Leading men crowd the video game pantheon, with their bulging pectorals and square jaws, who stolidly march into the face of danger time and time again with seemingly no regard for the threat to life and limb that may result to them. These kinds of characters have carried us along for years, but lately things have been a-changing. The square jawed superhero is still around, but lately he's been making fewer and fewer forays into the world of gaming, with his place instead being taken by truck drivers, mining engineers, and teenage school girls. However, there was one area that continued to be the domain of your traditional action hero, and that was the treasure hunting/adventure game. The appearance of Lara Croft has caused a fracturing of the glass ceiling that seemingly remained intact in this genre, but once I got my PS3 I realized that this state of affairs had further changed without my noticing.

Take Mr. Nathan Drake, here. An undoubtedly handsome man, with his fit physique, his raven black hair, and his penetrating intelligent stare; he looks on the surface to be your standard exploratory male action hero. However, I was wrong about this when I began to play the game and found out how different he is from the usual male lead for this type of game. The comparison that initially came to mind was the link between the audience and the young character of Luke Skywalker when he glimpsed the Millennium Falcon. "What a piece of junk!" A phrase that encapsulated more or less what the members of the audience were thinking at the time.

That's what I felt when playing with Mr. Drake in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. After completing a difficult series of jumps which would have met instant death for my character, whereupon he stopped to catch his breath while saying "Oh, thank god, I can't believe I made it through that," which was exactly what I was thinking. Some of you may think this make Drake a wimp, but I think that this not only changed the map for this genre of game but also provided a more immserive experience by giving me/you/us a character who though the same way that I did, and that all of you might have as well.

I was also glad to see that this continued with the currently in development sequel, where Drake was under attack by both a Hind helicopter and a grouping of goons who had him under fire. Drake cried out to the goons, "Don't you see the goddamn helicopter? I've got enough problems!" which is more or less what I would have been saying at just that moment. The writing of this character is amusing, true, but it's real triumph is creating a character who acts so much more real then any other character I've set seen so far. I hope Mr. Drake's influence broadens behind his genre and cause a further change in the gaming market.

I'd like to see that.