Gamersledge Review: Uncharted: Golden Abyss Review (Playstation Vita)

Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the PS Vita exclusive adventure in the Uncharted universe featuring Nathan (call me Nate) Filli—er I mean Drake. I haven’t played Uncharted 1,2 or 3, so I can’t really say how this compares, but I do know it takes place before the event of Drake’s Fortune and shares much of the charm and appeal of it’s siblings.

The story revolves around Nate being called in by an old “buddy”, Jason Dante, to help identify and extract artifacts from a Central American site under control of the local warlord, Roberto Guerro. Add to the mix another treasure hunter, Marisa Chase and later a buddy those familiar to the series, mercs, banditos and a plot straight out of National Treasure meets Indiana Jones.

Gameplay:

With two shoulder buttons and dual sticks, the Vita can deliver a pretty straight forward third person experience. Most of the game is spent maneuvering through the environments (Jungle, warlord camp, ruins et al), walking, balancing and climbing, climbing, climbing. I don’t know if there is that much climbing in the regular Uncharted games, but Drake’s hand must be the most calloused and over muscled hands and forearms of any human ever. It’s actually about the most unbelievable part of the whole story, but I digress. Toss in the cover taking, over the shoulder gun battles and you have the complete package.

SWIPE!

There is a new element with the addition of the touchpad and touch screen. You can climb paths by highlighting them on the screen, climb ropes by gesturing on the rear touchpad, aim grenades on the screen and follow a series of quick time event swipes for hand to hand combat and other actions. Also many of the minigames use the touchscreen. Chopping down bamboo like plants, the zoom on the camera, making charcoal rubbings and solving puzzles all use the touchscreen or touchpad. There is also a balance minigame that uses the gyroscope feature of the Vita to keep Drake from falling from the inordinately high places he always seems to find himself in. The minis aren’t bad, and keep the gameplay mixed up. Most of the main game touch features wear old after the first couple times. I would often touch the ledge of a long jump just to make sure I made the jump.

The last gameplay feature is collections. (Dear fluffy lord is there a lot of turquoise floating around Panama) These are actually generally tied to the mini games, and there are several collection lists in the game. Completing collection items gains you bonuses to virtual trading game like cards that….well honestly I have no idea what they do. I think they are tied to a downloadable game that was released later, but I have not explored this so don’t quote me.

Pluses: Nice control scheme, characters respond well, lines up well with “big brother” versions

Minuses: Touch screen stuff can get tiring, game does get repetitive

Partner, love interest or something else?

Story:

The story is pretty much straight out of the handbook of the genre. Dashing and unbelievably good, Nate jumps into a world of deceit, warlords, betrayal, unbetrayal, betrayal again and violence. All of the standards are here action, suspense, romance and humor. The story is really about Drake helping his new friend, Chase, solve the mystery of this mass burial and the secrets behind it.

From there some of the story takes on a National Treasure or De Vinci Code type twist with ancient secret societies, traps, puzzles and alleged piranhas. While in text these may look like bad things, the story is really the driver here. Not a lot of the story is hard to predict, and the encyclopedia like descriptions of some of the item give away plot points that are supposed to be surprises, but it is still enjoyable and well done. You can tell they took the time to make sure that the essence of Drake and the world he lives in was captured and presented just as if it were a “big screen” entry.

A true sonofaCANDYLAND – Jason Dante. Sea turtle skin boots…

At the end, while it does nothing really new, the story is engaging and well done. The narrative flows well and there are a minimum of eye roll moments, though Drake’s endless killing of minions, but reluctance to kill a true son of a *CANDYLAND* does make one groan.

Pluses: Not a stripped down story, narrative flows well

Minuses: None really

Presentation:

The game is gorgeous!

Visually the game is stunning, especially when looking at the large open rendered backgrounds. The close up real time renders are no schlubs though. This game looks at least as good on this screen as an early cycle PS3 game. I don’t know what else I can say, the whole package is very well put together and I had no complaints.

The voice acting and audio was also very well done. All the weapons sounded and handled differently. The cutscenes were well directed and performed. Again no real complaints. The voice actors were all outstanding and the quality over my headphones was awesome.

Not sure if this is a presentation issue, but the enemy AI is a bit weak, which is a good thing cause otherwise you could get overrun pretty easily.

Pluses: Graphics and audio are outstanding

Minuses: ??

It would be easier to keep my balance if it weren’t so darn PRETTY!

The overall verdict:

Despite not being developed natively by Naughty Dog (They were close partners) Golden Abyss manages to catch the charm and content of a full game experience and bring it to the handheld scene. This is a great feat, especially when mixed with the ability to go in and out of the game simply with the Vita’s amazing OS and the instant on/instant off standby. I played this while traveling by air, and the transitions couldn’t have been simpler. It presents solid gameplay, graphics and audio to the realm of the handheld and makes it all look easy.