Uncharted 3 Review

I've had what you might call an "on again/off again" type of relationship with the Uncharted series. The first Uncharted , despite the gobs of hype by diehard Sony faithfuls, was just "meh" to me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. So when the reviews for Uncharted 2 started coming out and they were basically, "OMG BEST GAME EVAR!!", you'll forgive me if I was somewhat skeptical. Of course after playing it myself I was in agreement to the games quality. Uncharted 2 bested it's predecessor in just about every way imaginable and is still one of my two favorite PS3 games to date.

But somehow, even with how mindblowing Uncharted 2 was, I wasn't really that excited for Uncharted 3. I felt confident that even if it wasn't as good as Uncharted 2, it would at least be close, and that would still be amazing. Ultimately I blame all the amazing games that dropped during the holiday season for my not being terribly excited for the game. But now I've not only played Uncharted 3, but I've also finished it, and so I feel like I can give my overall opinion of the game. So without further ado, let's dive right in.

Story

The story in Uncharted 3, for me, is simultaneously the games strongest and weakest part of the game. You can really see the evolution of Naughty Dog's story telling prowess in Uncharted 3 compared to previous game. Many parts of the story are very natural and realistic. One of my favorites being the scene between Nate and Elena after Nate escapes the ship graveyard and there's the emotional moment between the two where Nate rests his head on Elena's lap. That whole seen felt very natural and the emotions really came through.

Other great scenes were the flashback to Nate's childhood when he met Sully, the scene where Nate and Sully go to "rescue" Chloe and Charlie and find them unharmed, and the scene in the beginning in the alley when you're first introduced to Katherine Marlowe. And of course the ending was really good too. You can really tell how comfortable the actors have come to be with one another of the course of the three games and it really improves the story and cutscenes as a result.

Unfortunately you can't seem to have the good without the bad. As good as Naughty Dog has gotten at making scenes in the story feel natural and realistic, they can't seem to escape the arbitrary "Big moments" that every game since Call of Duty feels it has to have. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with big scripted action sequences, but it seems as though every game company is trying to outdo each other these days. And then there are the not-so-realistic moments, like when Nate, after escaping a burning, sinking, cruise liner in the middle of the ocean, just so happens to wash up on the shore of the very same village that Elena is staying in. Very convenient.

And apparently you can't seem to have an Uncharted game without tossing some kind of supernatural element in at the end of the game. The only difference is this time it's hidden behind the premise that it's all one big acid trip. Because of that very explanation, this Uncharted's supernatural bit ends up being worse than the two previous games because the whole time everything is all warped and psychedelic, making it hard to play. I absolutely hated this part of the game and actually stopped playing for several days before making myself go back and finish the game. I almost didn't finish the game because of this part.

Graphics

Uncharted 3 easily has some of the best graphics around. One of the reasons that the cutscenes are so good is because of how ridiculously detailed the graphics on the characters faces are. And the fact that the lip syncing is all hand animated and not mo-cap just makes it that much more amazing. And while the characters are obviously the most detailed parts of the game, the rest of the game looks pretty amazing too.

The only thing that I found odd was the co-op, which for some reason has PS2 quality visuals. I'm not really sure why the graphics in the co-op mode are so much worse than the rest of the game, but the divide is huge, and considering that the very first thing I ever played in Uncharted 3 was the co-op (online with friends), it did not make a good first impression.

Sound

I'll keep this short and sweet. The sound, as in previous Uncharted games, is wonderful. The game supports Dolby Digital, DTS, and Linear PCM sound formats (5.1 & 7.1 for the PCM). The sound effects are very crisp and the voice acting very clear. The musical score is an evolution of the score you've come to know and love from the series and is better than ever in Uncharted 3.

Mechanics

The gameplay mechanics in Uncharted 3 are very hit or miss for me. I'll start with the miss: the shooting. I'm not sure what's changed, if anything, in the shooting mechanics between Uncharted 2 & 3, but I found the shooting in this game to be very frustrating. I felt like I was constantly  fighting with the aiming. Especially toward the end when fighting multiple enemies that were harder to bring down it became very frustrating. There also seems to be a lot of recoil in certain weapons, which would be fine if weren't such a pain to get the reticule back on the target.

The platforming segments, of which there are many of, we're mostly very well done. Climbing surfaces and hanging off ledges or swinging on poles all worked great. Some of the platforming sections seemed to drag on a bit, but overall they always worked well to break up the shooting parts. The new vertical shooting segments, in which you had to shoot at enemies above you while climbing a vertical surface was fun as well. The only problem I encountered in the platforming was the movement of Nate. He almost seemed "over animated" in Uncharted 3, making him hard to "steer" at times and making judging certain jumps frustrating. Chase sequences are a prime example of this.

But even with those problems the game was still a lot of fun to play through, so thankfully they didn't drag the whole experience down.

Conclusion

While Uncharted 3 wasn't the leap that Uncharted 2 was, it was still a fantastic game. And there were moments where it even exceeded its predecessor in certain areas. But where Uncharted 2 seemed to strike an almost perfect balance in story, over-the-top-action, and discovery, Uncharted 3 struggles to find a similar balance, instead giving segments that feel too over-the-top or that seem to drag on far longer than they should.

I have to imagine that anytime you have a game that's as successful as Uncharted 2 was, it becomes a huge burden on the developers to try to even equal that game, much less best it. Naughty Dog has done a great job with Uncharted 3, and while it may not be the game changer that Uncharted 2 was, it's still a damn fine game and shows us why it's still the PS3's premier game franchise.