This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, following 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2, and the fifth instalment overall. Set within the fictional Liberty City (loosely based on New York City), the story follows Claude, a silent protagonist who, after being betrayed and left for dead by his girlfriend during a robbery, embarks on a quest for revenge that leads him to become entangled in a world of crime, drugs, gang warfare, and corruption. The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Its open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main areas.
Development was shared between DMA Design, based in Edinburgh, and Rockstar, based in New York City. Much of the development involved transforming popular elements from the Grand Theft Auto series into a fully 3D world for the first time. The game was delayed following the September 11 attacks to allow the team to change references and gameplay deemed inappropriate. Grand Theft Auto III was released in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, in May 2002 for Windows, and in November 2003 for the Xbox.
Grand Theft Auto III received critical acclaim, with particular praise directed at its concept and gameplay. However, it also generated controversy, with criticism directed at its depictions of violence and sex. It became the best-selling video game of 2001, and sold over 14.5 million copies by March 2008. Considered by many critics as one of the most significant titles of the sixth generation of video games and a landmark game in the open world concept, it is often listed among the greatest video games. It won several year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications.
Players can freely roam the game's world and have the ability to use weapons to accomplish tasks.
Grand Theft Auto III is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story.[4] It is possible to have several missions available at a time, as some missions require players to wait for further instructions or events.[5] Outside of missions, players can freely roam the game's open world, and have the ability to complete optional side missions. Liberty City is composed of three boroughs: Portland, Staunton Island, and Shoreside Vale; the latter two areas become unlocked as the player progresses through the storyline.[6]
Players may run, jump or use vehicles to navigate the game's world.[7] In combat, auto-aim can be used as assistance against enemies.[8] Should players take damage, their health meter can be fully regenerated through the use of health pick-ups. Body armour can be used to absorb gunshots and explosive damage, but is used up in the process.[9] When health is entirely depleted, gameplay stops and players respawn at the nearest hospital, at the expense of losing armour, weapons, and an amount of money.[10]
If players commit crimes while playing, the game's law enforcement agencies may respond as indicated by a "wanted" meter in the head-up display (HUD). On the meter, the displayed stars indicate the current wanted level[11] (for example, at the maximum six-star level, efforts by law enforcement to incapacitate players become very aggressive).[12] Law enforcement officers will search for players who leave the wanted vicinity. The wanted meter enters a cooldown mode and eventually recedes when players are hidden from the officers' line of sight.[11]
The game lets players control the mute criminal Claude.[13] During the story, Claude meets various new characters from gangs. As players complete missions for different gangs and criminal organisations, fellow gang members will often defend players, while rival gang members will recognise players and subsequently shoot on sight.[14] While free roaming the game world, players may engage in activities such as a vigilante minigame, a firefighting activity, a paramedic service and a taxi cab service.[11][15] Completion of these activities grants players with context-specific rewards; for example, completing the vigilante mission allows players to bribe police after committing a crime.[16]
Combat in Grand Theft Auto III was reworked to allow players to perform drive-by shootings by viewing sideways in a car.
Players use melee attacks, firearms and explosives to fight enemies. The firearms include weapons such as the Micro Uzi, an M16 rifle and a flamethrower.[6] The game's three-dimensional environment allows a first-person view while aiming with the sniper rifle, rocket launcher and the M16 rifle. In addition, the game's combat was reworked to allow players to commit drive-by shootings by facing sideways in a vehicle.[4] The game gives players a wide variety of weapon options—they can be purchased from local firearms dealers, found on the ground, retrieved from dead enemies, or found around the city.[9]
Small-time criminal Claude is betrayed and shot by his girlfriend Catalina (voiced by Cynthia Farrell) during a bank heist outside Liberty City. Claude is arrested but escapes during his transfer to prison when members of the Colombian Cartel ambush his transport to abduct another prisoner. During his escape, Claude befriends explosives expert and fellow convict 8-Ball (Guru), who shelters Claude and introduces him to the Leone Mafia family for work. Claude assists the Mafia with various operations, including winning a gang war against a local group of Triads, earning him the respect of Don Salvatore Leone (Frank Vincent). After learning that the Cartel are creating and selling a new street drug called SPANK to fund their expansion into Liberty City, Salvatore orders Claude to destroy their floating drug lab. Claude accomplishes this with 8-Ball's help.
Salvatore later instructs Claude to deal with a minor problem, but his trophy wife Maria (Debi Mazar), who took a liking to Claude, reveals it to be a set-up. Maria claims that she lied to Salvatore about having an affair with Claude to make him jealous, and now Salvatore wants to murder him. Claude escapes to Staunton Island with Maria and her friend Asuka Kasen (Lianna Pai). After assassinating Salvatore to cut ties with the Mafia, Claude begins working for the yakuza, led by Asuka and her brother Kenji (Les J.N. Mau). During this time, he also provides assistance to corrupt police inspector Ray Machowski (Robert Loggia), whom he eventually helps flee the city, and influential businessman Donald Love (Kyle MacLachlan). Donald hires Claude to assassinate Kenji under the guise of a Cartel attack to start a gang war that will allow Donald to obtain construction sites for his businesses. After the job's success, Claude carries out another task for Donald that leads him to encounter Catalina, now the leader of the Cartel, at a construction site. However, Catalina escapes after betraying and shooting her partner, Miguel (Al Espinosa).
Asuka blames the Cartel for Kenji's death and seizes the construction site. The yakuza capture the wounded Miguel and torture him for information on Cartel operations in the city, allowing Claude to strike against them and hinder the Cartel. Enraged, Catalina murders both Asuka and Miguel and kidnaps Maria, demanding $500,000 for her release. Claude meets with her to pay the ransom, but Catalina deceives him again and traps him. Claude escapes, rescues Maria, and destroys the helicopter Catalina attempts to flee in, killing her. As Claude and Maria leave the scene, the latter begins to complain about the kidnapping, but is silenced by a gunshot.[b]
Benzies produced the game alongside Dan Houser, who also co-wrote the story. Sam Houser, president of Rockstar Games, executive-produced the game.
The core development team of Grand Theft Auto III consisted of about 23 people at DMA Design in Edinburgh, who worked closely with publisher Rockstar Games in New York City.[6] The original tech demo was created on Sega's Dreamcast around the end of development on Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999).[17] Rockstar had been pressuring its teams to create a 3D open world, and the DMA group who developed Space Station Silicon Valley (1998) began working on a project separate from the Grand Theft Auto 2 team. Alan Jack, a DMA support engineer, described it as combining Body Harvest's (1998) exploration with Space Station Silicon Valley's city level.[18]
The team chose against using the Grand Theft Auto branding to avoid conflict with the Grand Theft Auto 2 team and began developing their game as a Godzilla project. After Take-Two Interactive acquired DMA from Infogrames in September 1999, the Space Station Silicon Valley and Grand Theft Auto 2 teams were combined. The combined team began developing Grand Theft Auto III for the Dreamcast, but shifted to the PlayStation 2 after four months. Technical director Obbe Vermeij said the shift was not due to hardware constraints, but because it became clear that the Dreamcast was not commercially viable. He described the decision as disappointing, noting the DMA Design staff were big fans of Phantasy Star Online (2000).[18]
During the Dreamcast phase, DMA Design developed city blocks with brownstones, docks, and retail areas, alongside vehicles and pedestrians.[18] By early 2001, the team had designed the city, cars and some weapons.[19] Producer Leslie Benzies described Grand Theft Auto III as a "crime simulation game".[6] Rockstar offered Grand Theft Auto III to Microsoft Game Studios as an Xbox exclusive, but Microsoft declined due to its adult nature and poorly-performing predecessors.[20][21] The game was released for the PlayStation 2 on 23 October 2001 in North America.[22][23][24] When porting the game to Windows, the team delayed it from the PlayStation 2 release in order to ensure quality, citing issues with the simultaneous platform release of previous Grand Theft Auto games.[25]Capcom published the game in Japan in September 2003.[26]
Grand Theft Auto III is the first 3D game in the series,[27] using Criterion Games's RenderWaregame engine.[28] Executive producer Sam Houser had always wanted the series to move to 3D,[17] and DMA Design had experimented with 3D worlds in games like Body Harvest and Space Station Silicon Valley.[29] With the release of the PlayStation 2, the team felt that a large 3D world was possible.[29] Art director Aaron Garbut felt that other video games at the time "were a thing you played", wanting Grand Theft Auto III to be "a place you lived in".[30] An online multiplayer mode was planned, but dropped due to time and resource limitations.[31]
Grand Theft Auto III is the first game in the series to use a third-person perspective view, positioning the camera closer to the player character.
When designing the game, the development team expanded upon concepts introduced in the previous Grand Theft Auto games. Benzies stated that the intention was to recreate the "freedom and diversity" of the previous games in a "living, breathing 3D world", using the power of the PlayStation 2 to do so.[6] The console's ability to use DVDs, an improvement over the PlayStation's limit to CDs, allowed the team to store more data, such as animations, music and environments.[32] Despite this, the team found it difficult to fit the game into the PlayStation 2's 32 megabytes of RAM, due to the scale. The game's size also created difficulties for the testers, due to the variety of options.[5] Benzies felt that creating a living city was the "underlying principle" of the game's concept during development.[6] Sam Houser felt that the game's 3D element allowed the "chemistry of the team [to come] together perfectly for the first time".[33]
A major difficulty the team encountered was converting all game elements into a fully 3D world, including the sound and radio stations, as well as designing and voicing the non-player characters, due to the amount that existed within the open world.[34] Producer Dan Houser said there were about 8,000 lines of recorded dialogue in the game,[34] while audio programmer Raymond Usher estimated about 18,000.[35] The basic technical elements of the game began to work together in mid-2000, with a carjacking mechanic prototype and stable streaming model.[36] Streaming was initially intended to be reserved for music and map geometry, but other elements were eventually included when it became apparent to the team as more data was entered.[5]
When designing the game world, the team initially created a "hybrid city", which Dan Houser described as "a post industrial Midwest slash east coast generic" city.[37] Upon developing within this game world, the team realised that basing the design on a real location meant "you have a lot of things you can say about it".[37] As a result, they redesigned Liberty City, which had been previously featured in the first Grand Theft Auto (1997), basing it loosely on New York City.[37] DMA Design worked with a team at Rockstar in New York for cultural references; the Rockstar team would regularly work long hours for full weeks, ensuring that the references, such as in-game car manufacturers, were appropriate to the city.[29]
The city is broken into three islands: an industrial section representing Brooklyn and Queens, a commercial centre resembling Manhattan, and suburbs similar to New Jersey.[38] The islands unlock as the story progresses; the team wanted players to "start out feeling poor and work to being richer".[39] Dan Houser described Liberty City as a "hybrid of a generic American city", including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia;[39] he felt that the parallel realism of the world allowed the team to make more social commentary than previously.[31] Sam Houser cited films and shows like Heat (1995) and The Sopranos (1999–2007) as inspiration for the setting and wanted to emulate them in the game.[40] He also cited the influence of The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario 64 and the 1990 film Goodfellas, describing Grand Theft Auto III as "a cross between a gangster movie and an RPG".[41][42]
The team developed the story and design simultaneously. Dan Houser said, "we use the story to expose the mechanics, and we use the mechanics to tell the story";[19] however, he found it difficult to create the narrative, as the game is so strongly focused on player freedom. He wanted the story to be more nuanced and interesting than the generic "rise and fall and rise again of a superhero bad guy".[39] The game's script was also focused on mission objectives, attempting to implement high amounts of interactivity.[36] Dan Houser felt that each mission is "its own short story", and part of an "overarching story".[19] Dan Houser and co-writer James Worrall drew influence from mob films and the mafiosi featured in films by Martin Scorsese;[36] the team also "paid a lot of attention" to shows like Miami Vice and The Sopranos.[29] When writing the story, Dan Houser and Worrall regularly met with the designers, and filled a room with post-it notes to reconstruct the story components to shape the game.[36]
Many of the game characters were animated using motion capture, filmed at a rented studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,[40] though this was limited by technical constraints. The character movement was also treated as being cinematic, though limited polygons heavily inhibited this.[43] Animating non-player characters entering and driving cars proved to be difficult for the team, due to the variety of vehicle designs. "It involved chaining together dozens of different animations and altering key frames in code", recalled software engineer Alan Campbell.[31] The team used varying camera angles when animating the game's cutscenes in order to evoke different emotions.[44] For the voice acting, the team wanted "natural, subtle performances", which proved difficult as many of the actors "had in their head the idea that because video games are animated, their performances needed to be animated", explained motion capture director Navid Khonsari.[43]
Claude is unnamed in the game,[45] and his name is not officially revealed until his appearance in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). He is a silent protagonist, never speaking throughout his appearances; the team decided upon this primarily because it "did not seem like a major issue", due to the other challenges faced during development, and also partly to allow players to identify with the character, as he would be who the players want him to be.[13] The developers did not have "any one single inspiration" for Claude; they liked the idea of a "strong, silent killer, who would be juxtaposed with all of these neurotic and verbose mobsters".[13]
Grand Theft Auto III features about three and a half hours of in-game radio material. For the music, the team sought a broad diversity to recreate the real sensation of skipping through radio stations, reflecting the gangster movie culture invoked by the game. The team used the talk radio stations to add character to the city and provide a "unique take on American life";[46] Sam Houser described it as "a very iconoclastic look at America".[41] The team used real DJs to portray those on the radio. In doing so, they wrote unusual dialogue for the DJs, seeking the effect of "high production values and absurd content". Music director Craig Conner assembled the assets of the radio station—music, advertisements, DJ dialogue, and station imaging.[46]
Chatterbox FM, one of the game's radio stations, is entirely talk radio hosted by Lazlow Jones, who met Rockstar's managing director Terry Donovan in 2001 as they were both preparing to travel to Los Angeles for E3. Donovan invited Jones to Rockstar's offices in Manhattan, where he met the development team, including Dan and Sam Houser and producer Jamie King, and they invited him to work on the game. The writing sessions took place at Dan Houser's apartment, and the entire process, including editing and recording, took around four to five months. With the station's guests and callers, the writers wanted to satirise American lifestyles, focusing on fictional stories as opposed to quickly outdated stories based on recent news. Jones found the conversations to be natural, having worked in radio for several years. The roles of the guests and callers were performed by Jones's friends and neighbours, including his father, and were recorded in New York.[47]
After the events of 9/11, the original colour scheme of the police cars in the game (top), which resembled that of the NYPD, was changed to a generic, black-and-white design common in the United States.
The game's original cover art was changed after 9/11,[48] but still used for its European release.[49]
[We] felt that a full content review of all our titles and the marketing materials we use to represent them was absolutely necessary for us ... we have come across certain small contextual references that we were no longer comfortable with, as well as a couple of very rare gameplay instances that no longer felt appropriate to us.
— Terry Donovan, Rockstar managing director, IGN, 19 September 2001[50]
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The development of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune began in 2005, and saw Naughty Dog altering their approach to development, as they sought to create a humanized video game that was distinct from their other entries, settling on an action-adventure game with platforming elements and a third-person perspective. The team regularly updated or wholly changed various aspects related to the story, coding, and the game's design which lead to delays. The development team found influence for many of the game's aesthetic elements from film, pulp magazines, and movie serials.
Extensively marketed as a PlayStation exclusive, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune received generally favorable reviews, with praise for its technical achievements, cast, characters, story, music, and production values, drawing similarities to blockbuster films. It faced some criticism for its graphical issues, short length, vehicle sections, and marked difficulty. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune sold one million copies after ten weeks of release. It was followed by the sequel Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in 2009, and was re-released on PlayStation 4 as part of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.
Treasure hunter Nathan "Nate" Drake, accompanied by reporter Elena Fisher, recovers the coffin of his self-proclaimed ancestor Sir Francis Drake, having located it from coordinates inscribed on a family heirloom: a ring Nate wears around his neck.[4] The coffin contains Sir Francis' diary, which gives the location of El Dorado. Pirates attack and destroy Nate's boat, but Nate's friend and mentor, Victor "Sully" Sullivan, rescues the two in his seaplane. Fearing Elena's reporting will attract potential rivals, Nate and Sully abandon her at a dock.
Nate and Sully discover an alcove that once held a large statue after following the diary to the indicated spot, and realize that El Dorado is not a city but rather a golden idol.[5] They find a NaziU-boat, which contains a page from Drake's diary showing the statue was taken to an island. However, mercenaries led by criminal Gabriel Roman (Simon Templeman), to whom Sully owes a substantial debt, and his lieutenant Atoq Navarro (Robin Atkin Downes), intercept Nate and Sully. Sully is shot in the chest and collapses, but Nate manages to escape, encounters Elena, and flies with her to the island.[6]
On the way, anti-aircraft fire forces Elena and Nate to bail out and they are separated. After retrieving supplies from the wrecked seaplane, Nate heads toward an old fort to find Elena. After Nate is briefly captured by pirates led by his old associate Eddy Raja (James Sie), Elena breaks him free and they flee to the island's old customs house. After finding records showing the statue was moved further inland to the monastery, they find that Sully is somehow alive and accompanying Roman and Navarro.[7] Nate and Elena find and rescue Sully who, having survived due to Drake's diary blocking the bullet, explains he was buying time for Nate by misleading Roman.
Searching through a mausoleum, Nate overhears an argument between Roman, Navarro, and Eddy, revealing that Roman hired Eddy to capture Nate and secure the island, with the reward being a share of El Dorado. Following Nate's escape, Roman doubts Eddy's abilities and ignores his claim that something cursed on the island is killing his men, leading him to dismiss Eddy and his crew. Regrouping, Nate and Elena find a passage leading to a treasure vault, in which they find the body of Drake, assuming that he died searching for the treasure. They encounter a terrified Eddy and a crew member, shortly before they are attacked by mutated humans who kill the crew member; despite Nate's efforts, Eddy is also killed when one drags him into a pit.
Nate and Elena escape and find themselves in an abandoned German bunker. Venturing into the base, Nate discovers that the Germans had sought the statue during World War II, but like the Spaniards before them, became cursed by the statue, causing them to become mutants. Sir Francis, knowing of the statue's power, attempted to keep it on the island by destroying the ships and flooding the city, before he too was killed by the mutants.[8]
Nate returns to find Elena has been captured by Roman and Navarro. Regrouping with Sully, he fails to stop them from reaching the statue. Navarro, aware of the curse, tricks Roman into opening the statue, revealing it to be a sarcophagus containing a mummy infected with an airborne mutagenic virus. Upon Roman turning into one of the mutants, Navarro kills him and takes control of his men. Berating Nate's group for not being imaginative, he plans to sell the virus as a biological weapon.[9] Nate jumps onto the sarcophagus and rides it as it is airlifted onto a boat in the bay. He engages and defeats Navarro and manages to sink both the sarcophagus and him to the bottom of the ocean.[10] Sully arrives, and after Nate and Elena display affection towards each other, they leave the island with several chests of treasure.[11]
During combat, the player as Nate (left) can use corners and walls as cover, then use blind or aimed fire from cover against his opponents.
Gameplay in Uncharted is a combination of action-adventure gameplay elements and some 3D platforming with a third-person perspective. Platforming elements allow Nate to jump, swim, grab and move along ledges, climb and swing from ropes, and perform other acrobatic actions that allow players to make their way along the ruins in the various areas of the island that Drake explores.[12]
When facing enemies, the player can either use melee and combo attacks at close range to take out foes or can opt to use weapons.[12] Melee attacks comprise a variety of single punches, while combo attacks are activated through specific sequences of button presses that, when timed correctly, offer much greater damage; the most damaging of these is the specific "brutal combo", which forces enemies to drop twice the ammunition they would normally leave.[12] Nate can only carry one pistol and one rifle at a time, and there is a limited amount of ammunition per gun. Picking up a different firearm switches that weapon for the new one. Grenades are also available at certain points, and the height of the aiming arc is adjusted by tilting the Sixaxis controller up or down. These third-person perspective elements were compared by several reviewers to Gears of War,[3][12] in that the player can have Drake take cover behind walls, and use either blind fire or aimed fire to kill enemies. In common with the aforementioned game, Uncharted lacks an actual on-screen health bar; instead, when the player takes damage, the graphics begin to lose color. While resting or taking cover for a brief period, Drake's health level, indicated by the screen color, returns to normal.[12]
The game also includes vehicle sections, where Drake must protect the jeep he and Elena are in using a mounted turret, and where Drake and Elena ride a jet ski along water-filled routes while avoiding enemy fire and explosive barrels. While players direct Drake in driving the jet ski, they may also control Elena by aiming the gun in order to use her weapon — either the grenade launcher or the Beretta, depending on the chapter — in defense, or to clear the barrels from their path.[12]
The game also features reward points, which can be gained by collecting 60 hidden treasures in the game that glimmer momentarily[13] or by completing certain accomplishments, such as achieving a number of kills using a specific weapon, performing a number of headshots, or using specific methods of killing enemies.[14] In subsequent playthroughs of the game, the player can use these rewards points to unlock special options; these include in-game bonuses such as alternate costumes and unlimited ammunition[13] but also non-game extras, such as making-of videos and concept art.[15] There are also several references to other Naughty Dog games, especially the Jak and Daxter series; this is done through the "Ottsel" branding on Drake and Fisher's wetsuits,[16] a reference to the species that mixes otter and weasel found in the game, and the strange relic found in one of the earlier chapters, which is actually a precursor orb from the same series.
The game is censored when playing on a Japanese console to remove blood, which normally appears when shooting enemies; this follows the trend of other censored console games in the region, such as Dead Rising and Resistance: Fall of Man.[17]
After completing Jak 3, Naughty Dog assembled their most technically talented staff members and began development of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune under the codename Big.[18][19] The game's development commenced in 2005 and it was in full production for about two years, with a small team of engineers working on the game for about a year beforehand.[20] Naughty Dog decided to create a brand new IP rather than opt to develop a PlayStation 3 Jak and Daxter game—they wanted to create a franchise suitable for the new hardware, in order to develop such ideas as realistic human characters instead of stylized ones owing to limitations of previous hardware, as well as create something "fresh and interesting", although termed as 'stylized realism'.[20] Inspiration was drawn from various sources in the action and adventure genres: pulp magazines, movie serials, and more contemporary titles like Indiana Jones and National Treasure.[21] The team felt the sources shared themes of mystery and "what-if scenarios" that romanticized adventure and aimed to include those in Uncharted.[18]
A platforming segment, showing Nathan attempting to scale the outer walls of the Fortress
The game was first unveiled at E3 2006.[22] From early previews of the game, inevitable comparisons of elements such as platforming and shooting between Uncharted and the well-known Tomb Raider series were drawn, earning the title the nickname of "Dude Raider".[21][23] However, the developers saw their game as concentrating more on third-person cover-based play, in contrast to Tomb Raider's "auto-aiming" play and greater puzzle-solving elements.[20] Other influences they cited include Resident Evil 4,[24]Kill Switch, and Gears of War.[25] Throughout the game's development the staff tried to remain flexible and detached from the original design concepts; attention was focused on the features that worked well, while features that did not work were removed.[26] The development team intended the game's main setting, the island, to play a big role in the overall experience. Feeling too many games used bleak, dark settings with monochromatic color schemes, they wanted the island to be a vibrant, believable game world that immersed the player and encouraged exploration.[18]
In designing the characters, the artists aimed for a style that was photorealistic.[21] The creators envisioned the main protagonist, Nathan Drake, as more of an everyman character than Lara Croft, shown as clearly under stress in the game's many firefights, with no special training and constantly living at the edge of his abilities.[20][23] Director Amy Hennig felt a heavily armored, "tough as nails" protagonist with a large weapon was not a suitable hero and decided a "tenacious and resourceful" character would portray more human qualities. Supporting characters (Elena Fisher and Victor Sullivan) were included to avoid a dry and emotionless story.[21] Fisher's character underwent changes during development; in early trailers for the game, the character had dark brown hair, but ultimately the color changed to blonde and the style was altered.[27][28] The writing of the story was led by Hennig with help from Neil Druckmann and Josh Scherr.[29] The lead game designer was Richard Lemarchand,[30] with the game co-designed by Hirokazu Yasuhara, a former Sega game designer best known for designing the early Sonic the Hedgehog games.[31]
The game went gold in the middle of October 2007.[20] A demo was then released on November 8 on the PlayStation Network[32] before its final release on November 19 in North America, December 6 in Australia, and December 7 in Europe.[33] The demo was first placed on the North American store, and was initially region-locked such that it would only play on a North American PS3,[34] but this was later confirmed as a mistake, as the developers were apparently unaware that people from different regions could sign up for a North American account and download the demo; a region-free demo was released soon after.[35]
Uncharted uses the Cell microprocessor to generate dozens of layered character animations to portray realistic expressions and fluid movements, which allow for responsive player control.[36] The PlayStation 3's graphics processing unit, the RSX Reality Synthesizer, employed several functions to provide graphical details that helped immerse the player into the game world: lighting models, pixel shaders, dynamic real-time shadowing, and advanced water simulation.[36] The new hardware allowed for processes that the team had never used in PlayStation 2 game development and required them to quickly familiarize themselves with the new techniques; for example, parallel processing and pixel shaders. While Blu-ray afforded greater storage space, the team became concerned with running out of room several times — Uncharted used more and bigger textures than previous games, and included several languages on the disc.[37] Gameplay elements requiring motion sensing, such as throwing grenades and walking across beams, or rear-ending massive logs up the scooter, were implemented to take advantage of the Sixaxis controller.[18] A new PlayStation 3 controller, the DualShock 3, was unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, and featured force feedback vibration. Uncharted was also on display at the show with demonstrations that implemented limited support for vibration.[38]
Being Naughty Dog's first PlayStation 3 game, the project required the company to familiarize themselves with the new hardware and resulted in several development mistakes.[37] The switch from developing for the PlayStation 2 to the PlayStation 3 prompted the staff to implement changes to their development technology. Naughty Dog switched to the industry standard language C++ to participate in technology sharing among Sony's first-party developers—the company had previously used their own proprietary programming languageGOAL, a Lisp-based language. In rewriting their game code, they decided to create new programming tools as well. This switch, however, delayed the team's progress in developing a prototype, as the new tools proved to be unreliable and too difficult to use. Ten months into full production, the team decided to recreate the game's pipeline, the chain of processing elements designed to progress data through a system. In retrospect, Naughty Dog's Co-President Evan Wells considered this the greatest improvement to the project.[26] Additionally, the animation blending system was rewritten several times to obtain the desired character animations.[18]
The game was patched on August 4, 2008 in Europe and North America to version 1.01 to include support for the PlayStation 3's Trophy system.[39] There are 47 trophies in the game that match the medals that can already be won in the game and one further trophy, the Platinum trophy, awarded when all other trophies have been collected; Uncharted was the first Naughty Dog game to include the Platinum trophy type.[40] Similar to other PlayStation 3 titles that receive trophy support via downloaded patches, players must start a new save game to be awarded trophies, regardless of how many medals they received in previous playthroughs. This was enforced because the developers wanted to avoid the sharing of save data in order to gain trophies they did not earn.[41] The patch was described as "incredibly easy" to implement, owing to the game already containing preliminary support for Trophies via its Medals system; it was also stated that these hooks were already included due to Naughty Dog's belief that Sony would roll out the Trophy system before the game's launch in November 2007.[41] Despite mentioning that the game was developed as a franchise and that it lent itself to episodic content,[20] it was later stated that no downloadable content would be made for Uncharted.[42]
During the Closed Beta of PlayStation Home on October 11, 2008, Naughty Dog released an Uncharted themed game space for PlayStation Home. This space is "Sully's Bar" from the game. In this space, users can play an arcade mini-game called "Mercenary Madness", which during the Closed Beta, there were rewards. The rewards were removed with the release of the Home Open Beta. There are also three other rooms in this space: during the Closed Beta, users had to find out codes for the doors that accessed these rooms. The code entry to the rooms was also removed with the release of the Home Open Beta. The three other rooms are the "Artifact Room", "Archives", and "Smuggler's Den". There is an artifact viewer in the Archives and Smuggler's Den rooms. Also in the Archives, there is a video screen that previews Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The Artifact Room only features seating and different artifacts for users to look at. This space was one of the first five-game spaces of the PlayStation Home Open Beta in North America, which Home went Open Beta on December 11.[43] This space was released to the European version on November 5, 2009, almost a year after the Open Beta release. Naughty Dog has also released a game space for Uncharted's sequel on October 23, making Uncharted the first game series to have a game space for both games in its series.[44]
Best Action Game (2007), PS3 Game of the Year (2007), Best Graphics Technology (PS3 2007), Best Original Score (PS3 2007)[51]
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune received generally favorable reviews from game critics.[45]Game Informer complimented the visuals and dialogue between the characters Drake and Fisher, calling them stunning and entertaining respectively.[28] They further added that the production values appeared high, citing the level of detail and musical score.[52]PlayStation Magazine echoed similar statements about the visuals and compared them to that of Crysis.[18][53]
The overall presentation of the game received unanimous praise from critics, who recognized the game's high production values, describing them as "top-notch",[54] "incredible"[15] or comparing them to those found in Hollywood.[14] When combined with the overall style of the game, this led many reviewers to compare Uncharted to summer blockbuster films,[3][55][56] with the action and theme of the game drawing comparisons to the Indiana Jones film series and Tomb Raider.[15][55] As part of the presentation, the game's story and atmosphere were also received well.[3][55] The depth of the characters was praised, each having "their own tone".[55] The voice acting was also received well, as the cast "nails its characterizations"; overall, the voice acting was described as a "big-star performance",[14] "superb"[56] and "stellar".[3] Game designer Tim Schafer, well known as the creator of the early LucasArts adventure games such as The Secret of Monkey Island, has also lauded the game, saying he "liked it a lot", and jokingly thanked it for teaching him a new fashion tip (Nathan Drake's "half-tucked" shirt).[57]
The technical achievements in creating this presentation were also lauded. The graphics and visuals were a big part of this, including appreciation of the "lush" jungle environments,[3][12][15] with lighting effects greatly adding to them.[56] The game's water effects were also appreciated.[54] Overall, many reviewers commented that, at the time, it was one of the best-looking PlayStation 3 games available.[48] Further to the graphical aspects, both facial animation and the animation of characters,[16][56] such as Nate's "fluid" animations as he performs platforming sections were noted,[3] although the wilder animations of enemies reacting to being shot were over-animated "to perhaps a laug
