I got my copy today thanks to broken street dates. I played till chapter 10, which took about 4-5 hours.

I got my copy today thanks to broken street dates. I played till chapter 10, which took about 4-5 hours.

I was a little worried at first until you admitted that you felt near enough the same way about Uncharted 2 :P. I can understand the criticisms thrown towards Uncharted 3's highly scripted nature; it can bestow the feeling of lacking any sort of input that matters and is almost a strong representative of where the majority of games tend to leading. Fortunately I still really liked Uncharted 2 across all aspects, including the shooting--which I've always enjoyed more than, say, Gears of War because of its fast and fluid design--and the scripted set-pieces. I've completed both prior Uncharteds multiple times and I'll more than likely give Uncharted 3 a similar degree of attention--though maybe not as much after hearing that all of the SP cheats, mods and doodads have been removed for ''technical'' reasons.

I do feel that Uncharted's formula has hit its peak (without having played Uncharted 3 yet) and if ND (or whoever, if ND retire their control over the series) released yet another game near enough like U2/U3 just with some more shiny coated over, it would take its toll on even the most dedicated critics. I will also admit I am so goddamn bored of Nathan Drake as a character and I'm looking forward to U3 primarily because of its multiplayer package. But non-the-less, it's gratifying to hear more that this delivers on the same quality as Uncharted 2 did before it--whether of course that's marked as good news is completely subjective, but for me this means I'll find my preorder well worth my paying for.

For some reason, i'm just not as hyped for this game as i thought i would be at this point. 
 
I watched a walkthrough online up until about chapter 6 i think it was and i walked away like "meh" It didn't really leave me wanting more although im sure it's a good game and i'm sure i'll like it
 
When i watched a few batman: Arkham City streams the weekend before release, i regretted it because everything i saw just kept me engaged and i pretty much watched the whole story unfold beginning to end before i even had a chance to play the game, and even when i did i still loved every minute of it. 
 
I dunno if its some kind of franchise fatigue or what but I'm not on the edge of my seat waiting for tuesday to roll around
 
A few things that bug me about this game tho....
 
1) no cheats :( 
 
2) I hate the new movement animations they used. They're meant to look more dynamic but from everything i've seen it makes the game look more "video-gamey"  I hate the "touch every wall i pass by/get close to" animation and i hate the lil "hop-skip" movement they use when you move sideways rather than just a regular pivot and turn. Yeah, they're things that people really do but to see it happen ALL THE TIME is just jarring. Especially the wall touch thing cuz from a lot of the videos i've seen, he does it and half the time he isn't even touch the wall so it looks super janky. If they happened everyone once in a while like say when ur walking slowly or go from standing still into a running motion then it would feel more authentic to me. 
 
3) Elena and Chloe look worse than they did in Uncharted 2. Sully looks pretty much the same and drake (of course) looks better. But why they tweaked Elena and Chloe so much i'll never understand. Elena looked fine as it was. For Chloe all they needed to do was get rid of the glass eyes.

@hbkdx12: I'm kinda the same. I'm most certainly looking forward for U3 to roll along, but this doesn't nearly match the anticipation that U2 instilled. Most could be said because I've played a lot of both multiplayer betas, and the competitive multiplayer ironically enough is where my anticipation was drawn towards. Even though there's only be one Uncharted game like this--since Drakes Fortune really is so much more subdued in comparison to 2 it probably doesn't even count--it's weird to find yourself already feeling a little tired with the series. Hopefully the next Uncharted game (ignoring Abyss) will spice up things--and I mean radically. I've already posted this elsewhere, so I'll just copy & Paste what I'd love for the franchise to at least attempt. <3

What I've always envisioned is to have a prequel featuring Sully during his younger years, though even with Sully's newly introduced rigor, instead of shooting/platforming it would feature Adventure game elements like Sully traversing towns, talking, scamming people, filtering for information for a new job and in general a lot of activities that would show off Sully at his sleaziest. Stealth could factor into things as well as Sully commits heists and such.

All that in a what I'd picture being the 60s or 70s could be fantastic. A wholly different kind of game from what the franchise is known for, but at this point a little change is exactly what I'd want if Uncharted is to continue further.

I feel your mourning over the lack of any cheats and modifiers, too. =( I'm also glad I'm not the only one who thinks Elena looks almost like a completely different person... I remember during the summer beta she even had grey hair and I didn't recognise her at all during the Syria coop mission. Chloe from what I saw looks different, too, but not to the extremes of Elena I wouldn't say. She looks terrible in the multiplayer, but, frankly, so does everyone else.

@Oni: How is ze multiplayer?

Heh...It seems to be a common problem, but I've honestly never noticed anything wrong with the actual shooting mechanics in Uncharted. Feels the same as any other third person shooter to me =/

Street date has been broken here in the Netherlands as well. Played a couple of hours yesterday and I dunno... it's still Uncharted but the controls seems a bit loose. Perhaps this was the case in Among Thieves as well, but it has been quite some time since I played that game.

@Revan_NL: Yeah I know, fellow Dutchman here :)

@hbkdx12: I think you nailed it, it's a case of familiarity breeds contempt. There is literally nothing Uncharted 3 does that 2 didn't do before it. Sure the melee's a bit better, but just coming off of Arkham City it still feels kind of clunky. In terms of moment to moment gameplay or the experience as a whole, UC3 does exactly the same things as its predecessor. Which for me was fine with UC2 because there wasn't really anything like that at the time, but now they're repeating the exact same tricks I'm less distracted by how good it all looks and focusing more on the average gameplay. With Assassin's Creed I felt like every one of those games played well and was fun, especially from 2 onwards, and it's still a pretty unique franchise, so it doesn't really grate. Third person cover based shooter, not so unique.