The website welcomes its first “Semi-Current Generation“ of retrospective reviews with the first installment of the Uncharted Series

So for several years now a bulk of the articles on the website and 100% of the games covered have been either PlayStation 1 or 2 games. I initially began writing retro reviews and covering video games in 2020 during lockdown. Then once I realized writing for other blogs how much I enjoyed reviewing games I went solo and have really emphasized the “Retro” aspect of the site.

Until today!

Where as the other day I was cleaning up my office and my more modern video game collection caught my eye. Some games still untouched for years now. So I said to myself, “what the hell” and now we’re doing a review of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.

Well… at least the first game of the original Uncharted trilogy.

So admittedly I have more experience talking about awful games from the PlayStation 1/2 Era then the more common pseudo current generation consoles and obviously won’t be able to compare the two experiences as far as rating goes. But whatever – we’ll do our best.

For starters, if you are a late bloomer like I – I suggest you go pick up any version of any Uncharted game as soon as you can and begin playing it. You won’t regret it. In fact, there is more of a chance you will regret not playing this game on your deathbed or some sort of end-of-life-dramatic-location like that. The kids call it, FOMO.

The game begins at sea, as reporter Elena Fisher records treasure hunter, Nathan Drake as he reportedly uncovers the legendary British explorer, Sir Francis Drake’s coffin. He opens the coffin to find it empty except for a notebook containing maps to El Dorado – the city from legend made of gold. Pretty good find if you ask me.

From there they are ambushed by pirates – modern pirates – equipped with speedboats and high caliber machine guns. It’s a thrilling intro to a game that has twists and turns throughout its winding plot.

The gameplay itself is almost flawless. The aiming is difficult but fun to try to master. The level design itself, aside from being a bit constrained (more on that later) is brilliant. The three dimensional platformer moves is nearly seamlesss. The only issue I came across is it could be irritating trying to move from platform to platform while utilizing a chain/rope/vine. Any sort of momentum type jump like that could end up killing your brave explorer very quickly.

The entire game takes place in an uncharted island off the coast of Perunduring the course of one long day. Aesthetically, you spend the entire day in lush rain forest settings or inside ancient tombs and ruins of a forgotten city. (All of the tombs predate the Incans by about 200 years but it really isn’t explained who or what actually built the tombs)

The main antagonists of the entire game are head honcho- Roman and his right hand men, Navarro and Eddy. They are all in a mad dash for the same exact treasure as you are after an altercation when you find the journal. You spend the game fighting off hordes of their henchmen and enemies which does lead me to the very rare not-so-good parts of the game.

While the graphics are beautiful the game is not nearly as big as the lush locales suggest and it’s very easy to get carried away and lose the immersion as you are climbing everything in sight just to run into an invisible wall.

Outside of that the only other major complaint I had with the game is that the explore, enter a new area, have a massive shootout, repeat formula does begin to get old towards the game. Especially when gun fights and combat scenes can last upwards towards twenty minutes.

Overall, this game falls short of a masterpiece but it is still a very good game and currently PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 games are dirt cheap compared to their older counterparts- so if you see any Uncharted games in the wild, I suggest you secure those treasures for yourself.

Overall: 90% (GOLD)