Uncharted - exclusive interview

Our team has already reported (fairly positively) on hands-on play with Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune off the back of a press-only Gamer's Day earlier this week. Meanwhile, we've been busy grilling the game's directorAmy Hennig for new information about the promisingjungle shooter. In the exclusive interview she reveals - among other new game details - who the mysterious female character is, how the game will use the Sixaxis and where Uncharted fits in with Sony's Home online community.

GamesRadar: What was the trigger for Naughty Dog to move away from cartoonish romps toward a more realistic looking adventure?

Amy Hennig (Game director):We always planned to strike out in a completely different direction with our first game on the PlayStation 3- but we were really inspired by the power of the hardware to render and animate believable human characters, and to create a densely detailed game world.

In our previous games, we chose a more stylized design that would work within the limitations of the hardware.But with the PS3, the possibilities were wide open.

The glimpses of an ancient map featured in the trailer seem to point toward a location many believe to be the Bermuda Triangle - can you shed any light on the gossip?

Hennig: The backdrop we used is an actual 16th-century map drawn by a Spanish cartographer- it’s a fantastic piece of artwork, and since our story is based around a lost Spanish colony from the 1500s, and the hunt for a legendary treasure, the map really evokes the feeling of our game.

But I’m afraid I’ll have to put the rumors to rest- our story is actually set in the Pacific, this time. Maybe we’ll visit the Bermuda Triangle in a future adventure, though- who knows?

Will the action be confined to a single, jungle-slash-ancient settlement location? Or will Drake be traveling across the globe?

Hennig: Drake and his colleagues do a bit of globe-trotting in the beginning of the game, as they follow the trail of a historical mystery unearthed when they discover Sir Francis Drake’s coffin off the coast of Panama.The clues eventually lead them to a lost Spanish colony on a jungle island, where the rest of the story unfolds.