Before our hands-on time, Naughty Dog president Evan Wells took the podium to present the game to the press. Citing the development house's long, storied history with Sony, Wells laid out the ideas behind Uncharted. For years, the Naughty Dog team had wanted to make a game with human characters, but the power of gaming hardware has traditionally limited what could be accomplished. With the PlayStation, the Crash Bandicoot franchise was the best that could be pulled off, given the system's limitations. With the PlayStation 2's capabilities, the dev house took a step closer, with the rise of the Jak franchise and its humanoid characters. With the PS3, Naughty Dog's vision of a heavily story-based game with realistic people has finally been realized.
Wells went on to say that the core ideas behind Uncharted's story lie in pulp adventure novels. From reading hundreds of trashy novels of treasure hunts and exotic tales, Naughty Dog formulated three ideas that drive the game: intense gunfights, an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, and big, dangerous stunts. With the PS3's capabilities, Wells said that there is no way that Uncharted could have been made for any other system, let alone fit on a single disc. Naughty Dog plans to maximize the storage space that the Blu-ray format offers, while alternately utilizing the PS3's hard drive cache to minimize load times.
With those ideas in mind, we picked up a Sixaxis and jumped right into the action. As the hero Nathan Drake, you'll take on the role of a treasure hunter in search of lost fortune left behind by Sir Francis Drake (who might or might not be his ancestor) on a deserted jungle island. Along the way, there will be hazards, both human and natural, that will threaten to thwart his quest for loot. You'll control him through gameplay that should feel familiar to any action gamer.
