Uncharted Drake's FortuneClasses started for me so don't expect updates often... however this summer flew by and I didn't even update that much either. So expectation are low.

First thing I want to talk about is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for the PS3. I took my own suggestion. It became a Greatest Hits, which means $35 game. I bought it. It was a little slow for games. ICO is freezing on me, which ticks me off a bit. I'll have to clean my PS2 lense.

Anywho, Uncharted. I bought it, played it. Played it a lot. Like hardcore. I beat it in about a week, and it's not that short of a game. It's no Zelda game, in terms of length (60 hours it took me to beat Twilight Princess) but it was about the right length.

First off, when the game came out, I downloaded the demo and didn't like the demo. Something about it. So when it went down to 35 bucks, I told myself, "Uncharted is a very high rated game from pretty much everyone, and it's only 35 bucks... I'll buy it." This is the second game that has happened. Resistance Fall of Man was the first (and you can see that I loved that game). Uncharted is another one of those cases.

One of the best games ever. I like to call it, Prince of Persia meets Gears of War. It has about an equal amount of platforming and puzzle solving as there is combat. The story is good as well. It's not mind blowing, but it kept me progressing through the game and kept me wandering what was going to happen next. Naughty Dog (the developers) did a great job seemlessly integrating cutscenes into gameplay. The story was even told while you were playing, not just during cutscenes, which is sweet. I just think Naughty Dog did a great job all around with this game.

The story revolves around a treasure hunter named Nathan Drake (as a side note, Naughty Dog and Insomniac games have an interesting history together, and in Insomniac's game, Resistance, the main charater's first name is Nathan). He has a friend named Sully. Nathan says he's a decendent of Sir Francis Drake, even though Francis never had kids. A news reporter named Elena has followed Nathan into the middle of the ocean to find Francis's coffin (he was buried at sea).

The find it and open it only to discover his diary, but not his remains... which means Francis had a secretive life and didn't really die when history says he did. So yeah. The Diary leads Nathan, Sully, and Elena on an adventure to find El Dorado. They meet some intersting people on their way and it's not a good thing. They aren't the only ones looking for El Dorado. Like I said, nothing mind blowing, but defintely keeps your attention.

The graphics are great too. It's nice to see a game using greens and oranges and blues. Tropical setting. Really stands out. The animating is awesome too. The leaves on the trees, and the grass move as if wind was blowing. Just details like that shows how great an animating team is. Doesn't compare to Crysis, but nothing does. The sounds are great too. The game has one of the best musical scores I have heard in a game. Really gave a carribean feel to the game.

The game play is where this game shines. There's platforming and pretty good puzzle solving. Exploring and looking for treasures are also fun. It really gets you to look at the environments.

Combat is also very well done. It has a cover system, similar to Gears of War. You can carry one pistol, grenades, and one rifle. There's a variety of pistols and rifles. There's a semi auto pistol, regular .45 pistol, a super acurate deagle, and a magnum type weapon. For rifles, there are AKs, Shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, etc. It's a good time. Although basically you take cover, pop up and shoot at enemies, it never got boring for me. I guess there was enough variety. You kinda had to watch your ammo a little bit, even on normal. It wasn't terrible, but You didn't want to spray and pray, that's for sure.

And the enemies are smart. If you just duck behind cover, they toss a grendae right behind your cover. They are accurate with everything they do. They rarely miss if you are out of cover. You can also beat the crap out of enemies if you so choose. That's fun, although the only combo worth doing is Circle, Triangle, Circle. If you sneak up on an enemy, you kill them in one hit. Good times.

My biggest complaint about the game would have to be the undead monsters near the end of the game, but I complained a lot less when I got closer to the end and relized there was a story behind them. Which is good. Don't let undead creature turn you off to the game. It's only for a few chapters, and they make sense in this game. And only one chapter feels like a survival horror game scary. The rest of the time you either have a someone with you, or it's day. Plus they are easy to defeat (they charge you in a zig zag pattern, at a medium speed, and they get stunned if you hit them so they go down fairly quickly. They do take more bullets though). They added some variety to the enemies vs the gun weilding ones.

I did mention you aren't alone. Either Elena or Sully or both will fight beside you. It's not an escort mission, because they have infinite health. I saw a rocket hit Sully dead on, and he wasn't phased. They still act like they are vulnerable. They duck behind cover and what not. But they don't help out too much (they'll kill one or two of a bunch). Most of the time the enemies are shooting at you, but sometimes Sully and Elena distract them. One battle I won that way. It was a tough battle.

I'm going to replay the game on hard and work on getting other trophies. Maybe not at the same time. Most of the trophies I have left are "Kill 50 enemies with *blank* weapon" or "Kill 10 enemies in a row using *blank* method/weapon". I'm missing a few treasures, so I'll have to use a guide for those.

I'm looking forward to Uncharted 2 and that has been upgraded to a for sure buy. In fact, I'll probably preorder it. Really no great deals for preordering. You get an ingame multiplayer gold gun if you preorder from Best Buy. Amazon has a treasure map. Gamestop has early access to multiplayer demo and the Revenge Attribute. Attributes are things you unlock in multiplayer and adds little perks. The Revenge Attribute lays a grenade where you die when you are killed and it is one of the last things to unlock if you don't preorder. We'll see.

"You act like you've never seen a German U-boat in the middle of the jungle before."
-- Nathan Drake