Uncharted: Golden Abyss Review

And here it is. Uncharted: Golden Abyss. I know we're a little late on the train here but bear with us, we just got the PlayStation Vita.

First off, I was really impressed with this game. I liked it a lot. That being said, there are some pretty big criticisms for this handheld version of a console franchise. Especially since a lot of time is spent getting the player used to handling this game on the Vita and utilizing all the "super cool" features contained within.

You know what that means? Tutorial menus! Tutorial menus everywhere!!!

Okay not everywhere but you get the idea. The start of the game looks like this every five freaking seconds and it gets on your nerves. Granted, they have to show you how to do things with the Vita's features since they're pretty out there, but no one wants to have these things shoved in their face.

Vita Gameplay

 So what do you do with the Vita's bright and shiny features? Well I'll tell you. Using the touch screen you can map out Drake's path while he climbs for more steamlined movement. This is pretty useful, and damn nice to have since it gets a little clumsy with the analogue sticks and the buttons. Want him to jump from gap to gap while hanging? Oh, just tilt your Vita in the direction he needs to lean and hit jump and he'll do it. Swinging on a rope or a chain? Just tilt the Vita again forwards or backwards.

From little puzzles, to charcoal rubbings and even making sure Nathan stays balanced on logs or stone columns, you use the Vita in a pretty versatile manner throughout the adventure.


There are other areas where you have to stroke and push the back touch pad of the PS Vita to rotate objects and dust them off, and holy hell is that sensitive. I mean, seriously, if you push to hard or pull too hard it literally flies around like it's in a washing machine.



Then there's the rope climbing. So the game tells you that if you want you have the option to use the rear touch pad to make Drake climb the rope up or down. Effectively, you stroke the backside of your PS Vita to do so. Yeah, let that image sit in your head with that wording. Here's the funny bit. If you do this effectively, you get a Trophy for making Drake successfully climb up a rope using the touch pad. They reward you for making him climb up a rope. It's like they knew this was a bullsh*t feature and wanted to give you a pat on the back for doing something they knew was a freaking chore. If you don't feel inclined to lovingly stroke your PS Vita, you can just use the control stick. It is pretty hilarious that you can bypass the whole process.

However, there is some good stuff when using the movement capabilities of the Vita. You sometimes have to take pictures to solve mysteries in the game so you actually use the screen like a digital camera and can move around physically like you are part of the world to get a better angle and shot of what you're looking at. You can also do this when sniping. One thing I really liked was when Drake was trying to solve something on a piece of paper, it told me to hold the system up to a bright light source and the paper I was looking at in game looked as if I was holding it to the light and I could see phantom letters showing through the paper. It was pretty boss.


Overall Gameplay


Aside from all the gimmicky Vita stuff, the game plays pretty much like a normal Uncharted game. Movement is a little janky and slow, and the small screen size does make it a little difficult to see where you're going or where you're supposed to go. The AI of the partners is passable at best. They hold their own in a fight but as soon as they stop taking cover they will either get directly in your way when trying to go somewhere, or just run far ahead of you for no apparent reason.


The enemy AI, however, is really good. They flank, take cover and toss grenades like seasoned mercenaries and army vets, which they are, coincidentally. Frankly, the combat is really good in this game, it is just difficult to aim down the sights since the screen is, again, pretty small. Don't get me wrong, the Vita has a nice screen, but it doesn't exactly lend itself to this kind of detail-oriented gameplay.

There are these pretty dope little scripted events that you have to do with the Vita that normally you'd do with a button sequence, but they make you do them with the touch screen instead. Those work out really well, are pretty easy to do and add a little interactivity to the game that is full of just shoulder button pushing and jumping.


As always, there are puzzles, mysteries to solve and things to collect. If you're a completionist, then this is heaven for you. If not, they don't add anything to the game and you can pretty much breeze through it in a good amount of time. I played the game on Normal (as I usually do for reviews), and I beat it in a good amount of time. I want to save over 12 hours of straight gaming. For a handheld, I suppose that's pretty good.


There's also this Black Market attachment to the game where the bad guys drop some collectables when they die and if you collect them all...you get a Trophy I guess? I mean, it's just something else to do. You can trade with other players through Near and the Playstation Network, but other than that it's a pretty useless function.


Score 

Overall the game is great. The voice-acting is top notch (as we've come to expect), the story is solid, the music is amazing, the gameplay is fun and it is anything but boring. One thing I have to say is that the graphics are great on this. I mean really. They're pretty phenomenal for a handheld. One thing that's kind of funny is that everybody looks like they have way too many teeth in their mouth. Kind of a Miley Cyrus issue goin' on there.

I can't help but feel that this game just doesn't belong on a handheld. I could not play this on the go. I could not play this anywhere else other than sitting down and focusing on it intently because it is a game you have to be invested in. I mean, all of the Uncharted games are like this. Why would this one be any different?

Fans of the franchise will enjoy this as a side-story to the overall arc of Drake's adventures that have been on the console, but I honestly think that it being a handheld game sort of hurts it. I think that's why it was so short too. They sort of attempted to make it palatable for the people who would want to play this while going places, but really they just kind of made a shorter version of a longer and more involved game. To be fair, though, if this was ported to the console? It would be stellar. No question about it. I don't think I found any bugs while playing this and the most trouble I had was trying to figure out where to go, futzing around with the unrefined Vita mechanics and struggling with the fixed camera in some of the cinematic escape missions.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a solid 9/10. It loses points for the buggy Vita features, but its saved by the quality of the overall game. If it lacked good dialogue, good gameplay, or was just difficult to play, I would say this would be a poor shadow of a great property. But since it is just as enjoyable as its bigger siblings, I would highly recommend this game to anyone with a Vita who enjoys the Uncharted series as a whole.


P.S. Fans...all of these screenshots were taken on my Vita while playing. I just thought that you should know you could do that with a Vita and marvel at the quality of the in-game images. That is all.