Developed for the PS3 by Naughty Dog

Published by Sony Computer Entertainment

Rated "T" for Teen. Contains blood, language, and violence.

 

Real characters, real story, and a real sense of adventure. In all three aspects Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a match for any book, any movie. Every piece of action, every shoot-out, every chase, every puzzle, serves the story and moves the adventure forward. Most games exist as an activity, exercises in shooting and strategy peppered by attempts at a story to keep it interesting, but when you fight in Uncharted 3, it’s to escape, to chase, to rescue. You feel like you should stop and catch your breath, but there’s no time, you just have to keep going. It’s extraordinary.

 

It helps immeasurably that the combat system has that same feel. You can never sit still. You’re attacking from the shadows, then grabbing cover only to be forced into the open by snipers and grenades. Every gun seems to run out of bullets quickly and what you pick up from the ground to replace it is always different. Then some heavy, bullet-resistant lug shows up and you’re into a throw-around brawl, all the while some hazard comes into play, either falling stones, or sliding storage containers, with bullets still flying. For a game based on a cliff-hanger dynamic it allows the action to always be on the move and to be shown from different angles. It matches the rhythm of the story.

The Uncharted games have always been good with characters, but weak on relationships. This time the dynamic is perfect. Drake and his colleagues share a wonderful sense of humour and cleverness. I love the way Drake and Cutter get caught up in the conspiracies, how he and Sully will weigh the stakes but go on any way, and the complicated sense of understanding between himself and Elena. In the past there’s been the tension of possible betrayal or a double-cross, but because the adventure this time involves following the footsteps of Francis Drake himself, an obsession Nathan has carried since childhood, but it may not be a goal his friends will go to the ends of the earth for.

It helps that the villain is Marlowe, a mean old lady poisoned by bitterness and cast in an iron of greed. Her assistant, Talbot, is that kind of cheat who never fights fair, always runs, and sneers with enjoyment. Together they’re a couple you’re willing to chase the world after, just to make them eat their own hate.

Once again the locales in Uncharted are breath-taking. In this genre it’s now very difficult to create places that look original or can take us by surprise. We’ve become too familiar with temples, jungles, deserts, and ruined mansions, but somehow the ones in Uncharted 3 still look foreign, intriguing, and exist at a scale that will floor you. There’s something about the sculptures and ancient mechanisms and the strange collections on the walls that makes you wish the bullets would stop flying so you could have a nice roam to explore it all.

There’s a plane crash. You need to know about the plane crash. Even people who don’t play video games need to know about the plane crash. It happens two-thirds of the way through and will stand as one of the most memorable moments in video game history. It’s a perfect and inspired piece of action choreography that leads to moments in the desert that told with such a strong sense of visual language as to be iconic.

In every adventure series there’s always one chapter, one book, one movie that ends up standing above the rest to the point of defining what the series is about. Drake’s Deception is clearly that story for the Uncharted series and while that means that Uncharted 4 won’t be able to match it, Nathan Drake’s world has finally come together to the point where it’s no longer just a video game and that can only mean good things ahead.