No intro sentences. I'm just miffed.
The whole plot in Uncharted 3 feels so damn contrived. Nothing flows together well, shit just kinda happens and you're expected to just accept it. Well, guess what Uncharted 3? I feel completely detached from everything happening in front of me. The setpieces may be some of the most over-the-top ones I've ever experienced, but it doesn't complement the story or pacing. Why is Chloe back after the events of Uncharted 2? Who is Charlie and why should I care about him? I think there's supposed to be a plot thread about Sullivan adopting and raising Drake, but it's only addressed at the very beginning and the very end. What the hell happened here?
Drake is so unlikeable in this title that I really don't care about him by the time he's literally dying in a desert. It's like watching your hero live long enough to lose his way, except I never liked Drake enough in the first place to care. Everyone that Drake drags into his selfish escapade has the same questions to ask: "Why are you doing this? Is it worth risking your life? You can stop at any time, you know?" The villains are somehow worse than Drake, at least he leaves an impact on you. The Queen of England and her henchman (whose name I already forgor) need Drake's Ring so they can decipher the location of Sand Atlantis, because reasons! Reasons you're never told!
The previous two games had an acceptable level of polish, but this entry feels particularly sloppy for some reason. I wonder if Bluepoint Games's "remaster" running at 60 FPS is at fault here. Regardless, cover mechanics felt a lot less reliable, platforming occasionally failed me for no discernible reason, the camera clipped through walls on a few occasions, and other various oddities. Outside of that, the combat in this game just feels baaaaaaad. Combat segments are so frequent and tiresome, and it feels like I am always in a do-or-die situation, no time to breathe until the encounter itself is over. You could tell me that the combat arenas themselves were just borrowed from the multiplayer mode, and I would believe you in a heartbeat. It all feels very inorganic. We've also got a new enemy type, brutes, and boy do I hate them. It's not because they're difficult, no, it's because they're just a boring melee QTE damage sponge. And to add insult to injury, the final boss of this game is effectively just another brute!
I apologize for calling Uncharted 1 "unsharted", I should've saved that title for this one. Uncharted 3 is arguably the better game in terms of spectacle and gameplay, but I would be lying if I said this game had a coherent plot to follow. It's a passable game, but boy is it forgettable.
The whole plot in Uncharted 3 feels so damn contrived. Nothing flows together well, shit just kinda happens and you're expected to just accept it. Well, guess what Uncharted 3? I feel completely detached from everything happening in front of me. The setpieces may be some of the most over-the-top ones I've ever experienced, but it doesn't complement the story or pacing. Why is Chloe back after the events of Uncharted 2? Who is Charlie and why should I care about him? I think there's supposed to be a plot thread about Sullivan adopting and raising Drake, but it's only addressed at the very beginning and the very end. What the hell happened here?
Drake is so unlikeable in this title that I really don't care about him by the time he's literally dying in a desert. It's like watching your hero live long enough to lose his way, except I never liked Drake enough in the first place to care. Everyone that Drake drags into his selfish escapade has the same questions to ask: "Why are you doing this? Is it worth risking your life? You can stop at any time, you know?" The villains are somehow worse than Drake, at least he leaves an impact on you. The Queen of England and her henchman (whose name I already forgor) need Drake's Ring so they can decipher the location of Sand Atlantis, because reasons! Reasons you're never told!
The previous two games had an acceptable level of polish, but this entry feels particularly sloppy for some reason. I wonder if Bluepoint Games's "remaster" running at 60 FPS is at fault here. Regardless, cover mechanics felt a lot less reliable, platforming occasionally failed me for no discernible reason, the camera clipped through walls on a few occasions, and other various oddities. Outside of that, the combat in this game just feels baaaaaaad. Combat segments are so frequent and tiresome, and it feels like I am always in a do-or-die situation, no time to breathe until the encounter itself is over. You could tell me that the combat arenas themselves were just borrowed from the multiplayer mode, and I would believe you in a heartbeat. It all feels very inorganic. We've also got a new enemy type, brutes, and boy do I hate them. It's not because they're difficult, no, it's because they're just a boring melee QTE damage sponge. And to add insult to injury, the final boss of this game is effectively just another brute!
I apologize for calling Uncharted 1 "unsharted", I should've saved that title for this one. Uncharted 3 is arguably the better game in terms of spectacle and gameplay, but I would be lying if I said this game had a coherent plot to follow. It's a passable game, but boy is it forgettable.
El último título oficial de la saga de Nathan Drake y el último juego de Naughty Dog antes de que entrara en la Era de Druckman y se volviera aún más pretencioso, inseguro de sí mismo y explotador, es también el título de Uncharted que se me ha hecho menos cuesta arriba. Claro que eso tampoco quiere decir que tenga muchas cosas buenas que decir sobre él. Desde el principio ha sido obvio que los juegos de esta saga aspiraban a recrear, en clave estética que no jugable, los altos vuelos de una película de aventuras y la grandiosidad del cine épico de Hollywood. Por el camino, seguramente, se esperaba que esta aproximación artística también crearía la misma profundidad filosófica o espiritual que una obra como En Busca del Arca Perdida o La Última Cruzada lograron alcanzar. Pero como siempre, lo que esta manera de imitar de forma tan servil ha demostrado una y otra vez desde principios de siglo es que, si te posiciones desde el principio como une artista endeuade a las tradiciones de otros medios, los resultados nunca traerán nada mejor que En Busca del Templo Maldito o La Calavera de Cristal.
El equipo guionista hace esfuerzos titánicos para que la fórmula funcione, y tal vez por eso esta historia me resulte la menos cargante de las tres (aunque me descubro echando de menos la simpleza del primer Uncharted, mucho más cercano a los Tomb Raider que mira tan por encima del hombro). Pero por el camino, el diseño de niveles se ha rendido por completo al formato de pasillos emperifollados a los que la franquicia siempre iba apuntando desde el principio. La relativa variedad que ofrecen los encuentros-arena queda siempre subordinada a la secuencia de acción más óptima: destruye siempre a los tanques, luego a los francotiradores, luego a los tipos con armadura y si acaso ya te vas encargando del resto a tu ritmo. El modo sigilo que aportará tanto dinamismo a The Last of Us aún es un proyecto a medio hacer. Y las secuencias de salto, como viene siendo habitual, son poco más que un ejercicio de saber a dónde apunta la cámara y saltar hacia allí. Lo único que nos queda por juzgar (más allá del extremadamente simple sistema de combate cuerpo a cuerpo) son las largas secuencias andando en las que el juego nos invita a adoptar un ritmo más lento, o pensar la solución a un puzzle, o dejarnos llevarnos por la historia. Y como ya he dado a entender antes, el esfuerzo es admirable en más de un aspecto, pero el impacto de estos caminos de baldosas amarillas queda en entredicho cuando cualquier actuación de carne y hueso aporta más energía que estas agotadas voces de doblaje y estos risibles conjuntos de polígonos animados.
Escribiré sobre esto de forma más fría, pero creo que mi principal observación de estos juegos, por lo menos ahora, es que son extremadamente anti-jugadore. En ningún momento dejé de sentirme como si estuviera interfiriendo el drama de instituto de une profesore de teatro, y aunque participar está bien, siempre acabé con un agujero en el estómago y, por qué no admitirlo, con un poquito de rencor por no haberme dejado improvisar.
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The last title of the Nathan Drake trilogy, and the last Naughty Dog game before it entered the Druckman Era and became more pretentious, self-conscious and exploitative than ever, it's also the Uncharted title that I've found to be the least tedious to finish. Of course, that's doesn't mean I have many good things to say about it. It's been always obvious that these games have aspired from the beginning to reach the same highs, at least aesthetically, of adventure movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and epic movies like Lawrence of Arabia. It does feel like they hoped that by copying the surface elements of these movies they would be able, somehow, to reach the philosophical or spiritual depth that a work like The Last Crusade managed to achieve. But as always, what this slavishly imitative approach has proven time and again since the turn of the century is that, if you deliberately put yourself below the artistic heights of other media, you'll be only be able to achieve medioucre results that won't be that much better from Temple of Doom or The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The writers here have made a herculean effort trying to make this work, though, and perhaps that's why I find this game to have the least annoying story of them all- though more and more I'm finding myself longing for the simplicity and Tomb Raider-esque approach that the first Uncharted took, despite obviously trying to distance from them. But along the way, however, the level design of the game has completely surrendered to the stripped down corridors format that they seemingly wanted to fall into. The variety offered by arena encounters is always resolved through the same sequence: always begin with the tanks, then the snipers, then the armored guys, and eventually you'll take care of the rest. The stealth mode that will bring so much dynamism to The Last of Us is still half-baked here. And the jump sequences, as usual, are little more than an exercise in knowing where the camera is pointing at and jumping there. The only thing left for us to judge (beyond the extremely simple melee combat system) are the long walking sequences in which the game invites us to slower our pace, or solving a puzzle, or ponder about the story. And as I've implied before, the effort is admirable on its own, but the impact of these yellow-bricked roads is undermined when any flesh-and-blood performance brings more energy than these exhausted voice-overs and laughable polygons.
I'll write about this more coldly, but I think my main contention with these games now is that they are extremely anti-player. At no point did I ever stop feeling like I was inside a teacher's high school theater project, and while participating was fine, I ended up confused and a little bit upset that they didn't let me improvise a little along the performance.
El equipo guionista hace esfuerzos titánicos para que la fórmula funcione, y tal vez por eso esta historia me resulte la menos cargante de las tres (aunque me descubro echando de menos la simpleza del primer Uncharted, mucho más cercano a los Tomb Raider que mira tan por encima del hombro). Pero por el camino, el diseño de niveles se ha rendido por completo al formato de pasillos emperifollados a los que la franquicia siempre iba apuntando desde el principio. La relativa variedad que ofrecen los encuentros-arena queda siempre subordinada a la secuencia de acción más óptima: destruye siempre a los tanques, luego a los francotiradores, luego a los tipos con armadura y si acaso ya te vas encargando del resto a tu ritmo. El modo sigilo que aportará tanto dinamismo a The Last of Us aún es un proyecto a medio hacer. Y las secuencias de salto, como viene siendo habitual, son poco más que un ejercicio de saber a dónde apunta la cámara y saltar hacia allí. Lo único que nos queda por juzgar (más allá del extremadamente simple sistema de combate cuerpo a cuerpo) son las largas secuencias andando en las que el juego nos invita a adoptar un ritmo más lento, o pensar la solución a un puzzle, o dejarnos llevarnos por la historia. Y como ya he dado a entender antes, el esfuerzo es admirable en más de un aspecto, pero el impacto de estos caminos de baldosas amarillas queda en entredicho cuando cualquier actuación de carne y hueso aporta más energía que estas agotadas voces de doblaje y estos risibles conjuntos de polígonos animados.
Escribiré sobre esto de forma más fría, pero creo que mi principal observación de estos juegos, por lo menos ahora, es que son extremadamente anti-jugadore. En ningún momento dejé de sentirme como si estuviera interfiriendo el drama de instituto de une profesore de teatro, y aunque participar está bien, siempre acabé con un agujero en el estómago y, por qué no admitirlo, con un poquito de rencor por no haberme dejado improvisar.
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The last title of the Nathan Drake trilogy, and the last Naughty Dog game before it entered the Druckman Era and became more pretentious, self-conscious and exploitative than ever, it's also the Uncharted title that I've found to be the least tedious to finish. Of course, that's doesn't mean I have many good things to say about it. It's been always obvious that these games have aspired from the beginning to reach the same highs, at least aesthetically, of adventure movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and epic movies like Lawrence of Arabia. It does feel like they hoped that by copying the surface elements of these movies they would be able, somehow, to reach the philosophical or spiritual depth that a work like The Last Crusade managed to achieve. But as always, what this slavishly imitative approach has proven time and again since the turn of the century is that, if you deliberately put yourself below the artistic heights of other media, you'll be only be able to achieve medioucre results that won't be that much better from Temple of Doom or The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The writers here have made a herculean effort trying to make this work, though, and perhaps that's why I find this game to have the least annoying story of them all- though more and more I'm finding myself longing for the simplicity and Tomb Raider-esque approach that the first Uncharted took, despite obviously trying to distance from them. But along the way, however, the level design of the game has completely surrendered to the stripped down corridors format that they seemingly wanted to fall into. The variety offered by arena encounters is always resolved through the same sequence: always begin with the tanks, then the snipers, then the armored guys, and eventually you'll take care of the rest. The stealth mode that will bring so much dynamism to The Last of Us is still half-baked here. And the jump sequences, as usual, are little more than an exercise in knowing where the camera is pointing at and jumping there. The only thing left for us to judge (beyond the extremely simple melee combat system) are the long walking sequences in which the game invites us to slower our pace, or solving a puzzle, or ponder about the story. And as I've implied before, the effort is admirable on its own, but the impact of these yellow-bricked roads is undermined when any flesh-and-blood performance brings more energy than these exhausted voice-overs and laughable polygons.
I'll write about this more coldly, but I think my main contention with these games now is that they are extremely anti-player. At no point did I ever stop feeling like I was inside a teacher's high school theater project, and while participating was fine, I ended up confused and a little bit upset that they didn't let me improvise a little along the performance.
The first three Uncharted games were actually some of the first games that I bought on my PS4, as I had gotten it for my 13th birthday back in October of 2016 and then bought The Nathan Drake Collection as part of the January 2017 sale. I liked Uncharted: Drake's Fortune a lot and then loved Uncharted 2: Among Thieves even more, but I skipped Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception because my cousin gave me three games as a gift, with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End being one of them. My PS4's disk drive has been filled with dust since 2019, so I never actually finished the fourth game in the series, and because of that, I decided to finally play Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception from start to finish.
If there's one thing that makes Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception stand out in the original trilogy, it would be the game's sense of spectacle. The set pieces have always felt cinematic, but this game's story had an even stronger emphasis on globetrotting than the previous two entries, and it also made a stronger effort to explore Nathan Drake's past, his relationships, and whether or not he can continue to live his life as a thief. The chemistry between Nathan, Sully, Elena, Chloe, and the rest of the series' characters has always been strong, and the well written dialogue makes it fun to just sit back and listen to these characters talk to each other in between the bombastic action scenes, puzzles, and platforming segments. The Uncharted has always been able to deliver in terms of writing and visuals, and in this regard, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is just as good as the first two games.
Despite how positive that previous paragraph was, I generally consider Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception to be a huge downgrade from what was accomplished in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and that is because of how much worse the gameplay is here. I beat the second game on Crushing difficulty and loved it as a result, and I decided to do the same thing here, but doing that showed just how flawed the game's level design was. Rather than constantly having to experiment with what strategies to try out, pretty much all of the shootouts in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception consist of hiding behind one bit of cover and killing all of your enemies before moving on to the next segment, and it gets incredibly frustrating with the sheer amount of armored enemies and especially the grenade spam. I remember there being grenade spam in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but that was done to discourage staying in one place, and since the levels in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception were designed for you to do just that, the grenades just end up being an intensely annoying nuisance, especially with how much more frequently they're thrown at you. I did mention how the set pieces still feel cinematic, but even with that in mind, they still felt like a downgrade from the previous games, as all you really do in them is move forward and jump, which greatly takes away from the excitement that you're supposed to be feeling. My thoughts on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception are complicated, to say the least, but the significantly worse gameplay outweighs the strong writing and voice acting, and I hope that Uncharted 4: A Thief's End ends up being better than this when I eventually get my PS4's disk drive cleaned out before booting it back up again.
If there's one thing that makes Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception stand out in the original trilogy, it would be the game's sense of spectacle. The set pieces have always felt cinematic, but this game's story had an even stronger emphasis on globetrotting than the previous two entries, and it also made a stronger effort to explore Nathan Drake's past, his relationships, and whether or not he can continue to live his life as a thief. The chemistry between Nathan, Sully, Elena, Chloe, and the rest of the series' characters has always been strong, and the well written dialogue makes it fun to just sit back and listen to these characters talk to each other in between the bombastic action scenes, puzzles, and platforming segments. The Uncharted has always been able to deliver in terms of writing and visuals, and in this regard, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is just as good as the first two games.
Despite how positive that previous paragraph was, I generally consider Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception to be a huge downgrade from what was accomplished in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and that is because of how much worse the gameplay is here. I beat the second game on Crushing difficulty and loved it as a result, and I decided to do the same thing here, but doing that showed just how flawed the game's level design was. Rather than constantly having to experiment with what strategies to try out, pretty much all of the shootouts in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception consist of hiding behind one bit of cover and killing all of your enemies before moving on to the next segment, and it gets incredibly frustrating with the sheer amount of armored enemies and especially the grenade spam. I remember there being grenade spam in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but that was done to discourage staying in one place, and since the levels in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception were designed for you to do just that, the grenades just end up being an intensely annoying nuisance, especially with how much more frequently they're thrown at you. I did mention how the set pieces still feel cinematic, but even with that in mind, they still felt like a downgrade from the previous games, as all you really do in them is move forward and jump, which greatly takes away from the excitement that you're supposed to be feeling. My thoughts on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception are complicated, to say the least, but the significantly worse gameplay outweighs the strong writing and voice acting, and I hope that Uncharted 4: A Thief's End ends up being better than this when I eventually get my PS4's disk drive cleaned out before booting it back up again.
Just as mid as the first game, but a tad bit better. Nothing exceptional to write home about.
Haven't played the original from 2011, only the remastered version on The Nathan Drake Collection which is a PS4 game but since PS5 has backwards compatibility, i played it (The PS4 version) on my PS5.
Haven't played the original from 2011, only the remastered version on The Nathan Drake Collection which is a PS4 game but since PS5 has backwards compatibility, i played it (The PS4 version) on my PS5.
Even though it's a good game i'm quite disappointed in how it ultimately turned out. It had a lot of great moments and set-pieces but the last 1/3 or so was a total drag. I really hated the combat in here. I don't know if I'm so bad at this game or what but I've been dying really often in Uncharted 3. There were a lot of encounters with 20+ enemies (including guys with RPGs, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, shields etc.) and you just sneak from cover to cover to eliminate them one by one, hoping that you won't get randomly killed by the last one. I haven't been this exhausted by a game in a long time.
I'd give it a weak 7/10 because it's still decent in most aspects. It's just painfully frustrating.
I'd give it a weak 7/10 because it's still decent in most aspects. It's just painfully frustrating.
Always remember, your 40oz Subway drink takes priority over your life.
best uncharted ive played so far
embarrassing how frustrating this game can be, they basically just dump every single enemy type on you all at the same time.
glad we got more sully in this one
fuck the cover system once again
fuck you AI grenade spammers
embarrassing how frustrating this game can be, they basically just dump every single enemy type on you all at the same time.
glad we got more sully in this one
fuck the cover system once again
fuck you AI grenade spammers
While "Drake's Deception" may not hold the title of my absolute favorite in the series, I distinctly recall being thoroughly impressed by its stunning graphics and exhilarating set-pieces when I first experienced it back in the day. As I recently wrapped up my journey through the Nathan Drake Collection, a rush of nostalgia enveloped me, reaffirming that the Uncharted series will forever occupy a cherished corner of my gaming heart.
It's easily the best of the PS3 Era trilogy based on the premise alone. How can it NOT be when it's basically INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, THE MUMMY, and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA thrown into a blender? Those things all rule!
And despite it all...the core gameplay and story problems of the Uncharted formula are still present and seemingly unconcerned with evolving. Enemies still take millions of hits to kill (on Normal mode) yet you can die faster than a CALL OF DUTY hard-core match. Combat is so unbalanced at times that you're discouraged from experimenting and forced to just memorize the emergence of enemies and take them out in a dull, surgical manner.
Melee combat and Stealth are VASTLY improved. Fist fights go for an almost Arkham Era rhythm format. Nate handles much better in Stealth mode and the terrain is overall more suited for utilizing cover. There's still too many instances of "Did you hit circle to do a dodge roll? JK, Nate decided you wanted to hug this chest high wall instead. Oops, you died."
The character focus during the narrative is what really drives this one. Nate's relationships with Sully and Elana are truly interesting. The globe trotting locales are the most diverse and interesting they've ever been, and the escape sequences from the Chateau, the Plane, and the Cruise Ship are all stellar. Kind of annoying how the final Maguffin reveal is just the SAME TWIST it was in the first two games. Also strange how Nate heroically tried to save the antagonist from their self-imposed fate, where as in 2 he was cool letting Lazaravich (deservedly) eat shit.
I had the most fun with this one, while also feeling pretty unimpressed in the end. I like the characters of this franchise, but these games don't make say "WOW, I need to buy the console these are on!" the way so many people have told me they needed to get a PS3 to play these. Spectacle's cool, but spectacle built on mid, unsatisfying gameplay isn't worth all the praise this series gets IMO.
And despite it all...the core gameplay and story problems of the Uncharted formula are still present and seemingly unconcerned with evolving. Enemies still take millions of hits to kill (on Normal mode) yet you can die faster than a CALL OF DUTY hard-core match. Combat is so unbalanced at times that you're discouraged from experimenting and forced to just memorize the emergence of enemies and take them out in a dull, surgical manner.
Melee combat and Stealth are VASTLY improved. Fist fights go for an almost Arkham Era rhythm format. Nate handles much better in Stealth mode and the terrain is overall more suited for utilizing cover. There's still too many instances of "Did you hit circle to do a dodge roll? JK, Nate decided you wanted to hug this chest high wall instead. Oops, you died."
The character focus during the narrative is what really drives this one. Nate's relationships with Sully and Elana are truly interesting. The globe trotting locales are the most diverse and interesting they've ever been, and the escape sequences from the Chateau, the Plane, and the Cruise Ship are all stellar. Kind of annoying how the final Maguffin reveal is just the SAME TWIST it was in the first two games. Also strange how Nate heroically tried to save the antagonist from their self-imposed fate, where as in 2 he was cool letting Lazaravich (deservedly) eat shit.
I had the most fun with this one, while also feeling pretty unimpressed in the end. I like the characters of this franchise, but these games don't make say "WOW, I need to buy the console these are on!" the way so many people have told me they needed to get a PS3 to play these. Spectacle's cool, but spectacle built on mid, unsatisfying gameplay isn't worth all the praise this series gets IMO.
After suffering through the previous ones, I decided to make my friend play this for me instead while I watched. It was still ass.
uncharted 2 was so good that they made uncharted 2 2
This game is so frustrating because it REALLY looses steam when you get to the boat portion. The story also inst good (yes I said it) it makes NO sense. But on a technical side this game still impresses even today, minus one thing. The Aiming is FUCKED beyond repair. No clue what happened.
Other than that, yeah its fun. I played on hard and really no section minus the climax of the Syria portion felt "unfair". Worth a revisit but defiantly one of the most standard games in the series. It still has all the fun character moments you expect and they did try to add more depth to most of the main cast which I can respect, but that didn't reach its potential until Uncharted 4.
Worth a play no doubt but imo its one of the weaker games in the series.
Other than that, yeah its fun. I played on hard and really no section minus the climax of the Syria portion felt "unfair". Worth a revisit but defiantly one of the most standard games in the series. It still has all the fun character moments you expect and they did try to add more depth to most of the main cast which I can respect, but that didn't reach its potential until Uncharted 4.
Worth a play no doubt but imo its one of the weaker games in the series.
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception took what Uncharted 2 improved and destroyed it. Take, for example, the stealth mechanics. With Uncharted 2, the enemies didn't detect you within .5 seconds behind cover like they did in the first game. This game decided to go back to its roots and now the enemies can spot Nate behind cover in no time flat. Perhaps I just suck at video games, but a lot of the combat sections felt overly tedious. You could be almost done with one section and then it would feel like the game would spawn an enemy right next to you they would instantly kill you.
On a more positive note about the game's combat, it does feel good (for the most part). Both shooting and melee combat felt great, with the melee being the best in the series so far. Though, I can't 100% say shooting was fantastic in this game. At first, I thought I was crazy but the more I played the more I realized I was right. It's like enemies would absorb the shots and not take any damage. I'm not talking about the enemy types that are designed for that sort of thing, I'm talking about low-level grunts. I could headshot these guys and they wouldn't flinch.
Overall controls for Nate were all over the place. Sometimes, Nate felt great to play as. Other times, it felt like he had ice skates on. There is no in-between.
The story starts strong, but I lost interest in it about halfway through. To be honest, it feels like two different games after a certain point. The ending felt very rushed.
That's a good word to describe this game: rushed. Other aspects outside of the ending felt very rushed. For example, some cutscene glitches that were present here weren't present during the first Uncharted game. Little things like that could have been avoided if this game had a bit longer development time.
Uncharted 3 had the potential to be great but in the end, it was kind of a dud.
On a more positive note about the game's combat, it does feel good (for the most part). Both shooting and melee combat felt great, with the melee being the best in the series so far. Though, I can't 100% say shooting was fantastic in this game. At first, I thought I was crazy but the more I played the more I realized I was right. It's like enemies would absorb the shots and not take any damage. I'm not talking about the enemy types that are designed for that sort of thing, I'm talking about low-level grunts. I could headshot these guys and they wouldn't flinch.
Overall controls for Nate were all over the place. Sometimes, Nate felt great to play as. Other times, it felt like he had ice skates on. There is no in-between.
The story starts strong, but I lost interest in it about halfway through. To be honest, it feels like two different games after a certain point. The ending felt very rushed.
That's a good word to describe this game: rushed. Other aspects outside of the ending felt very rushed. For example, some cutscene glitches that were present here weren't present during the first Uncharted game. Little things like that could have been avoided if this game had a bit longer development time.
Uncharted 3 had the potential to be great but in the end, it was kind of a dud.
This review contains spoilers
Uncharted 3 is easily the weakest game in the trilogy. The pirate sequence sucks, the update to melee leads to you fucking up rolling away from enemies, reinforcements are annoying, the supernatural sequence is immensely disappointing, the flashback sequence wasn't that great, and the villains supposedly being part of Drake's life for a while is unnecessary.
There are some positive parts of UC3 though - more guns, cool setpieces, a nice final boss, and the updated melee system does work very well in the forced melee sequences.
There are some positive parts of UC3 though - more guns, cool setpieces, a nice final boss, and the updated melee system does work very well in the forced melee sequences.
I wanted to give this game the benefit of the doubt, but I can't.
Seriously, fuck this game. I will explain.
My main problem with this game is its mechanics. The traversal parts are unforgivingly stiff (one wrongly timed jump and you're dead, which gets highly annoying after a while) and more often than not is it unclear where you are supposed to go. However, the thing that bugged me the most was the shootouts. First of all, there are far too many of them. Hordes of enemies that come at you from all sides and kill you with a single shot (Normal Mode), whereas the enemies themselves require two full assault rifle clips to their unprotected face or multiple direct hits from a grenade/rocket launcher to die. My goodness, the frustration was high. And the problem is, it's the worst part of these games. The reason I played this was because Uncharted is meant to offer a fun adventure with a balanced gameplay of climbing, running from collapsing buildings/bridges, a shootout here or there, and an Indiana Jonesque story. And it has all of these things. There are some awesome setpieces (the one in the house in France), some very interesting character moments, and it is the most cinematic entry of the trilogy. All of them ruined by the tediousness of the shooting.
Another thing is the fact that the game gives you the illusion that there is a stealth option. Drake will say something like: let's take them out quietly. Any attempt to complete a sequence like this in stealth will, after a lot of trial and error, result in the realization that stealth was never an option and you had to, YET AGAIN, shoot your way out. Ugh.
I'm hearing good stories about Uncharted 4, so my hopes are on that being more fluent and balanced, but for now, I will be playing other things. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception made me tired to be playing these kind of games, which sucks, 'cause I love them, too. Uncharted 2 was amazing in every measure and this felt like a massive leap downwards.
Seriously, fuck this game. I will explain.
My main problem with this game is its mechanics. The traversal parts are unforgivingly stiff (one wrongly timed jump and you're dead, which gets highly annoying after a while) and more often than not is it unclear where you are supposed to go. However, the thing that bugged me the most was the shootouts. First of all, there are far too many of them. Hordes of enemies that come at you from all sides and kill you with a single shot (Normal Mode), whereas the enemies themselves require two full assault rifle clips to their unprotected face or multiple direct hits from a grenade/rocket launcher to die. My goodness, the frustration was high. And the problem is, it's the worst part of these games. The reason I played this was because Uncharted is meant to offer a fun adventure with a balanced gameplay of climbing, running from collapsing buildings/bridges, a shootout here or there, and an Indiana Jonesque story. And it has all of these things. There are some awesome setpieces (the one in the house in France), some very interesting character moments, and it is the most cinematic entry of the trilogy. All of them ruined by the tediousness of the shooting.
Another thing is the fact that the game gives you the illusion that there is a stealth option. Drake will say something like: let's take them out quietly. Any attempt to complete a sequence like this in stealth will, after a lot of trial and error, result in the realization that stealth was never an option and you had to, YET AGAIN, shoot your way out. Ugh.
I'm hearing good stories about Uncharted 4, so my hopes are on that being more fluent and balanced, but for now, I will be playing other things. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception made me tired to be playing these kind of games, which sucks, 'cause I love them, too. Uncharted 2 was amazing in every measure and this felt like a massive leap downwards.
A good end to the trilogy, but not fantastic. Uncharted 2 is definitely the best of the lot but this game has some impressive set pieces and the latter third of the game is brilliant. It still has the braindead Uncharted AI but all in all this was a fun time and worth a play at least.
⌚ Time to finish - 8 hours 00 mins
🤬Difficulty - easy
🔊 Soundtrack - Great soundtrack! On par with trilogy.
🌄Graphics – Great! On par with trilogy. Some set pieces are still awesome and hold up to today.
🌦 Atmosphere – It was ok. I wasn't as invested in this as the 2nd game.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Weak. Hard to follow main story. Really took any life out of Chole which I really liked in the 2nd game. Overall the story and characters were very weak. Story was ALL over the place! Sometimes its complicated, sometimes its simple, sometimes you feel like you are wandering purposeless.
🤺 Combat – A step down in fun due to forced fist fights. Little harder than other 2, but as expected combat here. Nothing new.
🧭 Side Activities / Exploration – No side activities or exploration apart from collectibles.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Good, overall made sense and responded.
📣 Voice acting – Good! Just as expected in the drake series. Chole lost all personality so that i am going to dock this from excellent to good.
📝 Review:
This is to me an up and down roller coaster. The highs are high the lows are lows. I think overall its better than 1, but not as good as 2. 2 set a high bar. They should have just repeated that formula.
I really disliked the hard to follow story and that Chole lost all personality. Characters come in and out for no real reason apart from making sure fans got to see all the characters at some point in the story.
Set pieces are AMAZING as always. There are some VERY memorable set pieces here and up to par with others. But the pace of the game is up and down. The 2nd game hits you punch after punch. Here after a bang, it slows down hard through wandering sequences that last longer than they should, then picks up again.
💡Final Thoughts:
Not the best but still should play. They got the formula right in 2. They should have just stuck to it. They tried to unnecessarily reinvent things and change things up.
🤬Difficulty - easy
🔊 Soundtrack - Great soundtrack! On par with trilogy.
🌄Graphics – Great! On par with trilogy. Some set pieces are still awesome and hold up to today.
🌦 Atmosphere – It was ok. I wasn't as invested in this as the 2nd game.
📚 Main Story / Characters – Weak. Hard to follow main story. Really took any life out of Chole which I really liked in the 2nd game. Overall the story and characters were very weak. Story was ALL over the place! Sometimes its complicated, sometimes its simple, sometimes you feel like you are wandering purposeless.
🤺 Combat – A step down in fun due to forced fist fights. Little harder than other 2, but as expected combat here. Nothing new.
🧭 Side Activities / Exploration – No side activities or exploration apart from collectibles.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Good, overall made sense and responded.
📣 Voice acting – Good! Just as expected in the drake series. Chole lost all personality so that i am going to dock this from excellent to good.
📝 Review:
This is to me an up and down roller coaster. The highs are high the lows are lows. I think overall its better than 1, but not as good as 2. 2 set a high bar. They should have just repeated that formula.
I really disliked the hard to follow story and that Chole lost all personality. Characters come in and out for no real reason apart from making sure fans got to see all the characters at some point in the story.
Set pieces are AMAZING as always. There are some VERY memorable set pieces here and up to par with others. But the pace of the game is up and down. The 2nd game hits you punch after punch. Here after a bang, it slows down hard through wandering sequences that last longer than they should, then picks up again.
💡Final Thoughts:
Not the best but still should play. They got the formula right in 2. They should have just stuck to it. They tried to unnecessarily reinvent things and change things up.
Kind of a mess but an immensely entertaining and earnest one
This might be my favorite Uncharted game yet. This is basically Drake's Fortune with a story as good, if not better, as the one in Among Thieves (with this I'm referring to that the story develops its characters which are the main strength of Uncharted as a franchise). There's not much I can say that I haven't said in my reviews of the previous games. This time the enemies are less bullet-spongey than in the previous games, the arenas are better designed with more covers and more room for movement/platforming, the shootouts are shorter and the climbing paths are more clear. The melee combat feels better than ever, now it's not just mashing the square button, you can push around enemies and counter their attacks.
All of this comes at the cost of feeling extremely linear, even more so than the previous games. For example, there's a lot of sequences where you have to run towards the camera and quick time events. These game's needed a more meaningful improvement to the formula than just "fixing" everything, but for what Drake's Deception is, I think it's an ok action-adventure cover-shooter. I know this franchise is always compared to Indiana Jones, but I think that since Among Thieves, that comparison isn't correct, as this turned more into a modern Hollywood action blockbuster.
All of this comes at the cost of feeling extremely linear, even more so than the previous games. For example, there's a lot of sequences where you have to run towards the camera and quick time events. These game's needed a more meaningful improvement to the formula than just "fixing" everything, but for what Drake's Deception is, I think it's an ok action-adventure cover-shooter. I know this franchise is always compared to Indiana Jones, but I think that since Among Thieves, that comparison isn't correct, as this turned more into a modern Hollywood action blockbuster.
kind of a mess? the first few chapters were quite promising yet it dies off with a second act that behaves more as a franchise retread than anything. and the last third is the most frustrating - it has all the brightest ideas yet production was clearly rushed, leading to an abundance of clunky set pieces marred with some truly awful combat.
speaking of combat, the levels are constructed very poorly. as per usual with this trilogy, the core gameplay loop involves these massive settings with row after row of enemies to fight that just drag on for far too long - and even with smoother shooting controls it just doesn't quite work. the opponents are like cardboard, and the hand-to-hand combat emphasized in this installment doesn't really work. for example: it's very easy to get locked into fisticuffs when an enemy approaches you, and as such the dodge mechanics don't work in a wider setting, so you can easily get sniped. the brute enemies are really annoying as well, as was the final boss - really just a glorified qte. and for a cover-based shooter, the actual cover mechanics were awfully unreliable. little things like that or the poorly developed stealth controls make the gameplay loop rather irritating.
as far as these grand set pieces go, the absurd maximalism makes this less of an adventure movie homage than a pastiche of modern hollywood. and it's a lot of fun at times! but the ideas never synthesize well with each other - the poorly constructed story has us moving from place to place, shooting gallery to puzzle to shooting gallery to big set piece with some utterly awful chase scenes and zero cohesion. it just doesn't work. a game of this length has no reason to be so repetitive. there's a lot of dedication to the game's influences here, yet the passion and tension is lost in indulgence after a while. i can only watch so many structures collapse in one game, everyone.
the story is disappointing too, finally offering some sort of commentary on drake and his impact on those around him only to abandon that development in favour of a happy ending. very little changes for these characters, it's almost a total retread of uncharted 2 without the ingenuity that makes uncharted 2 decent. there are some cool narrative strokes though - one of the principal villains deciding that the best way to combat drake is to have him trip on some unexplained hallucinogenic is hilarious. i just did not care for a single thing that was occurring otherwise.
with all that being said, there were some things here i quite liked. the trek through the desert is quite good, as is the preceding plane sequence (although thats the one thing in the game that shouldve been longer!). there are other good environments that simply aren't developed in an interesting way, with most introduced mechanics not being enough to stop each shootout from feeling exactly like the last. i do harbour a weird nostalgia for these games as they were the first i bought for my playstation, but i'm glad to get this one out of my backlog lol. here's hoping for uncharted 4 to be an improvement when i inevitably forget my frustrations with this franchise 🙏
speaking of combat, the levels are constructed very poorly. as per usual with this trilogy, the core gameplay loop involves these massive settings with row after row of enemies to fight that just drag on for far too long - and even with smoother shooting controls it just doesn't quite work. the opponents are like cardboard, and the hand-to-hand combat emphasized in this installment doesn't really work. for example: it's very easy to get locked into fisticuffs when an enemy approaches you, and as such the dodge mechanics don't work in a wider setting, so you can easily get sniped. the brute enemies are really annoying as well, as was the final boss - really just a glorified qte. and for a cover-based shooter, the actual cover mechanics were awfully unreliable. little things like that or the poorly developed stealth controls make the gameplay loop rather irritating.
as far as these grand set pieces go, the absurd maximalism makes this less of an adventure movie homage than a pastiche of modern hollywood. and it's a lot of fun at times! but the ideas never synthesize well with each other - the poorly constructed story has us moving from place to place, shooting gallery to puzzle to shooting gallery to big set piece with some utterly awful chase scenes and zero cohesion. it just doesn't work. a game of this length has no reason to be so repetitive. there's a lot of dedication to the game's influences here, yet the passion and tension is lost in indulgence after a while. i can only watch so many structures collapse in one game, everyone.
the story is disappointing too, finally offering some sort of commentary on drake and his impact on those around him only to abandon that development in favour of a happy ending. very little changes for these characters, it's almost a total retread of uncharted 2 without the ingenuity that makes uncharted 2 decent. there are some cool narrative strokes though - one of the principal villains deciding that the best way to combat drake is to have him trip on some unexplained hallucinogenic is hilarious. i just did not care for a single thing that was occurring otherwise.
with all that being said, there were some things here i quite liked. the trek through the desert is quite good, as is the preceding plane sequence (although thats the one thing in the game that shouldve been longer!). there are other good environments that simply aren't developed in an interesting way, with most introduced mechanics not being enough to stop each shootout from feeling exactly like the last. i do harbour a weird nostalgia for these games as they were the first i bought for my playstation, but i'm glad to get this one out of my backlog lol. here's hoping for uncharted 4 to be an improvement when i inevitably forget my frustrations with this franchise 🙏
I enjoyed it. I liked the exploration of Nathan and Sully’s relationship/backstory quite a bit and the set pieces are still as good as always too. However, throwing grenades back is too busted, the third act of the game is kinda weak, and the melee combat that was added lacks depth. Overall, it’s a fine addition to the franchise that doesn’t break much new ground, but is still fun.
Apesar de alguns momentos cinemáticos épicos, de tirar o fôlego e muito bonitinho de focar na relação do Nate e do Sully, definitivamente o pior dos 3 jogos clássicos, tanto em história como o gameplay. Algumas partes de galeria de tiro são escalafobéticas, confusas e frustrantes e o chefe final estraga o clímax do jogo, parecendo que o jogo acabou no meio.
Easily the best in the trilogy just for focusing on Nate and Sully's relationship. The cast is perfect besides the boring villain, but her henchman more than compensates for it. The new stuff in the gameplay gives it a lot of variety and it's overall really fun. Way better than the second game, don't @ me.
This review contains spoilers
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is a game created by Naughty Dog as the obvious third part in the Uncharted trilogy; remastered by the excellent Bluepoint Games for the Playstation 4 system. Now I'll probably have less things to say for this game than the others but I do have some thoughts, gonna start with the gameplay.
Having played through the game on Crushing for the platinum than wrapped up a couple years later, I find it amazing how much more balanced this game feels combat wise and how the set pieces were expanded even further. I remember going through the final bosses of the previous two games and thinking that I'd rather just off myself but I actually had a decent time with this boss and it felt like it was ACTUALLY fair this time instead of what amounted to be an enemy gauntlet in the first one and an invincible try your best and good luck run with the second, like it was an actual fight that you could counter and I was thankful as hell. The gameplay for the most part is the same as the last two games except a bit more optimized and feels a tad better; the arsenals is also a bit more expanded and again as I said the set pieces are more advanced; one of the more amazing ones was climbing around on a sinking cruise ship while water was flooding in and I felt that was done well. Another memorable set piece was near the end when you're chasing after a convoy of trucks on a horse and you jump from truck to truck to catch up to a kidnapped Sully. Of course I still suck at puzzles so I can't say much about it and for the most part it still is a third person cover shooter type game. I guess that's one of the reasons that I don't have too much to say compared to my reviews to the other games: Any flaws are ones that have already been said before or were fixed, that and the game doesn't make any real drastic changes or anything so if you enjoyed the gameplay for the previous two you'll enjoy the gameplay here. In fact for the original trilogy again I think this one is the most balanced out of all of them; but other than that I have nothing to say really.
My thoughts on the story are as follows: I appreciate the fact they tried to give Nathan more character depth than the other two games. You learn a little bit (but not a lot) of Drake's childhood, with one flashback dedicated to meeting Sully and another little bit of info that reveals that he used to live in an Orphanage and adopted the Drake name (with the rest of his childhood not being revealed until the fourth game in the series); and both of these events revolve around one woman: the main antagonist Katherine Marlowe. She's the leader of an ancient secret society that the original Francis Drake once was a member of and had used to work with Sully. In the beginning; Nathan, Sully, Chloe Frazier and her associate Charlie Cutter set up a sting operation to figure out where Marlowe is held up, and finds info related to an old voyage where Francis tried to find the Lost City of Ubar. After following clues to a French Chateau and a Syrian Citadel, they find a clue that leads to Yemen; however Charlies breaks his leg and both him & Chloe back out. Things only get worse as they go to Yemen and Nathan meets back up with his estranged wife Elena. Now here is where I have an issue with the plot, I don't hate interpersonal relationship drama in these types of games I guess but in the second game, this game and the fourth game I feel like they tend to recycle the same formula with the whole treasure hunting thing being a strain on their relationship which in a sense is realistic. I guess personally I felt playing this title it was a tad tiresome since it was already done before, but regardless things still go bad and Nathan is captured. After the bit with Nate's childhood orphanage is revealed; it's learned that Sully's location was discovered, things happen and a boat captain named Ramses has apparently captured Sully. Now here is ANOTHER problem I don't care about, whereas these chapters have some cool set pieces, it leads to the reveal that he never had Sully and I guess it was just a distraction, which I guess is fine but also felt like a complete waste of time to be honest. Whatever the case Ramses's ship sinks and Nathan somehow doesn't drown and washes back up in Yemen, where it's learned Marlowe captured Sully to lead her to the Lost City. Nathan and Elena sneak into the airport where they're about to fly off, and barely get Nathan onto the plane itself. They end up over the desert and after getting into a scuffle with one of Marlowe's henchmen in basically the most legendary setpiece in the entire franchise with all the stuff falling out the back of the plane, the entire thing crashes into the desert and crashes into the ground. Nathan survives and walks through the desert to try to find some semblance of civilzation and he miraculously does only to find more Marlowe goons. Eventually after killing them he's saved by a man named Salim, who warns him of the Lost City and how King Solomon basically doomed the people by trapping a Genie into the city. They eventually attack Marlowe's convoy and rescue Sully before a sandstorm hits; and with that Nathan and Sully go into the city alone. Inside, Nathan experiences hallucinations of Sully's death after drinking from a water fountain and realize that the curse to the city was that the water was tainted with hallucinogens. Nathan comes back to his sense and It's figured that Francis Drake was sent by Queen Elizabeth to harvest the water in an attempt to use it as a sort of weapon, and abandoned his mission before lying to her, and now Marlowe wants to use this stuff as a weapon for domination I guess. Eventually Marlowe dies in a sinkhole (taking Nathan's ring with her) and her henchman, Talbot, is defeated in a fight on top of the sinking city. Of course, he dies and Nathan/Sully meet up with Salim again and leave the sinking city. Some time later, Nathan and Sully meet up with Elena, Nathan puts on a wedding ring on Elena's finger again and they all ride off happy. Again, there are certain parts I like about this story with trying to give Nathan as a character more depth with a look at his childhood, giving off an aura of mystery. But I also feel like the whole strained relationship and the section where Nathan chases after Ramses is tiring and either not interesting or a waste of time story wise. That being said, I do like everything else it brings to the table and whereas it may not be as interesting as Uncharted 2's plot was, it was still good enough to personally keep my attention the whole way through. Also they didn't include mutant creatures this time thank christ, instead they're replaced by hallucinogenic Djinn creatures, though this I don't really remember anything about them in game so I don't know how better off that is.
This leads to the final part: Art/Sound/Graphics. Graphically at that point it was the best looking as it had ever been and mixed in with the art direction to go more "sandey" and as a result more hostile and threatening personally. The characters look even better and as the series progresses of course the graphics will look better as a result, and the environmental effects are great as well with little details like shooting the ground making the sand pop up into little clouds. The sound design is great as well and as always the voice actors/actresses in these games are amazing and pull of their work well.
I guess to finish it off, Uncharted 3 improves a lot of things from the second game one hundred percent. I definitely appreciate the gameplay changes, though I also feel it's less memorable than the second game and even the first game to an extent. I'll be honest relying off of memory to recount the game's plot was especially tough so I had to read up on the game's wiki and wikipedia even more than I did the last two games and to me that's kind of disappointing. But at the same time, the game is definitely worthy of closing out the original trilogy of the series, and is also worthy of getting played and I'm gonna say it again: PORTED TO PC. Everyone should be able to play the old games, and eventually the PS3/4 will die out sadly; a PC port is a good way to keep accessibility going on forever as well as making money off of it. That being said, emulators are good too. I guess to finish off the review, I'll post two clips of memorable things. One is a glitch I encountered playing on Crushing mode where I had a laugh, and the other one is a Subway Ad that was interesting for it's time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs5P4TWr7Sg&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDH140dLq5M&ab_channel=Cregan4584
Having played through the game on Crushing for the platinum than wrapped up a couple years later, I find it amazing how much more balanced this game feels combat wise and how the set pieces were expanded even further. I remember going through the final bosses of the previous two games and thinking that I'd rather just off myself but I actually had a decent time with this boss and it felt like it was ACTUALLY fair this time instead of what amounted to be an enemy gauntlet in the first one and an invincible try your best and good luck run with the second, like it was an actual fight that you could counter and I was thankful as hell. The gameplay for the most part is the same as the last two games except a bit more optimized and feels a tad better; the arsenals is also a bit more expanded and again as I said the set pieces are more advanced; one of the more amazing ones was climbing around on a sinking cruise ship while water was flooding in and I felt that was done well. Another memorable set piece was near the end when you're chasing after a convoy of trucks on a horse and you jump from truck to truck to catch up to a kidnapped Sully. Of course I still suck at puzzles so I can't say much about it and for the most part it still is a third person cover shooter type game. I guess that's one of the reasons that I don't have too much to say compared to my reviews to the other games: Any flaws are ones that have already been said before or were fixed, that and the game doesn't make any real drastic changes or anything so if you enjoyed the gameplay for the previous two you'll enjoy the gameplay here. In fact for the original trilogy again I think this one is the most balanced out of all of them; but other than that I have nothing to say really.
My thoughts on the story are as follows: I appreciate the fact they tried to give Nathan more character depth than the other two games. You learn a little bit (but not a lot) of Drake's childhood, with one flashback dedicated to meeting Sully and another little bit of info that reveals that he used to live in an Orphanage and adopted the Drake name (with the rest of his childhood not being revealed until the fourth game in the series); and both of these events revolve around one woman: the main antagonist Katherine Marlowe. She's the leader of an ancient secret society that the original Francis Drake once was a member of and had used to work with Sully. In the beginning; Nathan, Sully, Chloe Frazier and her associate Charlie Cutter set up a sting operation to figure out where Marlowe is held up, and finds info related to an old voyage where Francis tried to find the Lost City of Ubar. After following clues to a French Chateau and a Syrian Citadel, they find a clue that leads to Yemen; however Charlies breaks his leg and both him & Chloe back out. Things only get worse as they go to Yemen and Nathan meets back up with his estranged wife Elena. Now here is where I have an issue with the plot, I don't hate interpersonal relationship drama in these types of games I guess but in the second game, this game and the fourth game I feel like they tend to recycle the same formula with the whole treasure hunting thing being a strain on their relationship which in a sense is realistic. I guess personally I felt playing this title it was a tad tiresome since it was already done before, but regardless things still go bad and Nathan is captured. After the bit with Nate's childhood orphanage is revealed; it's learned that Sully's location was discovered, things happen and a boat captain named Ramses has apparently captured Sully. Now here is ANOTHER problem I don't care about, whereas these chapters have some cool set pieces, it leads to the reveal that he never had Sully and I guess it was just a distraction, which I guess is fine but also felt like a complete waste of time to be honest. Whatever the case Ramses's ship sinks and Nathan somehow doesn't drown and washes back up in Yemen, where it's learned Marlowe captured Sully to lead her to the Lost City. Nathan and Elena sneak into the airport where they're about to fly off, and barely get Nathan onto the plane itself. They end up over the desert and after getting into a scuffle with one of Marlowe's henchmen in basically the most legendary setpiece in the entire franchise with all the stuff falling out the back of the plane, the entire thing crashes into the desert and crashes into the ground. Nathan survives and walks through the desert to try to find some semblance of civilzation and he miraculously does only to find more Marlowe goons. Eventually after killing them he's saved by a man named Salim, who warns him of the Lost City and how King Solomon basically doomed the people by trapping a Genie into the city. They eventually attack Marlowe's convoy and rescue Sully before a sandstorm hits; and with that Nathan and Sully go into the city alone. Inside, Nathan experiences hallucinations of Sully's death after drinking from a water fountain and realize that the curse to the city was that the water was tainted with hallucinogens. Nathan comes back to his sense and It's figured that Francis Drake was sent by Queen Elizabeth to harvest the water in an attempt to use it as a sort of weapon, and abandoned his mission before lying to her, and now Marlowe wants to use this stuff as a weapon for domination I guess. Eventually Marlowe dies in a sinkhole (taking Nathan's ring with her) and her henchman, Talbot, is defeated in a fight on top of the sinking city. Of course, he dies and Nathan/Sully meet up with Salim again and leave the sinking city. Some time later, Nathan and Sully meet up with Elena, Nathan puts on a wedding ring on Elena's finger again and they all ride off happy. Again, there are certain parts I like about this story with trying to give Nathan as a character more depth with a look at his childhood, giving off an aura of mystery. But I also feel like the whole strained relationship and the section where Nathan chases after Ramses is tiring and either not interesting or a waste of time story wise. That being said, I do like everything else it brings to the table and whereas it may not be as interesting as Uncharted 2's plot was, it was still good enough to personally keep my attention the whole way through. Also they didn't include mutant creatures this time thank christ, instead they're replaced by hallucinogenic Djinn creatures, though this I don't really remember anything about them in game so I don't know how better off that is.
This leads to the final part: Art/Sound/Graphics. Graphically at that point it was the best looking as it had ever been and mixed in with the art direction to go more "sandey" and as a result more hostile and threatening personally. The characters look even better and as the series progresses of course the graphics will look better as a result, and the environmental effects are great as well with little details like shooting the ground making the sand pop up into little clouds. The sound design is great as well and as always the voice actors/actresses in these games are amazing and pull of their work well.
I guess to finish it off, Uncharted 3 improves a lot of things from the second game one hundred percent. I definitely appreciate the gameplay changes, though I also feel it's less memorable than the second game and even the first game to an extent. I'll be honest relying off of memory to recount the game's plot was especially tough so I had to read up on the game's wiki and wikipedia even more than I did the last two games and to me that's kind of disappointing. But at the same time, the game is definitely worthy of closing out the original trilogy of the series, and is also worthy of getting played and I'm gonna say it again: PORTED TO PC. Everyone should be able to play the old games, and eventually the PS3/4 will die out sadly; a PC port is a good way to keep accessibility going on forever as well as making money off of it. That being said, emulators are good too. I guess to finish off the review, I'll post two clips of memorable things. One is a glitch I encountered playing on Crushing mode where I had a laugh, and the other one is a Subway Ad that was interesting for it's time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs5P4TWr7Sg&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDH140dLq5M&ab_channel=Cregan4584
I’ve always been a defender of Uncharted 3 but now that I’ve replayed it I don’t know what the hell I was on. The story isn't good, the entire middle section of the game was a slog, and it’s a lot jankier than 2. I still think the gunplay is better than 2 and I like Nate and Sully’s relationship, but that isn’t enough. The set pieces are pretty cool, but there’s barely anything connecting most of them.
story aside, this is my favourite so far. the game itself plays better, and improved upon all the short comings of 2, with even bigger set pieces somehow. but the story is so all over the place, kinda takes away from it all.
8.5/10
8.5/10
The biggest improvement this game made was way more Sully, something 2 lacked
Is everything in this game made of styrofoam? Because every time you grab onto something it breaks like a fucking Jenga tower.
A step back from the 2nd game in a lot of ways, but still manages to be pretty great regardless due to even more development to Nathan's character and a really cool story concept, plus very refined gunplay and melee combat.
In the last 11 years I played this game at least 7x and in none of those cases the final quick time event boss glitched and looped the sequences forever. I played the fight for 30+ minutes, restarted the checkpoint at least 20x and restarted it even from the main menu but nothing. This piece of trash is an infinite hell where I'm trapped with the worst, most non-existent character ever, Talbot. What the fuck even is a Talbot? FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU I can't get my hard trophy because of this shit and I can't have a full experience again video games worst medium I'm so done FUCK YOU again.
Edit: So I just had to push them buttons faster, huh? Score slightly better than Drake's Fortune only because it doesn't have something so immensely stupid as the jetski sequence.
Edit: So I just had to push them buttons faster, huh? Score slightly better than Drake's Fortune only because it doesn't have something so immensely stupid as the jetski sequence.