Developer - Naughty Dog
Publisher - Sony Computer Entertainment
Release date - November 19, 2007 (NA) and December 6, 2007 (Worldwide)
Genre - Action/Adventure
Mode - Single Player
ESRB Rating - TEEN for Blood, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Use of Tobacco and Alchohol, and Violence
Platform - PlayStation 3
Playable Demo - Available NOW on PSN
Games Asylum 10/10
GamerNL 10/10
GamerTV 10/10
PLAY 10/10
Game Chronicles 9.8/10
Game Vortex 9.8/10
Cheat Codes Central 9.6/10
Extreme Gamer 9.5/10
LoadingReality 9.5/10
Loot Ninja 9.5/10
PS3Fanboy 9.5/10
Tripletags 9.5/10
PCN 9.5/10
Ripten 9.4/10
PS3Advanced 9.3/10
Gamer 2.0 9.2/10
GamingNexus 9.1/10
IGN 9.1/10
Computer and Video Games 9/10
Da GameBoyz 9/10
Deeko 9/10
EUROGAMER 9/10
Famitsu 36/40
GameDaily 9/10
GameRevolution 9/10
GamerNode 9/10
GamerTM 9/10
Gamespy 9/10
Gamezone 9/10
Gaming Age 9/10
GameTap 9/10
Lawrence 9/10
Palgn 9/10
PlayStation Official Magazine UK 9/10
Project Tideas 9/10
PS3 Informer 9/10
PSU 9/10
PSXExtreme 9/10
Sydney Morning Herald 9/10
UGO 9/10
YahooGames 9/10
Videogameplayerz 9/10
Gametrailers 8.9/10
IGN AU 8.9/10
Vandal.net 8.9/10
TGR 8.8/10
DailyGame 8.8/10
Gameinformer 8.75
Electronic Gaming Monthly 8.5/10
GamePro 8.5/10
1UP 8.5/10
TotalPlayStation 8.5/10
Edge Magazine 8/10
GamesRadar 8/10
Videogamer 8/10
HonestGamers 8/10
Banspot 8/10
X-Play 8/10
Average: 90.24%
Latest Trailer - Click here
Storyline
A 400-year-old clue in the coffin of Sir Francis Drake sets a modern-day fortune hunter on an exploration for the fabled treasure of El Dorado, leading to the discovery of a forgotten island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The search turns deadly when Nathan Drake becomes stranded on the island and hunted by mercenaries. Outnumbered and outgunned, Drake and his companions must fight to survive as they begin to unravel the terrible secrets hidden on the Island.
Uncharted Alternate Reality Game (ARG)
http://www.sullivansstories.com/
Follow the clues and see where it leads you!
Main Characters
Nathan Drake - Believes himself to be an illegitimate descendent of the explorer, whose grave site supposedly holds a map to the fabled lost city of El Dorado. Played by actor Nolan North.
Elena Fisher - A documentary filmmaker for a cable-access show. Played by actress Emily Rose.
Supporting Cast
Robin Atkin Downes as "Navarro"
Ron Yuan as "The Pirate"
Richard McGonagle as "Victor Sullivan"
Game Features
- Using maps and ancient artifacts, the player must uncover clues and unravel mysteries to find a forgotten island and a treasure that was thought to have never existed.
- The game is set in South America, in various tropical locations, with living jungles and 400-year-old ruins.
- Drake's companions and allies play an important role through cooperative mechanics, gun play and exploration.
- Many environmental elements can be used for cover.
- Vehicles, controlled by the player or a companion.
- Hand-to-hand combat. Anything from wild haymaker punches to running drop-kicks.
- An in-house developed next-gen engine featuring high dynamic range lighting, Bump Mapping, Parallax Mapping, Blend Shaders, Global Illumination, Runtime Shadows and Real Time Shadows.
- Naughty Dog's proprietary Wrinkle Mapping Facial Animation system gives the characters lifelike gestures and facial expressions.
- Wave Simulation for realistic water (ocean, rivers, waterfalls) with Refraction and Reflection rendering techniques.
- Will sport a host of Achievements that might include the Trophy system that will be appearing in the upcoming Home project by Sony.
Trivia
- Soundtrack is composed by Greg Edmonson, creator of the outstanding "Firefly" score.
- Main character Nathan Drake shares his first name with Sergeant Nathan Hale, the main character in Insomniac Games's Resistance: Fall of Man. Insomniac and Naughty Dog are closely associated and often refer to each other's games. The same first name is, in this case, merely a coincidence.
- In the trailer shown on Gamers' Day '07, the scuba gear worn by Nathan and his companion shows the fictional logo "Ottsel". This is a reference to Daxter from Jak and Daxter, whose character transforms into a fictional species called an "Ottsel" (Half Otter/Weasel).
- The jungle environments, temple settings, and ledge jumping led the game to be nicknamed "Dude Raider" & "Man Croft" early in the development process. This is a direct reference to the game's similarities to **** Raider.
- Naughty Dog's lead designer on the game, Richard Lemarchand, confirmed that Uncharted will have no crate puzzles to solve.
- Is the first Naughty Dog Game on the PlayStation 3.
- Co-creator Amy Hennig was the lead director for the critically acclaimed Legacy of **** series. Also, Simon Templeman, the voice actor of Legacy of ****'s lead character, ****, provides the voice for one of the main characters in Uncharted. Additionally, Gordon Hunt, the voice director for the Legacy of **** series, directs the mo-cap and voiceover sessions for Uncharted.
- Nathan Drake's holster and belt buckle sport 'ND' motifs, purposefully sharing his initials with the developer Naughty Dog.
- Nathan Drake takes his name from world-famous English explorer Sir Francis Drake whom he is said to be related to and the story revolves heavily around.
Inside the Developer's Studio: Evan Wells & Richard Lemarchand
1. What game do you have at E3 this year?
EW: Naughty Dog will be showing off our new PlayStation 3 game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.
2. Describe it in five words or less.
EW: Modern day, pulp action/adventure.
3. Tell us more about your game. What’s the story?
RL: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a new character-action game for the PlayStation 3 from the insanely talented videogame makers here at Naughty Dog, creators of Jak and Daxter. It has a mature, realistic, slightly stylized look, and is set in a world that reinvents the classic action-adventure genre of games and movies.
The game is a blend of problem-solving traversal, great cover-based gun combat, hand-to-hand brawling and puzzles, and is huge leap forward for us in terms of what we’ve been able to accomplish in a storytelling action game.
The story centers on Nathan Drake, a fortune hunter and occasional con man, and his quest to uncover the mystery of a family legend linking him with the famous English explorer and pirate Sir Francis Drake.
Hooking up with a young cable history show presenter called Elena Fisher, Drake finds himself stranded on a mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean, battling present-day pirates and dark, unseen forces in a hunt for the mythical treasure of El Dorado.
4. What did you do on this game that you couldn’t do on another platform?
RL: There are so many things that we can do on the PlayStation 3 that simply aren’t possible on any other game system, but probably the biggest thing to mention is our animation system. In a realistic game like ours, it’s a massive challenge to create a character that is incredibly responsive but whose moves still look perfectly smooth and seamless, and so the animation system was one of the first things we started work on at the beginning of the project.
We’ve created a huge number of animations for Nathan Drake that we combined together on the fly using our blending system, so that Drake responds immediately to what the player does with the controls. That’s really important in a triple-A character-action game, where an ‘on the button’ feel is essential. But even more radically, we’ve built a very innovative layered-animation system, which is what gives our hero a staggeringly believable look.
At any given time there might be up to fifteen layered animations playing back in the game at once, so that Drake can be coming out of cover, reloading his weapon, stumbling on a rock, grimacing with exertion and flinching away from incoming gunfire, all at once. When you see him in action in gameplay it’s almost hard to believe that he’s a videogame character, and it’s the unique processing architecture and power of the PlayStation 3 that gives us the ability to pull this off.
5. What do you think is the coolest aspect of this game?
RL: I think that the coolest thing about Uncharted is also one of the things that make it unique. When we made Jak and Daxter we really wanted to push the bounds of what’s possible in an action game that tells an excellent story, and to find new ways of bringing great gameplay and terrific storytelling closer and closer together.
We feel like we achieved a lot with the Jak series in that regard, but we knew that we could do even more if we kept pushing ourselves. So it’s the new ways that we’re combining play elements from platform games, shooters and puzzle games - all the while spinning an enthralling character-driven tale - that makes Uncharted stand out.
The quality of the writing and acting in Uncharted is something special for games – I guess we’re always trying to raise that bar as high as we can. We’re doing more with in-game story sequences than we’ve ever done before and have figured out some techniques to embed concepts from the story in the puzzles and the rest of the game world that we’re very excited about.
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a realistic game with more mature themes than previous Naughty Dog games - we’ve done some growing up and we know that the gamers who play our games have too. That said, our main focus is still on getting as much pure fun out of the hardware as we possibly can!
6. When is it being released?
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune will ship this holiday season.
7. If you could sit one person in front of your game for an hour, who would it be?
EW: Daxter. So he could see what we’ve been up to lately.
8. What game do you most want an hour to sit in front of yourself (besides your own)?
EW: Little Big Planet
9. Describe the pre-2007 E3 experience in five words or less.
EW: Hectic as always.
10. Most overused phrase or expression during E3 season
EW: Pixar quality graphics.
11. You are asked to make suggestions for an E3 survival kit- what three items HAVE to be included?
EW: Based on E3’s from the past I would have said earplugs, comfortable shoes and a cell phone set to vibrate. This year things should have changed substantially, but I doubt you could go wrong with comfortable shoes.
12. What advice would you have for someone who has never experienced E3?
EW: With the new format, I feel like E3 is going to be a brand new experience for me too, so I’m looking to receive some advice instead of giving it.
13. Describe what you anticipate from 2007’s newly formatted E3 in five words or less.
EW: I’m managing my expectations.
14. What’s your favorite part about developing games for a living?
RL: Wow, where do I start? Game design is a great profession, and every day presents incredible opportunities for fun, engaging work that’s both creative and technical. I’d recommend game design – or any kind of game development career – to anyone smart and artistic who’s passionate about videogames.
I love media; games, movies, books, music, comics, art, and the web are all just pure brain food to me. I see games as a super-medium that can incorporate and eventually exceed every kind of creative human endeavor that has come before them – perhaps most importantly because they’re interactive.
That immense possibility for self-expression, communication and creation is what keeps me jumping out of bed each morning and racing into the office to see what challenges the day holds! So maybe my favorite thing about making games for a living is all the stuff we haven’t done yet! I just can’t wait to see what amazing things – like Uncharted - the future of videogames will bring…
Uncharted Official Site
IMDB Listing
I hope this appeases the masses.
