For my first post i'm going to stick to a subject i know and review a video game, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. Uncharted was released in late 2007 and was extremly well recieved by the public, and after playing it I can see why.
The gameplay is a very good balance of gunfights and logic problems, such as raising the water level in a room so that you can swim to the other side of a broken bridge or turning statues to face different direction to open a hidden passage way. The combat element is simple and yet effective, it is a 3rd person shooter, which means the camera is located above one of Drake's sholders when aiming and suspended in the air behind and above drake when just left normally.
The guns came in the standard types you'd expect from a modern day shooter (pistol, shotgun, assult rifle ect) and as you progress further through the game you will pick up higher tier versions of each weapon type which offer increased damage and ammo capacity, this is invaluble towards the end of the game as the enimies are relativly hard to kill.
My only complaint with the gameplay was that once i was behind cover, manoeuvring sometimes became difficult, for instance if I dived for cover behind a pillar and attempted to move to a different side of the pillar to avoid gunfire, then it was occasionally akward and got me shot.
The story of the game is basically a very compelling and involving treasurehunt, as the protagonist Nathan Drake, a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, chases after a treasure of such great worth that Francis Drake himself kept secret from the world for fear of thieves and the monarchy taken it from him. The game opens with Nathan Drake pulling a coffin from the bottom of the ocean, a coffin that he and a reporter who has financed the retrieval, Elaina, believe to be the coffin of Francis Drake when he was buried at sea. As the lid is removed by Nate with the help of a crobar it becomes apparent that there is nothing inside except a small box containing the journal of Sir Francis Drake,this is what begins the hunt for the treasure. The treasure itself is El Dorado, the famed city of gold. But the treasure is not that of a city, but instead a very large statue that was worshiped by the native mayans. As the story progresses the secrets of the treasure are revealed and why Drake must stop it getting into the wrong hands as both the spanish armada and the Nazis have possesed it and yet none of the people who were in contact with the idol lived very long afterwards.
Like with the gameplay I am going to complain about one thing and that is the length of the story, i felt that it was too short, but this in no way affects the quality of the story, it just means that you can try it on the next difficulty that little bit quicker than expected.
The final thing i will talk about is the graphics, which in my opinion are superb, specifically the water effects. Uncharted is exclusivly on Playstation 3 and therefore has the awesome power that the Ps3 supplies and so looks fantastic. Water is common in almost all environments of that game, as for a large part of the game your in a jungle. One of the problems with water in games is the problem of the waters edge looking to straight or the splashs looking too pixelated and Uncharted has none of these, at some points it looks so realistic that you need the toliet but you cant bear to leave as the story chains you to your seat and the controller to hands. But not only are the effects good for splashing about abit but also if Drake runs through some knee height water, once he leave the denim of his jeans is soaked up to his knees. Aside from water, the graphics are brilliant everywhere e.g. every characters shadow moves with them, even as the fall in a shower of their own well coloured and textured blood.
Overall Uncharted: Drake Fortune is a brilliant game and well worth buying as the two complaints i have made are insignificant compared to the amount of fun this game is, as the story takes twists and makes you question every detail right up to the point when its all explained, the gameplay makes you laugh as you throw people around like ragdolls with a shotgun and the graphics leave you in awe of just what your doing.
