Naughty Dog previewed a few minutes of gameplay from the upcoming sequel to Uncharted titled “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” at GDC, and clearly at least one thief was in attendance — the internet video leaking variety.

Thank (or blame) the makers of tiny devices capable of recording video and foreign gaming sites with writers who answer for their actions with phrases like “Sorry no speak English.”

The glimpse above of pits Drake in what appears to be an urban war zone of sorts. If you loved the original, you will likely cream your pants over this too. Personally, I just hope he can crouch without needing the assistance of low lying cover. Fingers crossed.

Enjoy and let us know what you think.

NeoGAF forum member ‘jiggle’ has posted an extensive set of Uncharted 2:Among Thieves screenshots and concept art. All that can be said about them is, well, wow. The game is looking even better than the first, if that is even possible, and the locations shown confirm multiple locations (along with the snow seen in the trailer). Hit the jump for the full gallery, seriously.

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As you’re probably aware, the sequel to Naughty Dog’s Phenomenal adventure title Uncharted was announced just the other day. The teaser trailer for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves sported amazing visuals, but as with as most teasers, the question was asked: was it real-time?

Yes. Yes it was.

In an interview with Gamezine, Naughty Dog’s Lead Character Artist Richard Diamant said:

“Yes, the trailer was all rendered real-time in our engine.”

Now that you’ve realized just how incredible this game looks, take another look at the trailer. Look at that sweet, sweet snow action! Seriously, this game just shot to the top of my most anticipated list.

GameInformer has finally confirmed the long-awaited sequel to Naughty Dog’s debut PlayStation 3 game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. As you might be able to tell, the new game, entitled Uncharted 2:Among Thieves, will feature a radically different setting- snow. This time, Drake is chasing the treasure of 13th century explorer Marco Polo, and the game will feature a “free-climbing” mechanic and a stealth system. Hit the jump for the first trailer.

The full trailer will run at the Spike TV video awards on Sunday December 14. Can’t wait- this is sure to be a fantastic game, bearing Naughty Dog’s histroy of great games in mind.

Via Shacknews.

The final part of our interview explores Uncharted’s animation system, filmic inspirations, the possibility of new melee capabilities in the next project, along with Naughty Dog’s current relationship with Insomniac.

Please click on these links for the first and second parts of the interview, which saw us touch upon Uncharted’s art style, water, character creation process, and Richard’s background before joining Naughty Dog.

Patrick: The animation of Drake is extremely impressive – watching him duck bullets, flinch from explosions, and show expressions on his face is a sight to behold. Can you explain your animation system in more depth?

Richard: Our animation system is actually very impressive. It allows us to layer animation on top of each other. That means the animators can animate a walk cycle, then an upper body duck animation, another upper body flinch animation, and then our engine can blend them all together seamlessly without any popping. This allows smooth transitions between animations and gives the illusion that no two animations are the same, when in reality, only a couple poses or additives are there.

In the past, most, if not all games, relied on just going from one animation to another. This caused pops if the animations was not finished, which forced you to jump to the next one. I think everybody saw this as a problem and really focused on coming up with a viable solution.

Patrick: Is this an area that you can see improving? For instance, one of my criticisms of Drake’s animation was a slide before his walking/running animation begins.

Richard: Yes. That is something we all wanted to improve. It was one of the last things on the list for repair and we were not able to fix the problem in the time allotted.

To be fair, the reason it is not perfect is because first and foremost we cared about responsiveness. We worked very hard to make sure the player had full control over Drake. We didn’t want to give the feeling that the player had to wait for an animation to finish before they could change what Drake was doing. I think this led to a few instances which weren’t as polished as we’d like. We had a lot to do in a short period of time and this happened to be one area we felt wasn’t a huge make or break.

Patrick: The storytelling in Uncharted is another one of its triumphs, with the in-game chatter being very compelling. Are you happy with how this in particular turned out?

Richard: I’m very happy with the way that turned out. I think the more interaction within the game, the better. It really makes the world feel alive when people are talking, things are moving, birds are flying.

This is something I think all of us felt was a great addition to the game. It’s also something we plan on expanding more on in the future.

Patrick: What films inspired the game, Indiana Jones aside?

Richard: Besides Indy, we looked heavily into the Mummy and National Treasure. All movies that had that fun adventure feel to them. I’m sure most people see heavy influences from all of these. We also looked at the Time Machine for reference on how the Descendants might have looked and behaved.

But it wasn’t just movies that inspired us. We did a huge amount of research into the entire genre spanning all sorts of media from comics, novels, television and movies.

Patrick: We couldn’t help but notice that dead bodies and animals don’t react to gun shots. We understand that this was taken out for ratings purposes.

Would there be any chance of a downloadable update that would include this? A “Gore Patch” if you will.

Richard: I wish! It was really funny when it was in there. You could walk all over the dead bodies and shoot them to your hearts content and they would react accordingly. Unfortunately we had to remove it due to ratings.

I’m not sure we would be able to release a “Gore Patch”. That probably would cause some legal issues regarding the ratings as well. Would be nice though!

Patrick: In your original Uncharted trailer, Drake wielded a gun and a metal bar. Were you intending to allow Drake to use other objects in his melee combat? Could we expect this in a future game?

Richard: Yes and hopefully. That was always our intent from the beginning. Again, there was a time issue. We really wanted to focus on the main mechanics and that one fell by the way side. It is something that we all still want and will probably be trying very hard to incorporate into the second version. So, who knows? Keep your fingers crossed!

Patrick: Lastly, what kind of relationship do you now have with Insomniac? Do you ever want to share more of your technology with each other?

Richard: Well Insomniac is still independent, just exclusive to Sony. Because of that I think it limits the amount we can share. They have their own engine created in house and we have ours. I think we still have a very friendly relationship with them where, if either of us needed anything, it would not be a problem.

Sony really has made it a point to share between the studios so all of their games are of the highest level. That is something happening between a lot of the developers these days. It would be nice to incorporate all the nice parts of other games into ours and vice versa.

Patrick: Well we suspect most other developers would kill to have the assets and game engine you have created at Naughty Dog, so congratulations on such an impressive first generation effort. And thank you very much for joining us.

Richard: Thanks Patrick.

End of Part 3. To read Part 1 follow this link, and for Part 2 please go here. You can find more examples of Richard’s work at Naughty Dog here.

To read up on Richard’s background and the character creation process for Uncharted, read the first part here. Otherwise, lets get going.

Patrick: Uncharted’s art style is very striking. When and why did you make the decision to go with this painterly art style?

Richard: This decision was made really from the very beginning. Naughty Dog has a history of creating all their art by hand. I think this is what gives all their games a very unique look. That is really what we wanted to go for on this project. We wanted to stand out from the rest of the pack. We wanted people to look on the shelves at the stores and see something that was unique and different.

I also personally think it helps minimize the creepy feeling people get when games try to mimic real life and fall somewhat short. Painting everything by hand and creating our own style gives us the freedom to create a world of our own. If we want to break some rules then we can do it without feeling awkward.

Patrick: How long did it take for this vision to take shape? I’m sure it was very important for you to make the characters look at home in their environment.

Richard: It honestly took the entire life of the project for everything to really come together and take shape. I was truly amazed how everything came together in the end. I think it’s a true testament to the talent that is here at Naughty Dog. All of us were able to do our own thing and really focus on our individual tasks.

One huge thing which I think really helped bring everything together was the lighting. From the beginning we wanted to tackle the huge problem in games where the characters just feel “off” from the environments. We decided to go with a global lighting solution which allows the characters and environments to take advantage of the same lighting, thus making everything feel consistent and in place.

Patrick: It’s been common in other games for shadows to either shimmer or have jagged edges. How did Naughty Dog achieve such sharp dynamic shadows?

Richard: That’s all technical!! But honestly, it was a huge goal of ours to make everything smooth and sharp. I think we rewrote the shadow engine like 10 times. We also wanted one global shadow solution. That is why you can see everything cast a shadow on everything else. It’s one giant shadow map!

Really though, I can’t begin to try and explain the technical end of that. All I can say is we have some damn smart programmers working here.

Patrick: Are you sick of people asking how much PS3 power you are using, or how much space the game takes up on a Blu-ray?

Richard: I guess I don’t really mind when they ask. I’m just not sure why people think it’s so important. I guess the power question is a little more obvious. If they see something great and find out it’s only using a fraction of the power, then our hope for the future looks promising.

However, I don’t really understand why it matters how much space we take up. The Blu-ray gives us the ability to do almost anything we want. It’s an amazing piece of technology. I think we should all just be thankful we are no longer limited.

Patrick: With that in mind, could you fit Uncharted on a DVD if the cutscenes were rendered in-engine, instead of being stored as HD movies?

Richard: Honestly, I ‘m not really sure. I think we have so much data in terms of textures, models, and animation that it probably would go over. I guess it is possible though.

The thing is, we never really thought about it since we didn’t have to think about it. We never held anything back, which we might have had to do if we were limited to a DVD. I never really calculated the space the game takes up without the movies or extras, so to answer this question would really just be too hard.

Again though, does it really matter? That’s the good thing about the PS3. We don’t have to worry about storage anymore. I think this question is trying to satisfy all the people who want to know if it is possible to make Uncharted on the 360.

That question will have to remain unknown since it will never happen :) Now if it did need to happen, is it so bad to go back to the days of “Enter Disk 2″! Actually it might be. I guess the PS3 is better…hmm….

Patrick: It’s almost universally agreed that Uncharted has the most impressive looking water on consoles.

Evan expressed in a recent interview that you had bigger goals for the water. In what ways could you improve upon it? Would there only be an improvement in the splash effects, for example?

Richard: Splash effects are one example which can, and will, be improved. We had some really great technology which didn’t make it into this version of the game way back when. It pretty much dealt with the interaction between the water and objects. You were actually able to effect how the water flowed as well as the ability to start and stop where the water comes from. This means changing the environment and having the water react accordingly. You can imagine the game play possibilities with something like that.

That is one example of some of the possibilities we intended with the water. Really we want the water to be as much a part of the game play as it is a visual effect. Hopefully we can incorporate some of this in a future project.

Patrick: Would this allow for Drake to swim underwater in future titles, since this was lacking from Uncharted?

Richard: Drake swimming was one of the things that was cut from Uncharted since we felt we didn’t have the time to tune it properly. Looking back, I think it was a very good decision for the game. Underwater swimming can be very slow and potentially confusing. I’m not sure it really fits with the pace of game that we want to create. But at this point it’s too early to say if we’ll ever take another crack at it.

Patrick: We noticed Drake couldn’t crouch or crawl. Though it may slow down combat, crawling through nooks and crannies has been a staple of adventure titles. Do you see Naughty Dog incorporating this into the next game?

Richard: It actually never was a feature. I’m not sure it even was brought up at any point. I guess with our gameplay mechanics this never seemed like an issue. We’re already using a lot of buttons to control Nate and we want to keep the game as accessible as possible. So whatever we do in the future we will always try to keep the controls as uncomplicated as we can.

End of Part 2. To read Part 1 please follow this link, or have a look at more of Richard’s work here.

The final part of our interview, which will hit this Wednesday, looks at Uncharted’s animation system, inspiration, the possibility of a “Gore Patch” and using objects as melee weapons, in addition to Naughty Dog’s modern relationship with Insomniac. While you’re waiting, read up on our review of Uncharted.

The third and final part of the interview can be read here. 

In the first part of our interview we discuss the character creation process and the models themselves, from their polygon and texture count, to the laborious steps taken to create their hair.

Patrick: Hello Richard. Congratulations on creating one of the best games I’ve played this year and surely a favourite among Playstation 3 gamers.

First off, what is your professional background? And what games have you worked on before making your way to Naughty Dog?

Richard: My background is primarily in video games with some cinematic work. Before Naughty Dog I was working at NCSOFT Santa Monica studios. It was a small studio focusing on conceptual art and marketing as well as some cinematic work for Guild Wars.

Prior to NCSOFT, I was employed by Genuine Games, where I worked on 50 Cent Bulletproof and Fight Club. Before that, I was at a company called Hypnotix where I worked on Outlaw Golf and Outlaw Volleyball.

I went to school at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia where I studied multimedia and animation. I always knew I wanted to do something with video games and art so I decided to focus all of my attention on 3d.

At the time there really wasn’t any place to learn the skills needed like there is today. Most of the things I really had to learn on my own. I got very lucky landing my first job at Hypnotix right out of school. The rest, as they say, is history!

Patrick: Now you’re Naughty Dog’s Lead Character Artist, can you describe the process of designing characters on paper and then moving them into the game engine, and what role you had in this process?

Richard: That is a long one! Lets see… The initial concept for the characters goes through a huge process of back and forth between designers, story writers, and concept artists. They are the ones who define the personalities of the characters and initial look and feel. I do get some input as well in this process. However, my input usually comes at the later stages on the conceptual end.

After everyone has agreed on the “final” look of the character, it then goes to my team to build the model and conceptualize the characters even more. The reason I quote “final” is because the characters never really are final when they get to us. Naughty Dog has a pretty free process with characters as well as every other stage in our production. If we feel something isn’t working at any stage, we are the ones that make the decision to change it. That also goes for improvements.

On that note, once we begin to model the characters, changes do happen. Some things end up looking better as concepts than in 3d. Its our job to take what they give us and mold it into our own.

This is especially true when it comes to the face of the character. The concepts at times for heads can just be pictures of people we want the characters to look like. There have also been cases where we like some features from one person and other features from another. We take all of these ideas and turn them into a final product that everyone is happy with.

It’s not an easy job! :)

Once the models are built we move on to texturing, shading, and rigging the characters for the animation. They can then be exported to our engine and seen in game.

It’s still not done though! We then have to create wrinkle maps for all the heads and clothes, as well as a few other technical bits that are too boring to talk about. The characters for our game were a living file that was constantly updated, improved, and tweaked probably until the last week of production.

I was working on Uncharted’s lead character Nathan Drake on and off for over a year! If we didn’t have to ship I probably still would have been working on him!

Patrick: You’ve created some really iconic characters for Uncharted, how much has their design changed before the final print?

Richard: A ton! I wish we were allowed to show the initial concepts for Nathan Drake. But, we can’t. He basically has gone from a cartoony looking Jak character to more and more realistic as time has passed on.

When I was hired at Naughty Dog, I was brought on to create the look of Nate. At that time I think he had already gone through about 3 completely different revisions and Naughty Dog still was not entirely happy with the direction.

I was able to give my take on Nathan and, thankfully, it’s what they liked. After he was made, the remaining characters followed the same blueprints for style. It’s a hard process to create a character that is supposed to launch one of PS3’s biggest franchises. I’m grateful for having had this opportunity and am very happy with the way everything turned out.

Patrick: Did the actors have any impact on the character designs? That is, did you scan their faces in a similar way to Ninja Theory for Heavenly Sword?

Richard: Nope, not at all. Every character in our game was hand sculpted and hand painted from scratch. No scans of anything. That is one thing that I think Naughty Dog really liked about what I brought to the table. I try to create my characters with an artistic touch rather then trying to mimic reality. I think it also helps avoid that harsh “uncanny valley” feel that a lot of games are falling into. That mentality really spans across our entire team.

Everybody at Naughty Dog creates all their work from scratch without any scans. That is one reason I believe our game feels somewhat like a painting in a stylized universe rather then a recreation of reality.

Patrick: The characters in Uncharted are some of the most impressive video game models to date. They look even more impressive up close in the cutscenes. Are the in-game models any different from the cutscene models?

Richard: Thanks! Nope, the in game models are the exact same models that are used in the cutscenes. They also use the exact same textures. There really is no difference between them at all.

The only difference between the cutscenes and in game is a little higher quality lighting and shadowing. Hopefully not too noticeably different. We really wanted to keep the players immersed as much as possible. This meant using the same assets across the board.

Patrick: What sets the character models apart from many other games is that it’s very hard to see a polygon edge. How did you achieve such smooth models?

Richard: That was actually one of the trickier things to nail down. It’s also one of the things that we really wanted to focus on.

If you watch the first E3 trailer that was released a couple years ago, you can actually see some polygon stepping in the head of Nathan Drake. That was the first iteration of Nate’s head where I really tried to keep the polys to a minimum for performance sake.

Unfortunately this did not hold up as nicely as we wanted. We all felt seeing any kind of stepping took us out of the experience. So we decided that the characters needed more polygons to get rid of, or at least to minimize, the amount of hard edges seen.

So really to answer the question, its all about the polygons. Nathan Drake and the other main characters are in the upwards of 25k to 30k polygons. Probably one of the highest for a next gen game. It really wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing programmers and engine as well as the sheer power of the PS3. I know that term goes around a lot but really, the machine is a beast!

Patrick: How many polygons are each of the characters and how many texture maps do they sport?

Richard: All of the main characters are in the 25k to 30k range. The pirates and other secondary characters max out at around 15k.

The number of texture maps is a hard question to answer. It really differs per character. They have so many maps it’s really hard to count. The head alone has I think either 6 or 7 maps. Then you have the arms, clothes, hair, eyes, teeth and tongue. Each with at least 2 to 3 maps. We didn’t really care about the number of maps as apposed to the texture memory each character was able to hold.

The number was about 10-15 megs per main character. With texture compression, that’s a lot of maps! The pirates and other secondary characters had a limit of 4 to 5 megs total. Also a fair amount of textures for secondary characters.

Patrick: The hair shading is also some of the best to be seen. How did you create such realistic hair?

Richard: Painfully! Hair is not an easy thing to do in 3d, at least not easy to make look good. We wanted to create hair that looked and felt full. Again, not an easy thing to do in games since we are always limited by the amount of polygons we can use. This was another area that we decided not to hold back on. The hair alone got into the thousands of polygons. I think Drake’s hair is about 2500 or so.

We also worked pretty hard to find a shading solution that felt like real hair. We must have gone through about 20 iterations before we landed on the one used. It was a huge back and forth between us and the programmers to find what solution held up best.

In the end, we used a custom hair shader that simulates the specular sheen on hair combined with soft alpha and painted texture maps. It’s really nothing too crazy. Hair was something we were very worried about so to hear that people are happy with it makes us all feel very good about our decision!

End of Part 1. Part 2 will see us talking about Uncharted’s art style, shadows, and water, in addition to the advantages of Blu-ray. Make sure to join us next week. In the mean time why not read our review of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, or have a look at Richard’s impressive work.

Part 2 can be found here.

Part 3 can be read here.  In this final part of the interview we explore Uncharted’s animation system, filmic inspirations, the possibility of new melee capabilities in the next project, along with Naughty Dog’s current relationship with Insomniac.

Richard also divulges on the game’s art style, animation, and technical details never revealed before. After his views on improvements for Naughty Dog’s next game, we wander onto the advantages of Blu-ray and their relationship with Insomniac. Enjoy this preview of our three part interview.

Patrick: The characters in Uncharted are some of the most impressive video game models to date. They look even more impressive up close in the cutscenes. Are the in-game models any different from the cutscene models?

Richard: Thanks! Nope, the in game models are the exact same models that are used in the cutscenes. They also use the exact same textures. There really is no difference between them at all.

The only difference between the cutscenes and in game is a little higher quality lighting and shadowing. Hopefully not too noticeably different. We really wanted to keep the players immersed as much as possible. This meant using the same assets across the board.

Patrick: What sets the character models apart from many other games is that it’s very hard to see a polygon edge. How did you achieve such smooth models?

Richard: That was actually one of the trickier things to nail down. It’s also one of the things that we really wanted to focus on.

If you watch the first E3 trailer that was released a couple years ago, you can actually see some polygon stepping in the head of Nathan Drake. That was the first iteration of Nate’s head where I really tried to keep the polys to a minimum for performance sake.

Unfortunately this did not hold up as nicely as we wanted. We all felt seeing any kind of stepping took us out of the experience. So we decided that the characters needed more polygons to get rid of, or at least to minimize, the amount of hard edges seen.

So really to answer the question, its all about the polygons. Nathan Drake and the other main characters are in the upwards of 25k to 30k polygons. Probably one of the highest for a next gen game. It really wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing programmers and engine as well as the sheer power of the PS3. I know that term goes around a lot but really, the machine is a beast!

That’s the end of our preview, but make sure to join us tomorrow for the first extract from our three part interview with Richard Diamant. In the mean time why not read our review of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, or have a look at Richard’s impressive work.

It would be predictable for this review to start with, “The Playstation 3 needs some killer A-class games to justify its price tag, and Uncharted is it.”. But I won’t (even though I ironically just did start with that…hmm), because it simply isn’t true. No one game should justify the purchase of a console, but Uncharted is a AAA title and it should tempt you to buy a PS3. Naughty Dog’s first PS3 game is the definition of epic, and will make you say “wow” out loud more often than a pubescent teenager in a strip club.

The Naughty Dog team is known as one of the most technically proficient developers in the industry, pushing each of Sony’s systems to it’s limits. From Crash Bandicoot on the Playstation to Jak on the Playstation 2, Naughty Dog have always been at the top of their game. However, it is only with the arrival of the Playstation 3 that they felt they could fulfill their desire to create believable human characters in a realistic setting.

Through this new technology, Uncharted promised to bring a human intensity and realism never seen before in a video game. And though some may insult the game with “Dude Raider” catch phrases, I’d say it just about delivers on its promise.

Uncharted tells a compelling story of an ordinary man (not a buffed up, heavily armoured blokey bloke that is so common in games these days) in extraordinary circumstances, that’s not only set in the jungle, but in a pre-Incan temple, derelict U-boat, abandoned Spanish colony, and more.

The lead, Nathan Drake, believes he’s the descendant of Sir Francis Drake and in search for proof, things go awry. In discovering a 400-year old clue in Sir Francis Drake’s coffin, Nathan finds himself on a hunt for a fabled treasure, but instead ends up stranded on an island hunted by mercenaries. Outnumbered and out-gunned, Drake and his companions must fight to survive as they begin to unravel the terrible secrets hidden on the Island.

Sounds like a pretty great blockbuster movie plot, doesn’t it? It also sounds slightly generic, but the way the story is delivered in cutscenes and during gameplay is spectacular. Heavenly Sword started to perfect the way a story should be told in a game, with very expressive, life-like characters, but although the facial animation and performances were stellar in that game, the delivery in Uncharted is even more immersive.

Here, the cutscenes aren’t a side spectacle from the game, they are more embedded into the gameplay experience. Much of the story is told while you’re in the game, since you are accompanied by Elena and Sully who provide incidental chatter as you traverse (with accompanying facial animation), smoothing off the transition from cutscene to gameplay.

With characters so endearing that deliver witty one liners (“This is like looking for a bride in a brothel”), a sound track to rival the movies, and a story that twists and turns like the best of plots, this game is going to drag you through at a hell of a pace. And trust me, you won’t be kicking and screaming.

While we’re on the subject of the game’s pacing, lets just say that Naughty Dog’s age and expertise shows here. It might be a bit over the top to say that Uncharted is the best paced game you’ll play this year, but Uncharted is the best paced game you’ll have played this year. Starting the game, the narrative and gameplay build up is quite gradual, leading you through the story with platforming and simple puzzles, but then things pick up. From here on in, lengthy and exciting gunfights are built up to a crescendo and then reigned back by rest periods of exploration, cutscene, or a simple puzzle.

Plus, when you think things are starting to get a bit similar, Naughty Dog will throw you into a completely different environment, or into one of the vehicle sections in the game. The level design here is second to none. Each environment is so well designed and varied that most developers would be happy to use just one of them for their whole game, and as you get to the latter part of the game you may be able to think of some games that do indeed take this design philosophy (Gea…Resi… ok, no names).

But Naughty Dog has created such a wide variety of environments, from jungles, to forts, underground caverns, to… well we’ll keep that a secret – you’ll want to shoot through them just as much as sit back and marvel at them as Drake places his hands on his hips (I looked for a picture of Drake with his hands on his hips, but no can do, so this will have to suffice).

As for the graphics, let’s get some minor criticisms out of the way first. The framerate is generally very stable, and even surprisingly so when other games on the market struggle to keep up with lesser graphics, but there are a few moments of tearing. Now, my advice to you is to play the game in its intended 720p resolution, rather than the later added 1080i (to aid those with televisions that don’t support 720p), to make these moments of tearing few and far between.

Second, at the beginning of a couple of the levels there is some texture pop-in. This means the high-resolution textures haven’t loaded onto the objects yet, and “pop” onto them. I shall now tell you why this doesn’t really matter. It could be criticized as something that takes you out of the game, but since the game’s environments are so detailed and compelling, they usher you back in oh so very quickly, making you forget it ever happened.

Plus, there is no loading in the game. Zero loading, nothing at all after the initial load. Want to skip a cutscene and carry on playing? You’ll be put right back into the game environment. Keep on dying? Well you’ll respawn at a handy automatic save point, immediately. So if we have to suffer a little bit of texture pop on a couple of the many levels, then so be it. I’ve seen worse.

Moreover, the textures in the game are a step up for consoles. Every surface is painted with a collection of distinct textures, meaning a wall not only has a brick texture, it has a dry moss texture, a shiny painted surface, sections broken off revealing the cement below, and it’ll look wet if it’s by water. The wet effect is very convincing for the game’s visual style. This layering has in a sense been done before, but not to this extreme, or with such a strong artistic vision.

You see, before Uncharted most textures would reveal a repeated pattern when you get up close, making all textures very similar and even pixelated when you got closer. But Naughty Dog went to the trouble of painting all their textures by hand (usually textures are photographic based) creating as many as possible so they could layer them on top of one another and make every section look unique. Oh and a common cop-out by developers is to have low-resolution ground textures, but not here, they are just as good as the rest.

Uncharted has great textures. So what? Well Gears of War is lauded as a graphical show piece mainly due to both its artistic vision and its high resolution textures. Uncharted, however, trumps Gears of War, for the sheer amount of unique texture surfaces, even when in similar dark sections.

Uncharted also has the best graphics you’ve ever seen on consoles for many other reasons. Your HDTVs are going to be flooded with water– the best looking and moving water you’ve ever seen. Naughty Dog put a hell of a lot of effort into this, and it shows. The reflections and the movement of the water when Nathan is swimming in it makes you want to lick your television, though that’s because of Nathan and not the water (Ooh, Saucy).

Oh, and Nathan gets wet quite realistically, with only the parts of him that touch water getting wet. It must be said though that the water splashes don’t hold up as well as the water itself, looking more like 2d sprite effects, something which Naughty Dog should tackle in their next game.

What helps make the water and everything look so good though is the lighting. Watching the reds and oranges of a sunset glint on the water and merge into the reflections of the green jungle is a triumph of modern graphics engines. The lighting continues to impress in the jungle, filtering through the many leaves and foliage, casting shadows on the forest floor.

Shadows that are crisp like potato chips, unlike other games that have jaggy or flickering shadows. And since the jungle is living and breathing, the plants and trees sway in the wind and cast moving shadows over the ground and Nathan himself. All this is a marvel, and continues to impress even in the tombs, where torches and flames create ominous shadows over ancient carvings.

When we look to Nathan Drake we can see an “every man” character, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt that gets dirtier throughout the game. His clothes wrinkle dynamically to his movement and heavy breathing, and his face animates realistically during combat, from fear to anger.

What makes him an every man? Some might say that if Drake can scale walls, wield an AK-47 and kill pirates with relative ease, that he can’t really be an every man? However, the description seems to influence his character design, his dialog, but mostly his movements, which see him stumbling during platforming and combat.

Naughty Dog’s animation system really comes up trumps here, with Nate changing from state to state fluidly. Drake has over 3500 animations that really bring him to life and make sure you seldom see him perform the same action more than once. For example, throughout the game you’ll be taking cover, which will never induce deja vu because Drake has a multitude of cover positions.

What makes the animations even more impressive is that Naughty Dog can layer animations on top of one another. This means that when Drake is running he can dodge bullets, jump over obstacles, reload and show fear on his face all in one smooth movement. It’s very satisfying and convincing during combat and traversal, putting Uncharted at the top of the animation game, alongside Assassin’s Creed.

One minor problem with Drake’s animation is that he begins to move slightly before his walking/running animation has started, giving the impression that he’s stepped on a banana skin every time he sets off. However, this isn’t too noticeable unless you’re looking at his feet, which you won’t be.

Onto the most important factor of any game – the gameplay. Everything makes or breaks right here. And I’m glad to say, Uncharted makes it and wraps it up in a badass bow. The main bulk of the game is combat, which takes the form of cover-based shooting. Drake can take cover behind objects by pressing circle (the same button for rolling), so it’s both easy and intuitive. You can roll into cover, and from cover to cover, which all happens quickly and as expected.

Once behind cover you can aim and shoot at the many enemies. It’s also possible to shoot blindly, meaning Drake just pops his gun over the cover without looking. This is also helpful in run and gunning if you don’t feel you have the time to aim – taking on more prominence later in the game.

The shooting mechanics work gloriously well, with the level design helping enormously, since there’s a number of ways to kill your foes depending on your tactics. The AK-47 does feel slightly underpowered, but as you move on through the game, the guns increase in power and usefulness. There will be a lot of encounters, but what makes these fire fights so compelling is the enemy and companion A.I.

The pirates have been on the coffee that’s for sure (apart from the fat shotgun guys). They’ll take cover like you, and if you hang back too much they’ll either come charging after you, or they’ll throw a well placed grenade to flush you out. You’ll be on your toes the whole time, but the key to success is locating all the enemies, and being mobile. Don’t be passive, you must be active.

With the A.I. being so clever, and incredibly active in Hard (and Crushing), each firefight is going to play out differently – especially when you have a limited amount of bullets. You’re going to have to make sure you down the pirates quickly just so you can get their ammo to kill the rest.

Much of the game also sees you with Elena by your side, who isn’t a slouch. She’ll down enemies when your firing skills are lacking, and she’ll even push you forward if you’re being a coward. There’s many a time when you’ll shout “Elena slow down, you’ll get killed”, when actually she’s got herself into a much better position than you have.

To up the variety, Drake can also melee using a number of combos. Brutal combos, pure punch ups, and even stealth kills that come in very handy when you want to get your Metal Gear on. You couldn’t really ask for more, except for maybe the ability to whack enemies round the head with a stick or crowbar.

In our demo preview we mentioned that Drake cannot crouch. This is true, but generally isn’t a problem. The reason being that the combat sections are so fast paced and there’s always high and low cover to hide behind, that you seldom feel the need to squat, except perhaps when you’re on higher ground. Naughty Dog should definitely consider including this ability in their next game – as crouching and crawling through tight spaces would also increase Drake’s exploration and platforming capabilities.

It is these capabilities that make Uncharted such a well paced game after the action packed combat sections. These platforming sequences are compelling, accompanied by sweeping camera angles that induce vertigo and a sense of urgency. Although engaging and accompanied by spectacular views and stellar animation, this traversal can be a tad simplistic. Drake generally won’t miss a jump, and the traversal’s difficulty doesn’t really ramp up as the game goes on.

A similar concern can be placed towards the game’s few puzzles, which can be solved with a glance at Sir Francis Drake’s notebook (a nice addition). I myself would prefer a bit more difficulty in these sections, but then again this would conflict with the action pacing of the game. Furthermore, what makes you want to replay the game is the combat, and having to traverse some lengthy areas that throw you to your death would make you turn the game off quicker than you can say “Spaniard”. Thus, learning from the school of God of War instead of Soul Reaver for puzzles, and from Ratchet and Clank instead of Prince of Persia for platforming is fitting for the game, but I wouldn’t mind more challenge here. Moreover, the games finale could have been more epic if it incorporated some platforming to continue the battle, since it feels slightly simplistic, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.

The few vehicle sections in the game are generally impressive and satisfying. A Jeep chase is fast and exciting, with some of the most impressive visuals in the game (and thus of all time) as the trees fall down on your pursuers when you shoot at their trunks (the tree’s trunks, not your pursuers…there’s no time for swimming unless you’re Drake and sadly you don’t get to see him in his trunks).

The jet-ski levels are also godly to look at, with moving water reflecting the surrounding buildings, but when you have to stop to aim your weapon and avoid fuel barrels, the pace is not as exciting. Although being in control of both Drake (driving the jetski) and Elena (wielding the gun) is important, the ability to shoot whilst moving might have helped here, something which is solved in the final very creative jetski section. Nothing like this has been seen before and should be praised for what it does. Sadly, both many others (myself included) presume that you still have to stop to shoot in this chapter also, until we slip our finger across the shoot button. A signpost might have helped here.

What of the replayability? For a single-player game, this is the best you’re going to get. Naughty Dog has outdone themselves, giving you everything you’d want for your hard earned monies. The adventure lasts around 10-15 hours depending on how much you gawk at the environments, and even then the game underestimates how much time you’ve spent on your run-through.

To bulk this out there are four difficultly levels, which increase the A.I.’s cleverness as you move to Hard, and then to the insanely difficult Crushing. There are then medals to earn, such as 100 headshots, or 5 stealth kills, in addition to 60 treasures hidden throughout the levels. These can be a bitch to find, but when you have a llama or monkey rendered in real-time to show off for your troubles, who can complain?

To top this off, the medals and treasures tot up a score that will unlock new character skins, new rendering modes (black and white, an amusing next-gen mode), art work, behind the scenes films, and options to slow everything down, speed it up, or mirror the world. This latter option will mirror the levels (and cutscenes – nice touch Naughty Dog) making them almost brand new – creating an extra challenge after you’ve completed crushing, since the cover and enemies will no longer be in their expected places. All in all, the longevity for this single-player game is immense.

Before we conclude, lets make this very clear. This ain’t no Tomb Raider! Drake isn’t Lara Croft. He can’t do somersaults, doesn’t have disproportionately large knockers (oh well), and he doesn’t suck at shooting. The perfected cover mechanics displayed in Uncharted put it so much above Tomb Raider in this area, that mentioning them together just doesn’t make sense. The isolation felt in Lara’s world, isn’t felt here. You have companions, you have non-stop action, and you have a likeable character, with the English taking their rightful place as the villain, not the protagonist (that’s coming from a Brit). Plus Drake is far more attractive *wink*.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune succeeds in so many ways. It has the best console graphics to date, gob-smackingly good cutscenes, a modest yet twisting plot, an incredible soundtrack, perfect pacing, and combat that you’ll want to keep returning to. Only the simplicity of the platforming and puzzling, as well as the slow paced jetski levels hold it back from being a true masterpiece.

But if you don’t play this game, you really are missing out. You need to buy this game…right now. Because with games struggling to hit the wow factor this generation, Uncharted is one game that surely does, and should definitely be in your runnings for Game of the Year. So long, and make sure to mind your head on the way out. Drake, you devil you.

(Check out some more of Richard Diamant’s artwork for the game here.)

It’s quite funny what rumors can start in gaming forums, all from the poor comprehension of the few. So now, here’s a good one. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, developed by Naugthy Dog for the Playstation 3, could be ported to the Xbox360. We like this. Just as moronic as PS3 fanboys screaming about Bioshock coming over to their little baby.

So it all starts in an innocent interview with Evan Wells, Naughty Dog’s co-president, at Eurogamer. The question in question is this one, “How hard would it be to port Uncharted to the Xbox 360?” I will cut down Evan’s response into manageable chunks, and we’ll see what we can discern from it.

Firstly, he says “I won’t say that it would be impossible, but it would be very difficult and we most certainly would have to make enough concessions that it would start to feel like a different game”. Naturally, of course it isn’t impossible, or at least it would be hard to say it’s impossible without actually attempting to port the game. And since Naughty Dog developed the game exclusively for the PS3, it would indeed be very difficult.

We’ve already seen how third party developers are struggling with porting to the PS3 from the Xbox360. Quite simply, porting is a bitch. However, it’d be even more difficult in this case. Naughty Dog have used the SPU’s (mini processors on the PS3’s Cell) in their animation system, calculating physics and more. They have perfected this so much, that at this moment, much of the game relies on the specific nature of Cell. For example, Christophe Balestra (Naughty Dog’s co-Vice President) states; “We developed a brand new animation system that took full advantage of the SPU’s. Nathan Drake’s final animation is made of different layers like running, breathing, reloading weapons, shooting, facial expression, etc; we end up decompressing and blending up to 30 animations every frame on the SPU’s.”

Whether this animation system will translate over to the Xbox360 is hard to say. It’s certainly not impossible, but since the game was made with Cell in mind, some concessions would need to be made. Furthermore, since Uncharted is the best looking PS3 game, Naughty Dog have had to work very close to the PS3’s hardware to get the visuals they have achieved, and would need to work just as hard to achieve them on the 360 – meaning a port might take over a year.

Evan then gives an example of what might be conceded in the port: “One thing that would be particularly difficult would be keeping the game load-free. The HDD really came in handy and allowed us to have pretty big open levels with lots of detail.” Yes Uncharted is one of the very few games that has zero loading throughout the whole game. The game is completely streamed, and this is only possible with the PS3’s Hard Drive, which not every Xbox360 has. Not game breaking perhaps, but it would make it a very different game, making it less of the movie experience that it is trying to achieve.

Furthermore, the game takes up 22GB of a Blu-ray disc, whereas an Xbox360 DVD is only 9GB. Lets not get into a fanboy war about the advantage of Blu-ray, since the Xbox has Mass Effect, a huge game, in fact far longer than Uncharted in game length. But that somewhat misses the point, could Naughty Dog have compressed the game to fit into 9gb? Perhaps. However, once again they would need to make a lot of concessions, and spend money doing so, removing resources from making the visuals and gameplay as good as they are. The high quality surround sound, the hundreds of minutes of HD cutscenes, and the high-res textures all take up space. As Christophe says, “To get such high-resolution textures and movies, a Blu-ray was indispensable to achieve the graphic quality of Uncharted. We fill the disc at 91 percent and it’s optimized, meaning we don’t duplicate any data. That includes all our game data, sounds, 7 spoken languages and 102 minutes of movie.”

Some how Evan’s reply drew this response from a particular gaming blog: “In order to have those huge levels, it has to be installed on the hard drive, because the Blu-Ray drive is far too slow to load quickly (which is why in many PlayStation 3 games have repeated content on the discs.)” No the game doesn’t have to be installed on to the hard drive because the Blu-ray drive is too slow. There is no loading in Uncharted, none, and the hard drive helps with this yes, but the game isn’t actually installed onto the PS3: “We’re only using the hard drive as a cache, the game doesn’t need to be installed, but the fact the hard drive is on every PlayStation 3 helped our streaming technology dramatically.”

Moreover, the PS3’s blu-ray drive is not slower than the Xbox360’s drive when the 360 is reading a double-layer DVD, and let’s face it, most if not all games are on a double-layer DVD. Read speeds are approximately equal. And no, many PS3 games do not have repeated content on the discs. Oblivion is said to do this, for unknown reasons, but I can assure you that the 22GB’s of Uncharted does not include any duplicated data, though of course much of it will be extras and HD cutscene movies.

And so, does Evan’s comment mean Uncharted could be ported to the Xbox360? I don’t bloody know! Both consoles have not hit the roof of their capabilities yet, they both have a long way to go with developers squeezing more and more out of them each year. What I do know, is that they are very different beasts, and if you develop exclusively for the PS3 you have to think very differently about your game engine. Using the SPU’s means you have to program to the specificity of the PS3 hardware and this can result in very specific things, like Nariko’s hair (Heavenly Sword) or Naughty Dog’s animation system. Porting this over to the Xbox360 might just be more trouble than its worth. Let alone Naughty Dog is owned by Sony and anything they make will only be on a Sony console…

So in celebration of this gloriously absurd rumor I present to you Nathan Drake dancing in this hilarious little video:

Tricklings from Gamestop have put little butterflies into the stomachs of would be treasure hunters. Drake’s Fortune is listed to release this Thursday! With other retailers following suit, hopefully Uncharted will go the way of the Lombax, and release earlier than expected. In addition to this, we also have the first magazine review from MaxiConsolas, right after a wee little click from your mousey.

So Gamestop have the Uncharted release set for the 15th November, this Thursday and now EBGame’s have followed suit, deliberately changing the release date from the original 19th (well it was originally the 20th, but those Naughty Dog’s brought it forward, but not for poor old Europe). Could we have another Ratchet on our hands, since that game was released a whole week before it was meant to.

Could this be true? We think so since the game went gold a few weeks ago and Sony seem to have gotten their printing magic working at full speed, and we’re not ones to complain. However, Sheila Bryson, a PR manager with Sony Computer Entertainment working on the Naughty Dog title, said the release change was news to her. But what does she know right?

Along with this pukka news is the first magazine review. The review is from the Portuguese magazine MaxiConsolas…yes a non-English magazine, but you take what you’re given.

Don’t be fooled by the blurry photo that we’ve got — is that score an 8? No it is not. The score is actually a 9/10.

And here’s the breakdown:

Graphics: 9.5, Gameplay: 9.0, Sound: 9.0, Longevity: 7.5

Overall: 9.0

With comments ranging from “We even dare to say it looks better then Heavenly Sword”, to “The treasure that so many PS3 owners were looking for” and even “Best PS3 exclusive yet!” Make sure to head back to us for our review of the game, to find out if we agree. Plus, we’d still love to hear about your thoughts from playing the demo.

Update: 1:19PM EST, 11/11
Those dirty muppets at Gamestop and EBGames have changed Uncharted’s release date back to the 19th, so really who knows! It’s possible that Sony rang them up and told them not to release their copies until the 19th, even though they have them ready for the 15th.

The idea of an “every man” action hero who hasn’t yet realized what he’s capable of isn’t exactly a new concept. In fact, it is one that dates back to biblical references of David and Goliath.

The logic is simple — people empathize more with characters they can relate to, and this train of thought is the very foundation for developer Naughty Dog’s wildly anticipated November 19th release of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

You assume the role of Nathan Drake, coincidentally related to the world famous English explorer, Sir. Francis Drake. The sibling connection between the two will undoubtedly be fleshed out to the fullest by Legacy of Kain scribe, Amy Henning.

In the demo, you start off en route to a tropical island, seated next to your attractive companion Elena. When a sudden burst of anti-aircraft fire takes out one of the engines, the two of you are sent spiraling towards the ground, at which point you become separated from each other.

Every story needs a setting, and the lush island where Uncharted takes place is one of the most beautiful settings I’ve ever seen. The natural sunlight and shadows generated in the game are extremely believable, the graphics are crisp, and for the most part the environments as a whole look spectacular. There are a few areas where cliff faces or running water tend to look a bit plastic-like, but this isn’t a deal-breaker by any means. Surprisingly, with all the eye candy Naughty Dog managed to cram in, the game ran at a steady frame rate, and the animations looked right on target.

Knowing that a great story and groundbreaking graphics just aren’t enough, Naughty Dog made gameplay and controls a top priority, and in that regard, Uncharted shines. The buttons are lay out is intuitive, and the controls are very responsive. The reaction of the in game camera is what you would expect it to be based on your surroundings, and you are able to reset it to the start position with a simple click of the right analog.

Implementing Tomb Raider-esque platforming sequences with Gears of War style stop and pop combat, you will never have to do the same thing for very long. Variety is the key difference between a good game, and a great game,. With that in mind, the recent trend of fusing elements from platformers and shooters into one game really seems to be the way to go.

The only thing that bothered me in terms of the controls was the fact that I could not crouch at all unless I was behind an object that was low to the ground. This was especially frustrating when taking fire from multiple enemies while taking cover behind a large object, as it makes your pop out point very predictable. Even when you have the advantage of the high ground on your enemy, if there is nothing for you to hide behind you must stand up straight to shoot them, which in turn gives them a bigger target to aim at.

While the game does benefit from a well executed storyline and breathtaking environments, there are moments that make you somewhat doubt the “every man” aspect. Accuracy with weapons aside, early in the demo you receive tips that teach you how to pull off some serious Solid Snake “Close Quarters Combat” maneuvers, the type I’m pretty sure the average Joe sitting in a Starbucks wouldn’t be capable of doing.

Suspension of disbelief is something I’ve come to expect in games, it is an essential part of what makes them fun, but when Sony goes so far as to write a column in Empire magazine about how their lead character is an “every man”, I can’t help but become a tad bit skeptical. In reality, Nathan Drake is much like Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies, a fairly good representation of what every man would want in an action hero that aims to embody them.

From what I’ve seen so far, the hype surrounding this Sony exclusive seems justified, as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune has every chance of becoming an amazing triple-A title this holiday season, and a must buy for — “every man”.

The Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune demo recently released on the US PSN Store is sadly not playable on PS3’s outside of that region, as it appears to be region locked. At first, the official response from Sony was disconcerting, stating those in Europe and Japan should wait for the demo to be on their store.

However, a follow up response was issued on Sony’s official blog a few hours ago by Sam Thompson, the line producer on Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, confirming what most of us already knew.

The error being experienced by those attempting to play the demo outside the US is indeed due to region locking, but it was not intentional. Naughty Dog has been made aware of the issue, and Sam promises to report back to everyone tomorrow with an update. The official comment can be viewed below.

Hi guys and gals,

We hear you loud and clear. Wanted to chime in here and let you know that we have shared your frustration with the Naughty Dog team and we are going to see what we can do. I will be back tomorrow with an update, but in the meantime I hope you can be patient and bear with us. As you have learned through communicating with Evan and Amy on the blog, Naughty Dog is a studio that listens to gamers, so I hope to have good news for you soon.

Thanks,
Sam

This is great news, because when you’re met with a black screen after spending over an hour to download a demo which you’ve been looking forward to play, you are certainly not going to be walking away with a smile on your face.

It’s not often that we can jump up for joy and say that we were right about something, but today, Amy Henning has confirmed our initial report regarding the Uncharted Demo on the Official Playstation blog. If you remember our previous story from last week, we unearthed a statement from Evan Wells, the co-president of Naughty Dog, stating that the demo for their upcoming game will probably hit PSN twelve days before the release of the game. We stood behind that report, stating…

“As far as we are concerned, an Uncharted demo will be out 12 days before the American release…so in about 2 weeks! We can’t wait to get on down with Nathan Drake (uh, perhaps the wrong choice of words) on November 8th (at least on the US Playstation Store). Exciting stuff aye?”

Amy Henning, Gaming Director at Naughty Dog, replied to a poster on the Official Playstation blog stating the official release date of the demo…

“Hi Kittonwy — the demo will go live on the PSN next Thursday, November 8th.”

Well, as it turns out, the date we stated, wasn’t just close, it was right on the money! The Uncharted demo will grace your Playstation 3 on November 8th.

In terms of details, all we know about the demo at this point is that it will start with Drake and Elena parachuting out of their plane onto an island. IGN believes that the demo will include the first four levels, but we here at Ripten find that highly unlikely.

A preview build given to journalists included the first four chapters, but since the game has 20 chapters in total, including four of them in the demo might be a bit of a stretch, especially when the game weighs in at 25gb of Blu-ray goodness.

So rejoice, in fact double rejoice, because the game will be released a day early in the US (November 19th), as stated in this recent blog post, which also features a nifty new trailer. As the release date approaches, remember to check back with us for our review of the game as well — till then, enjoy the demo.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the pulp action-adventure game from Naughty Dog that makes us weak at the knees, like a fat boy at the sight of a triple chocolate fudge cake (is that PC? Moving on…) is soon to be gracing our Playstation3’s on November 20th in the US, and December 7th in Europe. But when do we get the demo I hear you ask (silently)?

It was said by the game’s Animation and AI programmer Christian Gyrling on the Official Playstation Blog that “a demo will be available in the PlayStation Store sometime mid November. I don’t know the exact date as of now.”

Mid-Novemeber isn’t soon enough though is it, that’s far too close to the release of the game. So Palgn.com.au did some digging and managed to get a healthy quote from Evan Wells, the co-president of Naughty Dog, stating…

“There will be a demo. It’s…. being tested by Sony right now and I think it will be available probably about twelve days before the Blu Ray disc is available in stores. So, it will give people a chance to try it out and hopefully they will go out to the store and buy it.”

O.K., there were the words “probably” and “about”, but we’re too excited to listen to that. As far as we are concerned, an Uncharted demo will be out 12 days before the American release…so in about 2 weeks! We can’t wait to get on down with Nathan Drake (uh, perhaps the wrong choice of words) on November 8th (at least on the US Playstation Store). Exciting stuff aye?