Uncharted: The Story of Nathan Drake

I could not find an Uncharted thread and seeing as how this series is phenomenal, I felt it was time to make one. So for starters here are summaries and trailers for the three games in the series. Uncharted 3 is set for 11/1/11 and like its predecessors, is a PS3 exclusive.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is the first game in the series, and is an action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Combining platforming and third-person shooter elements, the game charts the journey of protagonist Nathan Drake, supposed descendant of the explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he seeks the lost treasure of El Dorado in South America, with the help of friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan and journalist Elena Fisher.--Wikipedia

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Trailer

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the second game in the series, and is a PlayStation 3 action/adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the sequel to the highly successful Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It introduces the stealth mechanic, and takes Nathan Drake on a journey across Nepal and the Himalayas in a search for the lost city of Shambhala. It reunites most of the cast from the first game and introduces new characters like Chloe Frazer (a new love interest who has history with Drake), Harry Flynn (a shifty former partner of Drake's), and Zoran La?arevic, a Serbian war criminal and the game's primary antagonist. The second game also introduces a multiplayer mode to the series.--Wikipedia

Uncharted: Among Thieves Trailer

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is the third game in the series, and, like its previous installments, is a PlayStation 3 exclusive action/adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.It is set to come out late 2011. The story focuses on the hero?s relationship with his mentor and father figure, Victor ?Sully? Sullivan, and has him searching for a legendary lost city that will ultimately take him to the Arabian Peninsula and the vast wasteland of the Rub? al Khali Desert, also known as the Empty Quarter (Said legendary lost city has been known by various names, including ?Iram of the Pillars? and the ?Atlantis of the Sands?). It will also include new features such as enhanced backward climbing and the ability to fight multiple enemies at once.--Wikipedia

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Trailer

Uncharted Film

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Film (IMDB)

Mark Wahlberg has confirmed that he wants to play Nathan Drake and the film is set be directed by David O. Russell (Three Kings 1999, I Heart Huckabees 2004, and The Fighter 2010).

There are also some motion comics such as the Eye of Indra, which is a prequel to Drake's Fortune, that are available.

Feel free to use this thread as a launching pad to discuss any of the games, the film, or other adaptations.

 

The Uncharted 3 trailer last night was AWESOME! Too bad we had to wait the entire show for them to air it, but it was worth it. One of my few complaints about Uncharted 2 was the relative lack of Sully, trailers had shown him, and then barely a third of the way through the game he bows out (although at least they attributed it to his age). On the upside, that meant more time for Nate, Elena and Chloe. Speaking of that, I hope Elena shows up in this game again too. She's a regular, so she should, but hope there won't be too much soap opera between her and Nate this time. The first game they almost got together, then apparently by the second they had broken up (wonder if they'll ever show how or why that happened). I just hope Elena will be in the third one too, but there's only been one trailer so far, plenty of time left.

Already downloaded the trailer through PSN, the behind the scenes documentary is pretty interesting too. I'm hoping that because they already announced a release date (and a nice easy one to remember too) they'll be able to meet that date, but the trailer also already had some gameplay, so I take that as a very good sign of their progress so far. Adding rushing water to the environments should make them even better.

Definitely looking forward to the game, just too bad its still 11 months away. Possibly my favorite game of 2011 already.

 

^^
There was a scene in the trailer where he is evading a flood of some kind...something about that moment made me feel quite giddy. I wonder if they'll have tightened the controls a bit when it comes to those "run-towards-the-camera-for-your-life" segments. Seeing the desert reminded me briefly of the desert sequence from King's Quest V. It would be neat to have some sort of wander through the desert moment in the game (hopefully changed up from wandering in the snow in Uncharted II). Perhaps you'll have to survive Bear Grylls style.

According to IGN, the film adaptation is a "high priority" for Sony, but given that Russell is still penning the screenplay for it and is set to direct another film soon--it's a while away. I'm anxious about Wahlberg playing Nathan Drake, so I'm happy that it's not happening anytime soon. To be honest, I really don't think Wahlberg is a good choice. I mean, he could work, but...he's just not what I picture when I think of Nathan Drake. I think Nathan Fillion is the closest, but I'm not even sure if he could carry the role. Maybe they shouldn't make a film, given that the game does just fine on its own, and fans will not be happy if they butcher it with another crappy videogame-movie. At least there are no talks about M. Night directing it...after what he did to Avatar: The Last Airbender....ripped the soul right out of that one.

November is too far away--I can't wait to see what tricks they pull for Uncharted 3. I wonder if Naughty Dog has ever considered going multi-platform with it kind of like what's happening with Mass Effect. It'd be nice to have an expanded Uncharted audience before they release a film.

EDIT: I'm feeling extra scatterbrained...must have been the Dexter I just watched.

 

I don't recognize that actor's name, but the reaction to him being announced as Nathan Drake hasn't been too positive. Too bad Nathan Fillion is probably a bit too old to be the lead character, but with his personalty, it could still work (not to mention he is just very cool, but alas).

I think there's supposed to be an Uncharted novel out next too, so we'll see how that goes. Even though with how cinematic Uncharted already is you'd think making a movie out of it wouldn't turn out too bad... well, most video game movies have set a bad example.

Not sure I ever see Uncharted going multi-player. With ME, its owned by EA, so EA would have an interest in going for as many platforms as possible. I think most or all of Naughty Dog's games have been for Sony consoles? At least their other most famous series, Jak and Daxter, is a big Sony series (which has been mostly dormant for a while). So unless they suddenly became interested in multi-platform or were bought out by someone who wanted multi-platform (unless Sony just bought them, which I think they did with the LittleBigPlanet developer), they'll stay PS3 only. And I think they've said they're really pushing the PS3 hardware, so I hope they stay PS3 exclusive, at least for now.

 

Uncharted 2 is one of the only PS3 games I've played to completion and enjoyed, so I'm looking forward to 3. The trailer looked great. I still need to get my hands on the first one though...

 

I have to confess, I still haven't played through the 1st one. I loved it, but it was a rental and now that I've played the 2nd one and I know the story, it feels hard to go back.

 

The first one is good. The second one was fantastic. The third one looks to be good.

 

The first one was and still is quite a good game. Although if you've played the second game recently, then the first game will feel kind of like a throwback, but that makes sense as it came first. Just that they refined several of the mechanics for the second game, but the first game's story and characters are all fantastic. In some way I like the first one a bit more (at least there Nate's discoveries don't keep getting stolen, not to mention more Sully).

By the way, anyone else see the preview of Uncharted 3 that was on that late night talk show the other night? The game looks excellent, of course, with Nate and Sully trying to escape a burning building, and the flames all look very, very good. It'll be a long eleven months, but the third game is just about guaranteed to be at least as good as Uncharted 2.

 

I thought it was a little pointless to show the demo there. A) Fallon is annoying and his artificial enthusiasm is insane (he literally said the franchise is often called the greatest series of all-time). B) It wasn't all that impressive. Just a bunch of fire and clearly unfinished gameplay. It doesn't diminish my expectations, it just failed to make an impression at all.

 

I love the 1st 2 games! I hope the movie wont be to horrible but 2011 looks like its gonna get alot of my green for games...

 

UC1 - hated.

UC2 - far improved, smarter, better gunfights, hell it's akin to AC2 in that it corrected everything wrong with the first one.

However... the final boss was awful, it didn't work at all. What's particularly sad is it is from the same team that had given epic moments like taking down the gunship or defeating a tank and it lacked any such sense.

It's arguable that the Uncharted games do not require "bosses" in the conventional sense really. Hmm, maybe there's a thread in this?

 

One thing I really hated is the fact about the monsters in UC2...I hate zombie games and was so happy to be killing humans in 1 & 2 and then BAM out they came....

 

so are these games like tomb raider but with a man-shaped lara croft?

 

No, I wouldn't liken it to Tomb Raider, UC2 is just too good.

 

Can I ask why? I'm considering picking it up.

 

Its super awesome RT! Im curious of why Ben didnt like it myself? Id get it for sure though if I were you.

 

Yeah, sadly they always seem to have a problem with crafting the final boss fights for some reason. UC2's final boss was particularly frustrating, especially as the game mechanics are not designed for that much running. Heck, my old PS3 controller seems to be stuck in the up position sometimes, and I suspect having to go through that fight so much might be part of the reason. Oh well, it was significantly different from the rest of the game, compared to UC1's final boss fight gauntlet. The first Uncharted didn't really have any bosses, per se, just long stretches of bad guys to shoot through. Uncharted 2 had some sorta bosses, specifically I mean the really epic moments, just too bad the final boss wasn't something like that instead of what we actually got, unfortunately.

The monsters are somewhat out of place, but then Uncharted is based on those old adventure stories, Indiana Jones probably being one of the more famous examples, and so there's always at least a little bit of mysticism to them, a magical relic with some element that's not just legend, hence the monsters. And the monsters are a big change from just fighting another lackey. But I hated UC2's monsters, as killing them took a very, very long time.

Not sure why JB hated the first one but loved the second. True, they refined a lot of the game elements in the second one, but the first one is still quite a good game, one of the betters ones on the PS3 and highly recommended, especially for the story. Sully plays a bigger role in the first one, so playing through it should give you more background for the third one, since it looks like Sully will play a big role there too.

Several sites have gotten a few minutes with the French chateau demo they've shown so far. Looks like they've improved the melee mechanics again, should be pretty fun (of course). At least that's two environments we know of, the desert and a burning French house, can't wait to find out what else there will be.

 

It's not bad at all. Pick it up, it'll be 20 bucks.

 

What killed the first one for me were the firefights, you've too little ammo and those enemies take too many shots to put down and are moving around too damn fast to really hit. The aiming target is small so it was taking me forever to line up a good shot and there were how many of the bastards? For a deserted island it sure was populated. What ended up happening for me was it'd be a case of spend ages killing 2-3 enemies, try to take another 2-3, then another 2-3, get killed by new set - back to checkpoint, then I had to repeat it all again. My fine coordination ain't that great though, I'm sure others found it easier - I didn't.

What the first game did very well was the platforming and exploration and story, that was excellent, but there were the firefights that stopped me cold.

In comparison, in UC2 it was far smarter, cover was better, aiming wasn't as difficult, there was a reason for the numbers - enemy had a private army.

 

When an enemy can take ten bullets before going down in a game like UC, it just grows frustrating. I hate it when games do something like that--shoot some enemy in the face 7 times, but not 8, and he still gets up--there is less of a reward for aiming properly when it doesn't matter how well you aim--and less incentive to keep playing. I definitely noticed that combat in UC2 was more fun, which has made it hard for me to want to go back and finish the 1st one.

 

Nice to know it ain't just me!

Interesting though that both of the big games on PS3 vastly improved themselves for the secon games - Uncharted 2 and Assassin's Creed 2 are so different to their predecessors.

 

I never played the AC games, but I know that UC1 and UC2 are not at all that much different besides UC2's handful of small improvments, and a multiplayer feature. Both are GREAT IMO. Also maybe you just had a bad psycological experience around the time you were playing UC1. I loved COD 4 , but thought that MW2 was mideocre at best even though I hyped myself for it, because I was really having a bad year 2009 as opossed to Christmas 2007, good times, good times.

 

I didn't see any improvements from AC1 to 2. Still just as boring as ever.

 

Yeah, it was kind of annoying that I thought I had taken down an enemy, then he gets right back up and runs behind cover. Ugh, after that I just kept pumping bullets into them until they stayed down. Fortunately, I was slightly obsessed with always finding all the ammo in an area before I moved on. Still managed to get through Crushing mode somehow, especially since in that mode the thugs were always running everywhere fast, not to mention rushing you, and it takes like five shots to kill you on that mode. Although it was kind of annoying fighting thugs in regular clothes that just wouldn't go down. At least the second game fixed that as you were fighting armored mercenaries the whole time.

And I thought the PS3 version of AC1 was just the result of being a bad port? At least I think I read that somewhere. So not entirely sure AC2 was just that much of a better game than the first one, or they just bothered to do a better job on the PS3 version the second time.

 

I found AC1's gameplay crap compared to AC2, I don't really notice tech graphic issues that much.