The fate of the big-screen, live-action adaptation of "Uncharted" remains uncertain for the time being (though many of its biggest fans may not care because most video game-to-film adaptations end up disappointing, to put it mildly).
But how about a movie that simply uses elements from the games themselves, specifically all the cut scenes? That's just what "morphinapg," a user on Reddit, has done.
He took all the cinematics from the three games and edited them together to create three feature-length movies that are available on YouTube. It's worth pointing out that such usage of copywritten material is legally dubious. We've asked Sony, the game's publisher, for comment, and we'll update the post if we hear back.
Here we have "Uncharted 1: Drake's Fortune (The Movie)," based upon the game of the same name, which clocks in a few minutes under two hours:
Part 2, "Among Thieves," is considerably longer, at almost three hours, and part 3, "Drake's Deception" is three hours and 16 minutes. The videos were posted just a few days ago, and have spread like wildfire ever since.
The majority of the highlight reel covers cinematics, but some gameplay footage is included to help make the narrative make sense to anyone unfamiliar with the source material. "Morphinapg" also details his guidelines in the descriptions.
This includes his attempts to remove many on-screen references o it being a game, like chapter titles and button prompts, and to retain as much dialogue spoken during gameplay as well, since the dialogue helps to develop the characters.
As for what prompted such a project, "morphinapg" explains:
I've often heard many people describe these games as like controlling a movie, and have heard many people say that these games are just as fun to watch as they are to play, and I agree with both of those things. That gave me the idea to edit these games into movies. … If you are ever in the mood to watch the story of one of these games in one sitting, but don't have the time to play the entire game through, then these are great for that purpose, or if you want to show these games' stories to friends or family that don't care about playing video games.
Matthew Hawkins is an NYC-based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, Giant Robot and numerous others. He also self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of Attract Mode, and co-hosts The Fangamer Podcast. You can keep tabs on him via Twitter, or his personal home-base, FORT90.com.
