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TeamFortress 2, the third game in the TeamFortress series, was originally sold with the Orange Box, but now on PC the crazy, hilarious, cartoon game is Free To Play!
Unfortunately, it only comes in the Orange Box on Console.

TF2 is only multiplayer, it is set around the Blue and Red teams fighting for the objectives. These two teams are meant to represent a demolition and a construction company as a part of the backstory: Reliable Excavation Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU).
There are the same nine classes on each team; Scout, Heavy, Engineer, Medi, Sniper, Spy, Pyro, Demoman and Soldier.
Each has their own little perks, pros and cons.
Scouts can jump higher (Double Jump) to reach somewhere higher, whereas the slow Heavy toddle along spraying bullets everywhere.
The Engineers can put down teleporters and turrets and ammo supplies, but the spy can disguise himself as a member of the opposite team and use his device (Sappers) to drain their power until they short circuit.
There are few maps on the consoles but on PC (F2P) you can upload your own maps and download user created maps and sounds to take you anywhere.
There is Mario Maps, there is a map where you can unlock every acheivement and maps like Mario Kart where you work together to open up secret routes.
Initially, the game shipped with only three game modes: Capture the Flag, Control Point, and Territorial Control. Numerous updates have added five new game modes (Payload, Arena, King of the Hill, Payload Race, and Medieval Mode).
There are also some user created gametypes, usually which go along with the user created maps.
As you can see it is very user freindly.
They have also introduced Hats, these can be bought in the store for real money, found in game, or can be won in competitions.
These in store items also include weapons, Gun Name tags, Surprise boxes and more.
You can also craft things like in Minecraft to make better weapons.

The graphics in this game are fairly good, seeing as it is a cartoon game.
There are some obvious bugs, but if you have a good graphics card or a new console that shouldn't affect you very much.
Some items or parts of the map can be pixelated at times, but they will load up in to full focus pretty quickly.

Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

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Release date(s):
NA (October 16, 2007)
JP (October 18, 2007)
EU (February 29, 2008)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Genre: Third-Person Action Puzzle
Platform: Xbox 360
Age Restriction(s):
CERO (A)
ESRB (E)
OFLC (G)

Synopsis (From Wikipedia)

The game opens with the King of All Cosmos, his Queen, and the Prince, enjoying some tennis while on vacation. However, a powerful serve by the King causes the tennis ball to rip through the fabric of the universe, creating a black hole that sucks everything but the planet Earth into it. In order to correct it, the King commands the Prince to roll up katamaris on Earth to recreate the planets, sun, and other celestial features. Once the Prince completes this, the King then orders him to create a katamari large enough to plug up the black hole and restore order to the universe. The Prince then rolls up enough stuff to create the "Super Giant", a very large Katamari that he then plugs up the black hole with. In the end, the black hole is stopped and the King of All Cosmos takes all the credit for stopping it.

The campaign on this game is a very addicting story line that will have you playing this for hours and hours. In this campaign you will find yourself playing as the prince who controls a beautiful ball called the "Katamari." The "Katamari is a balled used to pick up things smaller than it and grow. Throughout your campaign you will find yourself being faced with many different challenge including (Only collect red colors, hot liquids, etc.)
This makes a nice little twist for those aggressive "Beautiful Katamari" players. Campaign
mode features an item/map/chart of your "Worldwide Katamari."

The game features rather interesting Multiplayer mode(s). The modes range from battling against each other, or teaming up and playing cooperative. There is a 2-4 offline cooperative mode for those casual members without live. It also supports Xbox Live online playing ranging up to the same 2-4 players. Xbox Live gameplay is a tad bit different, you have cooperative mode and head to head. One of the head to head modes would be "Thingy Battle." In this gametype a specific item is called out, and that is what you have to collect.

I would have to give the rating of this game a 7/10. It plays smooth with no lag, great soundtrack and more. On the downside to this the game is not the biggest hype at the time, it went bigger on the Gamecube version. As I did not rate this game that great it would be a nice rent, to try it out first. If you like it you can continue to buy it for the full experience.

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Twisted Metal Review
Basic Information:
Developer: Eat Sleep Play
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE)
North American Release Date: February 14, 2012
European Release Date: March 7, 2012
Trophies: Yes | 1:platinum: | 5:gold: | 5:silver: | 29:bronze:

Overview

Twisted Metal can be compared to those gritty reboots of movie series that are released every now and then. Compared to the original movie, the remake has a lot more blood, gore, death, and cursing. In fact, if you were to take this comparison to Twisted Metal and use it on the original Playstation 1 game you will find that this is an accurate comparison. The designers of the original Twisted Metal went back to their roots and tried to make this game as gritty and hardcore as possible without sacrificing any necessary elements. Revealed to the world through a surprise live E3 2010 announcement (along with a real version of Sweet Tooth appearing), Twisted Metal has all the makings of a great vehicular combat game.


Gameplay

Starting from the Playstation 1, the gameplay of the Twisted Metal franchise has never been dramatically changed with the basic premise remaining the same in each game. The designers at Eat Sleep Play realized that the formula that originally made Twisted Metal was great and that messing with it to improve it could do more harm then good.

Each game boils down to the following: there is a man named Calypso with the power to grant wishes that comes from either a magical ring on his hand or a demon from Hell. He promises to grant a person one wish if they were to enter his tournament of Twisted Metal and kill/destroy/maim every other competitor that also entered as well as killing as many innocent bystanders as you possibly can. Of course, being the magical genie that he is, Calypso never gives you exactly what you want.

There are four factions in Twisted Metal, with three of them available in the single player story and the fourth available only in the multiplayer. The four factions are: the Clowns (led by Sweet Tooth), the Dolls (led by Dollface), the Skulls (led by Mr. Grimm), and the online-only Holy Men (led by Preacher). In order to make things fair, there arent any gameplay differences between each of the gangs, each of them are able to use all the different weapons, special attacks, and vehicles in the game without worry. Speaking of which, there are a lot of different vehicles in the game to choose from.

This Twisted Metal is unique in the fact that you can use every vehicle with the driver of your choice. In earlier games, each driver had a particular car that they drove and that was it, you could not have, for instance, Outlaw drive Warthog. But in order to compensate for the overall lack of drivers, the developers decided to do away with this one driver-one car rule and allow the vehicles to be used by everyone.

There are a total of 17 vehicles including cars, trucks, semis, and helicopters that can be unlocked for use in the single and multiplayer modes. Each vehicle has two distinct specials (unlike the single special attacks in earlier games) along with differing ratings on their armor, speed, and special attack power. This means that the helicopter you love so much that can fly really fast and do a lot of damage can only take 2-3 missiles before you crash and burn.

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Car versus transformer never ends well...
While there have not been any gameplay changes introduced in this game, there have been several weapons and battle arenas added that make it a lot more fun. For weapons, there are the Stalker and Swarmer missiles. Holding down the fire button for both of these missiles charges them up with the Stalker missile gaining increased homing capabilities and the Swarmer missile releasing more missiles when launched. It is weapons like these that help to prevent just a shoot everything at once scenario by limiting the amount of damage you can do by just pressing the button. Oh, and let me mention the Sniper Rifle, for just a brief second.

Many times in Twisted Metal have I been the target of the dreaded red laser sight and have immediately tried to find cover. The problem isnt the weapon itself; a quick shot only does 16 body damage. No, the problem is the charge period. If the person with the Sniper Rifle, manages to stay locked on to a driver long enough, they can one-shot kill them with a simple headshot. This is great if you are the one with the weapon, but terrible if you arent and are stuck out in a large, open area with no cover in sight.


Single Player

The character stories in Twisted Metal are basically the same as in all the earlier games in the series. Each of the drivers (who are each homicidal maniacs, mass murders, or just plainly psychotic) are hoping to win the contest for the chance to wish for anything they want. However, to get their wish they will have to survive against the other contestants various factions whose sole purposes are to stop you from winning.

Unlike earlier games in the series, you are unable to play all of the stories from the start. You first have to play through Sweet Tooths story, whose ending starts Mr. Grimms story, then followed by Dollfaces. A big addition to the game is the introduction of live-action cut scenes at the beginning, middle, and end of each characters story. If you played Twisted Metal: Black, then you can pretty much understand to purpose of each of the three cut scenes. The opening scene introduces the new character and gives a basic understanding of what they want to wish for, the middle movie gives background on the character such as why they want that wish and the final scene shows them gaining their wish from Calypso.

The difficulty curve of the game is also quite dramatic. While playing on normal is pretty tame and manageable, if you try to play on Twisted without some experience with the game (Rank 25 online seems to be a good benchmark) you will most likely die many, many times.

You are only given one life in the single player, but for compensation you are given access to a garage. At the start of every match, you are told to pick up to three vehicles to fight with. If you somehow lose most of your health in the match, you can drive up to one of your garages (highlighted with the big green wrench on the map) and trade in your almost-destroyed vehicle for a brand new instrument of destruction. If you happen to die (which will most likely occur quite often on Twisted difficulty) you do not have to worry about a game over screen. Instead, you will be forced to restart the level you died on.

The single player campaign is made up of several levels that include various challenges besides the original death match format. There are levels where you have to destroy the Juggernaut before it can spawn too many enemies, race against 15 other vehicles to arm the bombs attached to your cars and then race back and press the switch to destroy all the other bombs but yours, and electric fence fighting. Oh, and gigantic boss fights.

Before each character can win the tournament and claim their free wish, they must fight a boss driven by and modeled after one of the other two contestants. Sweet Tooth will fight a pair of monster trucks driven my Mr. Grimm, Mr. Grimm will fight a giant robot modeled after Dollface herself, and Dollface will face a carnival of destruction that only Sweet Tooth could have envisioned. Dont think that these fights will be simple one-stage events. You will have to destroy specific targets in order to damage the boss enough to defeat them. In Sweet Tooths fight against Mr. Grimm after destroying one of the monster trucks, the other will gain armor that will make it impossible to damage. You will have to drive your gunner underneath the truck (while avoiding getting crushed) in order to plant C4 that will blow off the armor.

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We're going to need more Power Missiles.

There are two things that I found to be lacking in the single player: the overall length of the campaign and the enemy AI. Through experience, the entire campaign only takes about 3-4 hours to beat, which is a lot less then earlier iterations of the series. The short length of the game compounded with the three playable characters really makes me think that the single player was shortchanged compared to the multiplayer. The other big problem was the AI. It appears, quite evidently in fact, that the AI has some sort of alliance or pact. Many times they will simply ignore each other to go after myself, even if they have 1% health and I am at full. I could be hiding on the rooftop of some building out of sight and all six of my opponents will just look for me and not once attack each other.


Multiplayer

The multiplayer mode is where Twisted Metal really shines. If you enjoyed playing through the single player story, then you will probably have either one of two reactions to the online. You will either love it to death as the best thing to happen to Twisted Metal ever or you will curse it due to everyone always killing you first. The multiplayer was designed to address some of the key issues that have plagued the A.I. of Twisted Metal such as the issue of the other vehicles always targeting the player and nobody else as well as their predictability. I know from experience that when facing someone online in head-to-head vehicular combat to the death, predictability is thrown out the window.

Twisted Metal introduces a few new modes of gameplay into the multiplayer. In the earlier games, multiplayer combat was limited to one of two choices: two-player co-op or 2-4 player death matches. While death matches do exist in the online, the number of players able to fight at once has been increased four-fold to 16. Here is a list of the new gameplay types introduced in Twisted Metal:

• Hunted: One player will be deemed This person will be given a green bullseye above their car and on their icon on the minimap. Their goal is to survive as long as possible before being killed. Whoever manages to kill them is made the new ‘hunted’ and is restored to full health. Every time you kill the hunted you receive a point, if a hunted kills another player, the hunted gets a point. The person with the most points at the end is the winner.
  
• Team Hunted: The same gamplay as in Hunted, but with two teams instead of a free-for-all. Each team will have a hunted that they will have to protect while at the same time try to kill the enemy hunted.
  
• Last Man Standing: Each player in the free-for-all will start the game with only a single life. The goal is to be the last man alive at the end of the match through either clever tactics such as hit-and-run, massive launches of missiles, or just being a chicken and hiding until only a few people remain.
  
• Team Last Man Standing: Much like the free-for-all version except that each team will have up to six extra lives. The first team to run out of both vehicles and extra lives loses.
  
• Nuke: A team game where your goal is to find and capture the faction leaders scattered throughout the level and sacrifice them to the missile launchers in the level. Once the missile is launched, you have to guide the missile into the enemy’s statue. This game is played over 3 rounds of alternating offensive and defensive periods.
  

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Shooting missiles at giant effigies of the opposing faction is key to winning in Nuke games.

Unable to win at Deathmatch or never the last man standing at the end of the round? Then you are in luck, because the developers thought ahead and installed a gameplay filter for the multiplayer just for you. Using the filter, you can pick whether you want to change things such as: ranked/unranked games, type of game, whether the game has already started, length of game, and minimum number of people in a game.

If you played through the story before tackling the multiplayer then tough luck, all of your vehicles unlocked throughout the story will not be available. You are going to have to earn then all again through a convenient leveling system that awards experience based on many factors such as: being best player on the team, winning, number of kills/assists, time being the hunted, damage done, damage taken, kill streaks, etc. Every time that you advance a level, you will be given a point that you can spend on one of three things: unlocking a vehicle, unlocking a weapon or kill streak bonus, or vehicle skins. With an average of 400 experience awarded per game and levels taking 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k, and eventually 5k experience, you are going to have your hands full trying to gain all of those nice, deadly vehicles.

Dont get the impression that you will only have the option of fighting random people with the small chance that you will eventually run into one of your PSN friends. You will be able to invite your friends into a clan of up to 42 people as well as form parties of up to 8 people. If you form a party, you will be auto-joined to any matches that the party leader is trying to join. Of course if you have 6 members and the leader tries joining an 11/14-player game, it will not let you in.

The multiplayer has had a lot of problems since the game was released, but surprisingly none of them pertained to gameplay bugs or glitches or even hacking. No, the major problems had to do with connection issues. While the problem had steadily improved over the week to the point where I can get into about half of the games I try to join, when the game was first released, I would be lucky to get in 1-in-9 games with the dreaded "Unable to Connect" screen popping up every time I tried to join a game. If you somehow manage to get into a lobby and have the game start, you still were (and are) not totally safe. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the game will stop and kick you (and mostly everyone else) out of the game back to the game lobby screen with a message claiming you have a bad or poor Internet connection and to try again later (Yeah right, all 16 of us have terrible Internet at the same time). The connection issues, while they are being fixed, have managed to drag down a fantastic online experience into something where your every other thought is, "Will I be able to get into this game or not?"


Technical

Twisted Metal is a solid game that shows the amount of time and effort put into making sure the game was released perfectly. In fact, this game was supposed to be released around October 2011, but the designers held off on doing so because they felt it was not quite ready. Think for a minute about how many game designers will intentionally hold off on releasing a popular video game for more than a week or two.

Twisted Metals introduction to the world of HD gaming was very smooth. In fact, it can even be said that it was waiting for HD to come out. While I thoroughly enjoyed all the other games in the series, there is just something about realistically destroying a helicopter with a homing missile that makes me happy. The increase in the graphics as well as the processing power of the PS3 had allowed for larger, more immersive levels that have multiple floors and indoor areas; increasing the amount of level to fight in. It also helped to redefine Twisted Metal from some type of cartoon-like shooter game on the PS1 to a realistic vehicular death match on the PS3. In the early games of the series, the missiles and other powerups were sprite-like designs with some missiles appearing even larger then the vehicle they were launched from. In Twisted Metal (2012), the missiles are realistically proportioned to the vehicle they are launched from.

The sound effects of the game are pretty good. If you drive through a glass door or window, you will hear the sound of a large pane of glass shattering. Destroying the supports for a water tower will release the tell-tall groan of steel bending a buckling. While the developers have managed to get down the sound effects of shooting guns, launching missiles, and using a flamethrower, the only thing that they seem to have forgotten about all the pedestrians that they left in the game. There are many pedestrians to run over in Twisted Metal, but they all scream the same few sound effects when you hit them. This is something that could have been improved.

The soundtrack includes many licensed songs including Raise the Flag by Airbourne, and Heavy Metal I Cant Drive by Sammy Hagar. The developers have managed to get the perfect songs for vehicular manslaughter. I dont know about you, but I love it when a Team Hunted match starts and Raise the Flag begins as well. It makes hunting for that one opponent all the more fun. What I would have liked to implement was the ability to upload your own songs to the mix, in order to add some variety.

The only technical problem that I had with the single player was the horrendous AI. Most of the time I felt that I had a giant invisible bulls-eye over my vehicle perhaps I was played offline Hunted due to how all the enemies would always home in on me. In earlier twisted metals, the enemies at least tried to attack each other. Here, they hardly even do that. As for the multiplayer, the major concern that I have (as well as the tens of thousands who bought that game) was the online connectivity issues. While the issues have been addressed and have gradually improved over the last week, the problems themselves should not exist.



Trophies

Unlike a lot of other PS3 games that you can easily platinum in a weekend, to get the platinum for Twisted Metal will require a lot of time and effort. To put it into perspective, you cannot even get the platinum unless you win an online ranked match every day in a row for at least30 days. There are even trophies that may take longer than that to get. Some of the more tedious trophies include: killing a player online within 5 seconds of spawning, getting 100 kills with each of the six types of missiles, 50 kills with each car in online ranked matches, 10 wins of each type of game, and 10 wins on each battleground.

That is not to say that it will be boring to get the platinum. If you seriously love killing and destroying your opponents in as many ways possible, then you are not even going to notice the time pass as you kill hundreds, perhaps even thousands of opponents.


Closing Thoughts

Twisted Metal is a great game that keeps the traditions and features handed down through the series alive without sacrificing much of anything. The developers spent several years improving on what we know and love. The inclusion of live-action single player movies and clips in the single player stories were a great addition and allows the gamer to see what your would characters actually look like if they were real (which is both awesome and terrifying.) Ignoring the various technical bugs and glitches that have plagued the online feature since the release; this is a game that anyone who loves both driving and destruction should get.


Gameplay: 10/10
Solid gameplay with barely any noticeable gameplay glitches or bugs. The various vehicles are balanced with special attacks that have their strengths and weaknesses. A vehicle with a ton of armor will also be among the slowest cars.

Singleplayer: 8.0/10
A great storyline due to the inclusion of live-action cutscenes to facilitate the immersion of the gamer into the storyline. Calypso's narration before each of the levels was also a nice touch, especially the level where he drifts off and starts talking about a favorite word. The only downsides were the short length of the campaign, the limited number of characters, and the enemy AI.

Multiplayer: 10/10
The multiplayer is where the game truly shines. Take note that I am not including the connection issues into this score. It only represents the multiplayer gameplay and nothing else. The numerous types of games available to compete in, the ranking system, and the balanced gameplay makes the multiplayer the highlight of the game.

Technical: 8.5/10
The sound effects, music, and graphics of Twisted Metal are top-notch. The multiplayer connection issues is the only thing that dragged this score down.

Overall: 9.0/10 Brilliant

Uncharted Golden Abyss

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Basic Information:
Developer:SCE Bend Studios
Publisher:Sony Computer Entertainment
North American Release Date:February 12, 2012
European Release Date:February 22, 2012
Trophies:Yes | :bronze: 48 | :silver: 5 | :gold: 2 | :platinum: 1


Overview

The Uncharted franchise is arguably the most popular and successful Playstation exclusive. Boasting amazing graphics, sound design, musical score, gameplay, character development, and more, Uncharted is certainly a whole package. With the release of the Vita, Golden Abyss is easily the most hyped game coming out for the device. But can Golden Abyss live up to the standards set by its console brethren, on a portable outing?

Gameplay

Despite not being developed by Naughty Dog themselves, it's obvious that Golden Abyss is unmistakably an Uncharted game. If you've played any of the other three games on the PS3, then you'll feel right at home here. Gameplay is once again split up into different types. You have your average third-person shooter that's based around taking cover, some climbing and traversal segments, puzzle solving, and some very basic exploration elements. All of these things come together to create one flowing piece of gameplay. Climbing segments transition perfectly into shooting, and so on to create a game that feels natural while you're playing it.

As far as the shooting aspects of the game go, the Uncharted franchise is known for being solid in every which way. Unfortunately, thanks to some wonky controls Golden Abyss fails to reach those standards. Aiming is done by both moving the right analog stick towards your target, as well as a new feature that utilizes the Vita's motion controls to further fine-tune the aiming by tilting the device. While a decent, innovative idea, I found it exceedingly frustrating to try to aim by both balancing the device in a perfect manner, as well as use the analog stick to get the reticle in a good position.

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Climbing and traversal are actually one of the Golden Abyss' highlights.

Further hindering this is the enemy AI. In true Uncharted fashion, enemies are rather jumpy, popping in and out of cover randomly, and also moving all over the place as you shoot to try to dodge your bullets Matrix-style. On the consoles, this was more of a slight annoyance than an actual problem, but on the Vita where it's already difficult enough to just shoot where you want to, this becomes a serious frustration. I eventually just found myself spraying and praying - holding down R1 and running around hoping for some bullets to land.

On the contrary, climbing sections are nice breaks from the frustration of the gunplay, and while they are neither difficult nor exciting, they do offer up a decent bit of fun. These portions of the gameplay fully utilize the hardware of the Vita. Instead of just mashing the X button in order to climb, you also have the option of using the back panel to climb ropes, and the touch screen to 'draw' your path of traversal. These unique touches add depth to what was previously a very lame climbing system.

Puzzles are back once again, and while they aren't as prominent as in the PS3 titles, the lack of puzzles keeps the tension high and the adrenaline rushing. Most consist of the same sort of stuff you'll find in the console versions, although for some reason you'll be doing a lot of charcoal rubbings, which consists of wiping the touchscreen repeatedly until you've created an image. Additionally, smaller puzzles are found littered around the levels for you to pick them up and solve them on your own. Nearly all puzzles utilize the Vita's touch screen functionality, which is definitely nifty at the beginning, but these actions become all the more tedious after you've rubbed charcoal on paper for the 20th time. Treasures can also be found scattered throughout the world. This encourages you to explore despite the fact that it is difficult to stray away from the central path.

Singleplayer

The Uncharted franchise has always been tagged as, "Indiana Jones with guns," and the story and feel to the game really represent this. Once again we step into the shoes of treasure hunter and hero Nathan Drake in a prequel to the current PS3 trilogy. While the story is barely connected to any of the others on the series, certain tones and parts of the plot are reminiscent of past experiences with Uncharted, despite the fact that Amy Hennig did not write the story this time around.

In Golden Abyss, Drake finds himself teaming up with wise-cracking New Yorker James Dante, as well as love interest Marisa Chase as the trio race against antagonist Roberto Guerro in order to find (yet another) lost city. Is the actual story lame? Yes. To be honest, I've taken up the role of Drake to find a lost city four times now, and it's just getting old. However, character development is where the Uncharted franchise has always found its success. Does Golden Abyss do the same? Well, yes and no.

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Drake is accompanied by two new characters, Dante and Chase, this time around.

I really love how Drake is portrayed in this game, as we see a whole different and altogether darker side to him. If I had a nickel for every time a gun was pulled on Nate in a cutscene, I'd be rich. So it was to my greatest excitement to see this situation flipped more than once. Drake is still our great, every-man hero, but that doesn't mean he can't flirt with getting his hands dirty here.

However, the supporting cast just doesn't live up to my expectations of how Uncharted characters are developed. Marisa Chase is an interesting character, but she feels shallow. For instance, she makes it clear that she doesn't want to even touch a gun, but it's never explained why. Heck, even Nate is frustrated with the lack of information about her in the beginning! Unlike Elena, who I really felt I got to know as a character, Chase ultimately feels like your average damsel in distress. Dante, on the other hand, feels like a thoroughly fleshed out character, despite us not spending nearly as much time with him. In addition, we do find ourselves with a familiar face for the second half of the game, which is a really nice and comforting aspect that I really enjoyed.

One area where Golden Abyss truly shows off one of its largest downfalls is in excitement. The story never gets me riled up, the main antagonist never feels more than some fat Hispanic dude with a gun, and the extreme lack of over the top action makes for a much more boring experience than what we've come to expect from an Uncharted game. While there are some moments where the action picks up and things get exciting, we don't see anything even close to the level of the train sequence in Uncharted 2, or the plane sequence in Uncharted 3. When all else fails, the over the top action has always saved Uncharted from being a dull experience, and seeing how that element isn't present here, the subpar parts of the game really stick out.

Technical

Golden Abyss could be considered a technical achievement on many levels. Despite being on a handheld, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous. Better than PS2 graphics while not touching PS3 graphics, Golden Abyss is a prime example of just what the Vita is capable of. Characters look great, environments are lush with color, and even effects like water look amazing.

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The flabbergasting sense of scope is retained, despite being shrunk down to fit the Vita.

Nolan North reprises his role as Nathan Drake, and the new cast members are equally as good, matching Nolan's performance. In addition, Uncharted's famous musical score is back, and it once again awakens the treasure hunter in all of us. The score quickly comes once a battle starts to brew, setting a perfect tone for shootouts and high-adrenaline moments. There are also a few times when heated music starts to play randomly in the background, even as you're doing simple things such as climbing when no enemies are around. I found this to be very jarring, but too big of a deal since it doesn't happen often.

A major gripe I had with the presentation is that there simply aren't many locals that you'll find yourself going to. Since the entire game takes place in Panama, there isn't a lot of room for creativity. Expect to see a lot things similar to that of the jungles from Drake's Fortune. That's said, what's here is done to perfection, and asking for much more on a handheld is just being nitpicky.

Trophies

It seems the guys over at SCE aren't very creative with their trophies, because they're literally exactly the same as the ones for the three console Uncharted games. Expect having to find all treasures and solve all 'mysteries,' as well as getting a certain amount of kills with each type of gun and beating the game on crushing. Don't expect it to be a fun plat to get, the trophies are very uninspired.

Closing Thoughts

At the end of the day, Golden Abyss is an impressive game that's just simply lacking the wow factor we've grown to expect from the Uncharted franchise. If you can look past the wonky aiming, subpar story, and lack of excitement, you'll find that Golden Abyss has some wonder and enjoyment in it. Golden Abyss is rough around the edges, but it still manages to thoroughly impress.

Gameplay: 6/10
Wonky aiming controls extremely hinder the shooting experience, and puzzles feel very repetitive. However, the overall experience can still be enjoyed.

Singleplayer: 7/10
The story itself is lacking, and character development isn't as good as it's been, but we see a new and much more interesting side to Drake here.

Technical: 10/10
A true technical achievement, I never knew a portable device could be capable of such stellar graphics, and the musical score and voice acting further add to this. Want a game to fully show off your new Vita? Look no further.

Overall: 7/10 Good