Posted Oct 2nd 2008 5:30PM by Alan Tsang Filed under: News
Avi Arad, the producer of blockbusters such as the Blade series, X-Men series and an upcoming Everquest movie, has been revealed as the producer of a cinematic adaptation of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. In an interview with Kotaku, the 60-year old producer (Kotaku has him listed as 33, leading one to suspect they are actually speaking with Ari Arad, Avi's son) talks about how Nathan Drake isn't just an Indiana Jones clone. Drake is a complicated character, according to Arad. "He's not a benevolent guy, but he's certainly not a great guy. Indiana Jones was always a good guy and he relentlessly did the right thing. Drake is a guy who's being hauled over to virtue throughout the game."
The film won't bring you to the island as quickly as the game did, according to the producer. Instead, the film will add some background to the story and "explore some of the modern day piracy that's going on today in South America." How do you feel about this film thus far? Is Arad the right guy for the job? Or would you rather have Brett Ratner?
Posted Aug 5th 2008 6:30PM by Alan Tsang Filed under: News
Richard Lemarchandm, Co-Lead Game Designer at Naughty Dog, sat down with Three Speech in a lengthy interview to talk about their latest developments. He goes on extensively about how Uncharted: Drake's Fortune's trophies were implemented, Cell architecture, and one tidbit of detail concerning rooms in Home, but it's nothing new if you've beenkeepingup. If you want to read the man's own words, Three Speech has your interview right here.
Unfortunately, Lemarchand is rather reticent about Naughty Dog's next project, offering no information other than they are "quite a way into our next production cycle now. " He does, however, give his two cents about the future of multiplatform games: with a set of tools "developed on the Naughty Dog premises, actually, by a group of very, very senior games programmer, some from Naughty Dog and some from elsewhere" called Edge, he believes third-party developers "are going to be able to use them in their own ways, to get more and more and more out of the PS3 over the years." In fact, Lemarchand believes that even Naughty Dog is currently only using 30 to 40 percent of the PS3's power.
The video game designer concludes the interview with by speaking well of the relationship they have with other PS3 developers: "We have this culture of open communication ... we're always trading war-stories with Insomniac and Evolution and Sucker Punch. We're just one block away from Sony Santa Monica -- the guys who made God Of War -- and we get our designers together ... and I think it makes everybody stronger and smarter." Sounds about right to us.
So by now you probably know that the Uncharted Trophy patch has dropped and are itching to get your hands on some more glittering prizes. We've listed out every Trophy in the game, including those with the mysterious "???" title. Here's the full Trophy list.
What? No fanfare? The trophy patch for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is now available. At the moment this is only true for Europe, but no doubt the patch for other regions will be up soon. We'll be sure to update you when that happens. This patch contains a full set of 48 trophies, 47 of which correspond to the medal system already found in the game. The final, platinum, trophy is only achievable once you've obtained the others.
So go ahead and give Uncharted a dusting off, stick it in the drive and start collecting. Your PSN level depends on it!
As many of you know, Gametrailers recently came under quite a bit of scrutiny when it was learned that the PS3 and Xbox 360 comparison videos they've been posting were used at the PS3's default video settings and using component cables. To silence its critics, Gametrailers posted a video comparing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune using standard component cables like they have in the past and what many PS3 owners have wanted – HDMI, full RGB and with adjusted ultra white levels.
After watching the video several times, we have to say, it's kinda hard to tell a difference. In the end, this whole controversy might have been a bit overblown, but we think it'd probably be smart on Gametrailer's part to just use the HDMI settings in any future comparison videos. It just might save you guys a lot of hate mail.
In an interview with 1Up, Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra of Naughty Dog detail the status of the company and how they feel moving forward onto other projects. Reiterating that Uncharted was developed as a franchise from the outset, Balestra states that everyone at Naughty Dog is incredibly eager to get stuck into their next project. With only 30% of the SPUs being harnessed for their first outing on the PlayStation 3, they seem determined to see what else they can do in the future.
The Naughty Dogs also explain that in migrating to the PS3, they had to leave behind their proprietary programming language, Lisp, and start from scratch. Now that they have, any future endeavours will be that much easier with their (not so) basic grounding in coding for the machine fully established. Check out the full interview for more insight into the company behind Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
It looks like Europeans (and Japanese PS3 owners) won't have to wait until November 22nd after all. A new post on the PlayStation.Blog by Naughty Dog's Christophe Balestra states that the Uncharted demo was never intended to be region locked. After discovering that it was, Balestra did his best to get it fixed for his fellow Europeans as quickly as possilble. The version available right now on the American PSN Store will now work on any PS3 in the world.
Frankly, we're delighted to see this issue fixed so quickly, even though there was no obligation for Naughty Dog to have the demo work on any PS3 - what with the EULA essentially restricting "false" accounts. Regardless, we're always happy to post good news and will be sending a huge "Thank you!" to Naughty Dog on belhalf of all of our non-American readers. So what are you waiting for? Go download the Uncharted demo!
IGN has received word from Sony that the European version of the Uncharted: Drake's Fortune demo will be available on the PSN store on the 22nd of November. Sure, it would've been nice if the US demo worked on European machines, but there are still conflicting reports surrounding the situation coming in from all directions. Sony's official line, as shown by their blog, is that it was a mistake and that they are in communication with Naughty Dog to see if it can be rectified.
Either way Eurodwellers only have a couple of weeks to wait for the official EU version of the demo, so it could be worse. Despite this, we're intrigued to see how Sony deals with the issue, as it will give an indication of how they truly feel about keeping the PS3 region free. We just hope this entire debacle doesn't reflect badly on what is going to be an excellent game.
The Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Alternate Reality Game has revealed some more clues. A video has been placed on Youtube (see above) showing Elena's travels to some Panama ruins, where she discovers an interesting artifact which may be of help to any of you who are playing along with the online quest.
Posters are also being found all over America which could easily contain clues to the next part of the story. These can be found after the break and will hopefully unlock their secrets to the close scrutiny given by all of you treasure hunters out there. To start the game from the beginning be sure to check out Sullivan's Stories and see what you can make of it.
UK trade magazine MCV is reporting that Sony Europe are planning for a million dollar marketing campaign for Sony's next big exclusive, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Sony are eager to enlighten as many people as possible to existence of what is being referred to as the PS3's biggest hope for the Christmas season.
Product manager at Sony, Phil Lynch, says that they have "booked extensive 16 to 34 male slots for November and December." TV adverts have been sorely lacking in the UK - both in number and in quality - so we're happy to hear that there will be more game specific ads on our tellies. The advert will also run in cinemas and the entire thing has been shot using PlayStation 3 rendered graphics.
The campaign goes even deeper with a partnership with Empire magazine which will run a feature about "every man" heroes, with comparisons to Uncharted's main character, Nathan Drake. Along with extensive online advertisements, this all looks to be shaping up to a worthy effort for Naughty Dog's latest game.
We're in two minds about how to approach this post - while part of the ARG experience is to suspend belief and pretend a game is not a game, this new UnchartedARG is clearly labeled as such at the bottom of the first page. For those of you who have never come across an ARG before, it stands for Alternate Reality Gaming and usually describes a method of marketing or standalone experience that blurs the lines between reality and fiction.
Sullivan's Stories, the new ARG surrounding the story of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune will progress throughout the run up to its release over the next few weeks. We're not sure how it will play out, but we're hoping it will be a lot of fun and will be keeping our eye on it. The game won't be easy - no doubt a collaberative effort will be required for players to reach the end, but in our experience building a sense of community around the game is half the fun.
Hungry for some interactive Uncharted? We've all seen enough screenshots and videos to last us a lifetime - no doubt you guys want to try some hands on. It seems the guys (gender neutral, of course) over at Naughty Dog understand this and Amy Hennig (who we have a dev-crush on simply due to her work on the Legacy of Kain series) has replied to a poster on the PlayStation.Blog with some very good news. An Uncharted: Drake's Fortune demo will be available on the US PlayStation Network store on November the 8th - just over a week away! So if you're available on that day and you're not swamped with all the recent-and-upcoming new releases then make sure you give it a download. The even better news is that if you enjoy the demo you will have less than two weeks to wait to play the game - the US release is set to November 20th.
Despite Uncharted's Halloween trailer having nothing to do with the holiday itself, it certainly adds to our crush over Naughty Dog's new title. The new video, which shows off the game's amazingly beautiful levels and environments, also adds a bit more details about the game's storyline.
After watching the video, it's hard not to come away thinking it will be one of the PS3's most epic titles to date, and with Uncharted's demo due to hit the Playstation Network a week or so before the game's release, November just became our favorite month of the year.
The first title in the Uncharted series and a sequel is already being discussed in an interview with Opposable Thumbs. Christophe Balestra, co-president of Naughty Dog, has no qualms in saying that Naughty Dog is a franchise studio - all their previous big games have been parts of a series. Uncharted is no exception and Balestra says that it would be "a waste" to leave the game without a sequel - and we agree!
Uncharted fills 91% of a Blu-Ray disc and uses streaming from the disc to the hard drive in order to minimize load times. Naughty Dog seem infatuated with the technology of the PS3 and see it as some sort of challenge to get even more out of it in the future. We look forward to seeing what they come up with as well as finally get our hands on the first title next month.
