Breathtaking scenery and some of the best visuals I've seen on a handheld with more great Uncharted style gameplay.
Uncharted Golden Abyss was a great launch title for the Vita because it showboats the Vita's graphical capabilities and it's a very fun and playable game and has some good touch screen elements for gameplay.
Speaking in terms of technical/realistic graphics,Uncharted Golden Abyss is one of the best or perhaps the best looking portable console game to date.It's not just the fact the waterfalls and jungle vegetation in the game look realistic,but the waterfalls also look breathtaking and so does the jungle scenery when you see it down below you from when you're on top of a mountain.Also,combine the beautiful views of the jungle scenery that you see below you with a sunset above and it creates a nice artistic effect and you'll also see streams of flowing water when you're inside the jungle and the jungle atmosphere is beautiful but I'll talk more about the graphics/environments later.
From a gameplay perspective,the shooting and cover mechanics work very well with the Vita's D-Pad and buttons and feel comfortable to use.I like how I can perform stealth kills on enemies by simply tapping on them when I'm a certain distance from them and it makes the process of stealth kills feel more smooth but if you want you can still perform stealth kills the old fashioned way by walking up close behind enemies and pressing the square button if you want.It's the same with platforming,you can tap on the platform you want Drake to jump onto and he'll complete the jump without the risk of dying from overstepping or jumping too early but you can perform a jump the old way if you wish.It's the same when you're clinging to handholds on ledges,you can tap on the handholds you want Drake to jump onto or you can perform them yourself.
Sometimes handholds will collapse and you'll need to press up an upwards motion on the touch screen.There is times you'll need to perform touchscreen motions for melee combat and puzzles but this is where the touch screen controls can become problematic.Sometimes the game doesn't detect my touchscreen inputs even if I performed it exactly how the game told me to and it can cause me to fall to my death or allows enemies to get cheap shots on me.It's especially frustrating during boss fights in which you lose if you get hit a certain number of times or if you fail at touch one touch screen command and the game doesn't detect your touch screen input and you die and have to do a long sequence again.
The puzzles that involve using the touch screen to rub the treasures clean or to rub charcoal markings on paper seem cool at first but it comes monotonous when you have to do it over and over again and it feels like the designers tried to force the touch screen functions for puzzles upon you too much.Also,even though Drake has a journey which has information about all the puzzles,sometimes the information in the journal isn't very helpful for the puzzle and you'll need to use a guide.
Nevertheless,the game is still very fun and it has some of the most fun cover shooting I've experienced and there's a nice mix of platforming,climbing,stealth,searching for treasures and the mechanics for the cover shooting and stealth feel quite smooth.
For people who haven't played an Uncharted game before,I want them to know part of the fun of the Uncharted series isn't just surviving the adventure but some of the fun comes from searching for treasures that are hidden in the environments.
The game has no multiplayer but I don't like playing multiplayer games so it doesn't worry me.
The story for the game is set before the events of the first Uncharted game.The characters all have personality and the story combines historical events with fiction quite well and I found some of the historical information in the game's story to be quite interesting.Some of the characters have interesting backstories and the main plot has some good twists.I don't want to spoil the story for you but I'll say the story is an interesting one and
MINOR SPOILER
the story has a bit of romance
END OF MINOR SPOILER
I've mentioned about the graphics already,and I'll also add the environments have nice temples and nice use of CGI's that show good amount of detail for the character's skin tone,clothing and for the environments.
The music is surprisingly beautiful at times and you'll hear a choir-like hymn at times and sometimes the music changes to match the fast-paced action and it does well to do that.
The voice acting is quite good but sometimes the dialogue makes conversations sound a bit fake but it only happens a little bit,for the most part the script writing is good,especially for tense moments,for when certain characters flirt etc.
Overall,this game is easy to recommend since it's a very playable game with entertaining characters,decent story and takes advantage of the Vita's graphical capabilities to create realistic/breath taking environments.