Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception review
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Review
When Naughty Dog released Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in 2009, it raised the bar for the action/adventure genre and console games in general. Now, two years later, can they set standards even higher with Nathan Drake’s third outing, Uncharted 3 Drakes Deception?
Single Player
Uncharted 2 had a great story that really touched your soul, from with conflicting love interests, to a small walk through a Tibetan village and a companion that doesn’t speak your language, making communication hard. In this game the doesn’t focus on these soulful actions, but has you thinking why Nathan does the things he does and if they are even worth it. The game also deepens the relationship between Drake and his friends, and Sully in Particular
From the moment you press play, Uncharted 3 is a very cinematic experience. The game starts you and Sully off in London with a pub brawl, after which you meet the villainess, Katherine Marlow, an ice cold woman much more sinister than the maniacal warlords Drake has fought before. She wants Sir Francis Drake’s ring from Nathan, to travel in the footsteps of Francis and to find something he has left behind. In return Nathan wants something Marlowe has and make the same journey.
This journey takes you to different places in the world, a chateau in France, the Yemen dessert, boat rocking in meters high waves (causing Nate to stumble) and more. These set pieces are beautiful to explore and the vista’s you encounter will certainly strike your eye.
The aforementioned pub fight immediately introduces you to the new melee system the game has Incorporated. The melee combat has you fighting your foes with more animations and a dodge and grapple mechanic. Watching Drake slamming a thugs head on a pool table or beating it up with a frying pan is very gratifying.
The shooting and climbing part haven’t changed to much, but are refined. Where in the previous Uncharted games you moved from shootout area to area, now the enemies are everywhere, raising your heartbeat even when when in between these area’s. The same goes for the climbing sequences, where there are more cinematic events given it more meaning than a simple “Oh I need to get from here to here” vibe Drake has given you in his previous iterations. The French chateau in particular, having you hanging on a burning wall, shooting the enemies and try to flee the fire “eating up” and crumbling the house. Occasionally you’ll find enemies soaking up bullets, but that mostly means you have the wrong gun pointed at them.
A single play through will last you around eight to ten hours depending on the difficulty you choose. That is without the exploring for hidden treasures around the levels. Snagging up all 101 can certainly prolong you time with 2 hours. And though the meat is in Uncharted’s single player, you are not done yet as there is also a multi player mode.
Multiplayer
The multi player is broken up in two parts, co-op and competitive. What these two have in common is the cinematic experience. For instance, one competitive map starts you on a moving plane or cars attacking this plane. after a minute or two the plane takes-off moving you and your team to an entirely different part of the map. Or another map with a sandstorm rolling in, limiting your view. Another thing that makes the Uncharted’s multi player stand out of the rest is the vertical design of the levels, allowing you to climb up rooftops, hang from ledges and moving down on a zip line. This lets you move quickly from one point of the map to another, but also leaves you exposed.
There is a shared progression system between co-op and competitive and although this system may not be as deep as you know from other games, playing a game always feels rewarding. Even when you have a not so good match, you’ll feel good, because the game rewards you for almost literally anything you do with medals. Not anly give these medals cash (your in game xp) but when you have enough of in a match, they will unlock kickback, like spawning an RPG in your hands, give you an unlimited clip size for thirty seconds or even have you transforming into a swarm of bugs to attack your enemies with
Conclusion
Maybe it’s not fair to expect Uncharted 3 to be even better than it’s predecessor and Naughty Dog understands that. The story has a slight change in dynamics giving you other emotions with Nate and his friends being on the hunt for treasure yet again. Gameplay-wise there isn’t much different, but the shooting and traversal are better integrated with each other resulting in a better flow of the action. The part were Uncharted 3 certainly has improved, is the multi-player, bringing the cinematic single-player experience to the online component.
So, Uncharted 3 has certainly improved over the previous iteration and that is a feat on it’s own, but this game gives you a marvelous experience that you simply can’t find anywhere else!
NewDust
