Nathan Drake is carrying a lot of weight on his shoulders these days. Sony's top-billing action-adventure hero, the wise-cracking star of the Uncharted series, already has a more youthful, rebooted Lara Croft getting ready to out-raid his tombs. Now he also has to step up as the headline act in Sony's attempt to take on smartphones and the Nintendo 3DS in the handheld space. In Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Drake is the poster boy for the new Sony PS Vita - and what it can do that other handheld consoles can't.

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In Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Sony is clearly determined to show off the Vita's power. Play a few minutes of this game and you can see that the Vita carries almost the visual power of a PS3 in a pocket-sized device. Sure, the visuals are occasionally jaggy in places, and Drake's expressions are a little more simplistic. But against that, what you have is a pocket-sized world - beautifully detailed, with realistic effects such as fire, smoke and water ripples. For a handheld game, Golden Abyss is graphically stunning.

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Uncharted on the Vita uses the twin analogue sticks (that are probably the Vita's trump card) to brilliant effect. If you've played Uncharted on the PS3 before, you'll feel right at home on the Vita - the control scheme is nigh-on identical, immediately fluid and utterly responsive. It's impossible to imagine controlling a game as complex as this, as crisply, on a smartphone. And while the 3DS is belatedly getting a bulky second-stick add-on, it's unlikely to match the Vita and Uncharted's control combo.

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The only problem with the controls? Sony is so intent on showcasing every feature of the Vita that Uncharted constantly encourages you (and periodically forces you) to use control features beyond sticks, shoulder and face buttons. Stroke the front touchscreen to machete through bamboo thickets, pummel bad guys or even indicate where you want Drake to climb next; stroke the rear touchpad to turn and investigate objects or clues; tilt and turn the entire Vita to aim your sniper rifle or balance on a log.

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The problem with these touchy-feely controls is that they are invariably less precise, less simple and less immediate than simply hitting an X button. So while they can occasionally boost the player's sense of immersion (assembling torn up clues by swiping pieces around the screen is a highlight), mostly they just annoy - too often getting in the way of the action.

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The touchscreen distractions are a shame, because the action is really superb. Golden Abyss is a proper Uncharted game - despite being on a handheld. That means superb voice-acting, epic scenery, beautifully designed jump puzzles and a never-ending supply of duck-and-cover, run-and-gun combat. There are jokes, there are scary heights, there are punch-ups - all the good bits of Uncharted, done right. There's even perhaps a tad more freedom to explore and roam around than with the console games - which are at times frustratingly on-rails.

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There's even a good reason to allow more freedom in Golden Abyss - there are more pick-ups than ever before, more collectibles, more hidden secrets in the game. You can find vistas to take photographs of, objects to pick up, puzzles to solve and more - each one adding to a welter of pages of stuff that fills in backstory and will keep completists hunting through the game longer than before.

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Those collectibles also tie into a collect-and-trade system called Black Market that ties into the Sony Near social network that comes on the Vita (this tracks other Vita owners near you, and lets you compare trophies and game stats with them and your friends list). It was impossible to test this before launch - but it looks like you'll be able to trade collectibles with other players to get the ones you can't find. It's hardly multi-player Uncharted, but it should add a social, online element to the game for fans. Alternatively, it could turn out to be an annoying tool for gamers taking shortcuts to get all the collectibles.

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Uncharted: Golden Abyss is largely a joy to play, though it does retain the series' typically saggy middle section. It's a common issue for Uncharted games - the start lays out the love interest, throws in a few twists and introduces your enemies. Then the game settles into a holding pattern of more enemies, more guns, slightly harder jump puzzles, with the scenery only subtly changing. But even then, with combat and jumping like this, it's not much of a hardship to plough on.

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Sure, there are minor issues, most notably the game's insistence on making the player tilt, prod and stroke their Vita, just so Sony can show off its new handheld's widgets. But these pale into insignifcance in comparison with what's been achieved here. Most of the time when you play Uncharted: Golden Abyss you will simply forget you are working through it on a handheld console - it is an epic every bit as gripping, immersive and action-packed as the three PS3 games in the series. As a showcase for the Vita it effortlessly sells both the sheer power and innovation of the device. But, perhaps more importantly, it's also just a cracking good game.

Score: 9/10

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