Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
In some ways this has been a strange generation. Normally you judge a system’s strength by its exclusives. This time though besides the Wii neither has had a long list of exclusives even though they have been out for almost five years each.
Most judge the systems by its features. Whether you prefer the additional features Xbox live offers over the free service PSN does, whether you prefer trophies or achievements, etc. I definitely in the Xbox camp but there is one Playstation series which excites me and validates my PS3 as a game machine. That is the Uncharted series.
Gorgeous visuals, brilliant voice acting and cutscenes, likeable characters, solid platforming, intelligent puzzles and fantastic set pieces are all what makes the series great.
Uncharted 3 has all this and that alone deserves your attention. However it is stuck in the middle of one of the busiest Christmas rushes to date. Uncharted 3 holds its own but only just.
What lets Uncharted 3 down is the series’ weak point, the gunplay. It just isn’t as satisfying as other third person cover based shooters. Your bullets never seem to hit your crosshairs right and there is terribly inconsistent hit detection. Sometimes a single bullet will bring down an enemy, other times it takes an entire clip. They may fix this in a patch but surely after 3 games Naughty Dog would have this right first time.
But what they can’t fix is the repetition. Your enemies lack variation. Armoured brutes are your only other target than the same generic enemies. And the AI is ridiculous. Often in the middle of a fire fight enemies will charge straight at you and try to punch you to death, rather than shoot a machine gun at you.
Instead of the player having the power to choose how to beat an opponent, the option is usually forced upon you. This can get really annoying when you are trying to get the “defeat a certain number of enemies in a row by shooting” trophies and you keep getting engaged in fist fights. Or say a group of enemies are shooting at you and you can’t get free of a fight to save yourself.
And there is so much of it. The game has some nice puzzles to break up the monotony of the gunplay but there aren’t enough of them. There is a lovely puzzle involving casting shadows on a wall to create a shape, there should have been more of this kind of stuff instead of constant gunplay, particularly towards the end.
Speaking of the end it feels a little rushed and it just happens. The story starts of well, delving into the history of Drake and his relationship with Sully. There is a nice reveal about Drake’s past and then after that nothing. Perhaps Uncharted 4 will flesh that out a bit, but I was disappointed that it didn’t go anywhere.
Uncharted 3 starts off rather well. There are some exciting set pieces and pretty smart puzzles. It feels like it is going somewhere but in the end it doesn’t. By focusing on the not so great gunplay what you get is a disappointing game by the series already pretty high standards.
Given the number of quality titles out around the same time you’d be forgiven for waiting a while and seeing if the price drops. However you should still give this a go when you have the time for it.
8/10
Most judge the systems by its features. Whether you prefer the additional features Xbox live offers over the free service PSN does, whether you prefer trophies or achievements, etc. I definitely in the Xbox camp but there is one Playstation series which excites me and validates my PS3 as a game machine. That is the Uncharted series.
Gorgeous visuals, brilliant voice acting and cutscenes, likeable characters, solid platforming, intelligent puzzles and fantastic set pieces are all what makes the series great.
Uncharted 3 has all this and that alone deserves your attention. However it is stuck in the middle of one of the busiest Christmas rushes to date. Uncharted 3 holds its own but only just.
What lets Uncharted 3 down is the series’ weak point, the gunplay. It just isn’t as satisfying as other third person cover based shooters. Your bullets never seem to hit your crosshairs right and there is terribly inconsistent hit detection. Sometimes a single bullet will bring down an enemy, other times it takes an entire clip. They may fix this in a patch but surely after 3 games Naughty Dog would have this right first time.
But what they can’t fix is the repetition. Your enemies lack variation. Armoured brutes are your only other target than the same generic enemies. And the AI is ridiculous. Often in the middle of a fire fight enemies will charge straight at you and try to punch you to death, rather than shoot a machine gun at you.
Instead of the player having the power to choose how to beat an opponent, the option is usually forced upon you. This can get really annoying when you are trying to get the “defeat a certain number of enemies in a row by shooting” trophies and you keep getting engaged in fist fights. Or say a group of enemies are shooting at you and you can’t get free of a fight to save yourself.
And there is so much of it. The game has some nice puzzles to break up the monotony of the gunplay but there aren’t enough of them. There is a lovely puzzle involving casting shadows on a wall to create a shape, there should have been more of this kind of stuff instead of constant gunplay, particularly towards the end.
Speaking of the end it feels a little rushed and it just happens. The story starts of well, delving into the history of Drake and his relationship with Sully. There is a nice reveal about Drake’s past and then after that nothing. Perhaps Uncharted 4 will flesh that out a bit, but I was disappointed that it didn’t go anywhere.
Uncharted 3 starts off rather well. There are some exciting set pieces and pretty smart puzzles. It feels like it is going somewhere but in the end it doesn’t. By focusing on the not so great gunplay what you get is a disappointing game by the series already pretty high standards.
Given the number of quality titles out around the same time you’d be forgiven for waiting a while and seeing if the price drops. However you should still give this a go when you have the time for it.
8/10
posted by Master hunter at 5:30 pm
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