Unsurprisingly, this game came out in the renaissance year of gaming, 2007. For me, this is the entry into the series that I rarely think about, and I haven't touched the game since 2016, so it was relatively fresh to me. The cast is charismatic as hell, and Nate and Elena have great chemistry on screen. The story is a familiar but fun take on an indiana jones style treasure hunt adventure. It's upbeat, funny, light, and intriguing all at the same time. The gameplay is where this one suffers though. Basically all enemy encounters are the same, especially for the first half of the game where you have about 4 weapons total to choose from, until the second half where they just throw like 6 more guns at you. And for being the gun on the cover, the moss-12 (beginning shotgun), sucks dick. It's so bad. The cover shooter gameplay isn't horrible, but I'll tell you what is: THE JETSKI SECTIONS.
The jetski sections are one of the worst sections of gameplay ive ever had to play in a naughty dog game, no, a playstation exclusive game in my fucking life. That stupid ass jet ski can eat my shorts. It can't go upriver for shit, you need to stop in place for elena to do literally anything, why the hell cant she just shoot and i drive or vice versa why do i need to be aiming and driving it makes no fucking sense and the jet ski handles like a car with no tires, its actually so bad and i dont know how they kept that shit in the original game and how it got past playtesters it was so bad bro
The climbing isnt too hot in this game either, i probably died more to bs falls than enemies shooting at me, im glad they improved on it in further entries. Gameplay wise its really mediocre and doesn't hold up in a lot of sections, it's the entertaining story and promise of being able to play the next games in the series that actually got me through it. I dont think ill ever play this one again, It was probably amazing at the time but this may be my least favorite of the franchise.
(SPOILERS)
the ending twist was weird for me. It sets the game apart from the rest of the series, giving it a more unapologetic supernatural element for a series that stayed relatively grounded if you look past the fact nathan drake survived 4 games worth of this shit. It is a very indiana jones - esque twist, but tonally it feels weird compared to the rest of the series. Naughty dog should totally make an actual horror game though, i feel like they could knock it out of the park if they did something survival horror that is scarier than the last of us
The jetski sections are one of the worst sections of gameplay ive ever had to play in a naughty dog game, no, a playstation exclusive game in my fucking life. That stupid ass jet ski can eat my shorts. It can't go upriver for shit, you need to stop in place for elena to do literally anything, why the hell cant she just shoot and i drive or vice versa why do i need to be aiming and driving it makes no fucking sense and the jet ski handles like a car with no tires, its actually so bad and i dont know how they kept that shit in the original game and how it got past playtesters it was so bad bro
The climbing isnt too hot in this game either, i probably died more to bs falls than enemies shooting at me, im glad they improved on it in further entries. Gameplay wise its really mediocre and doesn't hold up in a lot of sections, it's the entertaining story and promise of being able to play the next games in the series that actually got me through it. I dont think ill ever play this one again, It was probably amazing at the time but this may be my least favorite of the franchise.
(SPOILERS)
the ending twist was weird for me. It sets the game apart from the rest of the series, giving it a more unapologetic supernatural element for a series that stayed relatively grounded if you look past the fact nathan drake survived 4 games worth of this shit. It is a very indiana jones - esque twist, but tonally it feels weird compared to the rest of the series. Naughty dog should totally make an actual horror game though, i feel like they could knock it out of the park if they did something survival horror that is scarier than the last of us