Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

I have Blue Blood to thank for this one. One late-night-chatathon-gameathon-thingie, he gave me a link to a video. I clicked, and saw this guy running around in a jungle blowing things up. I didn't really like it, but I remembered the name, Uncharted.

Then a demo was released on PSN, which I downloaded. I played a little bit, and didn't like that either. The next day, I played it again and thought it was actually quite good.

Then the reviews came in and everyone is waxing lyrical about how great Uncharted is, so I preordered it from play.com. And it arrived a day early yesterday. And by God how awesome it is!!!

It's kinda like a mix between Tomb Raider and Gears of War, but instead of big boobs and/or big American soldiers, it's just an ordinary guy in an extraordinary predicament. Lots of guns, traps, and platforms to play around with. Kinda like a modern day Indiana Jones.
There's nothing new that hasn't been done before here, but it's just all done with so much emphasis on fun and story, that it's just a really good game.

But, for the first time in my recent memory, I'm actually enjoying a game because of how good it looks. Something I've never took in to account before (Graphics don't mean much to me). But this game is just AMAZING. There are scenes in it that you just want to stop playing and take tons of pictures of. I remember when the first cutscene finished and the game started, the graphics were so good that I thought I was still looking at a prerendered scene. It was only until I moved the joystick around did I realise this was the in-game engine in all it's glory.

And glorius it is. I think the PS3's real potential and power is starting to be unlocked now that developers are getting used to the system. I still haven't even put Ratchet and Clank in the machine, but from what I hear it's another great gameplay and graphics tour-de-force.

Both great endings to one of the best years gaming has ever seen. Thank God I'm a gamer.