Taking A Look At Uncharted 3 Part 1 (Graphics)

By Neal "NeoMahi" Evans

"For Uncharted 3 what we wanted to do was sort of take Drake on an adventure like he hadn't been on before which involves new destinations, and in this case its the Arabian dessert is his ultimate destination but he has to go on a globe-trotting adventure to finally get there and then also too with a new adversary that challenges him in new ways rather the sort of overly physical ways the more cerebral adversary where you have to 'fight your fears.' This person is moreso guileful and cunning than some of the people we've run into before."  - Amy Hennig Creative Director/ Naughty Dog.

Well, it seems that we've really put Gears of War 3 through the ringer over the last while with all of the excitement of the Beta's release. But truth be told, we've heard much more from Epic about its game that we've heard from Naughty Dog concerning their game so, rest assured, Uncharted 3's time is coming.

The game is Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception coming exclusively to the PlayStation 3 from those Naughty Dogs over there in Santa Monica, California slated for release on 11 November of this holiday season. 11-1-11. Wow. They were waiting for that one and really, we know pretty nothing about the game. Naughty Dog has been very tight lipped concerning the project, but it seems to me as though they've released more and spoken of Uncharted 3 more than I ever remembered them talking about Uncharted 2. So something has changed this time around. But, one thing that's interesting is the staffing Naughty Dog has done for the company the last few years. To many who first see Uncharted and are asked to describe it would say its Tomb Raider and Gears of War with an Indiana Jones story to it. This is perhaps why you'll find such a comparison between Gears of War and Uncharted. (Also because Gears of War is an Xbox 360 exclusive and Uncharted is a PlayStation 3 exclusive and the fanboys love to get into a heated argument over which one is better to feed their ego and feel better about their purchase, right? Well, we're getting there when more info surfaces but for now, you'll have to hang tight.)

Crash Bandicoot (PSOne)

But what's interesting is that you'll find Uncharted's Creative Director Amy Hennig and Lead Game Designer Richard Lamarchend had both previously worked with Crystal Dynamics and you'll find Richards name credited in Tomb Raider Legends, that came out on the Xbox 360, as a programmer. It really should be no surprise to any of Uncharted's similarities to Tomb Raider by any means. Now, Amy Henning and Richard Lamarchend both worked on Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver which I'm trying to work my way through to see what Game Design characteristics Ms. Henning carried over to the Uncharted Series.

Jak & Daxter (PS2)

When you couple that with Naughty Dogs colorful graphic design and evolving engine that's been around since Crash Bandicoot and rolling right through Jak and Daxter, which both Co-Presidents at Naughty Dog Evan Wells and Christophe Ballestra had worked on, merging the two worlds together makes sense with Uncharted when seen. Naughty Dog gained a lot of talent for this project from very experienced writers and designers in the industry (Hennig studied film and ended up in video games). Its evident that Naughty Dog carefully watched what was going on within the industry to make Uncharted what it is today. Tomb Raider on steroids with a Gears of War-esk cover system. Whether Naughty Dog had viewed Gears of War and adopted the idea from Epic Games or not remains unclear to me, but I do know that Epic Games learned from Uncharted and its Design Director stated that he knew the cover system had been done before Naughty Dog had mastered it, and those aspects were taken and was something he implemented into Gears of War 2 to give it more polish. (See, there's that comparison.)

So the real question is, from what we've seen so far on Uncharted 3, how does it compare with the other games in the trilogy? Has it gotten better? Has Naughty Dog bested Uncharted 2? What gameplay has changed, etc?

Naughty Dog Co-Presidents Christophe Ballestra and Evan Wells

HOW DOES THE GAME LOOK? Lets first take a look at how the game looks. Uncharted 2 was deemed as raising the bar in terms of graphical capabilities. It was a technical showcase that developers would look at and envy and work to try to attain that graphical fidelity Uncharted 2 had attained with the Naughty Dog Engine 2.0. Uncharted: Drakes Fortune was and is still an amazing looking game on the PlayStation 3 but, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune reportedly only used about 30% of the PlayStation 3 power. By Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Naughty Dog had been able to use 100% of the consoles power mastering the SPE's of the Cell Processor as well as maximizing the blu-ray's 25GB single-layer disc. Ask Co-President Christophe Ballestra concerning the game and he'll tell you the game isn't possible on the Xbox 360. Having the power of the Cell and its SPE's and what its capable of as well as that storage space make the game what it is and keeping it on PlayStation. (We're aware Naughty Dog is owned by Sony Computer Entertainment, but theoretically thinking that Naughty Dog became independent and Sony granted them ownership of the Uncharted IP.) Alright, well lets finally get right into it.

"While Uncharted 2: Among Thieves utilizes the full power of the Playstation 3 hardware, Druckmann said that the engine can be optimized to look better than the latest entry in the series." - Neil Druckman (Co-Lead Game Designer)

Well, when you see the comparison if these, if Uncharted 2: Among Thieves used 100% of the PlayStation 3's power and the Engine is optimized. Exactly what more could be optimized if there was an Uncharted 4 with Naughty Dogs track record? What exactly is defined as pushing the PlayStation 3 to its limits? Perhaps saying that the game has maxed out the consoles hardware is just a form of building hype. We know darn well from Sony's example with the PlayStation 2 that its launch titles were vastly different from the consoles final product and opus (God of War II.) Sony's consoles are built to endure long lasting lifecycles and the quality of games continually grows. Even God of War III surely can be tweaked for God of War IV and we can expect more. It isn't logical that Sony's hardware expire within five years. Sony consoles have had a ten year lifecycle and developers now are still have trouble with the hardware. What's the rush to next gen consoles when you haven't mastered the challenge before you now. Remember, game development is expensive. Next gen games will cost more money to make than todays, right?

What we're looking at here is Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. The image is at 1280 x 720 resolution, again using 30% of consoles power, not all in graphics obviously but graphically, this is Uncharted. Each Uncharted game has picked one particular graphical technological sort of thing to focus on. With Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, the big theme was water. Drake coming out of a waterfall his cloths are drenched and dry out in the sun over a period of time. When water is on rock its glossy. Naughty Dog fit water in Uncharted as much as they could. So when you look at Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, you can see that Naughty Dog signature look with all the bright colors and shrubbery and the game looks great, but the game doesn't really even break a sweat with the PS3.

Uncharted 2 remember was claimed to have used 100% of the PlayStation 3's power. Maybe from a visual standpoint there's room to breathe but as far as performance, game physics whatever, has maxed out the PS3. With Uncharted 2, the anti-aliasing  has been cranked up that can clearly be seen and textures and lighting are clearly more advanced. Drakes jeans, the dirt on his short, the texture of the brick road, the gun stock and the environments. Its a beauty to behold in actuality. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves big focus was on snow and ice effects though you still would see water throughout the game and it looked even better as well as overall depth. Standing atop the hotel overlooking the city, distant mountains. Sheer beauty! How could Uncharted 3 top this?

When Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was revealed at the VGA's in 2009 with a trailer, Naughty Dog had stated it was all in-game footage. When the singleplayer demo was shown that year at E3, it was clearly evident that Naughty Dog was right and when gamers finally got their hands on the game, it was in fact a beauty to behold. Now, this year, the same process has begun. Regrettably, we haven't seen much of the singleplayer action and most posted videos are pretty lackluster. Most videos are of the announced multiplayer. But, if Uncharted 3 follows suit of Uncharted 2, then the same has been spoken of the VGA reveal of Uncharted 3. Its all in game footage. Lets see how Uncharted 2 compares with Uncharted 3:

 Clicking the image will enlarge it. A lot has been done. It almost looks as though Uncharted 3 were developed for the PlayStation 4. If that's optimizing, then wow! Bear in mind still that this is in-game footage of both Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drakes Fortune.

Some of the technical graphical additions to Uncharted 3 that we've found explain a little more of what we can expect in future viewings. Naughty Dog had chosen to focus this time around on sand effects and fire which we're going to look a little into with these technical additions. Obviously the game is still a ways away and only a little has been revealed but here is a look at what we can expect so far.

FIRE - As the fire burns, it produces dynamic radiant light that illuminates realistically. Glowing ember is emitted from the flames and produces thousands of particle effects that were techniques not yet discovered in Uncharted 2. Fire also produces smoke in real time. The longer Drake stands near the fire, the more he coughs.


SAND - It seems that sand effects have been Naughty Dogs major focus this time around. To me, it seems that they've taken what they had learned with snow, and evolved their technology with sand. Uncharted 3 features realistic sand displacement, sand dunes, heat haze effects and even mirages.

PHYSICS - Uncharted 2 heavily used the Havoc Engine with its physics the last run through. This time, Naughty Dog have chosen to use a Hollywood Animation Based physics engine totally unheard of. That's right, an Engine Hollywood animators use for children's films. That's going out on a limb integrating it into the Naughty Dog Engine 3.0. You will see this with sand effects as sand sweeps across the desert, effects more advanced than we had seen in Uncharted 2 with the helicopter up top of the hotel escape in which shrubbery branches were jerked left and right from the wind conjured up from the blades of the helicopter.

Even when things explode and bases collapse and objects falling, fall much more naturally. In one video showing Drake reloading an RPG, the wind force produced from the falling rubble causes the neckerchief around Drakes neck to fold under and around his arm realistically. Its animation Epic Games has begged for with openings targeting Naughty Dogs talent and animators by name and its the hardware that helps make it possible to do.

Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception still has a ways to go until its release. We don't know how old or how new all the footage is or what will be tweaked from here on out but we're certain to see plenty showcased at this years 2011 Sony E3 Press Conference in which Jack Tretton can smile and brag about Naughty Dog again and talent they've aquired. (He has good reason to brag.)

From what we've seen so far of the singleplayer comparatively to Gears of War 3, I'm so far more impressed with Uncharted 3 and Naughty Dogs 3.0 Engine as it's going to once again raise the bar with what we've seen from Gears 3's singleplayer campaign footage. However, the multiplayer of Gears of War 3 graphically seems to outshine Uncharted 3 with what has been released. Gears 3 seems to nail that detail and polish in its multiplayer visual's which if Naughty Dog wants to top, they'll need some work. Otherwise, it is looking like again, Uncharted 3 is set to raise the bar once again.

 For more things Uncharted, PlayStation and all things gaming, check back with us. Next, we'll go over what we've learned with gameplay and multiplayer so be sure to check back as we keep you in the X-Zone.