Uncharted 3 was the disappointment of the year.

If you didn’t agree with that sentence you probably won’t like this next one either.

The game feels, in virtually every aspect, broken. Not unplayable – rather, extremely flawed in an entirely correctable way, like a broken toy you know you could fix. These next few entries will be dedicated to reimagining Uncharted 3 piece by piece. We’ll start with the story, move onto the general feel and flow of the single-player side of the game, and then finish with a look at the multiplayer (actually the game’s strong suit, with only a few nagging issues).

Just a quick bit of background before we begin.

Uncharted 2 was easily the best game to come out of 2009. It ranks as a champion of design, a truly great experience with broad appeal and excellent execution. The original title doesn’t quite reach the same highs, but it’s still a fun adventure, easy to play and thoroughly entertaining.

I’m sure you can guess my feelings on the 3 game. But this entry won’t be a review and neither will the others. As such, much of this series will consist of negativity and sharp critiques with only some mitigation. If something works, I won’t hesitate to point it out, but I wouldn’t begin by calling a product “broken” if there wasn’t much room for improvement. I welcome any feedback you have, but keep in mind the tone here will stay mainly negative.

The Story

The biggest failing with this game is its story. Uncharted, as a series, enjoys a just reputation as the forefront of videogame storytelling. Each of the two previous titles had really entertaining tales told by a sharp script that still made room for necessary videogame mechanics. Their plots, while not infallible, largely held together, and propelled the action nicely.

Drake’s Deception has a descent start followed by a rapid descent into utter foolishness and a long series of convenient coincidences. This section will start by outlining a few overarching theme and plot-points, examining how they are constructed within the title and how they could be improved. Then we’ll move on to specific sections of the story that need overhaul, concluding with a new outline of an updated Uncharted 3. Wherever possible, we’ll stick to the plot already established; changes will try to incorporate the set-pieces and major story beats currently presented.

Also, as a quick note, these revisions obviously reflect my personal preference for Naughty Dog’s characters. The flaws in the narrative should be apparent to any observer even if they disagree with my solutions. I don’t mean to explain how it “should be” written out of hubris but rather out of necessity. I feel it’s important to provide some answers to the problems we raise with products – otherwise we’re just complaining for the sake of being bitter.

Part 1: Themes and Plots

Sully and Drake

Sully and Drake’s bond is probably the closest Uncharted 3 has to a complete and well told plot thread. The beginning of the game does an excellent job of building on the connection the par have for each other. Background dialogue and quick one-line jokes or explanations further this rather well. It’s failing comes from the lack of real power to the conclusion. With the exception of a brief speech by Sully and a few shouts by Drake, we never really saw either of these two people go to the extreme for the other. Yes, Drake jumped in the water, and yes, Sully killed a dude to save a child. Each of these demonstrates dedication, but on a scale we’ve all seen before in previous adventures. Drake’s Deception really needed to go above and beyond, have someone cross a line or truly sacrifice for the other to cement the father-son connection.

We’ll keep this plot-line in mind as we move forward, repurposing other elements of the plot as needed. This will also help us focus the narrative; as it currently stands, Drake’s Deception is basically the same story and Among Thieves. By making the Drake-Sully bond really the core of the experience and continually expanding on it as the game progresses (culminating in something grander than a quick swim and a short speech), Uncharted 3 can come into its own as a unique entry into the series.

The Spiders

This is probably the most prominent example of an abandoned plot thread. Early on, the game transcribes much significance to these creepy-crawlers. One is seen all cut open in the underground, they keep reappearing in each crypt, and characters always mention them as one untied entity, contiguously calling the players attention to these guys as a major player in the narrative. Ultimately this amounts to nothing. I think it was implied that Marlow used the venom as part of her mind-control serum and the spiders were actually the Djinn. If I’m right, neither of these two points were made explicit enough to count as closure. If I’m wrong, than the repeated importance of the spiders truly went nowhere. Let’s pick the former and expand from there.

In our new Uncharted 3, Marlow’s organization has long used these spiders as a key part of their mind-control serum. Additionally, when properly distilled, the venom actually becomes beneficial, causing advanced recover from seemingly mortal wounds. However, Marlow has begun to run out of her supply. The method of rendering the venom useful has been lost to time (we’ll come back to this). The lady needs a new source. She knows that King Solomon used the venom to acquire a vast amount of power. To the people of his era, ignorant of his ability to distill the venom and repurpose it, his power would have seemed magical – hence the legend. Marlow seeks the sunken bronze vessel, knowing it contains a large supply of the venom and that she’ll be able to reverse engineer the distillation process from the records in Iram of the Pillars.

We’ve now rendered the spiders central to the story and simultaneously explained a series of unanswered mysteries in the original game. The healing properties of the venom (admittedly a stretch, but mitigated by some well-written exchange of disbelief amongst our heroes) will become especially important for the revised ending. Imagine a scenario similar to Last Crusade, in which the McGuffin takes on special last-act importance when its function becomes vital to the survival of a major character.

Marlow and Talbot: Their powers, their organization, and what they want

These two baddies are repeatedly shown to be nearly supernatural in the first half of Drake’s Deception. Talbot survives a fatal wound and disappears into thin air. Marlow makes a cryptic speech and magically plants a tarot card on Charlie. They have that mind-control serum, which they only use twice. As it currently stands, it seems they just forgot about this incredible advantage. You’d think it would be the single most effective weapon ever and they’d pretty much rely on it. Making the venom, the core component, rare explains this – something the base game fails to do. Additionally, it’s established that Marlow is the head of an old and extremely powerful secret society. They have a hidden base and access to advanced technology. There’s a literal army of incredibly well-equipped and trained thugs willing to deploy anywhere around the world on their behalf. Since the story takes great pains to set this all up in its first act, there really should be some follow through on this point.

As mentioned prior, the secret society aspect will take paramount importance now. We could even have Marlow be a bit of a renegade, possibly an illegitimate leader who seized power by force. In the chaos, much of their knowledge was lost, and she now has to go to great pains to regain it. Or not. Either way, we’ll emphasize their covert power and contrast this with Drake’s ragtag nature in our narrative. While Drake make’s his discoveries through ingenuity and luck, Marlow makes hers through force and bribery. This is already kind of in the game, we’ll just bring it out a bit more.

Marlow herself needs to be a bit more sinister. Currently, she essentially shows she’s evil in one scene where she slaps young Drake. For the entire rest of the plot she makes vague threats and menacing nods but does nothing at all. The developers like to discuss how she represents a new kind of villain, one how poses a threat intellectually rather than physically, but she doesn’t really. She’s just an old mean woman who drowns in sand because she can’t jump as well as Drake.

And then there’s Talbot. He’s now a product of the venom, a user in both senses. Talbot uses the venom to set-up the game’s “betrayal” moments and also employs it to heal himself (explaining his odd resistance to bullet wounds). Late game, we’ll repurpose the fistfight to make it more of a traditional final boss encounter, this time against a juiced Talbot who fills his veins with the stuff. We’ll come back to this later when we summarize the new plot.

Drake as a Loner and our Good Friend Charlie

Charlie needs to be in the game more. So does Chloe, for that matter. Elena too, although she at least got to be there at the end. Instead of having these characters disappear for the majority of the narrative, each one should stick with Drake all the way. This contrasts very nicely with his beginnings, highlighting his growth from a lonely street orphan. It also works well in conjunction with Marlow’s society; she has her friends, Drake has his. This subplot starts to write itself, building to a nice crescendo in which each of Drake’s allies shows their support for him and we as a player appreciate how he overcame his origins. “Greatness from small beginnings” – we’ll use that quote here, since Uncharted 3 already seems so fond of it. Plus it makes for a unique ending; a large-scale battle between Drake’s friends and Marlow’s thugs while Drake confronts Talbot, an entirely different climax to the first two games.

Part 2: Specifics

The Yemen Chase

This sequence is exciting, well done, and entirely nonsensical. It starts with a scene that makes no sense whatsoever. Marlow and Talbot drug Drake and bring him to an open courtyard in the middle of a busy market. They threaten him with police intervention while the armed thug they hired for no reason at all sits right beside them, weapons and ammo clearly visible to any passerby. And then they go on to discuss Drake’s past and Iram of the Pillars while that guy is just sitting there. Why did they even hire him? Just get one of the thousand suited British gentlemen you employ to sit menacingly behind Drake. Then you don’t have a well-equipped pirate also looking for the same lost city.

After they say some mean things about Sully and mention they found him, Drake flips a table and runs after Talbot. The chase is off! Except Talbot has literally no reason to be running. He is actively moving away from the burly pirate who wants to help. If Talbot did nothing at all, he and his friend would beat Drake to the ground in just under ten seconds. And it’s not because they fear they police; we’ve already seen how little they care about the local authorities. Only Drake is under any kind of legal threat.

To further add to the pointlessness of it all, the sequence ultimately amounts to nothing. All of the player’s effort goes to waste in a scripted moment that has Drake knocked unconscious from behind, meaning the playable section had no impact on the story whatsoever.

Really, the scene should have gone like this:

Marlow hire pirate guy because he has local connections with the authorities. They are interrogating Drake in a closed room, not in an open street, and he’s tied to a chair. Marlow leaves for some reason (we just need to get her out of the scene) – let’s say to go get Sully, but Talbot stays behind to further integrate Drake. During the conversation, Drake mentions Iram of the Pillars, but pirate guy did not know that was the prize. He gets agitated and threatens Talbot, who – because he’s distracted – doesn’t notice Drake worm his way out of his bonds. When Drake frees himself, Talbot splits, followed closely by pirate man. The rest of the chase plays out as it does in the game except for the end. There’s a three-way brawl in which pirate man emerges triumphant. Drake sees Talbot radioing Marlow while he runs as Drake losses consciousness – he fought off one threat only to succumb to another.

The player’s actions still don’t have real weight to them, but at least it ends on some kind of plot development propelled by the player.

The Boat Sequence

From beginning to end, the entire section of the game taking place on any kind of ship (chapters 12 through 15) is completely without logic or purpose. Everything moves based on unbelievable coincidence and characters behaving in such a stupid manner as to parody reality. Why did they tie Drake up in the wreckage of an old boat located middle of an abandoned ship yard miles away from the pirate flag ship? Why are there hundreds of armed men wandering this metallic graveyard serving no purpose other than videogame bullet sponges? Why do the pirates have a turret placed in the center of an entirely enclosed area facing into territory they call home? Why do they pretend they have Sully captured? Why do they pretend they have Sully captured again when Drake is on the cruise ship? If they want to set a trap for him and eventually recapture him, why do they repeatedly send dozens of men armed with high-explosives to kill him?

This is just the beginning. The lapses in logic only compound as this complete disregard for coherent storytelling continues. Really an entire entry could be made on how foolish this part of the game becomes. I'll end here for now; this is getting a little long for one entry. We'll pick up here in part 2 of our story critique.

Uncharted 3 was the disappointment of the year.

If you didn’t agree with that sentence you probably won’t like this next one either.

The game feels, in virtually every aspect, broken. Not unplayable – rather, extremely flawed in an entirely correctable way, like a broken toy you know you could fix. These next few entries will be dedicated to reimagining Uncharted 3 piece by piece. We’ll start with the story, move onto the general feel and flow of the single-player side of the game, and then finish with a look at the multiplayer (actually the game’s strong suit, with only a few nagging issues).

Just a quick bit of background before we begin.

Uncharted 2 was easily the best game to come out of 2009. It ranks as a champion of design, a truly great experience with broad appeal and excellent execution. The original title doesn’t quite reach the same highs, but it’s still a fun adventure, easy to play and thoroughly entertaining.

I’m sure you can guess my feelings on the 3 game. But this entry won’t be a review and neither will the others. As such, much of this series will consist of negativity and sharp critiques with only some mitigation. If something works, I won’t hesitate to point it out, but I wouldn’t begin by calling a product “broken” if there wasn’t much room for improvement. I welcome any feedback you have, but keep in mind the tone here will stay mainly negative.

The Story

The biggest failing with this game is its story. Uncharted, as a series, enjoys a just reputation as the forefront of videogame storytelling. Each of the two previous titles had really entertaining tales told by a sharp script that still made room for necessary videogame mechanics. Their plots, while not infallible, largely held together, and propelled the action nicely.

Drake’s Deception has a descent start followed by a rapid descent into utter foolishness and a long series of convenient coincidences. This section will start by outlining a few overarching theme and plot-points, examining how they are constructed within the title and how they could be improved. Then we’ll move on to specific sections of the story that need overhaul, concluding with a new outline of an updated Uncharted 3. Wherever possible, we’ll stick to the plot already established; changes will try to incorporate the set-pieces and major story beats currently presented.

Also, as a quick note, these revisions obviously reflect my personal preference for Naughty Dog’s characters. The flaws in the narrative should be apparent to any observer even if they disagree with my solutions. I don’t mean to explain how it “should be” written out of hubris but rather out of necessity. I feel it’s important to provide some answers to the problems we raise with products – otherwise we’re just complaining for the sake of being bitter.

Part 1: Themes and Plots

Sully and Drake

Sully and Drake’s bond is probably the closest Uncharted 3 has to a complete and well told plot thread. The beginning of the game does an excellent job of building on the connection the par have for each other. Background dialogue and quick one-line jokes or explanations further this rather well. It’s failing comes from the lack of real power to the conclusion. With the exception of a brief speech by Sully and a few shouts by Drake, we never really saw either of these two people go to the extreme for the other. Yes, Drake jumped in the water, and yes, Sully killed a dude to save a child. Each of these demonstrates dedication, but on a scale we’ve all seen before in previous adventures. Drake’s Deception really needed to go above and beyond, have someone cross a line or truly sacrifice for the other to cement the father-son connection.

We’ll keep this plot-line in mind as we move forward, repurposing other elements of the plot as needed. This will also help us focus the narrative; as it currently stands, Drake’s Deception is basically the same story and Among Thieves. By making the Drake-Sully bond really the core of the experience and continually expanding on it as the game progresses (culminating in something grander than a quick swim and a short speech), Uncharted 3 can come into its own as a unique entry into the series.

The Spiders

This is probably the most prominent example of an abandoned plot thread. Early on, the game transcribes much significance to these creepy-crawlers. One is seen all cut open in the underground, they keep reappearing in each crypt, and characters always mention them as one untied entity, contiguously calling the players attention to these guys as a major player in the narrative. Ultimately this amounts to nothing. I think it was implied that Marlow used the venom as part of her mind-control serum and the spiders were actually the Djinn. If I’m right, neither of these two points were made explicit enough to count as closure. If I’m wrong, than the repeated importance of the spiders truly went nowhere. Let’s pick the former and expand from there.

In our new Uncharted 3, Marlow’s organization has long used these spiders as a key part of their mind-control serum. Additionally, when properly distilled, the venom actually becomes beneficial, causing advanced recover from seemingly mortal wounds. However, Marlow has begun to run out of her supply. The method of rendering the venom useful has been lost to time (we’ll come back to this). The lady needs a new source. She knows that King Solomon used the venom to acquire a vast amount of power. To the people of his era, ignorant of his ability to distill the venom and repurpose it, his power would have seemed magical – hence the legend. Marlow seeks the sunken bronze vessel, knowing it contains a large supply of the venom and that she’ll be able to reverse engineer the distillation process from the records in Iram of the Pillars.

We’ve now rendered the spiders central to the story and simultaneously explained a series of unanswered mysteries in the original game. The healing properties of the venom (admittedly a stretch, but mitigated by some well-written exchange of disbelief amongst our heroes) will become especially important for the revised ending. Imagine a scenario similar to Last Crusade, in which the McGuffin takes on special last-act importance when its function becomes vital to the survival of a major character.

Marlow and Talbot: Their powers, their organization, and what they want

These two baddies are repeatedly shown to be nearly supernatural in the first half of Drake’s Deception. Talbot survives a fatal wound and disappears into thin air. Marlow makes a cryptic speech and magically plants a tarot card on Charlie. They have that mind-control serum, which they only use twice. As it currently stands, it seems they just forgot about this incredible advantage. You’d think it would be the single most effective weapon ever and they’d pretty much rely on it. Making the venom, the core component, rare explains this – something the base game fails to do. Additionally, it’s established that Marlow is the head of an old and extremely powerful secret society. They have a hidden base and access to advanced technology. There’s a literal army of incredibly well-equipped and trained thugs willing to deploy anywhere around the world on their behalf. Since the story takes great pains to set this all up in its first act, there really should be some follow through on this point.

As mentioned prior, the secret society aspect will take paramount importance now. We could even have Marlow be a bit of a renegade, possibly an illegitimate leader who seized power by force. In the chaos, much of their knowledge was lost, and she now has to go to great pains to regain it. Or not. Either way, we’ll emphasize their covert power and contrast this with Drake’s ragtag nature in our narrative. While Drake make’s his discoveries through ingenuity and luck, Marlow makes hers through force and bribery. This is already kind of in the game, we’ll just bring it out a bit more.

Marlow herself needs to be a bit more sinister. Currently, she essentially shows she’s evil in one scene where she slaps young Drake. For the entire rest of the plot she makes vague threats and menacing nods but does nothing at all. The developers like to discuss how she represents a new kind of villain, one how poses a threat intellectually rather than physically, but she doesn’t really. She’s just an old mean woman who drowns in sand because she can’t jump as well as Drake.

And then there’s Talbot. He’s now a product of the venom, a user in both senses. Talbot uses the venom to set-up the game’s “betrayal” moments and also employs it to heal himself (explaining his odd resistance to bullet wounds). Late game, we’ll repurpose the fistfight to make it more of a traditional final boss encounter, this time against a juiced Talbot who fills his veins with the stuff. We’ll come back to this later when we summarize the new plot.

Drake as a Loner and our Good Friend Charlie

Charlie needs to be in the game more. So does Chloe, for that matter. Elena too, although she at least got to be there at the end. Instead of having these characters disappear for the majority of the narrative, each one should stick with Drake all the way. This contrasts very nicely with his beginnings, highlighting his growth from a lonely street orphan. It also works well in conjunction with Marlow’s society; she has her friends, Drake has his. This subplot starts to write itself, building to a nice crescendo in which each of Drake’s allies shows their support for him and we as a player appreciate how he overcame his origins. “Greatness from small beginnings” – we’ll use that quote here, since Uncharted 3 already seems so fond of it. Plus it makes for a unique ending; a large-scale battle between Drake’s friends and Marlow’s thugs while Drake confronts Talbot, an entirely different climax to the first two games.

Part 2: Specifics

The Yemen Chase

This sequence is exciting, well done, and entirely nonsensical. It starts with a scene that makes no sense whatsoever. Marlow and Talbot drug Drake and bring him to an open courtyard in the middle of a busy market. They threaten him with police intervention while the armed thug they hired for no reason at all sits right beside them, weapons and ammo clearly visible to any passerby. And then they go on to discuss Drake’s past and Iram of the Pillars while that guy is just sitting there. Why did they even hire him? Just get one of the thousand suited British gentlemen you employ to sit menacingly behind Drake. Then you don’t have a well-equipped pirate also looking for the same lost city.

After they say some mean things about Sully and mention they found him, Drake flips a table and runs after Talbot. The chase is off! Except Talbot has literally no reason to be running. He is actively moving away from the burly pirate who wants to help. If Talbot did nothing at all, he and his friend would beat Drake to the ground in just under ten seconds. And it’s not because they fear they police; we’ve already seen how little they care about the local authorities. Only Drake is under any kind of legal threat.

To further add to the pointlessness of it all, the sequence ultimately amounts to nothing. All of the player’s effort goes to waste in a scripted moment that has Drake knocked unconscious from behind, meaning the playable section had no impact on the story whatsoever.

Really, the scene should have gone like this:

Marlow hire pirate guy because he has local connections with the authorities. They are interrogating Drake in a closed room, not in an open street, and he’s tied to a chair. Marlow leaves for some reason (we just need to get her out of the scene) – let’s say to go get Sully, but Talbot stays behind to further integrate Drake. During the conversation, Drake mentions Iram of the Pillars, but pirate guy did not know that was the prize. He gets agitated and threatens Talbot, who – because he’s distracted – doesn’t notice Drake worm his way out of his bonds. When Drake frees himself, Talbot splits, followed closely by pirate man. The rest of the chase plays out as it does in the game except for the end. There’s a three-way brawl in which pirate man emerges triumphant. Drake sees Talbot radioing Marlow while he runs as Drake losses consciousness – he fought off one threat only to succumb to another.

The player’s actions still don’t have real weight to them, but at least it ends on some kind of plot development propelled by the player.

The Boat Sequence

From beginning to end, the entire section of the game taking place on any kind of ship (chapters 12 through 15) is completely without logic or purpose. Everything moves based on unbelievable coincidence and characters behaving in such a stupid manner as to parody reality. Why did they tie Drake up in the wreckage of an old boat located middle of an abandoned ship yard miles away from the pirate flag ship? Why are there hundreds of armed men wandering this metallic graveyard serving no purpose other than videogame bullet sponges? Why do the pirates have a turret placed in the center of an entirely enclosed area facing into territory they call home? Why do they pretend they have Sully captured? Why do they pretend they have Sully captured again when Drake is on the cruise ship? If they want to set a trap for him and eventually recapture him, why do they repeatedly send dozens of men armed with high-explosives to kill him?

This is just the beginning. The lapses in logic only compound as this complete disregard for coherent storytelling continues. Really an entire entry could be made on how foolish this part of the game becomes. I'll end here for now; this is getting a little long for one entry. We'll pick up here in part 2 of our story critique.

I was most unhappy with the disappearance of Chloe and Cutter. Seriously, WTF, Naughty Dog? Nixing my two favourite characters....

I do like this game, but you are right about most every logic flaw. The cruise ship section is a great videogame level. It has thematic relevance to a point as Drake is alone and desperate, but that desperation is way better expressed in the desert. I like that no bullet is fired in Yemen besides in the tomb, but the chase is silly. People have compared Talbot to a bond villain, which gives a little more credence to him running just to fuck with Drake. Seems like Marlowe and Talbot like pointing out how silly this orphan kid's selfish quest for treasure really is. That's not played out enough, though.

Honestly, my greatest grip is the end in every way. Salim has no character. The jar of evil is introduced and destroyed within ten seconds. I didn't get to fire that f'in awesome underwater gun. Marlowe's death is dumb. All that. I like the spider venom idea, but I would think the hallucinogen in the water at Iram would be a replacement rather than an augmentation.

Another story point: Drake's Deception as a title has dual meaning. Francis Drake deceived Queen Elizabeth by telling her he didn't see shit around Arabia. Nathan Drake is deceiving himself in his good intentions. Drugged out Drake sees his own reflection move around and choke him, right? Well, and I thank my girlfriend for this, have a dual-Drake scene of him talking about his demons and doubts in there. Have him have to conquer his selfish self to escape. I really hated how little closure that whole theme got. Sully just forgives him and they get on with it.

One point I disagree: Don't have a juiced up Talbot. That's some Bioshock, U2 stuff. I like the idea of bringing the whole group back. I was really surprised Cutter and Chloe just jetted. From what I saw, the major gameplay parts of U3 were puzzles, shooting, fire scaring spiders, and brawling. The boss fight as it is is just the brawling. The Sand destroying everything is cool, but have a fight before that...

Spiders swarm in. Chloe, Cutter, and Sully grab torches. They become a forcefield for you to stick to. You gotta strategy your way over to Talbot and Marlowe. They release a drug that does screwy things to the physics or something. Drugged out fight commenses. Some kinda fitting end. I dunno, fuzzy on the end, but I think there's something to making the final fight a culmination of the systems rather than a quick time brawl.

I'm really jealous of you for doing this, and doing it well. Keep it up. I look forward to future entries.

I disagree, Dragon Age 2 was disappointment of the year.  

I'm really starting to have second thoughts about this game. Its a good game, but its probably the most disappointing game of the year.

I hope everyone knows that this will contain a lot of spoilers.

I agree that Dragon Age 2 was pretty disappointing, but I had higher hopes, like a lot of people did, riding on Uncharted 3. I agree with the points you mentioned. A lot of this story seemed to ride on a lot of power and mysticism on the enemies' part, but very little of it is ever explained. How did Talbot disappear in the corner in that castle area?

@frondoni

I'm not sure how spider venom had anything to do with the toxin that Marlowe was using as a hallucinogen and the stuff that was in the water at Ubar.

Edit:

When the designers of the game were doing the behind the scenes stuff and when they were on Gametrailers' Bonus Round they talked about their design process. Specifically about sometimes they'd have an idea for a gameplay moment and then write the story around that. It feels like your dissatisfaction from the Yemen chase was a result of that design idea. The designers also mentioned that they didn't know who Drake was chasing during that part for about six months.

Oh, Dragon Age 2 was the disappointment of the year, without a doubt. But Uncharted 3 is up there. I was so stoked up until the point after Drake's flashback. I thought that introduced the game so well, and then everything was technically perfect and great but I didn't get that "woah that was cool"-factor from the story.

I don't know why everyone is calling the spider venom or such as an Hallucinogen. hallucinogens, as counter intuitive as it goes, does not convince you that an interactive entity, say your deceased mother, is there and spanking your butt. That would sound like a deliriant, especially the interactive part where you think you are rationally talking to somebody who isn't there, but you see hear, and touch them quite succinctly. hallucinogens tend to trigger off of what you are seeing, hearing or even physically and plays with the signal. It may even mix them together, so you taste green or smell music.

Deliriants suck.

As for the rest of Drakes Deception, it was Talbot surviving that shot, or Drake surviving the desert to do his Tank act (pretty much mirrored by Talbot I noted) that kind of threw me off. As for Chloe and Charlie, I'm sure that was a simple narrative decision to move on in the story events and personnel, and I didn't like fucking Charlie anyways. Chloe I do like, but oh well got blond haired Bossy Lady later who amazingly I liked a lot more in Drakes Deception than Uncharted 2.

And of course the shooting part of the combat that I went from WTF to I LIKE. All I can say you analyze any video-game story, there is going to be problems. But the kind of disappointment I hear ppl. moaning about Dragon Age 2..not me.

The entire pirates and cruise ship sequence was a dream.

Yes, that's a massive fucking cop-out but given how ludicrous and detached the whole thing is, but its the only 'acceptable' conclusion I could come to. Think about it:

• Both Drake and the player have no idea where they are, or how they got there. You never remember the beginning of a dream.
• As mentioned in the OP, the layout and presence of the pirates is completely nonsensical even for a video game.
• The setting and layout of the levels is surreal, with considerable emphasis on altered or unusual camera angles.
• Drake is chasing after an objective (Sully) with a single mindedness that ignores all logic and reason. He knows that Marlowe and company need Sully to find Iram of the Pillars. Two seconds of stopping to think would yield this conclusion. Yet he plows on because, hey, dream-logic is like that.
• We have no idea how he gets back to Yemen, and indeed, back to the same city. Falling into a storm churned ocean is the exact sort of 'ending' a dream would have. Hell, I've had that dream, because the ocean is scary.

I suppose we could just shrug and say its the result of designing the set-piece before the plot (something many games are guilty of), but what's the fun in that?

@Aus_azn: Charlie especially, he was probably my favorite part of this game. Pretty much all of his arcs - his claustrophobia, his "betrayal," mirroring Drake as a scholar - were done well. And then he just vanishes.

@Kierkegaard: The ending really is terrible; Part 2 will focus on how everything after Chapter 12 just completely falls apart. You've got a good idea in concluding Drake's story line with the self-confrontation while drugged - in the actual game that whole sequence amount to one large time waste.

Also I think "juiced" might have been the wrong word for me to use, since you brought up the Bioshock comparison. There'd be no visual change, just a story explanation as to why this guy can take so many hits during the boss fight (like the Lazarevic encounter).

@frondoni: Plus it makes for a unique ending; a large-scale battle between Drake’s friends and Marlow’s thugs while Drake confronts Talbot, an entirely different climax to the first two game

I like that...A LOT

@frondoni: I kept thinking I ought to write down my problems with Uncharted 3 just as an exercise in anger management over my disappointment with the game, but you've handled it wonderfully. Great work, and I'm eager to read more.

After reading half of this, I have come to the conclusion that you are a genius.

This just proves how backwards the development of this game was. In one of the behind the scenes featureless, The writer says "We think of set pieces that would be cool to have in the game, then write a story around that" hence the pirate and ship chapters.

Agreed on virtually every point, but this remains one of the few places I've read any genuine criticism.

Can't wait for you to tear into the technical side. As far as I'm concerned, the game was beyond ropey; considering it's no doubt enormous budget, it's a fucking travesty.

I haven't played it yet, but do you really think it was unplayable? I can't see it being that bad. I can see disappointing, and mediocre, but fundamentally broken?

Edit: woops! you said NOT unplayable. my mistake

Very nice write up
 
There's so much wrong with the game and, as stated, not wrong enough to the point where it's unplayable yet wrong enough where u see the potential in the game itself and how it just doesn't deliver which is almost more detrimental than if it were just flat out broken or just sucked.

I admittedly enjoyed the story, but that was primarily because by this point I'm so used to the practise of the game always coming before the story, and while the parts you mentioned do appear nonsensical when put under the magnifying glass they still retained themselves as being pretty great set-pieces. Or not, as the case may be given how sub-par the gameplay is for Uncharted 3 (only Uncharted 3, I personally adored the gameplay in Uncharted 2).

Uncharted 3 is of an action-movie storyline, and not everything has to exactly make sense; first and foremost it's all about injecting excitement, and in the Uncharted series' case in particular, likeable characters. Which I believe was still on par with the characterisation as from previous Uncharted games, if still falling a little due to the terrible plucking of Charlie and Chloe from the story without even a reappearance near the end. Plus Salim and Ramses were such wasted characters and were so obviously archetypal filler it's appalling. Otherwise Nate and Sully is where the game threw its effort and I believe shown threw; in all honesty I've never particularly liked Nate all that much, but seeing so much screen-time for Sully was a fucking marvel <3.

It's true that even unto the relationship between Nate and Sully, nothing of major consequence transpires--such as a character death like a lot of people I noticed were expecting. But that, too, is primarily the fault of how the story guides itself; it's a feel-good action movie where the good guys always win and the bad guys perish. Smiles all around for our sarcastic adventurers who leave the scene no worse for wear than when they first entered it. It's a cop-out, but that's how the series has always been in my eyes.

Fantastic post btw, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more. Especially when you (I'm predicting) ravage the gameplay portions. Weird pacing, clumsy shooting, derivative set-pieces, and far too many occurrences where there's illusion of choice between stealth-ing your way through a situation or not.

I stopped reading after first sentence, because your wrong. Your opinion is invalid. Now go and run away.

Sorry, no I'm kidding. About the running away part. I still completely disagree.

Good feature and while I haven't played the game yet I'm actually surprised by some of the disappointment from the duders  in the replies. This is really strange considering how a vocal minority derided any negative criticism of the game. This is why I prefer that reviews highlight as many failings of a game as possible so I can go into the game with muted expectation and be pleasantly surprised if it's good. I often find that disappointment you expect is preferable to being excited for a product and then being disappointed afterwards.

dude wtf, where is your part 2 and part 3 of this series???? i've been waiting years bro!!!