Uncharted Saved Gaming for Me. No, Really!
0I bought a PS3 fairly early in its life and literally never bought any games for it other than Gran Turismo for the first few years of owning the system. I eventually bought Resident Evil 5 and tried to play it but it just couldn't hold my attention and after only getting a few hours into the game I put it away and never touched my PS3 again for years! My PS3 basically collected dust for many, many years. That is until I picked up a copy of Uncharted 1 and 2 in a box set collection. This would have been after Uncharted 2 was old enough to become a greatest hits. It's quite possible that Uncharted 3 was out by this time. So maybe this was around 2012? Either way, I've had a PS3 since 2007 and hardly played it at all up to this point. I was playing a few PC games like Bioshock and Fallout 3 around this time but to be honest that was about it. I did beat Bioshock but never did beat Fallout 3.
Uncharted changed it all for me.
I was hooked! The perfect blend of story, 3rd person shooting action with a simple cover system and exploration. I played and beat both Uncharted games and by then The last of Us was out and I also picked up a used copy of that game as soon as I could. I also picked up a used copy of Uncharted 3 around this time too.
Years later when the PS4 slim came out with the Uncharted 4 bundle I picked that up. Now I've beaten all 4 of the mainline Uncharted games (I still haven't played the Uncharted 4 side quest game but I do own it!)
Uncharted is a good game that still holds up today for the most part. Granted Uncharted 2 is a lot better in many ways! Still, gotta start somewhere. The Uncharted collection for PS4 was free to download for awhile but I'm not sure if it still it today. It's worth grabbing if you can get it cheap. All 3 games look and run better on the PS4 version.
I've played a lot more modern games too since. I've gone back and finally beat RE5 on PC years after giving up on the PS3 version. I've beat RE7, RE2 remake, the modern Tomb Raider reboots, Last of Us 1 and 2, Doom 2016, Wolfenstein reboots, Fallout 4. I've even went back and beat STALKER and recently beat Metro Exodus! I've beat more games in the last 4 years than I had in 10 years around the PS3 lifetime. I tend to play more games through now and yet for so many years I wasn't playing any modern games at all.
Uncharted really did save gaming for me.