Uncharted : Drake's Fortune*

I couldn't have said it better.

 

Store back up 75%...

 

Wow.

CELL.... point proven.

It is that good (in the right hands)

 

[Argh, I am trying to work here !]

Am resisting to turn on my PS3 now.

 

Urgh!!!
I hate you all, those with american PS3s!!!

 

I played on normal and hard as always.

presentation:

Jaggies didn't bug me at all maybe due to cartoony look.
Low poly, low density dark green grass looks last gen, rest of the vegetation is pretty good.
Indeed poly edges on the environment don't look unnatural. Drake's shoulder while aiming looks a little bad, but overall geometry looks very nice.

Water is as good as it gets for 2d water (is there any 3d water implementation with real reflections?). It actually looks almost perfect as it's not deep in the demo (minus splash effects).

Also I now understand why people make big deal out of Drake's cloths getting wet.

Some of the best textures and bump mapping I have seen (the sense of depth on some of the stones ) I guess having lots of flat textured vegetation helps in terms of texture memory.
I have to say though, it feels like high resolution textures don't really belong with cartoony look but I won't complain.

And of course possibly best lighting ever.

So none of the videos I have seen does any justice to the game. Especially ingame graphics are way more impressive.

Gameplay:

Many previews said melee attack won't be any use against multiple enemies.
That's totally false. AI is aggressive when you are cornered and camping, they either throw a grenade or come very close at which point you can do the melee combo especially in absence of a shotgun.

Sometimes AI jumps out of cover to fire and looks stupid, but I'd say shooting and cover system works perfectly. It's so fun I don't think I would mind having to shoot an enemy ten times to kill as long as I had ammo. Also there are little details like enemy sliding to a cover or climbing down from a wall, looks pretty cool. Overall animations are what everybody knows. But environment interactions such as taking cover, climbing or hanging to a corner are very smooth too.

Since I'm tired, I'll keep it short.
Here is the bottom line: I wasn't sure about the gameplay especially with all the negativity, and had doubts about the reception of the game due to it's style.

Now if the demo doesn't sell the game even with negative media, I think Sony should quit gaming business start selling flowers or something.

Best demo on PSN.

 

You forgot: most robust shadow map implementation I have ever seen (though I suspect some kind of very clever fake is going on with vegetation shadows). Well done ND!

 

Some shots I took:

http://dot50cal.the-horror.com/gaf/un/

I'll have a 14 minute video up of the whole demo soon.

 

Very very angry. Sony owe me.

 

AI and control impressed me the most. The shadows is insane and animations are very good, running down the creek just look amazing and felt so cool.

 

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/11/08/uncharted-drakes-fortune-demo-update/#comment-30460

Maybe you'll get to play tomorrow.

 

holy crap, the attention to detail is amazing. i love when Drake moves, his shirt ripples so realistically. and yeah, i love how his shirt looks when its wet. textures are amazing (his hair looks really good), nice bump mapping, enemies look great and the AI is definitely above average. and the animations . took a little while to get used to the controls (i've been playing R&C for probably 10+ hours over the last few days) but once i got the hang of it, they felt very good.

i've watched so many videos of Drake so i wasn't surprised at how good it looks, but its nice to see it in motion on my own setup. the controls are a lot better than i thought too. overall, i loved the demo.

definitely a day 1 purchase for me.

 

Your not the only one.

seriously sony you treat us PAL users like shit!

i for one are sick of it.

 

I very much doubt it.

 

I must be the only person who has played the game and noticed several areas where Drake projects precisely zero shadows. Mostly when I got out of the creek and was jumping up on rocks...was pretty weird looking to me. (I recognize this isn't about vegetation shadows/shadow maps, but it got me thinking)

The graphics are pretty good, in general. I definitely don't agree with all of the "oh my GOD" type impressions, it didn't blow me away (though running Crysis last week with dual 8800 Ultras s can do that to a guy). I was particularly unimpressed with the low-poly grass and rock formations. The water shaders are great -- not as great as Crysis' but still very solid.

Gameplay wise...don't think it's for me. I just turned it off after I picked up the AK-47. It's getting kind of late and I just didn't feel compelled to continue. To be honest, I downloaded it mostly as a tech demo based on the "OMFG" type impressions I've seen here since this game has been under my radar for quite some time.

The character models look great. The facial animation is something I think could use a lot of work, but then again I just played through HL2 EP2 so perhaps I'm spoiled. The sound could use some work, I think -- the guns especially sound so muffled and bland.

Can't say much about the AI yet due to my limited exposure. Was not over or underwhelmed.

May be a rental for me sometime next year.

 

Am I the only one who notices the jaggies? Taken by me:
http://img458.imageshack.us/img458/9734/dsc00169ok2.jpg

It is really bad, or is it me? The water looks decent, water physics are non-existant, and drake getting wet, and then drying off is pretty sweet. But I can't appreciate the graphics with the lack of AA... specially when all I've been looking at, Pictures, Video, everything has ALOT OF AA. Someone tell me im not crazy :/

 

Just completed the demo.

One question: I noticed in the second area (right hand side), there are 2 triangular flags with writings hidden behind trees. Am I supposed to retrieve them ? If so, how ? If not, is there something else I need to get ?

I killed all the enemies, and left empty handed. Did I leave any secrets undiscovered ?

Well, not everyone wants to spend so much on a dual 8800 Ultras PC setup (considering the noise level). To be fair, I think Uncharted is one of the best looking console games so far. CoD4 is pretty too, and neither of them need to be compared with PC games to win gamers' hearts.

I noticed the sparse grass too but the graphics are very solid overall. I thought the vegetation and rock formation looks good. I like how the trees sway in the wind. Water is of course great looking. Nathan's wet look is also very neat. I like the look of the enemies also.

This demo is somewhat limited like R&C's demo but with tougher gun fight. The real game will be largely story driven with treasure hunting. Both important elements are missing from the short game, which is unfortunate (and may be inevitable ?).

I only pay attention to facial expression during cutscene. They look fine. What's wrong with them ?

I like how the enemy AI behave. They are quite wicked
Besides taking cover and flanking, they also vary their moves. e.g., They may emerge from cover differently while firing at you, or dive from cover to cover. They also know when I run out of ammo ("He's out of ammo !"). If I hide too long, they will charge.

I also like how grenading works (especially grenade warning -- much better than CoD4).

The main thing I don't like is the walk movement. I feel that Nathan moves too slowly sometimes. But once I got him to run, it's ok. I noticed he stepped on the corpses too (The dead bodies will shift posture/move a little when Nathan "tripped" over them).

The other thing is the demo should have included more things to do or see

 

Well if you can't play the demo this is probably one of the better videos showing it

http://stage6.divx.com/user/Dot50Cal/video/1831569/Uncharted-Drake's-Fortune-Demo-Walkthrough-720p