Since the early days of the original PlayStation, the developer Naughty Dog has created some engaging virtual worlds. They began with the Crash Bandicoot titles (ESRB “E”) and continued on the PlayStation 2 with the Jak and Daxter series (ESRB “E” and “T”). Though the original Jak and Daxter followed the Crash Bandicoot lead as a kid-friendly 3D platformer, Jak II started to become darker. It was at this point that Naughty Dog began creating “T” titles. They are excellent games and well worth playing, but not as kid friendly as the original cartoon antics of a certain bandicoot.

Their latest game is as much of a leap in technology and presentation from the Jak and Daxter trilogy as Jak was from Crash. It is called Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and it’s an adventure game in the vein of the Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider franchises. What appears to set this apart is the depth of the characters, the story, and the level of detail. In their previous productions, Naughty Dog took pride in painstakingly keyframing all of the animation. Though this makes for exceptionally fluid motion, it is better suited to stylized characters and not realistic human motion. For Uncharted they decided to start with motion capture to portray natural movement of the human characters. Then they refined this information be supplimenting it with traditional animation to create a more organic realism for the characters than motion capture could handle alone. This was an incredible undertaking considering that there is over an hour of these storytelling cinematics in the game.

In addition to the impressive cut-scenes, the in-game animation is stunning. Your onscreen persona, Nathan Drake, moves very naturally whether he is walking, running, jumping, or climbing through the environment. The control appears to be spot on as well, which is expected from a Naughty Dog title. Their titles are known for consistantly good gameplay and fun factor.

As of this week, the game’s demo is available free online at the PlayStation Store (North America). Feel free to download it and decide for yourself if it lives up to the hype. It is rated “T” and does include quite a bit of gun play. I would not call it brutal, nor is the hero of the title killing for any reason other than self-defense. Yet, the player is required to shoot quite a few of the “bad guys” throughout the game.

For more information about Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, visit the game’s official website here. For more background about the previous Naughty Dog titles and about the people behind the scenes, you can find their official website here.