Uncharted: Golden Abyss is the fourth entry in the Uncharted series, as well as the series first portable entry. It is also one of the first games to be released for the Playstation Vita. It was developed by SCE Bend Studio, with development overseen by Naughty Dog. The game was released as a launch title in Japan on December 17, 2011. It was launched in North America on February 12, 2012 and Europe on February 22, 2012.

Plot

The story is set some time before the events of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and begins in medias res. Nathan Drake is somewhere in Central America, following mercenary Jason Dante, who's ordered his men to kill Drake on sight. After a few gunfights, one appears to succeed with an RPG.
The game then flashes back two weeks. Drake and Dante, revealed to be old friends, arrive at a dig site in Panama headed by Dante's "partner" Marisa Chase, who doesn't trust him. At the site, they find corpses of Spanish conquistadors who were poisoned and a grave marker with a Visigoth (precursor to Spanish) symbol. Chase also shows Drake her amulet, which Dante doesn't know of. The dig is then interrupted by Dante's real partner, revolutionary leader Roberto Guerro, who takes over and captures the two.
After Drake escapes from a burning building at Guerro's base and saves Chase, they go to retrieve her stolen amulet from his office. Afterwards, they are chased by Guerro to the top of a waterfall, but escape. They then go to the house of her grandfather, Vincent Perez, who found the Amulet at the site and, after being diagnosed with cancer, left further work to Dante, who paid off Guerro for access to the site. In Perez' study, Drake realizes that the marker referred to the Sete Cidades, an ancient Christian sect who were dedicated to finding seven cities of gold after they were apparently found by Spanish monks led by Friar Marcos de Niza.
Following further clues, one referring to a "Sword of Stephen", they go to a sinkhole near ruins where Perez seems to have been, and where they find the "Chamber of the Seven Fathers", a room containing the orders secrets. There, they learn that the cities were never found, but they discover that the Sword of Stephen is in fact the sword of Esteban the Moor, one of the monks in the expedition, whose empty (except for the sword) tomb they soon find along with Perez' corpse and information about one of the cities located here, Quivira.
Unfortunately, they are interrupted by Dante, who accidentally insults Guerro in front of him, making him throw him off a balcony. After Guerro escapes with both Chase and the sword, Dante, who survived, teams up with Drake and they barely escape, too late to save Chase. Enraged, the two part ways, now officially enemies.
Soon after, Drake, now joined by Victor "Sully" Sullivan, follows rubbings he made of symbols he found on the sword to a temple complex, known as the Temple of Serpents, believed to be the entrance to Hell, where they witness a brutal battle between Dante's and Guerro's men. Afterwards, Sully is injured and sends Drake off alone. He makes it to the temple, in a repeat of the opening, and survives the RPG. He then makes his way to the entrance of Quivira, where he saves Chase from Guerro's men, who are trapped by Dante's. After Chase insists that they continue, Drake uses the amulet, which is a key, to open the entrance and they enter.
After crossing a massive lake, they make it to the center of Quivira: the Golden Abyss, a massive room whose walls are lined with gold. They also find the corpse of Esteban, who was sacrificed by Marcos to seal the gates (as had the soldiers from the dig site). Unfortunately, a geiger counter reveals the gold to be radioactive. Dante, having dealt with Guerro's men, arrives and reveals that he knew about the radiation but still intends to sell it on the black market (Guerro wanted it to fund his now defunct revolution). However, Drake beats him in a fist fight and, after he and Chase get away, she detonates explosives, sealing the cavern and killing Dante and his men.
Unfortunately, Guerro soon appears and attacks with an RPG, the last of his army. With Chase's leg trapped under a fallen pillar, Drake fights and tricks Guerro into falling through a damaged bridge to his death. After Drake frees Chase, they escape in a helicopter piloted by Sully. Chase tosses away the amulet, feeling it belongs in hell with the rest of Quivira, and they leave, while at the same time, suggesting a romance between the two.

Development

The game was developed by SCEA's Bend Studio, overseen by Naughty Dog. The game was officially unveiled with a brief gameplay demo, alongside the announcement of the PlayStation Vita, on January 27, 2011.
On June 2, 2011, the official title for the game was unveiled as Golden Abyss, and numerous hands-on previews of the game were released across several sites. This was the first public appearance of the game since its unveiling in January.^[4] Prior to the announcement though in May 2011, it was rumored that the game's title would be Uncharted: Golden Abyss, before any official announcement from Sony.^[5] The game features touch and motion based controls for navigation and aiming, though these are optional control schemes.^[4] The game is being developed by Sony Bend Studio, who are being overseen by Naughty Dog. A brief gameplay demo has been shown. It is known that the game will have an optional touchscreen control feature and motion sensitive controls. In a demo at E3 2011, it was shown that weapons can be picked up and reloaded by tapping the weapon icon on-screen. Bend studio creative director John Garvin has confirmed that Naughty Dog allowed them to use their mo-cap and voice over studios. It has been confirmed the game will contain over 2 hours of cutscenes. The game doesn't run on the full resolution of the OLED screen of the Vita (960 x 544), instead it runs on a lower resolution (800 x 450)
Nolan North revealed in an interview that he will return to play Drake, lending his voice acting talents along with motion capture work, as in the console games. He also revealed that the story was also being written by Garvin. According to a motion capture video released from PlayStation, Richard McGonagle is set to return in the game as well as Victor Sullivan. Naughty Dog co-president Christophe Balestra confirmed the game's stance in the franchise, as well as suggesting a greater focus on exploration rather than gunplay.

Patch

The 1.01 update enabled the use of the "Black Market" ingame store which enables players to trade and receive bounty items that are collected in the game with other Vita players using the PS Vita's "NEAR" application. In addition to this, the patch also prepared the game to use the Treasure Map DLC pack.

DLC

The Treasure Map DLC pack was released on the PS Store for $0.99 in US and for 1€ in Europe. This DLC pack adds a treasure map for each chapter to help players easily locate all the collectibles in a chapter.

 

Reception

The game received generally favorable reviews. Anthony Severino of PlayStation LifeStyle gave the game a perfect 10 out of 10 score in the first full review of the game. GameTrailers called the game "A powerful tech demo for the PlayStation Vita, but it's also an engaging game that's a blast to play in spurts. Touch screen use is a little heavy-handed and it's missing those 'wow' moments we're used to getting from the franchise, but it's a solid action adventure with production values strong enough to quell any sense of system buyer's remorse." IGN stated "The game is great and an impressive launch title for the PlayStation Vita. It's just that the Uncharted series has been known for being a story-driven experience, and Golden Abyss goes in another direction. It's a beautiful, fun game with tons of collectibles, plenty of laughs, and some cool twists on a franchise PlayStation fans know so well. It's just not an instant classic like the other entries in the series." Game Revolution noted "[...] all the game's complaints won't detract from the simple fact that this is Uncharted on a handheld. It's just slightly diminished. Golden Abyss is more like Drake's Fortune than it is Deception-it doesn't span that many environments, has smaller set pieces, and lacks online multiplayer." Game Informer commented "For the first time, we're able to play a handheld game with the scale and production values of a home console title. The base level of craftsmanship on display in Golden Abyss means you'll get your money's worth – but not a penny more. I wish all the perspiration expelled in the making of the game had been complemented by a bit more inspiration." GamesRadar cited "It's mostly there - the charm, the gameplay, the visual presentation - but there are some key elements missing. The level design leaves much to be desired, and without the cinematic moments the experience simply isn't incredibly strong. It's still an extremely solid cover shooter with a strong story and some fine platforming elements, but as far as an Uncharted game, it comes up short of what we've come to expect."^[15] Eurogamer stated "While the absence of multiplayer means it won't last you as long as previous instalments, new control options have allowed the developers to line the seams of Drake's adventure with flashy tassels and detailing that make for a varied and entertaining outing - perhaps even more so than its big brothers." Electronic Gaming Monthly commented "A story worthy of the franchise, Uncharted: Golden Abyss falls short in terms of pacing and controls, as the touchscreen gimmick takes the experience down a big notch."  felt that "Golden Abyss is full of disappointments. The action set pieces are great, but there's too few of them; the voice acting is exemplary, but the narrative doesn't do it justice; the touch and motion controls work well for some actions, but they ruin others. For every moment of enjoyment you have, something comes along to spoil it. Despite its problems, though, Golden Abyss still succeeds in delivering some intense, entertaining action and combat.

Awards

Golden Abyss received the first award at the Gamescom 2011 for Best Mobile Game before release. It is also nominated as Most Wanted Mobile Game at Computec Games Award.

 

 

 

First up is the PS4 CPU (Central Processing Unit)
For comparison the PS3 uses a cell based processor with 1 PPE (Power processing element) @ 3.2 GHz which is dual thread i.e. capable of processing 2 streams of instructions at a time and 8 SPEs (Synergistic Processing Elements) @ 3.2GHz of which 1 is disabled for yield purposes and 1 is reserved for security purposes such as encryption and decryption of the hard drive in real time. The cell in the PS3 has an overall performance of 204 GFLOPs.
Sony had invested hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars in to the development of the Cell Processor and on building fabrication factories (of which cost over $500,000,000 each!), all that money would go to waste if Sony chooses not to include a Cell processor in their next console.
I believe that Sony will add more SPEs to have an overall amount of 16 SPEs as this has an optimal power to heat ratio if manufactured at 32nm. It should consume the same amount of energy as the 90nm Cell processor found in the 60/20Gb PS3s. 1 will be disabled for yield purposes and 1 will be reserved for security purposes. If this cell processor is made then it should start at 32nm as Sony are already at work shrinking the PS3's cell to 32nm. At 32nm they could double the local store for each SPE to 512KiB which will add much more performance for games.
Clock speed could increase to up to 3.8GHz, however with the improved performance of the new cell and the amount of SPEs this is unneeded and will create too much heat. I can only see an increase in clock speed if fabrication starts at 22nm as this will help reduce the heat created. 22nm processors are expected to be released in 2011 so by the time the PS4 comes out this would be the norm, so 22nm is a feasible starting fabrication. This will make it have an overall performance of around 500 GFLOPs for the whole Cell Processor at 3.2GHz.
Second up is the PS4 GPU (Graphical Processing Unit. Updated Feb 2012)
This is where it gets a bit tricky as I am just going to base my prediction on a product that hasn't been released yet. However I do believe that since the PS4 is a “closed” system and that the cell can do some graphical processing that a relatively moderate GPU can be used in the PS4. For comparison the PS3 uses the Reality Synthesizer developed by Nvidia, clocked at 550MHz with 256Mb of GDDR3 clocked at 700MHz.
So if Sony is going to continue with stereoscopic 3D then that will rule out any ATI 5000 series cards and below and I do believe that Sony will stick with Nvidia anyway since they have a good relationship. The PS4 will need to be able to support 1080p 3D @ 60 FPS per eye so it has to have enough VRAM.
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 700 (due to be released in 2013). A 512 bit bus so that it can communicate with the cell exceptionally fast and a core clock speed in excess of 1GHz. All of which if utilised properly could do 1080p @ 120 FPS with high resolution textures and high AA and AF.
Thirdly the main PS4 system RAM. Updated Feb 2012)
For comparison the PS3 has 256Mb of XDR RAM clocked at an amazing 3.2GHz (Super fast!!!!! :o). The next obvious step would to include 1Gb of XDR however XDR2 has been released since that time with many improvements such as a bandwidth increase and reduced latency (even though it was low to begin with). XDR2 operates at double the CPU speed, so 6.4GHz to 7.6GHz is expected even though it can operate at up to 8GHz!
A unified memory architecture would be the best choice next generation. It gives developers the most flexibility to use the RAM exactly how they want. Code will be much more efficient, so the need for installs would be non-existent. I predict at least 4Gb of RAM in total. Either GDDR6 or XDR2, however GDDR6 is more likely as it is much cheaper and still super fast. The Cell's memory architecture will have to be updated to be compatible with GDDR6, however it has been 7 years since the Cell's creation I am sure that could be easily achieved.
Blu-ray or HVD?
Many people have been saying that the next logical step for Sony is to ditch blu-ray and go with HVD. HVD drives are just too expensive (a few thousand dollars) and too big.
Sony spent a lot of money on developing blu-ray, why would they ditch it? Its wasteful and the fact that not a single developer has created a game that uses a full 50gb dual layer blu-ray disc yet makes the extra space useless. And with a 100gb quad layer disc in development who needs HVD anyway?
Anyway to use the 100Gb disc you'll need a better blu-ray drive with faster reading speeds. The PS3 has a 2x blu-ray disc, 4x is the minimum to read a 100Gb disc. However the average read speed nowadays is 8x and it is relatively cheap, so I expect the PS4 to have at least a 8x drive which reads at 36Mb/s, so games should load much faster.
Hard drive or SSD?
SSDs are still to expensive to even be considered for a games console, so I expect spinning drives to stay with similar sizes of today’s PS3s . I'm not sure if Sony will change the SATA port to SATA 2 or 3 considering hard drives still don’t reach the SATA 1 limit of 150 Mb/s.
Lastly PS4 USB connections
2 to 4 USB 3.0 connections are to be expected. Anyone who has ever done a full back-up of your PS3 would be grateful for USB 3 connections as backing up 100Gbs of install data, applications and save data can take about 8 hours, with USB 3 this should be halved.
Posted by Henry, you may recognize my user name from the PS4 Forums. I have written an article for all of you about what I believe could* be the the specification of the Playstation 4.
*Disclaimer: This article is speculation only, however I have based this article on facts and figures to make as accurate an assumption as I possibly can. Any similarities with the Playstation 4 (in the event of Sony releasing the specifications of the Playstation 4) is purely coincidental. Enjoy and if you have any questions please leave a message below or message me in the PS4 Forums (registration is free). This article will be updated periodically with the latest information available to us.
Rumors
Update 03/01/2012
A recent article from Kotaku has begun a heavy debate on the internet, relating to the processor choice of the next Playstation console. The current processor in the Playstation 3 uses the Cell architecture originally designed by Playstation creator Ken Kutaragi. He originally planned that several household technologies could use this Cell technology to compliment the Playstation, thus increasing its computational power. Sadly, his vision seems to have come to an end as industry experts are reporting that Sony will ditch the current Nvidia design, for the more favored AMD. Although this is currently just speculation, in an interview last year, critically acclaimed programmer John Carmack said that an AMD Fusion-style chip was almost inevitable for the next generation of consoles.
This is a double-edged sword for Playstation fans. If the rumors are true, developers could already be developing titles for the Playstation 4 using currently available AMD technology. the downside, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make current Playstation 3 games or PSN titles, compatible with the Playstation 4. So what are your thoughts? Would you prefer backwards compatibility, or are you happy that developers will be able to program next-generation games far more easily? Leave a comment and let us know.

* Full HD 1080p requires an HDMI cable and a 1080p native display with an HDMI input supporting HDCP
** Calculations based on 97 GB available HDD space and 1.3GB average for SD movies, 100MB average for PSN games, 5MB average for photos and 3.5MB average for songs.