Pros: Amazing graphics, surprisingly good acting, fun!
Cons: A bit too linear
The bottom line: Buy this game, it's a beautiful and fun adventure game. A bright example of what the PS3 can do!
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is the latest game to join my PS3 collection and I love it! When I first saw it on store shelves I thought it might be another stupid and forgettable first person shooter, but happily Sony put it up on the Playstation Store. After downloading the demo I was treated to a fun platformer with amazing graphics, excellent acting (voices and the animated characters are done very well and that really help bring you into the game), and fun gameplay.

The first thing you'll notice are the amazing visuals. Some of the levels are incredibly massive and everything just looks great. The game is very colorful and the jungles and ocean side are very beautiful. This game is pure eye candy! The developers obviously put a lot of work into this game because it looks and plays great (and there really are no defined loading times between levels). The worst you'll get are some occasional less detailed graphics momentary while the high quality textures are loading. The most obvious occurrence is when Drake and Sully first get into the jungle. The plants and Sully's shirt change in an obvious way as the level loads. Don't worry though, it's not really noticeable. None of my friends caught the level loading, and I only noticed the aforementioned incident in the jungle.

The animation is incredibly smooth and the whole experience is very cinematic. The PS3's future looks bright when the games coming along now look this good and the sky is the limit as far as capability. It's too bad there isn't a free roam ability in the game because sometimes I'd just like to wander around checking out the scenery. But this is a platformer so platforming is what we'll do!

The cut scenes in the game are a real treat. You'll get comedy, you'll get lots of action, and you'll get a bit of romance. A really well balanced game.

Audio quality is great in the game. You'll truly get a surround sound experience and none of the sounds feel artificial or fake. The voice acting is all excellent and is generally well written. Many video games suffer from wooden dialog, bad acting, and poor story telling, but Drake's Fortune is not one of them. Very cinematic indeed!

The gameplay experience is fantastic! Like I said earlier, I never felt subjected to loading times or any lag when the game does its automatic loading and saving. If you want to see what I deem a bad loading experience, check out Def Jam Icon, which has infuriatingly long load times just when selecting characters, furthered by actually loading a level. With Drake's Fortune though it is mostly a smooth transition when moving from level to level or when coming out of a cutscene. Good job developers!

Those of you craving fire power should be pleased with the variety of weapons available. You'll get pistols, shotguns, machine guns, grenades, and some others. All make it quick and easy to subdue your enemies. Some vehicles are thrown in for fun, like a jeep or jetski.

As far as difficulty goes the game isn't particularly challenging. I have died many, many times in the game, both due to falling and enemy attacks, but I never felt particularly frustrated. This isn't to say it's boring, just that the game isn't artificially made more difficult. You'll be happy to know that a challenge mode can be unlocked, and that does provide a much more difficult journey. Coupled with my need to find all of the treasure and secrets, I am set to play this game through several times.

I do wish some sort of multiplayer were included. A split screen adventure would be fun, and it's always nice to pwn my friends on games like this. So, hopefully for the (hopefully inevitable) sequel I would very much appreciate an option for co-op and online multiplayer. As is though, the game's single player is worth the price of admission.

Overall this is an amazing game, it's got great graphics, fun gameplay, good replay value, beautiful levels, and lots of action. This is everything a game should be. Come on developers, give us an awesome Uncharted 2!