that combines combat, puzzles, and amazing cutscenes in a really fantastic way. While it has no online modes(which will be disappointing to some people), Drake's Fortune will not disappoint anyone craving a good adventure.