It's funny that I started the thread and I am now finally just getting to play it. Just finished my first time through the demo on normal. I died once.
As I've come to enjoy in all the PS3 games, the sound quality is phenomenal. The musical score is great as well. In the opening scene "Oh shit, 1,2,3,4,5" and a lot of the other dialogue had me ROFL. I love Nathan's personality. I really think they nailed the feel of the character. Definitely gives me that Indiana Jones feel. Irreverent, resourceful, and witty. Love it.
I've hardly seen any of the media on this game and hadn't paid any attention to it until after Ratchet & Clank came out. Always kind of wondered why everybody was fainting over it. Well, consider me converted.
The demo screams polish and finesse like the best games that have come out this year have. Graphics-wise, if there's one thing that sticks out the most in the game, I would say it's the lighting. A very close second would be how the animations look and transition which brings me to gameplay.
It boggles my mind how I can be running around this complex environment and see my character running, and jumping and grabbing onto ledges and it looks like the character is actually in the environment. For example, when you're crawling up on a ledge, your character doesn't jerk around into position on the ledge and then pull himself up like any other game would. He grabs on naturally depending on how you approach it. It made me feel like I had a lot more control over my character.
This carried over into the cover system and combat. The combat is a much more refined version of Gears and RE4 (never played Killer 7). The gunplay requires the finesse of RE4 so you can shoot enemies in specific areas and it really matters where you shoot them. Ammo is somewhat limited, and a good aim is important. Every shot counts and the pirates go down in about as many hits as you think they should. Not too difficult or too easy.
It also improves on the cover mechanic from Gears substantially. The cover feels and looks much more realistic and intuitive. Unlike Gears, when I go into cover, it doesn't feel like I have a gigantic electro-magnet that suddenly appears and attaches me to the nearest cover. I can maneuver a lot easier and it's a lot more fluid. Especially felt this way when I felt I was being cornered. A big difference in the cover controls is that I felt that Uncharted was more intuitive. I didn't need a prompt at the bottom of the screen all the time telling me where my character would go if I popped over from cover to cover. The controls just kind of did what I wanted them to do. It was one less thing I needed to think about when I'm in the midst of combat. It just made sense.
The AI is fairly aggressive and the battle chatter is really great and adds a lot to how you approach your combat situations. I found that listening to what they were talking about helped me play better. A nice little touch.
Overall, it seems like a solid buy for me. Everything impresses and I haven't even stopped to take stock of how good the graphics look yet. The gameplay just felt great/fun. As soon as I can scrounge up the money, Uncharted will be mine.
