Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Oh look, more shit to climb on.

STATUS: COMPLETED

RATING: 4/5

I'm going to make this short and sweet, since I'm on my lunch break.

It's a little overdue, but I played through Uncharted 3 a while ago. I'm a huge fan of platformers/adventure games, and the Uncharted series is no exception. While it usually takes me a bit to get used to the shoosting over-the-shoulder combat style, I really enjoy it. Naughty Dog improved on the combat system yet again in this game, focusing more on melee. Even though I didn't play through a ton of it, the melee reminded me a lot of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Drake is throwing and dodging punches, and finishes with a dramatic, slowed down knockout (or kill, since he's clearly a mass murderer at this point) blow.

The platforming felt the same as the other two installments. Don't know where to go? Look at the wall, there's probably some slightly different colored bricks to be used as hand-holds. CLIMB ALL THE THINGS!

I apologize for not remembering a ton of the story details, as I played and finished this game very close to it's release in November. It's been a while... Maybe part of the reason for that, other than my truly awful memory, is that the story just didn't grip me as much as Uncharted 2's story did. In that game there was all the adventure (duh), drama (both romantic and not), and the intensity of the journey Drake goes through to find his treasure. This title HAD the adventure, and a little bit of the drama, and yeah the intensity, but it seemed to be lacking something. I will admit that the desert part where Drake kinda loses his marbles was pretty cool, but I wasn't as into it. I honestly think that, and one other part (which I won't go into, for spoilers sake) were the only real parts of the game where I was thinking "oh god, this shit is crazy."

Once again, the graphics, and imagery in the game were stunning. The artists should probably get a medal, or at least a gold star. The environments and the characters were VERY well done. They even fixed Chloe's terrifying eyes. (Her eyes looked super weird, like she was some scary demon trying to suck your soul out.)

I'm running out of time on my lunch, so I think I'm done for now. All in all, I really did enjoy this game, I just think that Uncharted 2 was the best out of the trilogy.

TL;DR - Great, beautiful game, but not as strong as 2.

-KT