So you’re the president of a pretty successful videogame development company.  You’ve spent the last ten years on a mission to showcase the Playstation platform technology and it just so happens you’ve created a few hit franchises along the way.  But these aren’t just some throwaway titles – we’re talking about series like Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter whose various incarnations have collectively sold a cool 35 million units.  So what do you do next?  [Go to Disneyland? – ED]

“To date we’ve used cartoony characters in our games primarily due to a limit in hardware”, explains Evan Wells, President of the aforementioned ‘successful company’ otherwise known as Naughty Dog.  “Jak & Daxter were a bit more lifelike – but with the hardware available in the Playstation 3 [PS3] we finally have enough power to immerse the player in a modern, real-life environment. We wanted to [use that power] to create a 3D action-adventure that was very story-based and driven.”

Our Mission – To Boldly Go…

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is the result of Naughty Dog’s ten year quest to delve into the depths of the Playstation platform’s capabilities.  Inspired by classic pulp adventure series like Indiana Jones - Uncharted focuses on bringing the key elements of this genre to life with intense gun battles, over the top hand to hand brawling and character animations that serve to create some of the most fluid and human looking motion we’ve seen to date in an action title.

“This is cutting edge tech – we’ve developed a new engine from the ground up – optimized for one platform only [The PS3].  This is a big advantage to how we can approach animation which is a big feature we’re pushing.  Not only do we have more polygons and advanced pixel-shaders but we have created a layered animation system.  We can run 12 animations simultaneously using procedural animation - the end result is human motion – a more controllable and responsive character.”

Watching the main characters animations as he executes slick Tomb-Raider-esque scaling moves along cliff faces, jumps  from ledge to ledge, swings from vines or makes quick use of the environment to grab some dynamic cover – ala Gears of War – shows great promise in the team’s efforts to deliver on ‘human motion’.  At times the animations can feel a bit jerky – as if the character is a bit hyper-active – but it’s presumed the team will fine-tune this before launch.

Uncharted’s environments are equally impressive – to sound a bit cliché – the water effects are simply astounding – no, really!  My immediate reaction was,"it looks like Serious Sam…only…Serious!"  The team makes use of a bright color palette to define their lush jungle environments and characters which serves to help the game stand out from the generally darker tones employed by most action titles.  That and the fact that the main character does bear a slight resemblance to our ADD afflicted Sam help to support this comparison.  But whereas Serious Sam was a ‘not so serious’ twitch shooter – Uncharted has an actual plot, characters whose stories we will explore and rewards a much more tactical approach to problem solving within the game world.

Pina-Colada Anyone?

Hands-on play with Uncharted’s initial levels was very rewarding.  Sometimes control can be a bit frustrating – due to the aforementioned jerkiness of the animation system at this stage in development but it wasn’t enough to take away from the fun I had balancing my way across fallen logs to traverse beckoning chasms, engaging in some hand to hand with the locals (who oddly enough all bought the same outfit) and tossing a few pineapples into unsuspecting tourists.  Ok, they weren’t tourists – and they weren’t edible pineapples either.  Actually this does bring me to the one area that I found to be the most frustration factor at the moment – combat. 

I often found myself enjoying some classic death by camera moments when combat got hot and sticky.  I spent a good deal of time spinning my camera back and forth to try and reassess where I was and which direction I was facing when running, shooting and ducking for cover.  The current grenade tossing system – again similar to the one employed in Gears – was also a difficult to control making it next to impossible to ensure solid placement of your explosive fruit.

Hopefully the team at Naughty Dog can tweak these systems prior to this November’s proposed launch date.  I’m enthusiastic about the game’s storyline, immersive and stunning environments and if the camera issues can be sorted out I think Uncharted could just be this year’s great PS3 action title.

In all Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is one of the few PS3 titles that caught my eye as a potential stand out in this year’s otherwise busy holiday crowd.  And quite frankly, I’m ready for a new, engaging action title for my PS3 – currently – it’s only serving as my Blu-Ray movie player.