Uncharted: Sony's Fortune
“Hmm..let me try this game out. Maybe it'll finally give me a reason to turn on my crappy PS3”
“OMFG!!! This game roxxxxxxx!!! Sony FTW!!!”
Uncharted: Sony's Fortune is a corporate/action/adventure/platforming/comedy game developed by the legendary developing company Naughty Dog, which is a front for the Sony corporation. It seems to chronicle the journey of explorer Nathan Drake, as he searches for a mythical City of Gold (or El Dorado, if you want a fancier name) which was supposedly discovered by his ancestor Sir Francis Drake. However, it has been asserted by some that this game is actually a retelling of Sony's own search for the mythical treasure, as nobody can understand how Sony's fortunes changed so dramatically after the release of this game. Indeed, Sony even changed the name of their game to "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" once these rumors started circulating. They now claim that their game was always meant to be called Drake's Fortune, and that no game with the title Uncharted:Sony's Fortune ever existed.
Plot[edit]
The game tells the story of an expedition searching for El Dorado, or the City of Gold, consisting of an archaeologist named Nathan Drake, and a journalist named Elena Fisher (cousin of Sam Fisher) who is unwittingly funding the operation thinking it will result in a big breakthrough for her career. Nathan dredges out the coffin of Sir Francis Drake from the deep blue sea, and forces it open. However, it's empty save for a rusty box and a mysterious journal. Then, the action begins, as their ship is ambushed by pirates! Nate and Elena manage to fight them off long enough for them to be rescued by Nate's mentor Sully.
Afterwords, Nate has a talk with Sully about how Sir Francis Drake was onto something big, and how this big something is actually El Dorado, or a mythical City of Gold. Sully tells Nate to "cut the crap" and give him the actual location of the treasure. Unfortunately, Nate can't do that as the last page of the journal is conveniently missing. They then escape from Elena in the very motorboat they were having this discussion in, fearing that they'll have every two-bit scumbag racing them to the treasure if she indeed does gets her big story.
They then begin to search a tropical, lush island for the treasure. For no clear reason, Nate climbs up on a ledge, jumps across some weird pillars and pushes a boulder to the ground. However, this boulder reveals an underground cavern, which the two of them decide to explore.
Obviously, they find nothing of value in there, but to add some drama, Sully kicks an old helmet on the ground in a fit of rage. He then begins harping about what a huge debt he's in, so that we feel an emotional connect with him. They decide to explore further inwards, and lo and behold, they have some puzzles to solve! After solving all sorts of weird puzzles involving weird levers, strange symbols and rusty barrels which Nate blows up with his pistol, they reach the end of the cavern. They take a look at the paintings on the wall this time for some reason, and discover that El Dorado is not actually a "City of Gold", but actually a Statue of Gold! Furthermore, they discover some tire tracks which conveniently lead them out of the cavern. There they follow the tracks and find-off all things- a battleship hanging precariously from a cliff! Sully warns Nate against exploring it, but exploring it is exactly what he does! They're then ambushed by a couple of bad guys, who Sully owed some money too. It is also revealed that he was stupid enough to tell them he was "on to something" the last time they met. The bad guys then shoot Sully in the chest, but Nate manages to make a break for it thanks to an explosion that rattles the battleship at this convenient hour.
The rest is pretty easy to guess- Nate will escape the bad guys, reunite with Elena, Sully will be revealed to be still alive, and there will be loads of gunfights and chase sequences, and even more twists and turns in their search for the Golden Statue. However, the Gold Statue will be cursed, like all treasures are, and they will have to battle creepy cursed mutants, as well as the pirates who ambushed them in the beginning of the game. Once they get to the Golden Statue, they will get cornered by the bad guys, but then there will be a twist related to who the real bad guy is, who will explain how "he knew about the treasure and its curse the whole time", and the good guys will eventually defeat the real bad guy but not get the treasure. Of course it won't really matter as they get a lot of other stuff, along with a lesson of how valuable friendship, valor, honor, sacrifice, blah-blah-blah is.
Gameplay[edit]
In the game, the playable protagonist is the Nathan Drake. The game mostly involves running around in super-gorgeous environments, jumping over stuff and grabbing onto things, and solving puzzles using Sir Francis Drake's journal. A notable aspect of the game is how the player cannot even run for 5 seconds before encountering a ledge to jump on, or a puzzle to solve. The puzzles are notoriously difficult, as you have to rely on the archaic, incomprehensible language and poor, smudgy hand-drawings of Sir Francis Drake. This aspect of the game caused its players to get addicted to it for hours, hence heavily ramping up the popularity of the PS3, which was till now considered to be a waste of money as nobody ever turned it on for more than 5 minutes.
Another notable feature of the game was its heavy emphasis on combat. A major segment of the game involves fighting a huge battalion of pirates, defeating them, and then battling another huge battalion of pirates, and then another huge battalion of pirates. Most of the time you have to take cover at the right places, as the AI is very advanced and aggressive, and can shoot you down in 10 seconds if you're not hiding behind something. This resulted in players spending hours hiding behind a rock, shooting at army after army of enemies. However, despite all of this, the game is very well-paced, as 90% of the storyline is covered in uber-cool cinematic cutscenes, and the lengthy, tedious gameplay was just to give players the illusion that they were playing something.
Reception[edit]
The game was extremely well-received by critics, who praised the game's visuals, gameplay, and awesomeness. IGN said that "Till date, we thought that the only 'games' anybody could make exclusively for the PS3 were kiddy puzzles for tiny kids. Naughty Dog has proved us wrong once and for all." Gamespot said that "This game fucks Lara Croft right in the arse, in a good way!". Indiana Jones has said "The game not only reminded me of how much fun I used to have in my treasure-hunting heyday, but it also made The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seem like a crock of shit!".
Was this based on a true story?[edit]
Given the extent to which this game changed Sony's fortunes, rumors are rife that this game was actually obtained as a result of a clandestine expedition conducted by Naughty Dog. There have been allegations that Sony's executives hired a team of archaeologists to search for El Dorado so that they could find an alternative business avenue to explore (read gold merchanting), but instead they discovered a prototype of a video game. This game was allegedly so fucking awesome, they played it for days before reporting back to Sony's headquarters. "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was actually based on an actual expedition conducted by a secret division of Naughty Dog." said a member of the company, on condition of anonymity. "Pretty much the entire game is based on their expedition. They copied the awesome game's source code, and used it to recreate the beautiful tropical islands in Uncharted."
There have also been unconfirmed reports that the game was "cursed" with a "highly lethal virus", and that the expedition of Naughty Dog was ambushed by "undercover agents from Microsoft, who planned to produce the game for themselves and use the virus to bug the PS3 versions of all video games.". "You can see a clear pattern here," said the anonymous person, "Sony explored the legend of El Dorado, and stumbled upon the awesome video game the same way Nate and Sully discovered that El Dorado was actually a statue, not a city. The Golden Statue is the awesome video game!"
Sony's executives themselves have vehemently denied these allegations "Even if we did go on such awesome adventures, do you think we'd actually bother to develop a game just so we can show-off about it, and possibly reverse the fortunes of the PS3? How desperate do you think we people are? I mean everybody was ravaged by financial crisis of 2008.....we weren't the only ones....screw Microsoft and their Xbox 360! Who's got the leading gaming console now, huh?!".