En Gameplayer han puesto 10 cosas que todos deberian saber de Uncharted Drake´s Forune...
10 Things You Need to Know About Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
A Genuine Console Shifter
We’ve all been whinging like spoilt little brats about the lacklustre line-up on Sony’s PlayStation 3, but boy are we starting to eat our words. This console has some seriously epic potential and following on from the promising Heavenly Sword and Warhawk comes Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Uncharted: Drakes Fortune – two games that are mining that potential for impressive gameplay gold. Indeed, we’ve been playing early code of Uncharted and it's… well it’s exceptional. It’s a 'Game of the Year' contender and we though you might be interested in the ten features we’ve witnessed that have us the most excited.
1. Las sombras dan vida a la selva
Uncharted is set in the jungles of a mysterious tropical island and it makes use of top-of-the-line lighting technology – this includes HDR, Runtime Shadows and Real Time Shadows. Given that jungles are famed for their leafy canopies that cause shafts of light to penetrate through in irregular patterns, such technology gains extra importance with such a setting. Thankfully it is brilliantly applied. The jungle floor is awash with the shadows that are cast down from the treetops high above the gaming area.
What is especially noteworthy is the way these shadows dynamically shift with the gameplay. As our hero Nathan Drake walks along paths the shadows from above constantly dance on his clothing, and even move with the wind on nearby boulders, or logs. It’s incredibly immersive. As you would expect, artificial light also casts menacing shadows upon the world, which we experienced while exploring some ruins with a torch tied around Nathan’s neck.
2. El combate cuerpo a cuerpo es impresionante.
Shooters and brawlers don’t have a great history of mixing convincingly in game worlds. Ultimately one or the other feels clumsy. Well no more! Uncharted does an excellent job of seguing the action from running and gunning to brutal knuckle sandwiches seamlessly. Using the face buttons, you can suddenly exchange a flury of kicks and punches that are animated with plenty of attention to detail and as such, feel extremely rewarding. Indeed, we found ourselves trying to get close enough to take down enemies in this fashion, as it was more fun that a bullet to the head.
One of the keys to this combat is how brilliantly the game engine uses the environment. Hand-to-hand combat is context sensitive to your surrounds and incredibly intelligent. We never felt like we were simply unleashing the same combos over and over again, with the impressive animation range allowing Nathan to do some mighty fine tricks on the fly. Two-legged karate kicks over logs, swinging enemies into nearby trees or grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and driving their face with ferocious force into the impassive stone wall of a ancient temple were some of the situations we experienced. It’s frickin’ awesome!
3. Nuestro héroe hace gimnasia.
We’re not sure who is the more responsible, Prince of Persia or God of War, but platforming long since left the platforms behind. Our hero in Uncharted must be built like a brick ****house under that torn and tattered adventure get-up given the way he hauls himself around the world like an expert gymnast. At numerous times during our experience playing the game we found ourselves shuffling along walls gripping tiny ledges by the edge of our finger nails and finding ways up, down and around seemingly impassable obstacles.
Naughty Dog seem to have done a pretty good job making these navigation puzzles feel entwined with the world. One of the early examples sees you making your way over the top of a waterfall by swinging on vines and shuffling around ledges. In this respect, and given the setting, the puzzle solving has a very Tomb Raider feel to it. Doing such acrobatics under enemy fire becomes all the more tricky and should you lose your balance an opportunity is provided to grab on for dear-life and haul yourself back up. This looks extremely convincing.
4. Las animaciones faciales son mejores que las de Heavenly Sword.
The story in Uncharted is very well told. We’ve only seen a taste of the narrative thus far, and it’s delivered by a quality cast who are working off an excellent script. The game appears to be cut-scene heavy, but given the personality imbued into each character and the smart way with which the action is directed it doesn’t become a nuisance. Indeed, the concept of an interactive movie has rarely been so well realised. Recalling the likes of Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Mummy this is genuine adventure gaming.
The technology plays a major role in this. If you thought the facial animations in Heavenly Sword were impressive, then Uncharted will blow you away. Slight facial inflictions manage to bring across many of the emotional subtitles in a character we’ve not seen in gaming before. In fact, we’d go as far to say the ‘acting’ is more reminiscent of a Pixar film than a traditional video game. All up it makes for an extremely engaging story with characters you’ll love… or hate.
5. Inspirado en Gears of Wars
Uncharted will hit shelves around the same length of time after the PS3’s launch, as Gears of War did following the birth of the X360. Sony will be banking on Uncharted to make a similar amount of buzz for their console, but timing is not the only thing these two games have in common. One gameplay device used regularly within the experience is the ‘L2’ button, or in Gears-talk, the ‘Y’ Button. If there is something going on in the world you need to pay attention to, a tap of L2 will point the camera in that direction.
More prominent though is the use of cover. Combat follows a very similar model to what was seen in Gears of War. You will need to get behind cover whenever possible and the characters are given a massive range of animations to use objects in the environment to their benefit while under fire. This includes rolling into a crouched cover position, vaulting over walls to make a ‘run for it’, leaning around corners while looking down your scope and peering over ledges, gun-in-hand. Although unlike Gears of War, this time you’ll be using realistic weaponry.
6. Física y arrugas de ropas sorprendente
It seems like the latest fashion in video games is wrinkle physics. Forget jubbling boobs, if you really want to nail movement in a character circa 2007, their clothes need to crease and shift based on their position. Such technology is used in Uncharted and as minor as it may seem, there is no doubting the ‘life’ it breathes into the character. Think of the way Indiana Jones’ loose shirt and rustic jacket add to the imagery of him leaping between trucks and hanging off tanks. It certainly helps sink you into the adventure.
Another nice touch is the way your character gets wet following interaction with water, which there is a lot of in the jungle. Go into a shallow stream and the bottom of your pants will immerge obviously damp. Do a commando roll through that stream and you’ll be drenched from head-to-toe. As icing on the cake, you’ll here a squishing noise in your shoes as you walk around immediately after.
7. Animaciones (Monkey Press, Monkey Do).
Nathan Drake certainly isn’t short on athleticism, and we were quite amazed by the range of animations on hand. It’s all context sensitive stuff, so if you jump towards a ledge in a certain way it will change the way in which the character reacts when he comes into contact with it. It reminds us, ironically, of the tech demo for the next-gen Indiana Jones game shown off at E3 two years ago, a game that would have stolen a lot of Uncharted’s thunder had it released when originally planned. Whether Nathan is swimming through water, swinging down open hatches, climbing up vines or punching a dude in the face, it doesn’t seem scripted or formulaic. It feels quite natural.
These on-the-fly animations bring to life the game’s many action sequences. The gameplay seems to leap from one ‘stunt’ moment to the next - an example we experienced early on in the game saw our hero running along a crumbling wooden bridge while bits of the ruins around hum tumble downwards. Running, jumping, losing his balance and then hanging on by one hand all as he bolts for safety, Nathan’s escape plays less like a game, and more like a movie. But make no mistake, you are playing it!
8. Jugabilidad (Not Just a Bunch of Joe Henchmens)
From what we have experienced thus far, the game appears to follow a similar gameplay balance to last year’s Tomb Raider: Legend release. That is, split equally between combat, level navigation and basic puzzle solving. While we’ve touched on the latter two, combat is always a function of the A.I and this component is shaping up quite nicely. While henchman still showed an old-school tendency to keep sticking their heads around corners while you wait zoomed in and finger on the trigger, in general they move with purpose, speed and precision. You'll need to be sharp, especially when they attack in large numbers.
One sequence we played saw us hiding behind a pillar in an open-air ruin while a platoon of henchman stormed into the area. As we had moved to the extremities of the combat zone, our opponents had a lot of ground to cover to get within attack range. To do this we saw them vault over walls, spread-out into flanking manoeuvres, and even dangle down off high-ledges to drop to the forest floor in order to get a clear shot. Cool stuff.
9. Naughty Dog tiene mucho talento
Naughty Dog made quite a name for themselves with the Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter series, but despite the rich gameplay found in those games, they were at their core kid-orientated platformers. Hardly the top-end, mature, narrative driven game experience owners of next-generation machines demand. Uncharted is quite a test of the developer’s chops and we have to say that they appear to be quite a talented bunch of programmers. While there is very little in what we played of the game that you’d call original, it’s made with plenty of class.
For example, when you open your diary with your torch on, it will appear much brighter than when you view it with your torch off. When you move from a jungle paradise into an underground ruin you do so seamlessly, without loading times. Engage in lots of quick activity and you’ll begin to breathe heavily and slow down. Try to paddle upstream and you’ll find it a much tougher task than swimming with the current. The water itself looks so clear and fluid you’d think you could drink it! Shoot at something that looks fragile and it will break. Walk into a waist-high bush and it will sway from the force. These are the little things that are made possible by the hardware on hand, and help to bring the action-adventure experience into the next-generation.
10. Hará que quieras una PS3
Did you want an Xbox 360 the first time you saw Gears of War, or BioShock, in action? Well you’ll get the same desire when your eyes cross paths with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune: it’ll juts be for a PS3 instead. This game is shaping up to be a real console shifter. Based on our early look, Uncharted offers an absorbing single player adventure that is one of the first games to truly tap into the power we all know is lurking in the PS3. When you see how amazingly detailed the wolds are, the sheer variation in textures and animations, and the quality of the storytelling you’ll want to play it right through, right then and there.
Indeed, we had to reluctantly drag our thumbs and fingers away from the game to write this article, and it was no easy task. That all said there are still concerns we want to see fixed in the final version, like little camera nuisances that detract from the experience and balance issues in some of the fights. So do keep your eyes posted for a review in the very near future and read up on our final verdict on this very promising game.
![[angelito]](/images/smilies/nuevos/angelito.gif "angelito")
![[babas]](/images/smilies/babas.gif "Babeando")
, y tambien estan el Warhawk, el Heavenly Sword, Folklore, Ratchet & Clankc que saldra antes que este.
![[oki]](/images/smilies/net_thumbsup.gif "Ok!")
![[jaja]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/otrasonrisa.gif "otra sonrisa")
[jaja]
![[looco]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/borracho.gif "loco")
![[Ooooo]](/images/smilies/nuevos/sorprendido_ani1.gif "Oooooo")
![[buaaj]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/vomitivo.gif "mas potas")
![[bye]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/adio.gif "adios")
