Dean

Uncharted Territory

Uncharted makes me want to start several threads on multiple forums. I want to shout to the world that Uncharted is the perfect mix of pre-millennium platforming and post Gears of War over-the-shoulder; without all the associated bullshit that goes with it. The thing is, I’m about five months too late. I spent most of the past few months trying to tell myself that Uncharted is just not for me – or that I was not for Uncharted.

What a fool I was. I remember playing the demo back in October and being sufficiently underwhelmed.

I died fairly quickly and gave up. Demos should not allow you to die. They should be easy enough to make you feel like you can carry on for another ten hours, but challenging enough to not want to give up after five minutes. So in my infinite wisdom I decided to stick it to the man and ignore it.

But now I’m about five hours in and thoroughly enjoying my time! It reminds me of one of those games that simply encourages you to play. It actively encourages you to jump about and experiment with the environment. Sure, you die, but the game always resumes a split second before you attempted your suicidal feat.

While this lessens the tension, it increases the confidence of the videogame. You understand that you’re actually playing an unabashed, all balls out game, and it’s great fun. I’ve become rather bored with the over indulgence of developers to spend too much time fantasising about trying to create ‘realistic’ videogames. Fuck that! I want to follow Francis Drake on a treasure trail throughout the South Pacific. It makes me feel like a child again!

Feels like Monkey Island.