Okay Geek Farm
PS3 - Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception review
Alex Tretrop
Uncharted 2 had a profound impact on the way we view games on the PS3. Undoubtedly becoming one of Sony’s flagship titles based almost solely on this single game’s excellence, Uncharted 2 used it’s excellent visuals and amazing setpieces to really impress gamers and leaving one extremely long lasting impression. Now, it’s time for Uncharted 3 and this time it’s very much an iterative installment as opposed to the sweeping changes in the second. You’ve still got the great gameplay, movie style setpieces and witty banter that makes the series great but, alongside some general gameplay issues, it doesn’t leave you with the shock and awe that the second game so brillantly captured.
Story
Drake just can’t catch a break can he? This time, Drake’s Deception actually takes a more personal turn for the series, primarily focusing on the origins of Sully, Nate and the ring that he always carries around his neck. Apparently, this ring holds one of the secrets of great explorer Sir Francis Drake and both Nate and new villaness Katherine Marlowe are bound to aquire what could be their biggest treasure trove yet.
There are quite a few ups and downs in the story but perhaps the most striking are, just like the previous games, the characters themselves. Just as in the last game, the well written dialogue really shines here and it’s delivered by an excellent cast of more or less the same core characters that you loved in Uncharted 2. The one new addition to Drake’s misfit group of treasure hunters also stands out as a particularly brutish yet surprisingly educated character who does have some of the best lines for the time he sticks around.
Perhaps the most interesting reason to play through the story is the aforementioned development of Nate and Sully’s relationship, getting to experience their original meeting and how they became fast friends. The well written, believable dialogue and banter between all the characters are still strewn about each and every mission, with most of it complementing the completely bonkers setpieces the game has going for it by providing a nice amount of depth to the characters while still poking fun at it’s action movie stylings.
“Woah, lady! Take the ring, just don’t hurt my face.”There are a few problems that can be seen however, particularly with the primary antagonist Catherine Marlowe and her assitant Talbot. While its excellent that we have a strongly characterized female antagonist, with clear goals in mind and a very different personality from other antagonists in the previous Uncharted games because she never really engages in combat, instead preffering to be the overlord of the entire project. As such, I don’t think we saw her as much as we should have and as the game progresses the primary antagonist is almost taken over by Talbot and while he appears quite a bit, I was never interested in his character as he seemed to have little backstory development and ended up being nothing more than a higher ranking henchmen in my eyes. I think the idea of Marlowe as the brooding puppetmaster of an army could have worked, if it felt like she was always pulling the strings but the majority of the time she’s absent from key scenes and Talbot takes her place.
Ironically, of course it’s essentially the opposite for the other characters. Similar to something out of an Indianna Jones movie, familiar characters come and go but the game’s determined focus on the development of Sully and Drake mean that the majority of the story development, which centers around both of them, makes for a surprisingly more personal story for the Uncharted series and it’s a nice change of pace from the first two. Of course, that isn’t to say that there isn’t some cursed treasure to be found, but it provides a nice backround to flesh out the overall globe trotting treasure hunt.
Overall, it’s an effective ride all the way through, with a welcome addition of a more personal story. The characters are still brought to life extremely well through the exccellent writing and while the less effective villains are dissapointing in this installment, the story as a whole doesn’t really suffer.
Gameplay
In all honesty, the gameplay is something that really hasn’t changed that much at all. It’s still a fast moving third person shooter that is extremely good at making you feel extremely nimble while giving you the chance to slow down and line up your shots when you need to. There are a few smart improvements made here, such as being able to throw back grenades and a sprint button but otherwise your still playing the same formula that still works well in this installment.
Now, with the train mission in Uncharted 2 being perhaps the biggest setpiece graphically and gameplay wise on the PS3, Uncharted 3 attempts to topple it by putting in an absolutely enourmous number of them that literally make the train look like child’s play in what’s accomplished here. The plane, boat and chateau scenes all come to mind as something that shakes up gameplay in a traditional sense and gives you something much different to play here, from Uncharted’s interesting attempt at vertical combat to an almost Inception feeling level where your shooting left, right, up and down as you attempt to survive. The game smartly avoids too much use of quick time events and focuses on giving you control on how you progress, even if the game is very strictly down a linear path. One of Uncharted 3’s largest strengths is being extremely good at making you feel like your in control at all times, even when they need to show off some of the best scripted moments that the game’s got.
But with everything exploding around you, the majority of the shooting will be found in the competitve and cooperative multiplayer modes. In competitive, the guns still feel tight enough to make the game enjoyable enough to play against friends and the ability to scale walls quickly adds a nice amount of verticality to this fast moving experience.
“Looks like it’s just you and me again, eh Sully?”What should be commended here however is the design of the levels as they all offer some unique ideas that contribute to exciting multiplayer experiences. There’s an airport level that begins with one team on a plane and the others on trucks chasing it. Halfway through, the plane takes off and each team heads to an entirely new, stationary level for the rest of the game. Along with others such as a desert level that has regular sandstorms imparing your vision or a level desigined in the same vein as the train mission of Uncharted 2, they provide interesting ideas that work for the most part. The only major problem with these is during a level with some sort of transition, if your in the middle of a skirimish with the other team and the countdown to switch areas hits zero, it plays a short animation to transition into that area, which can screw your team out of a bunch of kills if that grenade you through was going to explode one second later. The indication given for these transitions is nothing more than about 3 seconds warning and when a team has the potential of losing a few kills, it would have been a much better idea to give people a much earlier notice.
Finally, another excellent addition here is the larger, more entertaining cooperative missions, which combine a wave based survival mode with a nice self contained story that’s quick and effective at establishing it’s plot and letting you have a blast at getting through all six of them with your friends.
But, returning to the campaign for a few moments, Uncharted 3’s AI are some of the most frustrating yet. As you can probably expect, the enemies travel in large groups and are extremely good at what they do. On normal you’ll repeadetly find yourself dying to the hail of gunfire hitting your bulletridden body while your attempts to fire back will be gobbled up by enemies who, I can only assume, are made up of some form of sponge. Especially as you get further along into the game, impractical weapons are given to deal with some of the baddies who can take almost three full clips to take down. And when they snipe you with their shotgun at long range, it’s pretty easy just to give up right then and there. This is irritatingly complemented by the fact that Stealth is effectively useless in this game. Whereas Uncharted 2 had an entire mission revolving around it, in Uncharted 3 there is always two guards right next to the door you’re supposed to get through who cannot be avoided. Even if you kill both of them with a grenade, the alarm will still get pulled by some form of angry poltergeist who wants you to suffer through a dozen more cheap and unfair enemy compositions. It’s insanely contrived and one of the main reasons why some will give up as they make their way through the story.
Visuals / Audio
As Sony’s flagship series for the PS3, Uncharted 3 looks as excellent as you expect it to. The amount of locales you visit are varied and plentiful, this time however with a more deserty and Arabian focus. The aforementioned big setpieces all still look brilliant and, while I don’t wish to spoil anything, it’s pretty obvious that things explode and come apart extremely well in this game and most of the time, it’s even more effective than the last game’s crazy great looking antics.
Being that this is an Uncharted game, audio is also top notch. The main characters are all excellently voiced and the actors really put some great emotion in the characters this time around. You’ll see a lot more characters come and go in this installment and it’s really great that such a diverse cast is so well represented here. The guns and explosions also sound good too, even if the regular carbon copy badguys still all sound the same after three installments. Music wise, most of the music feels like something out of Indianna Jones, especialy the new theme music. The only thing is you probably won’t hear most of it since the game has so much dialogue and explosions that you won’t pay attention to it whatsoever.
Final Thoughts
Uncharted 3 is an evolution of the franchise and not a revolution like the second game was. Everything you’ve got here still works and still feels like Uncharted: a great story, excellent characters and voice work and a fast paced vertical style of gameplay all come together to create more of the stuff that made the last game so enjoyable. Throw in even more bonkers setpieces and Uncharted 3 is still a great game but one that stumbles over it’s irritating enemies, occasionally annoying competitve multiplayer and a villain who felt a little too underdeveloped.
Pro’s
- An excellent, more personnal story
- Great voice acting and characters
- Incredible graphics and explosions
Con’s
- Extremely frustrating enemies
- Less effective villain then previous installments
- Some badly designed competive multiplayer aspects
All in all, this felt like Uncharted’s make or break game for me. While it’s still a perfectly good game, the increased number of frustrating third person shooter parts shows how bland Uncharted really is without an incresing number of explosions to keep it afloat. I really hope Naughty Dog does something drastically different with whatever they produce next, or they’ll risk creating something that just isn’t exciting to the masses anymore.
