uncharted adj : (of unknown regions) not yet surveyed or investigated; "uncharted seas" [syn: chartless, unmapped]

English

Adjective

uncharted

1. not surveyed or mapped

Derived terms

• uncharted waters

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. A demo for the game was released on 8 November 2007, on the PlayStation Network. Although the U.S. release date was set for 19 November, it was released on the 16th in a few select areas.

The Drake's Fortune subtitle is a reference to the famous explorer Sir Francis Drake and his fictional treasure stowed away on the island. In the game, players assume the role of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who alleges to be the descendant of the famed privateer. It has been confirmed that Drake's Fortune is the first game in the Uncharted series and will be followed by a sequel.

Plot Summary

The game opens with Nathan Drake (Nolan North) recovering the coffin of the explorer and an ancestor of Nathan (as professed by himself), Sir Francis Drake from the ocean floor, using coordinates inscribed on a ring in Nathan's possession. The effort is paid for through journalist Elena Fisher (Emily Rose)'s company, who is there to record the events for a potential blockbuster documentary. The coffin is empty with no corpse, only containing a diary written by Sir Francis Drake, but points to the location of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold where Sir Francis went to find the treasure, proving he faked his death like Nathan had originally believed. With the assistance of Nathan's friend, Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle), they fly to the island without Elena and find clues that El Dorado is not actually a city, but a large statue of gold, and that the statue was removed long ago from where it was kept. However, Nathan and Sully discover a long-abandoned U-boat nearby, with the dead crew's pockets full of gold coins and a missing page from the Drake diary that points to a southern tropic island where the statue was likely taken. However, before they can leave the island, Nathan and Sully are accosted by Gabriel Roman (Simon Templeman), a competitive treasure hunter that has hired the services of mercenaries as well as Atoq Navarro (Robin Atkin Downes), an archaeologist with knowledge of the statue, and Eddy Raja (James Sie), an old rival of Nathan. Nathan refuses to help Gabriel, who then shoots Sully in the chest, just before Elena shows up to rescue Nathan. The two escape quickly with Sully's plane to where the statue is believed to be located.

As they near the island, their plane is shot down; both parachute to safety but are separated. Nathan works his way through Gabriel's hired forces to an old fort where he spotted Elena's parachute. However, he discovers familiar markings in the fort that are referred to by Drake's diary, and realizes that he's on the right path to find the statue. Nathan and Elena shortly are reunited, and flee the fort from Eddy and others of Gabriel's hired forces. The two work their way through a long-abandoned port city and discover, through a log book in its custom house, that the statue did indeed pass through the port and was moved further inland to a monastery. At the monastery, Nathan again uses the diary to locate hidden passages yet found by Gabriel, and end up reunited with Sully, who survived because the diary blocked the bullet, and shows that he is still loyal to Nathan despite appearing to work with Gabriel's men. With Sully staying in a secure location to help Nathan by radio, Nathan and Elena find a series of maze-like passages below the monastery leading to a large treasure vault. They soon turn up to yet another dead end, but find Sir Francis Drake's body, assuming that he died on the island searching for the treasure. Before they move on, they encounter Eddy running scared for his life, chased by mutated humans possessing incredible speed and strength. Nathan and Eddy cooperates for the time being but Eddy eventually falls to their attack, allowing Nathan and Elena to escape, finding themselves in an abandoned German submarine base built into the island. With no other way out but by restoring power to the base, Nathan ventures alone into the base, encountering more of the mutated beings. After restoring power, Nathan discovers an old movie reel, describing how the Germans during World War II had sought for the statue, but too late learned that it carried some curse, changing the soldiers that were exposed to it into the mutated beings. An aged letter written by Francis Drake found near the reel also reveals that Drake did not seek the El Dorado statue as treasure but instead to prevent it from leaving the island due to its effects, The letter also proves Francis Drake was killed by the mutants which were in fact the Spaniard's who found the treasure first, mutated in the same way the German soldiers were. Nathan knows now that he must make sure the statue never gets away from the island to prevent its effects from spreading.

Nathan attempts to return to Elena, but finds her captured by Gabriel and Navarro. Nathan makes his way out of the base, through both Gabriel's forces and the mutated beings, and catches up with Sully as they defeat those that are covering Gabriel's escape through the old church in the monastery. They find that Gabriel has indeed found the statue, and as they watch, Navarro urges Gabriel to open up the statue to see what's inside, claiming that the real treasure lies within. Gabriel does so, revealing the mummified "golden man" of legend. Dust from the mummy drifts out of the statue and into Gabriel's face, driving him mad and quickly causing him to enter an early stage of mutation, and is quickly shot dead by Navarro. It is strongly implied that Navarro had planned this from the beginning, and sought the statue not for the gold, but for the ability to sell the mutagen as a weapon. Navarro, still holding Elena captive, uses a helicopter to lift out the statue despite Nathan's warnings that the statue had wiped out the entire colony. Nathan is able to jump on to the statue before the helicopter can fully get away. Navarro quickly discovers Nathan and orders one of his men to shoot him. Elena uses the opportunity to kick the mercenary off the helicopter, resulting in the death of the pilot as the mercenary fires his rifle wildly while falling. In stormy weather, the chopper crashes onto the deck of the ocean tanker used by Gabriel, throwing both Nathan and Navarro some distance away. Nathan then confronts Navarro in a final fight. There he eventually knocks Navarro unconcious and runs to the aid of Elena in the burning wreckage of the helicopter that is hanging dangerously off the edge of the ship. However, Navarro has regained conciousness and climbed to his feet. Noticing that his legs have become tangled in the wire connecting the helicopter to the statue, Nathan pushes the helicopter overboard, dragging both Navarro and the statue to the depths with it.

Moments later, Sully arrives on small speedboat, having escaped the island and taken several boxes of treasure he found in the cave. Once aboard Elena reminds Nathan that because she lost her camera, he still owes her a story. As the boat sails towards the horizon, Nathan assures her he will not break his promise.

Gameplay

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune has the player controlling Nathan Drake in a mix of 3D platform game and a third-person shooter gameplay elements. The platforming elements are similar to games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time or Tomb Raider: Legend, allowing Nathan to jump, swim, grab and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and other similar acrobatic actions to make his way along the ruins on the various islands that he explores. When facing enemies, the player can use melee and combo attacks at close range to take out foes, or can opt to use weapons. Nathan can only carry one pistol with/without one rifle at a time as well as a limited amount of ammo per gun (each gun has its own max spare ammo) and grenades, but can swap either weapon out with any other weapon of the same type on the ground (i.e., a Moss-12 Shotgun for a AK-47, or a Makarov PM 9mm pistol for a fully-automatic pistol). The third-person shooter elements are similar to kill.switch where the player can have Nathan take cover behind walls, and use either blind-fire or covered fire to take out foes, and more so to Gears of War, due to the lack of an actual health bar and cover essential to success.

The game also includes sections where Nathan must protect the jeep he and Elena are in using a mounted turret, and where Nathan and Elena use a jetski along water-filled routes while avoiding enemy fire and explosive barrels using weapons such as the M79 grenade launcher and the 92FS-9mm.

Throughout the levels are 78 treasures that will glint momentarily at times to indicate their presence; these treasures have no direct effect on gameplay, but collecting a number of these will earn "reward points". Reward points can be earned also by completing certain accomplishments, such as achieving a number of kills using a specific weapon, making a number of headshots, or using specific methods of killing enemies. In subsequent playthroughs of the game, the player can spend these rewards points to unlock special options, such as unlimited ammo or one hit kills. These reward points can also be used to unlock Eddy's gun, known as his 'Golden Gun'. Besides weapons and game alterations, the rewards points can unlock several concept art menus, 'making of' videos, and alternate costumes for Nate, including the enemies that he faces.

There are also several references to other Naughty Dog games, especially the Jak and Daxter series, through examples such as the "Ottsel" branding on Drake and Fisher's wetsuits at the beginning of the game and a Precursor Orb (which play a large role as currency during the series) which can be found as a "Hidden" treasure.

Use of Indonesian

• Eddy Raja and his mercenaries speak Indonesian, while there's an option for subtitles, the Indonesian in this game is not translated.

• Some of the mercenaries would call Drake "Bule" during firefight. "Bule" is an Indonesian slang word for caucasian foreigners, some foreigners find the word derogative.

• Drake also speaks Indonesian in the game, in the scene where Drake arrives at the fortress' gate, he says "buka pintu", which means "open the door". When asked "Siapa ini? Bicara sekarang!" (literally "Who's this? Talk now!"), Drake replies "Sialan lu! Cepatan buka pintu" ("Damn you! Quickly open the door!"). Although the game contains no grammatical errors, the enemies speak a formal and polite form of the Indonesian language, which is very unlikely to be used by cut-throat mercenaries.

Reception

Uncharted was well received by many game critics, with being the best reviewed PS3 exclusive on Gamerankings with an average score of 89.7% but it did criticize the game's linear gameplay and lack of freedom of motion. .

Sites such as Kotaku and IGN, have named it their PS3 game of the year.

Sequel

Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog, has said a sequel for Uncharted is very likely, sometime in the near future, although Naughty Dog is also considering continuing the Jak and Daxter series.

On 31 December 2007, in an interview with French news website LCI.fr, Naughty Dog company co-president Christophe Balestra confirmed that the development of the sequel to Uncharted would begin shortly.

Regional Differences

The website Kotaku reports that Uncharted is censored in some territories. No matter which regional version of the game is purchased, when played on a Japanese console, all blood is removed. Blood normally appears when shooting enemies. This only affects Japanese PlayStation 3 consoles and there is no known workaround.

References

External links

• Uncharted Official US Site
• Uncharted Official European Site
• Uncharted Official Japanese Site

able, enigmatic, incalculable, incognizable, mysterious, puzzling, sealed, strange, trackless, unapparent, unapprehended, unascertained, unbeknown, unclassified, undisclosed, undiscoverable, undiscovered, undivulged, unexplained, unexplored, unexposed, unfamiliar, unfathomed, unheard, unheard-of, unidentified, uninvestigated, unknowable, unknown, unperceived, unplumbed, unrevealed, unsuspected, untouched, virgin