Stunning landscapes; plenty of gunfire....and...mutants?
The game starts off no a diving ship; with Drake recovering a coffin from the depths...I'll try to avoid spoilers as much as I can; so I'll just go into the gameplay.
The first thing you'll notice is a lot of reflections off the water, and amazing facial reactions from characters; from grimacing to smirking mischievously. The overall character details are simply amazing, even during gunfights you see that Drake is afraid of dying; you can see his reactions as bullets wizz by and hit the cover you're hiding behind.
The scenery itself in the game is simply amazing; almost every scene fills the screen with amazing detail and beauty, it's nonstop through the game, whether you're in the middle of a rain forest with the sun beating down; or in the darkest depths of a cave trying to find your way out, the details remains excellent.
Gameplay wise Uncharted is definitely NOT a TombRaider game; as Drake is far more sluggish and less graceful than the fem fatal Lara Croft. He doesn't flip; twirl, cartwheel, or even run gracefully; but he does however, jump from ledge to ledge, scale walls and buildings like a human spider; and swing around on chains and vines. The game seems to revolving mainly around climbing/jumping puzzles and you'll run into one in almost every other scene; sometimes it gets annoying to barely miss a jump and either die, or just plain have to start from the bottom again.
Gunfights are often, and sometimes EXTREMELY hard. I honestly haven ever heard of a man taking six shots from an M4 rifle, and still be standing to shoot back; that goes double for a Desert Eagle wound, but maybe these guys are roid raging, who knows. If you manage to hit their head, they'll go down with one shot, even from your weakest pistol. There are plenty of different guns to choose from, but choose wisely, because ammo is scarce and you can only carry one long barreled gun and one pistol at a time.
Hand to hand combat is simply put, a joke. Either mash square until the baddie dies, or try to "time" the Brutal Combo and get double the ammo off the guy. You're better off mashing square, because if you're fighting someone while in a gun fight, you'll be shot, and if you miss the brutal combo you'll also be beaten.
There is no life meter; but the screen starts to lose color as you take more and more damage, and will regain after a few seconds of taking cover; which makes it slightly hard to die in a gun fight.
The story telling isn't bad; but seriously....mutants? What the hell? That honestly "ruined" the mood of the game for me. Everything up to that point was pretty interesting and definitely left you wanting to know more about the Fortune, and Drake's ancestors...and then? Mutants....