Uncharted 3 - Review

It is a golden age of video gaming.  I've been buried neck deep in quality titles for the past few months, and realized today that I haven't done a review on a single one of them.  So since I finished Uncharted 3 today, I figured I would start with this one.  The fasten seat belts sign has been turned on, your seats can be used as a flotation device, and in the event of a crash landing parachutes can be located in the overhead compartments.

But what's the likelihood of that?

Let's take things from the beginning.  In real world time, it's been two years since we saw Naughty Dog's masterpiece that was Uncharted 2.  Nathan Drake had just saved the world from an exploding tree goo, and limped into the sunset, girl in arms.  This game won countless awards and accolades, and I'm sure if VG30 was around at the time, we would have given it some high honors, too.  It was a fantastic game and a lot for Uncharted 3 to live up to. 

Uncharted 3 picks up the story about 4 years later, in the best place possible to start an adventure: the inside of a bar.  After some double crossing, the tale begins to unfold as Nate begins glob trotting to track down the location of Ferdinand Drake's biggest secret, a lost city in the desert sands.  The story delves into how Nathan acquired the iconic ring around his neck, his relationship with his mentor, Scully, and touches briefly on his relationship with Elena.

Very Briefly

Clearly some things have happened in their personal lives, and the game makes a strong effort to tie Nate to Scully.  This has a much bigger impact on people who have been following the story, and I worry that new comers might not be as attached to Scully as a character as a long time veteran would be.  For that matter, I worry that novices might not be able to grasp a lot of interactions between characters, but that's for the jury to decide.

Gameplay is best described as a series of amazing events that are linked together by all too familiar Uncharted mainstays.  One moment I'm shooting at guys from behind crates, the next I'm engaged in ship to ship combat with bazookas, and then the next I'm looking for a way to climb up another ship.  It's pretty formulaic, to the point where I could tell exactly when I was about to hit a puzzle section. 

Comabt, Cut Scene, Action, Puzzle, Cut Scene, Repeat

The amazing parts are amazing.  Tumbling through a burning mansion, escaping a sinking tanker, and plummeting from a crashing plane are highlights that I will not soon forget.  On the other hand, the ordinary is ordinary.  The same climb to point A to throw switch to progress aspect is still here, and they don't try to hide it or class it up at all.  Combat has some highlights, but the battles don't stack up the same way that they did in Uncharted 2.  There's few chances to deal with anything harder than somebody behind a riot shield, and that's just disappointing.

In the end, you have to compare it to Uncharted 2, and the game just falls short.  From previous entries in the series you expect to find some sort of mystical buried secret, and while the other games spent half of their time exploring that secret, you only see the tip of the iceberg in this one.  They reach out for that brass ring but can't quite wrap their fingers around it.

All in all, the Uncharted series will be remembered for Uncharted 2.  This one is a good entry into the series, but doesn't have the same story, the same intrigue, or the same magic that the last one did.  While every PS3 owner should be playing this series, you can probably safely set this one to the side to work on more important titles at the moment.