Welcome to the start of the charismatic story of Nathan Drake. Released all the way back in 2007, it was one of the first big hits on the PS3. It's went on to spawn three more major releases and has continued into the PS4 era. Drake will be one of your favourite playable characters I can assure you, he's cool, he's funny and he's entertaining. I didn't get to play this game until late 2012, it was definitely worth the wait.
The game starts off straight in the middle of the ocean. Drake, accompanied by journalist Elena are lead to believe that Drake's relative, the great adventurer, Sir Francis Drake's body is buried at sea. Drake's old friend Sully, joins Drake in hunting for more of Francis Drake's treasures, with the help of his handbook filled with information and sketches that lead to treasures. Soon after, 'friends' of Sully's catch up to them, people who he owes money to. One suggestion of payment is Francis' treasure, it suddenly becomes a race to the finish, who will win?
The game has some great characters, the aforementioned Drake of course, but the side characters are really good too. Sully and Elena are good characters and all gel together. Each actor put in a stellar performance and they had great characters to play. The gameplay is really well done, it's fun to play and the climbing sections aren't frustrating, even when you fall. Thankfully, they're not too long so you don't feel you have to do a lot if you make a mistake. The shooting can be quite difficult, but once you get used to it, it's no problem.
There is a great variety of weapons, in case you ever get bored of using the same one. You can have a sidearm and a primary weapon, like a machine gun or shotgun equipped at all times. You also have grenades if you find them, Drake is also capable of knocking sense into enemies and by that, I mean he knocks them the fuck out!
The game flows chapter to chapter. You could climb up a ladder and as you walk forward a little, the new chapter triggers. The cutscenes are great, I always enjoyed watching them. The characters were so well done, it was a joy to watch. A lot of games have boring stories and cutscenes, but this certainly isn't one of those games. The conversations in between action sequences are fantastic, just the bond between the characters is entertaining to watch. Anyone who played The Last of Us would know how well Naughty Dog do this. The game has humour but it also has serious parts too, it's a nice combination.
The music is amazing, I love it! When the main theme plays at the end of the game, it fits perfectly and you realise how great this game is. The game has some good puzzles for you to work out, made easier with Sir Francis Drake's handbook, the only issue was that it didn't seem there were enough of them. The water effects look beautiful, Drake looks soaked after he's just came out of the water and it looks real, water, as well as hair I imagine are two of the hardest things for a developer to create. There's also some unique sections, there's driving and even driving a boat.
Like every review I do, there's bad things, there really aren't many here though. As in almost every game, there's texture issues, nothing too daunting of course. There is also an exploit you can use in cover, I did use it to my benefit, you can angle youself so that you have a great view of the enemy while aiming, even though you're clearly blocked by the cover, the bullets still hit. It justifies it a bit in that you can get hit too if you can see them, but it makes it much easier. The boat section was quite difficult on hard difficulty, it seemed better to stop and kill the enemies, rather than drive through like you're meant to do.
The hard difficulty was quite challenging, but that was mainly due to the difficult shooting. There is an even harder difficultly for expert gamers to use called 'Crushing'. I look forward to trying this difficultly and I'm now looking forward to replaying the rest of the trilogy and one day playing the fourth game. If you missed this game or don't own a PS3, now is the time to go back to it or even purchase yourself a PS because it's worth it! I envy you if you have yet to play them.
8.5/10
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