Near perfect but misses U2's spark
Uncharted 2 is one of my favorite games ever made, so right off the bat this game had a lot of expectations to live up to. And for the most part the game delivers perfectly but it just doesn't have the same "feel" that Uncharted 2 had. It's hard to pin down what feels like its missing, but that is a very small problem in a truly incredible gaming experience.
I'm going to start off with the basics, gameplay. For the most part its the same as Uncharted 2: you shoot bad guys, climb walls, solve puzzles and experience some truly breathtaking vistas while in the middle of gameplay or some truly spectacular set pieces. The gunplay is largely unchanged from the second game, your still going from cover to cover, popping headshots and almost always moving, which was what I was hoping for prior to the games release. The guns are about the same as the guns in the 2nd game but with different names and skins,but that isn't bad as the guns felt great to shoot on Uncharted 2.
The platforming is almost exactly the same as in the other Uncharted games, ( With a higher focus on crumbling handholds.) except the new animations can sometimes mess up a jump or make you grab on to another object, but other than that it is still the same, fun platforming as you remember from Uncharted 1,2.
The level design is great in this game, it is set up so you can use stealth and other gameplay styles well. Some areas have high up areas you can climb up to get better vantage points of the enemies. Some areas are designed with stronger enemies but a lot less of them and a lot of cover so you can go through slowly, while other areas feature less cover with more enemies but they are much weaker. One complaint with the level design is that a lot of combat areas are set up like arenas, which makes the combat sections feel more like Drake's Fortune than the more natural enemy setup from Among Thieves.
The puzzles are more varied and clever than the other two games. Puzzle appear very commonly throughout the first 11 chapters of the game, but then puzzles are almost nowhere to be seen. The last puzzle in the game occurs on the 20th chapter (Caravan) which means you had to go through 9 chapters of no puzzles, for me that is not much of a problem as I'm not much of a fan of Uncharted's puzzles anyway, but I wished they would be spread out better throughout the story mode.
Though the most changed aspect is the melee. Its expanded on much more so that it doesn't feel like a last resort to use. In fact they're multiple sections where fists are the the only way out. Such as the first chapter (Another Round) where you fight a whole battalion of thugs through a London pub. Plus melee is just a lot more useful than on any other Uncharted, if you find your self out of ammo you can always take someone out with a good ol' fashion fistfight. One complaint is that sometimes when you are in cover taking out some of Marlowe's goons, one may come at you and get you into a fistfight while the rest are still shooting you, it really can ruin a nice gunfight.
Stealth also plays a more major role. While there is no stealth only chapter (Like "Breaking and Entering" from Uncharted 2), a couple chapters let you play through multiple sections using stealth. One of the more useful new stealth attacks allows you to drop on an enemy from above, killing him. Stealth is a nice change of pace from the explosive action of the rest of the game.
The graphics are much improved upon in this game. Clearly Uncharted 2 didn't use all of the PS3's power because Uncharted 3 looks much better. The animations deserve much credit for how human they make Nate seem. The lighting is incredible in this game, during chapter 6 (The Chateau) I literally just stopped to look at how the light shined through the trees and how it would reflect on pieces of broken glass. The details are incredible, everything looked like it had hours upon hours of work done to it. Did you know that every hair on characters heads ( Or face in Sully's case) are all single objects that are detailed seperatly?
The enviroments are much more varied than the enviroments in the second one ( Which was still very varied.) You go from a deserted tourist attraction castle in Syria to a 600 mile across desert. The enviroments are absolutely breath taking, and paired with the incredible cinematography, creates realistic areas for Nate to traverse.
The story has some loose ends and some strange choices, but other than that I'm not going to spoil much of the plot because other than those small flaws its still an amazing story. The story is more focused on the characters, Sully thankfully has a main role in this one unlike Uncharted 2. The set pieces are amazing, I'm not going to spoil too many but I'm sure you all saw the plane and ship sequences in the advertisments. The soundtrack is worth mention as well, as it may be the best soundtrack in a adventure game.
I should also mention the much improved multiplayer. It's maps are well made so that they incoporate the platforming from the single-player well. The game adds little touches like taunts and character skins to unlock. There is two main types of multiplayer in this game, co-op and competitive, all having multiple modes that are all great and some are very original. The multiplayer is much more robust, full of treasures, medals and other features that should keep you busy for a long time after you have completed the single-player campaign multiple times.
Overall, this game is near perfect, the feel is just a little different and I cant put my finger on it but other than that this game is an incredible gaming experience that all gamers should play.
