Drake's Fortune - hands-on

Features
By published

Gun down pirates and leap through ruins in this lush-looking jungle hunt

Not only do the in-game characters look great - Drake in particular was constantly changing his facial expression to reflect what was going on around him, particularly when he got hurt - but your enemies are surprisingly smart. Not smart enough to keep from charging our position and letting us mow them down (or in one instance, to stop standing around smoking when a grenade went off nearby), but smart enough to pull back further behind cover when we drew a bead on their heads. They're also deadly enough that just charging around unloading on them is an excellent way to get killed by their crossfire, even if you do have a few cool martial-arts moves to bust out when the action gets too close-up.

Instead, you'll want to duck and cover until you've got a clear shot. Drake can flatten himself against pretty much any wall you find with the press of a button, and can leap and roll between cover points a la Gears of War. Of course, aiming means you'll need to leave cover, but you can squeeze off a few blind, unaimed potshots around the edge if you just want to lay down some covering fire. If you're lucky, it'll keep the bad guys from trying to get past your cover to outflank you.

The grenades were similarly iffy. They didn't seem to do much damage unless they landed right next to our targets, and aiming them was extremely difficult when we were taking heavy fire from multiple bad guys - you know, the times you need a grenade the most. It was frustrating, but given developer Naughty Dog's dedication to fine-tuning in its previous games, it's extremely likely that any problems with weapons will be cleaned up before the final version.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.