It doesn?t take much time with Uncharted: Golden Abyss to see why Sony?s been showcasing this game as their flagship launch title for the Playstation Vita. It?s a gorgeous game, and while it does take some technical shortcuts necessary for the hardware in comparison to the PS3 Uncharted titles, my jaw was in a constant state of drop while playing through the game. Seriously, Uncharted fans shouldn?t be disappointed with how this game looks and performs on the Vita.
This adventure predates the first Uncharted, showcasing a slightly younger, slightly more na?ve adventurer Nathan Drake as he gets embroiled in a conflict between a group or revolutionaries and his treasure hunting ?friend? Dante. The new characters introduced here, both Dante and female lead Chase, are pretty decent additions to the cast. It?s hard to deny that Chase constantly feels like a less than ideal Elena replacement, but there?s still a pretty great dynamic between all three characters throughout the game.
But, there?s a lot of new stuff too. The game certainly goes out of its way to incorporate as much of the Vita?s abilities as it can, some of which work and some that don?t. For instance, when faced with a climbing section, you can now use the touchscreen to trace the path across the ledges for Drake to traverse, and the game will automatically move Drake across. When aiming your weapons you can not only using the analog sticks to adjust the crosshairs, but also assist using the built in gyro features of the handheld.
You?ll come across a serious of option and non-optional events that involve charcoal rubbings, piecing maps or photographs together, and other little tasks involving the touch screen. You?ll even encounter a moment that involves holding the back of your Vita to a strong light source to make some previously invisible letters on parchment show on screen. Granted, a lot of this is gimmicky, and thankfully the developers do give players the choice to opt between regular button controls and the touchscreen for some of this, but not everything. Charcoal rubbings, the light shining thing, an awful balance beam mechanic, those are all forced on the player. The charcoal rubbings aren?t particularly intrusive, they take seconds to complete and are mostly optional, but the balance beam mechanic makes an odd return to the series after being used once in the original Uncharted with the Six Axis controller, and I can?t imagine why anyone though it was a good idea.
The game doesn?t use a multiplayer mechanic, which is a little disappointing, but not a huge loss considering the main story is still pretty beefy for a handheld. There?s a ton of optional treasure stuff to seek out, way more than any other Uncharted game has used before. There?s also a feature called the Black Market, which incorporates the NEAR app on the Vita, and allows you trade treasure items between other people you encounter playing the game on the Vita. If you?re at all OCD in your video game playing, you?ll be spending a lot of time hunting down all the optional treasure stuff here.
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