Does this look familiar? Aside from the wooden animations, of course. This is Unearthed: The Trail of Ibn Battuta by Saudi Arabia-based Semaphore, and even this Uncharted copy won’t be playable on the Xbox 360.
Unearthed has versions on everything else it seems: PC/Mac, iPhone/iPad and Android, and PlayStation 3. The game follows fortune hunter Faris Jawad from Morocco to Damascus, Alexandria and Dubai, searching for the treasure of the famed Muslim explorer Ibn Battuta. Evil treasure hunters stand in Faris’ way.
Yes, it’s easy to bag on this. It may not be what folks in the west would buy (or what Saudi gamers themselves would choose to import), but the country is new to games development, and they’ve got to start somewhere.
Still, if it’s going to be so … inspired by Uncharted, couldn’t it have picked a word with a different prefix for its title?
♦Jamie What?♦
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 9:25 AMI love the fact that the gun isn’t pointing anywhere near the crosshair.
Also? the voice acting? SUPERB! Must import!
toolboy
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 9:43 AMI think it could have been better if they had used a middle eastern voice actor!
Jumpin' Jellybean Jon
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 9:39 AMkudos for their effort. concept sounds pretty interesting, even if there are bugs with it.
Over in Slav-land, the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was flawed, but it still turned into an excellent series, and the related Metro 2033 was awesome.
give these guys a few years, they’ll come along.
Whoda thunk a bunch of Quebecois could make AC?
Braaains
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 10:16 AMI’m surprised it’s on PS3… you wouldn’t think Sony would be too keen on it? Still, I guess it’s unlikely that Uncharted has too much to fear from looking at this clip so maybe they’re allowing it in the name of fostering development talent (and audiences) in a largely untapped part of the world – on the condition that there’s no 360 version, obviously. I doubt it’ll get a PS3 release outside the middle east, though.
But yeah, they’ve got to start somewhere, I guess. And if you’re going to imitate something, you might as well imitate the best.
Old School
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 10:32 AMStill better looking than Duke Nukem and probably more fun to play ;)
Jake
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 10:39 AMI’d like to see Naughty Dogs take on this lol.
Valor
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 12:11 PMAs bad as it could be, I think it’s well worth it for a beginner studio to practice on a well-received franchise. It’s great start & I wish I could do something as good.
If naughty dog sued they’d be put out of business permanently and I want the whole world to be apart of my favourite medium. Especially Saudi Arabia since they avid haters of technology. It’d be great for them to come around to the 21st century.
Jake
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 1:43 PMHow would Naughty Dog go out of business? They’d get money for suing the developers of this game, and they rightly should for such a blatant rip off.
Cameron Standring
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 3:58 PM*facepalm* He obviously means that Semaphore would go out of business from being sued by Naughty Dog, and that would be a bad thing when gaming should be more global, different developers in different countries is a good thing. Plus, do you REALLY think Unearthed is going to encroach on Uncharted’s sales much?
mamado
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 11:52 AMthis is their 1st game so there will be some short comings. and as the developer said they sill have a long way till release.
this is a good beginning for Arab game development.
Jake
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 1:44 PMIt’s not a good start. It’s a bad start. Their next game will be “Super Blario Brothers”. They need to come up with something original, it’s not hard. This is a blatant ripoff, and an awful start for a games industry.
Gavin
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 3:30 AM“They need to come up with something original, it’s not hard”
*cringes* – Bobby Kotick
Jim Smith
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 1:31 PMHahahaha funny…
Aidan
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 1:48 PMI like the story idea, ibn Battuta has a really interesting history.
sharmona
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 3:46 PMeven the title font is the same.
WilliamRLBaker
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 5:16 PMum…says right at the bottom…Xbox live arcade…*laughs* leave it to Kotaku to never do their research…
Wasp
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 5:45 PMThe game is on XBLA.. lol @ kotaku.
Muskie
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 4:26 PMI’d play it. the scenery looks nice, and I do enjoy uncharted, so I wouldn’t mind a shoddy clone. :P
Muskie
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 4:26 PMAlso.. Thread Necromancy! Live..! LIIIVE!