Uncharted was the clear-cut “best new franchise” winner on the Playstation 3, so it isn’t very surprising that Sony wanted a version of the game to frontline its new Vita handheld system. The worries for such a game were quite large. Could it match the spectacle of the full-fledged console games? Would the new console be able to replicate the shooting experience? Is the frame rate going to be complete shit? Sony Bend was able to create Uncharted: Golden abyss, an Uncharted game that feels exactly like what it is: a little brother to the big boys on the PS3.
The story is your usual Uncharted fare. Nathan Drake is looking for a specific piece of history, in this case the lost city of Quivira. He has a shifty, untrustworthy partner named Dante that gets him into all sorts of a trouble; a headstrong, female love interest named Marisa Chase and an evil (ex-)General named Guerro trying to find the same thing he is. All the beats from other games in the series are here, almost as if Sony Bend was just checking things off a list. It’s extremely predictable but still manages to stay at least somewhat interesting. The lack of a supernatural element at the end (common to all the other games in the series) is actually a plus here. It doesn’t have quite the same punch, almost as if they picked a crappy thing for him to chase on purpose.
The characters are mostly flat, especially the villain. He is your typical moustache-twirling, cape-wearing kind of bad guy, without any interesting character traits to set him apart. You pretty much want to ignore him whenever he’s on screen. Dante has some decent lines but is mostly annoying. Chase, however, is quite a good love interest. Her backstory is interesting and she is uncharacteristically unwilling to shoot anyone, a first for heroines in these games. I would actually be intrigued to see more of her in a “true” Uncharted game down the line. Performances aren’t as animated as the Playstation 3 version (as to be expected) but are still quite impressive for a handheld.
Campaign is the meat of the game. Well, it’s the only part of the game, actually. No multiplayer is included, but the campaign is equal in length with previous games in the franchise. It took me about ten hours to play through on Normal. The campaign is very similar to any of the other Uncharted games. Some free-climbing sections, followed by cover-based shootouts and a cutscene. An odd difference is the absurd amount of traversal shooting it has you do, gunning down a multitude of foes while climbing a rope or a hanging from a beam. It pops up regularly throughout the campaign, almost like clockwork. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the tension drains away after you’ve done it three times in an hour.
Shooting feels good, although it can take some time to get used to the Vita’s control sticks. They have a short throw and can be a tad sensitive. Once you adapt, it feels pretty damn close to the console experience. Although as someone who thinks the Playstation 3 games had kinda bad shooting controls, I think it actually better here. Everything feels a bit tighter, with a little adjustment. I’m still not a huge fan of the shooting style but it’s much improved on the Vita.
Also of note is that the difficulty curve from previous games returns. Later enemies approach Uncharted 1 levels of bullet-spongeness and can even take multiple grenades to down. I always dread the end of an Uncharted game for its tendency to throw countless waves of tank-like enemies at you, and this game doesn’t disappoint in that regard.
Let’s talk about the Vita control options for a second. Most of these are quite dumb and pointless. Returning from Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is the need to occasionally balance when crossing a beam or log. It wasn’t fun before, and it isn’t fun now. Boss fights are also done in touch, swiping in certain directions to fight hand-to-hand. At first, I liked this way better than the boss fights with their annoying mechanics from Uncharted 2 and 3. However, a problem arises if you mess up. At certain parts, one missed swipe results in you repeating the entire section over again. Oftentimes, this is due to a failure of the touch screen, not user error. After failing the final boss fight several times because of this, I kinda wish they had stuck to the old way.
A few, however, are actually neat. You often take charcoal rubbings of carvings and statues, and this is done by rubbing your finger across the touch screen. Simple and dumb but tactilely fun at the same time. There also exists the ability to fine-tune your aim with the tilt sensor. I wanted to turn this off at first, but, as I adapted to it, it became very useful. If an enemy shifted slightly, I could just tilt naturally to line up the headshot and blow him away. It isn’t a necessary function to have on, but it added a bit more nuance to the control I wasn’t expecting, part of the reason I seemed to like the shooting better here than in previous games.
Of course, Uncharted is known for its sweeping vistas and stellar graphics. The Vita (obviously) can’t quite pull those off without exploding so some compromises had to be made. Everything is obviously a bit lower res, particularly textures. Most importantly, the frame rate is often unstable. It’s never bad enough to be disgusting, but it can detract from the experience at times. Putting these concerns aside, it’s still a damn beautiful game. Just don’t expect any setpiece moments like the truck-jumping section from Uncharted 2.
The sound, on the other hand, is pretty much identical to its console counterpart. Voice lines seem a little lower quality, but it all sounds fantastic. Nolan North returns to voice Nathan Drake and the new voice actors for Chase and Dante do a great job too. It’s definitely meets expectations. Sound effects didn’t stand out to me in any way, either good or bad. Just average sound effects. The music is pretty much what you expect: the theme mixed in with a bunch of movie-like orchestrated pieces to match the setting and tone.
I was surprised that Uncharted: Golden Abyss managed to hold my interest better than other games in the series. The shooting has always been my least favorite part of these games, and the Vita version managed to just feel better to me with its more generous auto-aim and the aim adjustment feature. Unfortunately, it bogs down near the end in the same ways. The story and the characters are decent but aren’t quite good enough to carry it through the rough bits at the end. If it had matched the spectacle of the Playstation 3 games, it would easily be my favorite in the series. Without those setpieces and carefully crafted moments, it doesn’t quite have the same punch. It’s Uncharted-lite, which isn’t really a bad thing; it’s just not what you want to see when you hear that name.