Loved the idea, hated the execution.

Warning: Possible spoilers, even though I probably won’t be talking about the story that much.

Right about a few days after Uncharted 2: Among Thieves released to the masses (FANTASTIC game by the way!), Sony & Naughty Dog in conjunction with Witchblade’s Marco Castiello dropped off a motion comic prequel to the first game in the Playstation Store called Uncharted: Eye of Indra. The comic was penciled in by Castiello while Sony added in the motion and the voice talent. (More of Nolan North is a good thing!) As I was drunk with Uncharted fandom, I rushed to the online store and downloaded the first issue.

The first issue of this mini-series is free and is in a video format, which I didn’t mind. Each issue was promised to be around five minutes long, which is decent considering every issue after this was priced at 99 cents each. While I was watching the free first issue, halfway into the comic it cutoff and presented an ad for Uncharted 2. This was a pretty odd ad to have here, since most people who would download this probably already got the highly anticipated game earlier in the week. It was pretty short, and it got back to the comic quickly. A few minutes later, another ad hits, this time for a Toyota Fourrunner featuring Drake running from some bad guys and the Toyota saving the day. Compared to the comic it was badly animated and feature no speaking roles whatsoever. The faces on the bad guys when Drake escaped were pretty hilarious, it looked like they were staring at him in horror.

HOLY CRAP, A TOYOTA!?

Aside from that probably unintentional hilarious moment, the ad was crap. But hey, the download was free so I assume this is what we would have to deal with. Heck, you could even watch it online, see those wonderful faces yourself.

Ending with a cliffhanger (All of them but the last one always freaking do, it’s good tactics.) one now has to wait for the next issues. Which took about pretty much a month to appear on the store. This is where my problems began. Downloading the the 99 cent issue, this time it didn’t come in a video format like the first one, and is now tied into the game menu. This might not be an issue to every, but I wanted to keep all of these in a single folder, which is now impossible to do so. I assume this was to keep it from being uploaded or something? Yeah good luck with that. After getting over it, I hopped right into the issue and was greeted with a wraparound, pressed X to continue and the comic started instantly boxed in a border with instructions below. Play/Stop, Return to Menu (Why?) and a full screen mode. Why would anyone keep the border around is beyond me, so I just pressed the full screen button and watched away.

A few minutes into the comic, just where it gets good (Eddy FREAKING Raja could make anything good if he wants) I’m greeted by…the same car ad that was in the first one. Seriously? Didn’t I pay for this? And they didn’t even bother to change it up, it’s the same exact ad. At least I got to see those guys who apparently never have seen a car before again. Ha.

Right after this I got a phone call and hit pause. Finished the call, grabbed the controller and hit play. It started playing from the start again. What the hell? I figured I must have hit stop or something so I tried to fast forward– oh wait, I CAN’T DO THAT. There is no option to seek through the comic. What kind of bullcrap is that? So not only do I have to go through the entire thing again with no control, I have to watch that goddamn ad. I guess that’s why it’s not in a video format, so you’re forced to watch this. Annoying.

After I returned to where I left off, it ended like 7 seconds after.  Gah, it’s shorter than the freebie? Issue’s 2 & 3 share this shortness and the same exact ads, while 4 actually has a different Toyota ad with Drake actually driving the thing, and people who know what cars are following him in another one. This is a fresh change of pace too late, seeing this is the final issue. There’s a little enjoyable twist in the ending (I believe we have found a possible Uncharted 3 villain/teammate/whatever), and right after that it ties itself into the first game. (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune)

All in all, the mini-series itself was fantastic, getting a little backstory is always a great thing. However, while the idea itself was fantastic, the execution of the paid issues were sloppy and bad. I don’t know if you could call this a review, since I didn’t talk much about the story, but this is just me ranting. Yes, I’m ranting about a 3 dollar comic series. That’s what blogs are for right? If you’re crazy about Uncharted, these are nice gifts for yourself, even though you will probably see these on Youtube anyway.