UNCHARTED @lj.com

When it was originally discovered that a card game based on the exploits of Nathan Drake was being made, I don’t think anyone jumped for joy or even really cared. Uncharted? Card… battling? The truth is that descriptors like “swash-buckling”, “handsome”, and “action-packed” are entirely antithetical to anyone’s sane perception of a card game.

That remains true today as Uncharted: Fight for Fortune fights for space on your PlayStation Vita. If you’ve played a lot of card games, Fight for Fortune might feel like an odd cross between Magic the Gathering and other resource-based card-fighters. While many of you might be tempted by Nathan Drake’s handsome, chiseled mug, I’m here to reveal that the Uncharted brand and card-battling are two great tastes that should never have been tasted together.

Videogame spin-off novels often get off to a running start, in that they leap from a springboard of low expectations; a depressingly large proportion of games writing struggles to deserve praise higher than ‘competent’. Having previously taken the bold decision to publish a Bioshock prequel novel, Titan Books have since put onto shelves The Fourth Labyrinth, the first official Uncharted novel.

All three Uncharted games have strong, well-defined characters; witty dialogue; breathtaking action set pieces; and, in short, some of the best writing in the industry. Though almost perfectly suited to a literary adaptation, the Uncharted series (excepting a few irritating loose ends in the third instalment) sets the writing bar surprisingly high.

Series veteran, Greg Edmonson returns as composer for the third game in Nathan Drake's quest to uncover buried treasure in exotic locations. Having handled the score for, sci-fi western, Firefly, Edmonson would seem a fantastic fit for the game's desert setting. Strangely, the moments that seem to lean heaviest here on the dusty, rustic charm of that cult-classic show's sonic pallet are frequently the work of Azam Ali, as with the twangy guitar, wailing strings, and eerie vocals of "Bazaar Brawl" and loose guitar flailing through mysterious vocals on "The Streets Of Yemen".

[...]The score does a fine job balancing the anxious excitement of the game's action against the heartfelt swooning moments of grandeur serving as a sonic snapshot the landscapes Drake finds himself traversing, as on the flowing orchestral swell and rattling percussion of "As Above, So Below" and the defiant strings driving through "The Settlement", while keying in on the creepy with the wailing strings of chilling "Arachnophobia". The score exceeds at conveying the moments of isolation in the game, as with the weepy violin opening "The Setup" or fluttering strings and carefully plucked guitar introducing "Boarding Party" as it does the frenetic towering action both pieces evolve into. [SOURCE]