Fortune Favors The Bold

The first step into uncharted territory...

Every great adventure has to start somewhere.

Given that over fifteen years have passed, it can be easy for gamers to take the Uncharted series for granted or assume that it was going to be a hit from the start. But there's no guarantee that any new intellectual property will be a success or even that it will do well enough to continue a planned franchise. The game’s developer Naughty Dog had done well with their Jak and Daxter series but were looking to try something new. And Sony's new console seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune began development in 2005 with the PlayStation 3 releasing in 2006. Unfortunately, the PS3 had a very rocky start. With a high price tag and difficult development guidelines, many game studios were choosing to favor the Xbox 360. While Sony got to work restoring the PS3's image, Naughty Dog focused on their new possibility. They had noticed that a lot of the games at the time were dark and gritty, so they focused on making the scenery and visuals vibrant with a more lighthearted tone to the story. When the game was originally revealed at E3 2006, many gamers compared it to the Tomb Raider franchise, even going so far as to give it the nickname “Dude Raider”. Naughty Dog pressed on, and in late 2007 Drake's Fortune released to critical and commercial success.

The story follows Nathan Drake, a well-known thief and adventurer using his connections with journalist Elena Fischer to try and find the lost city of El Dorado. Nate's mentor Victor “Sully” Sullivan is also along for the ride hoping to find some portion of the mythical city to help pay his debts. Nate claims to be the descendant of Sir Francis Drake and hopes to follow his ancestor’s footsteps. But as time goes on it becomes very clear that something more sinister is at work and the trio realize that there might be a reason why some lost cities are meant to stay lost.

This small coin kicks off a whole world of problems.

At first glance the gameplay might seem generic, but there are certain aspects that were novel for the time. True, a lot of the gameplay involves hiding behind cover and shooting mercenaries but there's also a puzzle aspect to the game as well. It should be noted that the puzzles are fairly simple, but it can still give your brain a nice break from all the run and gun action. By far the most interesting aspect of the game is traversal. Nathan is often forced to climb around ancient ruins as he works his way to a certain goal. The player is forced to map out a pathway of hand holds and crumbling structures. One wrong step and it can be very easy to fall to one's death. Having said that, I do feel that the controls are somewhat unforgiving and require the player to be more precise than they might be used to with other games. I cannot begin to count how many times I died because I had slightly miscalculated a jump. There are also no accessibility or control remap options, which is pretty disappointing.

Climbing is the name of the game here. Just don't look down.

In terms of the story itself, it seems clear that the writers were focused more on character development than plot. Nathan is a suave adventurer with a deep love for history and a lot of luck on his side. Elena is a journalist who is hoping to get a big scoop but can also hold her own. Sully is mostly there to lend Nate a hand when he needs it and focuses more on the score than the sense of adventure. While the main trio rounds out each other nicely, the villains are pretty generic and don't really have a lot of staying power. When playing the game for this review, I wondered why this was only my second time playing this title when I had played the others at least three times each. I figured out it was because of the fact that the story can be somewhat generic at times. That's not to say this game is bad, but I can tell the developers were trying to play it safe in some areas in case this game ended up being a flop. It's still a good game, just not as good as its predecessors who were more willing to push boundaries.

Nate and Elana have an interesting chemistry that is brought to life by some incredible voice acting.

I have a soft spot for the Uncharted series, since Uncharted 4 was the first game I ever played on PlayStation. Once I finished, I knew I wanted to explore the rest of the series and just so happened to find a copy of The Nathan Drake Collection, the first three Uncharted titles remastered and re-released in 2015. I had a soft spot for the rogue thief who had a genuinely good heart but wasn't afraid to break the rules when necessary. It reminded me of the Indiana Jones films (and now that an Indiana Jones game has been announced, I’m curious to see if I’ll find parallels to Uncharted on my playthrough).

Drake’s Fortune may struggle in some areas, but it's a great stepping stone for the games that came after. It allowed audiences to fall in love with these characters so that they could jump right into Drake's next adventure. Although the controls can be a bit stiff and the story may seem a little formulaic, there's no denying that Drake's Fortune would end up kick starting one of the most popular franchises in gaming. And overall, it's a ton of fun which is the point of gaming in the first place.