Figure 1 - One of the best games on the PlayStation 3 right now.

I’ve never been good at shooters, at least on a console. Back in college, I could hold my own in a frag fest in the dorms, but that was on a PC, with a mouse and keyboard, and I was rarely the top scorer.  That being said, I never would have thought that my first platinum trophy on PlayStation 3 would come via a shooter.  For those not aware, a platinum trophy is attained when all other trophies for a game have been achieved. This holds true mostly for retail games only, as games available on the PlayStation Network for download are usually too small in scope to warrant one.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is not only a great game and a great buy, but it might be the best game available for the PlayStation 3. Developer Naughty Dog has come a long way from Crash Bandicoot.  The reason why I usually find myself failing at shooters is that I don’t find myself immersed in the story, characters, or game play. These qualities aren’t typically the strong suit of shooters, and thus I’m typically not the target audience.  Uncharted is more of an adventure game in my opinion, with the mechanics of a third person shooter used as a mechanism to tell the story.

Another reason I find shooters difficult is that they require precise control and reaction time, rather than skillful decision making.  Uncharted employs a cover system, much like that seen in the Gears of War series, forcing a hybrid of these traits from the player in order for the player to be successful. The game also features likable characters, an entertaining story, and stunning graphics.  The game play is seamless and immersive, containing platforming elements and a linear environment that never quite seems so.  The game doesn’t even display a static HUD on the screen, which is almost enough to make you forget you’re playing a game.  These are the reasons I not only gave the game a try, but completed it many times over.

Figure 2 - A challenging, fun, and immersive experience.

Unfortunately, the criteria of the platinum trophy demanded that I did indeed complete the game more than once.  In addition to collecting all treasures, attaining predetermined kill counts with all the weapons, and performing various melee attacks, I had to beat the game on all four difficulties offered. Granted, beating the game on the highest difficulty cascaded down and gave you the trophies for the other three, but I started on normal, because–if you’ve been reading–I’m not that good at shooters.

The difficulty levels are Easy, Normal, Hard, and Crushing.  Yes, CRUSHING. Whoever came up with that for the name of a difficulty level deserves a raise.  After completing the game on normal, I figured I wouldn’t have the guts to beat it on both hard and crushing, so I went straight for all the marbles and started a new game on crushing.

The main differences between normal and crushing is the aggressiveness of the enemies and how much damage you can take before you die. On normal, enemies will remain at their cover, revealing themselves to take a shot at you periodically, so for the most part, you’re just exchanging timed shots.  On crushing, enemies abandon their cover to charge at you, get their shots off a lot quicker, throw more grenades, and force you to truly develop a strategy for every battle.  Cover points are carefully chosen and changed often.  The easiest way to put it is this: on normal difficulty, you think to yourself, “they could easily kill me if they just did this,” then on crushing difficulty, they follow your notes.

Had Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune not been such a good game, I might have given up. I’m thankful I didn’t though, as I not only got my first platinum trophy, but I completed one of the most enjoyable video gaming experiences I’ve had to date.