Uncharted 3

Editor rating

8.0

Written by James Hall November 15, 2011 0Add

Uncharted 3

Off the map.

It's fair to say that Naughty Dog really like sequels. And once they develop a game for a platform, you can expect pretty much nothing but sequels to that game for the rest of the console's lifespan. ND brought us three (numbered) Crash Bandicoot games before handing the reins to other developers when the PS2 came around. We then got three (numbered) Jak and Daxter games before the PS3 came along. And now, we're on to our third Uncharted title. There's a pattern here, though we probably shouldn't expect to see an Uncharted combat racing any time soon...

So, Uncharted 3. Given the phenomenal critical and consumer success of Uncharted 2, it has a lot to live up to. But does it do so? The answer, crushingly, is not quite. But don't get too upset about that: just because UC3 isn't quite as good as its predecessor, it's by no means a bad game.

The problem begins, unexpectedly, with the story: it just isn't very interesting. Whilst previous games have had Drake chasing down the lost treasure of El Dorado, trekking through Nepal to find the lost city of Shambala, and now we're whisked to the deserts of Arabia to find the 'Atlantis of the Sands'. The globe-trotting setting starts out on the rainy backstreets of London, spanning Syria, France, Columbia, and of course the Rub'Al'Khali desert itself. That all sounds fine, but the reasons for undergoing the voyage are largely unclear - basically all boiling down to 'because Drake wants to.' And naturally, Nathan drags along father-figure Sully with him. Uncharted 3 makes a good go of exploring Nate's relationship with Sully, even including a flashback to their first ever meeting, and its here where the game's writing is at its strongest, establishing their relationship quickly but solidly then building on it for the rest of the game. The only disappointment is that other Uncharted characters are pretty much relegated to supporting roles, and the villains of the piece - enigmatic Helen Mirren lookalike Marlowe and sidekick Talbot - spend too much time running away and acting sinister than they do actually being villainous.

The other issue is down to game balance, and its here where I found Uncharted 3 to be at its most frustrating. For me, Uncharted is at its best when it comes to exploration and puzzle-solving. Naughty Dog must have a team of fiendish minds, because the ancient, Tomb Raider-alike puzzle sections are as taxing as anything Lara has ever faced, and often showcase a wonderful flair for dramatic imagery. But the combination of hunting through Drake's diary and exploring the gorgeous detailed environments is one that never gets a chance to get old in Uncharted 3, where the emphasis is firmly on the action - there are a mere handful of puzzles in the entire game, perhaps only a fifth of the game, whilst three fifths of the 8 hour or so campaign length devoted to shooting people through various cinematic set-pieces. The final fifth is generally spent falling off things and clambering back up them before you die.

But what set-pieces they are, the action segments. Okay, so the first few shoot-outs in London and France aren't all that inspiring, but they're merely there to lull you into a false sense of security for when things go crazy. And they do - within the space of a couple of hours you're dodging rockets in a Syrian castle, battling through a bobbing ship graveyard infested with pirates (modern Somalian-esque ones, not the 'yarr!' variety), desperately hopping from crumbling wall to crumbling wall in a desert, and, in the game's finest moment, mounting a horseback assault on a convoy. Each is presented with an almost casual flair, cinematically perfect and certainly memorable, if linear in design. And Uncharted 3's linearity *is* a problem. Rarely, if ever, are there multiple routes through an environment, and never is this more apparent than during the several 'escape' sequences, in which Nate must jump, dodge, and duck his way through hazards whilst escaping something, be it a burning house, a flooding ship, or a crumbling ancient city. Some even include unwise into-the-screen sections, too, in which failure leads to you simply having to memorize the route for your second attempt, effectively becoming extended QTE's, but even the main environments which appear free to explore only have a single path.

The trouble with the action sections is that, as a third-person shooter, Uncharted is competent, but not exceptional. The success of the first two games lay in blending action, exploration, and puzzle solving with charismatic characters and great storylines; with the focus this time squarely on action, the flaws become more apparent: the cover system, whilst robust, isn't quite as intuitive as that of Gears of War, where the single button and helpful on-screen indicators make darting between and around cover easy. The enemies, whilst fairly smart, are the same throughout the game- assault-rifle and shotgun-toting military types, some with armour, some without, and whilst their clothes change their tactics never do, only the environments in which you fight them. Even the usually slick melee combat feels cumbersome here, thanks to the fact that enemies will not only continue to pump semi-automatic fire into you whilst you're fist-fighting an enemy, but they'll also continue to hurl grenades at you and blow you up with rocket launchers even if it means killing their allies - which can make taking a foe on in melee a frustrating prospect to say the least. Especially when checkpoints tend to start you in random places - on some occasions restarting me crouched behind a wall I hadn't even seen.

The broad multiplayer offerings skirt around all of these issues, though, since you'll be fighting other players across a wide variety of game modes where the levels are large amd expansive and where you don't have to worry about silly little things like frustrating AI and linear design. All of Uncharted 2's game modes and weapons retun, but there's pleny more on offer as well, including fully customisable characters, a co-op last stand / horde mode, and a surprise highlight in the form of objective-based, fully voice acted co-op levels where up to three players take on the roles of Drake, Sully and Cutter in story-driven missions, which even boast their own cutscenes. Naturally these don't have the same care and attention lavished on their single player counterparts, and have to make do with the considerably less detailed multiplayer character models, but that they exist at all is a superb addition to the game. That you can player them in 2-player split-screen is even more laudible, though you'll have to make do with a Resident Evil 5-style tiny window for each player.

I've touched already on the majesty of the visuals, but it bears repeating: Uncharted 3 looks magnificent. The scale of the environments and Naughty Dog's attention to detail are what make it; subtle animation cues, gorgeous water effects and stunningly detailed character models - especially in cutscenes, but in game too - make UC3 probably the best looking game on the PS3, though it's clear at times that ND is pushing the machine to its limits. Still, to have achieved so much graphical fidelity without even any kind of install and spectacularly brief loading times (main menu aside) is certainly worthy of praise. Veteran composer Greg Edmonson returns to provide the stirring orchestral soundtrack, and once again it's the wonderfully nuanced performances of the ever-reliable Nolan North, Richard McGonagle, Emily Rose and Claudia Black who are the stars of the show, though Brit Graham MacTavish puts in a fine performance as newcomer Cutter, and Robin Atkin-Downes chews through Talbot's dialogue with considerable aplomb, even if his character doesn't get to do a lot except run away.

Written by :

James Hall

Editor review

Uncharted 3 2011-11-15 12:46:10 James Hall

Overall rating		8.0
Graphics		10.0
Sound		9.0
Gameplay		8.0
Lifespan		8.0
Overall		8.0

Reviewed by James Hall November 15, 2011

Off the map.

You might have already noticed that I seem to have spent a great deal of time criticising the game, yet I've given it a high score. Like I said earlier, its not that Uncharted 3 is a bad game by any stretch - by any measure it's a great one. But too many elements feel like missteps from Uncharted 2 that I can't help but express my disappointment, and that's probably what's coming out most in this review. Uncharted 3 is in almost equal measure exceptional, captivating, and frustrating. I highly doubt that UC3 will be Drake's last adventure with Naughty Dog at the helm, but I equally doubt that it will be remembered as his finest.