Uncharted was a good game for it's time, but it has since been surpassed (especially by it's sequel). It was an enjoyable game but there are a few elements that prevents it being an awesome one. So, let's start with the graphics. Undeniably, they were great for the time (late 2007) but again, it has since been surpassed by many games afterwards. However, the environments seem a little bit bright and shiny for some reason, which breaks the realism. There is a lot of screen tearing, it's really obvious. The amount of detailing in the environments is amazing, however, there is a bad side to this. The busyness of the environments due to the island setting (foliage, ruins etc) can sometimes make it difficult to pinpoint the enemy, especially when they first start shooting at you and you start searching around to see where they are coming from. There are many places where the view is stunning, such as overlooking into the sea or the various waterfalls in the game. The character animations are smooth and realistic. Onto the gameplay, there are three main gameplay types that make up the game, shooting, platforming and puzzle solving. Even in the early moments of the game, you realize something, there are so many enemies!! You go from one shoot-out to another, wave after wave, to the point where you are just sick of it.
This does make the platforming stand out more and make them more enjoyable as they are a much needed break from the constant shooting. If the game could have focused less on pumping enemy after enemy at you (and they are bullet sponges, taking quite a lot of hits before they collapse), it would have been much more enjoyable. Compounding this problem is the limited ammo (especially if you're an incompetent shooter/can't aim like me), you finish off a few waves, running out of ammo yet you cannot get out from cover to get some more ammo from the fallen enemies since fresh enemy waves just came out. However, this does force you to play more carefully, aiming for headshots in an effort to conserve ammo. Enemy AI is fairly good, they frequently try to flank you, which means you'll die quite often if you're not careful. I don't mind that they outnumber and flank you at the same time at a higher difficulty, but there were a few sections where this happens on Normal difficulty, causing you to get frustrated as you repeatedly die there (extremely aggravating when it's in the last wave and these shotgun people just appear behind you and kill you). The seemingly unlimited number of enemies break the immersion as there are guards in the most unlikely of places.
For example, Nathan goes underground into a supposedly secret area that no one has entered for a few hundred years but of course, there are guards prowling around the area (because they just happened to dig near there). As mentioned, some of the funner parts of the game are the platforming sections. That said, it was often where you're left wondering where to go since you can't clearly distinguish the next section of platforming due to the super detailed environment. It gets a little bit annoying. The platforming can also get a bit dodgy at times like when you're jumping and you miss the ledge you were aiming for due to some odd reason (and you die). It's not often that this happens but it happens enough to be noticeable. The last major gameplay element are the puzzles, which are extremely easy. They usually involve rotating some objects to the right way around or hitting switches in a specific order, all the hints are in the in-game journal. This means that it doesn't break up the pacing but it also doesn't present a challenge (there's no winning here :P). You'd know that this was an early PS3 game where there are sixaxis motion controls. They are not prevalent but it's significant enough to annoy you (yup, there are many small annoying elements in this game).
The motion controls when walking on beams for balance isn't too much of a problem. The motion controls required for determining the arc of a grenade, on the other hand, is. The right-stick would have been much more intuitive than the forced motion control, especially for such an important action. True to Naughty Dog's past games, there are various 'minigames' (for a lack of a better term). There is the often complained jet-ski sections where while the controls aren't horrible, the way you're supposed to play through the segment is. You control both the movement of the jet-ski and the shooting, and they expect you to shoot both explosive barrels in the water (instant death if you touch one, and why the hell are there so many barrels?!) and bad guys (who are shooting at you). This isn't helped in the bigger jet-ski segment (yes, there are multiple sections requiring the use of this horrible jet-ski) when you're going upstream. It wasn't fun and while it wasn't hard, it was frustrating due to the cheap deaths. Conversely, I didn't find the jeep section that annoying. So, you've probably read a thousand times that near the end of the game, Uncharted pulls out this game-changing element. It was a "wtf" moment as there was very little indication beforehand on the supernatural elements of the story.
There were not actions or events before this gamechanging element in the story where it was hugely impossible. This was not only game-changing for that section, but also genre-changing. I will let you know that this section scared the hell out of me, as I am not a fan of survival horror. It was an intense level and I hated it, especially when it felt so forced and artificial. While the story can (just barely) explain it away, it destroyed the credibility of this action adventure and contrasted so differently to the rest of the game. I am one that would have preferred it if the developers had not put that section in. The story was okay, but it wasn't as complex and involving as it might have led you to believe. It is really like an action adventure movie though and it plays around that very well. The pacing was good and it presented enough mysteries surrounding the golden statue and the missing colony. The ending wasn't too satisfying as it felt like it was missing something. The music has an epic feel to it and suits the game as a whole. It adds to the atmosphere, especially when you're busy shooting the enemy as it gives you a nice sense of rush and adrenaline. Overall, a worthwhile game to play but sadly, the developers focused too much on making the shooting the core aspect of gameplay which is more mundane and by the numbers than the other elements).
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