Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
Producer: SCEA
Release Date: November 1, 2011
Platform: Playstation 3
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action-Adventure
Rock the Casbah
Written by Jesse Seilhan
2011 may go down as the year of the “3,” with the third entry of many popular franchises closing its story with a potentially perfected version of what made the prior titles work well enough to deserve a finale. After Uncharted 2 won nearly 100 Game of the Year awards, to say Drake’s Deception is highly anticipated is to say that water is wet. Give Naughty Dog credit, as they unpacked the motion-capture suits, expert level design and unmatched writing and delivered another globe-trotting adventure that pits hero Nathan Drake against various ne’er-do-wells in a race to find some ultimate treasure. As fans saw in years past, not only is the action and story handled quite well, but the pacing and payoff leave little to be desired.
Uncharted is the Indiana Jones for the videogame generation, and that isn’t just a tip to how the game looks. The writing, action, characters, and overall vibe is up to par with those cinematic epics of years past. The game features many memorable sequences, with the opening of the game following a younger Nathan Drake, showing his origin as a scamp and introducing the Sully sidekick character as a father figure. From there, the game twists and turns before eventually sinking into the game’s greatest set-piece, the Atlantis of the Sands: an area so huge that it takes a 300-mile desert to house it. The opening scenes and final moments make this game worth playing, even if some of the filler in between could have been left on the cutting room floor. The writing keeps me coming back to this franchise and even if Naughty Dog drops this franchise completely (which I doubt), any of their future products will probably be crafted with the same love and expertise that this saga has contained.
For how awesome this game can be, when it’s a videogame and clearly defines itself by strict videogame tropes, it falters. Finding irrelevant treasures scattered around every level does nothing to bring me more into this world, and instead begs the question “Why are these priceless artifacts randomly strewn across the universe?” If they opened new weapons, levels, or added canon, they might be acceptable and, granted, the two prior titles had this aspect, but it is more out of place in this romp than the others. The myriad of puzzles are challenging, but unfortunately not by design. The mechanic of opening a journal to look at clues for a puzzle is confusing and says a lot about how that scenario is constructed. On the flip side, when the cut-scenes kick on, their seamless and polished nature keep players engaged in the narrative, even if they sometimes reach Metal Gear Solidlength. The hand-to-hand and gunplay feel good, but only after a post-release update tightened up the shooting. Even with the miniscule flaws, the biggest knock to Uncharted 3 is that it isn’t Uncharted 2, something that all great artists have to face after delivering a genre-defining experience, no matter what the medium. This game may not have the “wow” factor that its predecessor had, but it’s just as polished, just as smart, and provides fans with something that feel both comfortable and challenging, a difficult thing to balance in today’s gaming industry. Just like the other Drake outings, this is a must-have for PS3 owners.