What is Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection?
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is a remastered compilation of the first three games in the tomb-raiding adventure series, comprising Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, all three of which originally released on the Playstation 3. Bundling three games in one, this is a collection packed with puzzles, exploration and historically-themed adventures, as you step into the shoes of treasure hunter Nathan Drake, and set out on a quest for some mysterious artefacts, uncovering plenty of strange goings on in the process. But its not all about dusty archaeology - alongside exploring puzzling tombs, you'll be escaping burning buildings, falling from planes, and taking part in out of control train shoot-outs, as bad guys get wind of Nathan's latest finds.
How do you play Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection?
Playing out in a similar fashion to the older Tomb Raider games, protagonist Nathan Drake is a veritable explorer, and an agile one at that. With many a ruin reduced to rubble, you'll need to take a pretty gymnastic path as you try and find your way around, often needing to scale walls, leap gaps or clamber across narrow ledges in a manner reminiscent of your average platform game. Played from a third person, over the shoulder perspective, the game often mixes in elements of puzzle solving too, where you'll have to activate buttons in the right order, rotate statues to face a certain direction, or move emblems to the correct positions on a grid to open up a previously locked door. Needless to say, you'll often need to engage your grey matter before you can proceed.
With many a bad guy hot on your heels, you'll need to be able to handle yourself in combat too - but luckily, Mr. Drake has plenty of firepower at his disposal. Generally relying on cover, you'll need to crouch behind crates and lurk behind walls, popping your head out to fire off a few shots at enemies when an opening presents itself.
How easy is Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection to pick up and play?
Generally speaking, Uncharted should be fairly familiar territory for anyone who's ever played an adventure game before, blending platforming exploration with fairly simple combat. With a light dual analogue control scheme (left stick moves, right stick can optionally be used to look around), levels are for the most part pretty linear. While there are collectibles to be found hidden off the beaten path, it's usually fairly obvious where you need to head next. The game's most challenging bits, then, are its puzzles, and its combat - although luckily, you can get a few hints for some of the more involved puzzles by checking out Drake's journal, accessible via the Touch Pad on the controller.
On the combat side of things, with an impressive six difficulty levels to choose from, everyone should be able to find a setting that suits them here. For the newcomer, the 'just there for the story' Explorer difficulty gives you an aim assist and significantly bolsters Nathan's health and defence, making him near impossible to kill, while at the other end of the scale, the unlockable Brutal difficulty halves your health, and sees you taking quadruple damage... Even better, you can switch between the different difficulty levels at any time, letting you tweak your challenge as you go.
Uncharted is generally fully voiced throughout the story, with the only real reading found in the tutorial prompts, or when double-checking some of Nathan's notes in his notebook.
Sample Sentences include:
- "Press X to climb up onto a ledge."
- "I did not tell half of what I saw for I knew I would not be believed."
- "Press Triangle to counter attack while grabbed."
In terms of mature content, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection features mild sexual innuendo, infrequent bad language, and moderate violence and gore.
In terms of violence, you'll engage in firefights with enemies on a regular basis, using pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades, with each accompanied by explosions and blood splatters. Hand to hand combat also crops up from time to time, along with some more stealthy takedowns involving either choking, or cracking the neck of your enemy to incapacitate them.
Innuendos do crop up from time to time during cutscenes, too, such as "So much for foreplay.", "A man only interested in the climax. You must be a real hit with the ladies." and "Oh, is that an ancient Tibetan ritual dagger in your pocket?". One scene shows a female character straddling Drake on a bed, both fully clothed, before kissing as the camera drifts away.
As for bad language, the words sh*t and d*ck crop up from time to time.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Playstation 4
