Uncharted: Golden Abyss

The star of the PS Vita launch, I was distinctly underwhelmed by the Uncharted demo, despite the undeniably gorgeous graphics for a handheld. It felt like I was being baby-walked through the entire thing, not just the initial guides, and ultimately it wasn’t until Gravity Rush and a little spree of imported rhythm games that I felt that anything on the Vita was worth playing.

Yet I’ve rushed through this one. Why? Because it was free. Well, it as free on PS Plus this month, and I had a free membership to Plus, so I thought I might as well!

Ultimately, I’m glad I played it – but also glad I didn’t have to play for it. It was a well-made game, but left me utterly cold, and of course was a bad game to play alongside its spiritual successor The Last of Us, which does everything much, much better and actually has a soul.

The problem here – beyond how obviously the series derives from Tomb Raider – is that I dislike Nate Drake. He’s the kind of character I always hated as a kid and have never grown to tolerate, bombing a dozen people and watching their dead bodies slump to the ground and the getting up to wisecrack, ‘Hot enough for ya?’ or something. I hate people who wisecrack and get smug, unless they’re a bit of a runt to begin with (like Spiderman) or end up taking as much as they give. But Drake just swaggers around being a sarcastic twatface who everyone stands around praising for his skills and knowledge and animal magnetism. Urgh.

The game is also a bit clunky. The story is that archaeological expert and all-around hero Drake is brought in to examine some unexpected remains of Spanish soldiers in Panama, with Visigoth symbols marking their graves. His dodgy partner Dante is revealed to be in league with local ‘generale’ Roberto Guerro, a huge cliché of a Central American drug lord and revolutionary soldier. Also there is the feisty young Marisa Chase, known as Chase, who is as annoying as Drake while also insisting on never using guns until at the end of the game she sees the light and discovers it is wonderful to shoot baddies in the face. As long as, y’know, they deserve it because they’re attacking first because if they don’t the drug lord is going to kill their families. (Probably.)

A mysterious amulet (yes, really) leads the way to Chase’s grandfather’s mysterious dig – which turns out to be connected with the Mysterious Cities of Gold. How original. Of course, they find one, it’s all very beautiful and underground and their security mechanisms still work centuries later, and though the gold is all radioactive, of course the bad guys still want it to flog on the world market.

Drake and his various allies – the only likeable one of whom is grizzly old Sully – either sneak about killing Guerro’s soldiers – and later, Dante’s hired mercs – or just go in all guns blazing, and generally the thing moves at a good old pace. Except when things grind to a halt to show off some gimmick of the PS Vita. You have to rub away at the screen to clean artefacts or take charcoal rubbing, reassemble jigsaws at length, and most annoyingly, to use the accelerometer to stop Drake losing his balance, which looks very stupid if you’re playing on a train (as I was). There’s also one part where you have to hold the Vita up to the light, which is quite cool, though whether the light matters or just the angle I’m not sure. Hmm, apparently it is light-sensitive. Impressive!

Anyway, these gimmicks generally got in the way and broke up the gameplay – which was largely kinda dull. True, it’s better to have all enemies believable real-world thugs rather than, y’know, living statues or mystical beings awoken in the tombs, but things do get repetitive. And it’s annoying how when you finally get your hands on a minigun it’s nowhere near as good for you as it was for your foes.

Ultimately, the experience feels hollow and careless. I don’t know if this is the case for the three games before this one, but in all honesty, after playing this one through I don’t much care to know.