All Things UNCHARTED

UNCHARTED3; through the eyes of Sarah Anderson

UNCHARTED3; through the eyes of Sarah Anderson

October 9th, 2012

About a week ago I published the second instalment in a series I am currently running on All Things UNCHARTED. Sarah Anderson is a newcomer to the PS3; she completed the first two in the series and tweeted her way through them, with very amusing results. We posted some of our favourite tweets as we were interested to see how a newbie would feel about the games we love. Sarah recently tackled the latest UNCHARTED title, and for the sake of completeness (and a fun article) here are the edited highlights;

Poor Sarah hasn’t been feeling too well. But what else is there to do when cold-ridden but sit on the sofa, fire up the PS3 and play the heck out of an awesome game? Wish you well, though, Sarah.

Yes, yes he does. I seem to recall making a very similar comment when we were treated to the first proper trailer. I also seem to remember a large portion of Twitter took quite a long time to talk about anything else. Funny how someone we see always dress in a certain way can have such an impact when doing something different.

Uh huh. Nathan certainly isn’t new to stealing. I find this early theft not quite as abhorrent as the jaunt in Turkey as he is more innocent, and has very little guidance at this point. The same of course could be said for his older self but you would have thought that by then he should have had the opportunity to assess what he was doing as fundamentally wrong. There are a lot of issues to consider, for sure, such as “being the only life he knows” but while I find I can forgive the child I can not forgive the man.

I like to think that in Among Thieves, when Nate is in jail and along comes Chloe, Nate’s “you haven’t always been the best judge of character. Especially when it comes to women!” was all a set up for Sully and Marlowe. I actually wouldn’t be surprised.

Yeah… interesting theory that Sully is to blame. We will never know where Nate was going to go if he hadn’t met Sully. I suspect it wouldn’t have been a good life, but who knows. Did Sully ruin him? Did Nate make Sully a better man? Of that I am almost certain, as it happens. We don’t know anything really of Victor pre-Nate, but how he reacts to Nathan in the museum is one of genuine concern. Perhaps he saw a little of himself in him, perhaps he just doesn’t think that slapping a kid across the face is a nice thing to do.

Well, you do and you don’t. I am a Londoner, and a fairly nerdy one at that. And by ‘nerdy’ I don’t just mean I like Doctor Who, but I have… (confession time) done some reading for fun around the history of the London Underground. There are a lot (lot) of disused stations dotted about. Some you can see from trains that still use the tracks (The British Museum, for example) and some that have been bricked up entirely. Some of them still have their above ground buildings (South Kentish Town) which are used as shops and the like.

But there isn’t, nor ever was there, a station called North Atwood. It doesn’t particularly bother me, but with my knowledge of the history of the Tube it stood out. Anyway, quite a while ago, shortly after the release of Drake’s Deception I was in email contact with Amy Hennig, and one of the things we talked about was ‘why not use a real station?’ I am sure she won’t mind me quoting her here (and if she does; well, there goes my career), but this was what she had to say;

The reason we made up a disused tube station, rather than using a real one, is that we try to avoid being *too* specific with the places we visit. Like, I obviously don’t mind naming the country, or even the city per se, but I don’t want to nail it down too specifically. Partly because I want the freedom to invent our own version of reality, partly to avoid being called out on inaccuracies, or to avoid unintentionally offending anyone.

Anyway, back to Sarah and her tweets. Sorry for the dalliance into London Tube history.

Me too. It’s a nice touch.

“Who the hell is MacDuff?” “Is there no bottom to your ignorance?” Throwaway lines like these aren’t throwaway lines at all. This tells you that a man like Nathan reads what he needs to; he appears to have an endless supply of knowledge. But take him out of his comfort zone, away from what he needs to have learned in order to get him to where he is today, and he has no clue whatsoever. Amy Hennig described him as “almost savant.”

Aaannnndddd that is one of *many* references to Sully’s age. Poor Sully.

Actually, yes they did. You can pick out Christophe Balestra fairly easily (it’s his castle, remember?). Also, Josh Scherr can be seen in the newspaper photo on the bar in the first scene in London. Which eventually turned out to be a Last of Us reference. Jeez, Naughty Dog.

Ha; no spoilers, but one of the things Nate says in Golden Abyss when he finds a treasure is “I’m going to need bigger pockets…”

Arachnophobic, Sarah?

Oh you can. Whether or not you can actually kill people with thrown back grenades has yet to be proven, but the symbol that tells you that you *can* lob ’em back from whence they came is a good indication that if you don’t, and you don’t move either; you will be dead.

Wait; even *Sully* helps out!? Seems Sarah has become used to the lazy AI.

Yeah; there are a lot of things throughout the game that lead one to the conclusion that Sully is not what he seems. He messes with your head. I just hope he turns out to be on Nate’s side after all.

Very restrained of you. But her absence is incredibly noticeable. No one mentions her, no one even references her… so what the hell happened? Presumably she isn’t dead because otherwise you would expect them to remember her fondly from time to time. So… the other option is that Nate was Nate and screwed it up. And now no one will mention her lest he goes postal.

A-frickin’-men. In case you are unaware, should you mention ‘Drake’ in a tweet, you can bet your bottom dollar some spammer will try to convince you to click their link that promises stardom; as an extra in a Drake music video. How one ‘stars’ as an extra, I don’t know. But that is beside the point. It gets annoying.

Happy memories. We did that too. Probably got on the nerves of our parents, though.

I have nothing to say here…

Or maybe Elena has worked out that actually, she can do better after all. And I am not the only person to consider it.

Hope you are feeling better, Sarah. No one should have to take so much cough syrup that you end up running through the streets of Yemen with a creepy voice in your ear.

This has to be one of the most emotional scenes, surely. What is revealed in this scene probably doesn’t come as a great surprise to anyone, but still; knowing what Nate has gone through and and what he has done to cope with that is nothing short of heartbreaking. The skill displayed by the animators in portraying that amount of emotion in the face of Nathan is nothing short of staggering.

And each and every one of them deserve it.

It is certainly one of the high points of the gameplay.

Well, the kitty didn’t get wet, because the kitty is not a kitty. Pedantic brit is pedantic. (But not a thug.)

You know what is going to happen. It wouldn’t be that easy for Nate, now would it?

Of course. And all we have done is take Nate even further away from Sully.

It is lovely how easily these two slip back into being what they should be to each other. There’s no awkwardness about it, at all. Elena has done what she needed to do (“For Sully? Yeah.”) and now she can focus on Nate. Who for once isn’t a wise-arse idiot about it. This was probably how things were between them when things were good. No explanations, no excuses, just… love.

Honestly? I cried.

And here it is. It doesn’t make fun reading. In fact it is tragic.

It doesn’t let up. There’s one agent that amuses every time; Nate busts through the door, and lands almost at the feet of the chap who drops his water bottle, looks stunned for a moment, then grabs his gun.

And I think that is it. That is enough to keep him alive.

Uncharted wouldn’t be Uncharted without some form of supernatural element. Or would it?

This scene, despite the horror, is breathtaking. There is barely any music, or at least it is very quiet, Nate doesn’t cry out, but his shock is plain. He gently lays Sully down, whose eyes appear not to move, but simply die. Who *didn’t* cry rivers here?

Talbot is an easy man to hate.

Is Sully alive!? It is going to be… terrifying for Nate when Sully finally does leave him.

Yes it is. Well… almost. Not quite. The only remaining hope is that these two compromise, rather than Nate give up his lifestyle for good. Nathan is not a man to hang up his boots, but maybe now is the time that he needs to start considering other people, the two that love him the most would be a good place for him to start. But those two also need to meet Nate somewhere in the middle or else what hope for them, and Nathan in particular, is there?

We all are, Sarah. This was one of the many deceptions that underpinned the game. So very many.

And here endeth the journey. I hope you have enjoyed following Sarah’s plough through; I certainly did. What I have posted here are the edited highlights; I had to cut so many great little insights and witty comments. What I found interesting were the bits that were left out as well; for example, Eddy Raja didn’t get a look in, but he is often hailed as people’s favourite character. There were also parts Sarah had so much fun in that she forgot to tweet. And I can understand that.

Thanks for being such a good sport Sarah. Seriously; thank you.

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