A Contrarian's View on Uncharted 3

[Evermeet]

I have yet to play Uncharted 3 as I did not receive it for Christmas and am now waiting for it to drop in price. However, I vaguely remember reading the review in Game Informer in which it was given a 9.5 score for many of the same reasons. In the very next issue, they posted in the reader feedback from some fanboy who was absolutely outraged that the game hadn't received a perfect 10 even though the game wasn't available for him to even play yet. Combined with this article, I will be sure to go into U3 with subdued expectations. I expect I'll enjoy it, but at least I won't be disappointed if I don't enjoy it more than U2.

[the_requiem]

My first PS3 game was Uncharted2 and had friends come over to play with me. For Uncharted3, I went over to one of those friends' place and watch him play, for I was more interested in story.

I was disappointed, big time. Narrative was a beat by beat rehash of UC2. Motivations were all missing. But my biggest beef was how the title made no sense. Drake's Deception. What was Drake's Deception? Did it refer to one throwaway comment mid-game that implied Nathan may not even be a Drake?

[kyorml007]

i agree with most of what you wrote in your post. dont get me wrong. i think uncharted 3 is an awesome game, but not as awesome as uncharted 2 was. there are a few issues about it but, you already said them. altough i disagree with the multiplayer. i think it was very improved form uncharted 2, altough i will not deny i missed playing with rocket lauchers only and some other options that were missing in this one. but as simple as posible, i had much more fun with u3 mp than with u2 mp. plot wise... well, there were quite a few plot holes, some already mentioned, but i think you forgot:

Spoiler! (click here to reveal)

when cuttler shooted talbot, and he was like nothing happend

in a sense, i think it was all the hype the game had before release. i remember, when i first got my ps3, it came bundled with uncharted drakes fortune. i played and i thought it was an ok game, nothing special. then, when uncharted 2 was announced, i was not really interested in it, when it was released, again, not very interested, but i got the opportunity to bought it, so i took it... and the game was awesome, it improved the first uncharted in every aspect of the game. so, when i heard uncharted 3, i got hyped, and got a bit dissapointed. as i said, uncharted 3 is not a bad game, by any mean, but i stand for what i said, other than the tchnically aspects, is not better than uncharted 2.

[SoPoF]

Originally Posted by olsen77

Every story needs a villain, and this game had Katherine Marlowe. Chad Concelmo on Destructoid calls her, "hands down, the best in the series." My main problem with that statement is this, we don't know what her purpose in the game is. We know she wants Drake's ring and that she wants to find Iram of the Pillars, but why does she want to find it?

SPOILERS:

It is being said in the game that she's after the hallucinogenic toxin. The order she works for only has a little left of it and they need to find the original source to get more.

After completing the first two chapters, you know that she's been after the ring for at least 20 years. Why even go back and acknowledge that she's after Drake's ring if that story is never going to be pursued?

How is it not being pursued? She needs the ring to "unlock" the secret hints to the location of the city. Drake has it and now he is using it instead, while she still wants it.

Related to the issue of an incomplete villain is that the story is broken into two halves that seem only loosely connected. Sure, every character got their face time. Everyone had their one moment where they seemed to stand out. The dividing line is very sharp and clear and takes the form of a basketball substitution (Chloe and Cutter out, Elena in).

Why is it only losely connected? Because two of the chracters leave the stage in the second part due to something that happened in the first part? The two weren't even that important to the story to begin with, so the story simply moves on without them. It's still the same story about the ring, the city and drake.

There is no word on what happens to Chloe and Cutter after they exit the game. "Did they get out of Syria?", "Are Marlowe's men still after them?". and "Are they even still alive?" are all questions I had at the end of the game.

Why would they follow them? They don't have anything they want, in the case of Cutter, they actually think he's dead as they left him to die and didn't stay long enough to see him survive. It's mentioned at one point that the two are being fine, sure, not at the end, but there's nothing to indicate anything else.

The other part of the split game oddity is that certain storylines appear to have been left unfinished or dropped entirely. Marlowe and Talbot are hinted at as to have some sort of supernatural part of them. Talbot disappears as quickly as Nightcrawler from the X-Men comics. How?

It's not being shown, but that doesn't mean anything supernatural is involved. He's some sort of special agent from an order relying on manipulation, deception and bluffs. Same about the scene he's been "shot" in: bulletproof vest? I think he was also able to do something with Cutter's gun the scene earlier, maybe it's fake bullets or something.

One of Marlowe's men is shown to be completely green shortly after death. Why?

OBVIOUSLY, the spiders.

Now don't get me wrong, I disliked the story in this one a lot, but for other reasons. (Mainly pacing and that they did not use any of the interesting ideas they introduced - trust and distrust, for instance? I also disliked Cutter and Chloe leaving. Also, Nate and Elena split/reunited AGAIN? Oh, and she happens to be in exactly the town they need to go next? Whole "lost in the desert" scenario was ridiculous, even for an Uncharted story.)

Gameplaywise, I must say I always liked exploration over the shooting, but this one dropped it. I didn't enjoy the shooting gameplay at all, in fact, I rolled my eyes whenever enemies showed up. I thought the last areas where boring and to short, the whole game you search for that place and then you just run through it for a bit, game ends. I would've liked to explore more of it first.

Overall, I'm with TC on it, Uncharted 3 was quite a disappointment to me. Still an okay game, but I don't see myself replaying it like I do with Uncharted 2 now and then. I have the Golden Abyss one, but haven't been able to play it much yet. Seems nice, but the aiming is abit difficult. I hope I'll get used to it.

[joeyc138]

I was actually wondering for awhile while playing the game if I had missed something on the story because I had no idea of what the hell was going on. Turns out the story just has a lot of plot holes as you noted. Great read Olsen.

[JayHala]

Couldn't agree more.
I try to make smart purchases for games and try not to buy day 1 unless I have to have the game (eg Dark Souls, BF3). That being said, I regret spending $60 on this game. The game is still fun and worth a buy but is exactly like a Michael Bay film.
Well put Olsen.

[jqtaxpayer]

I felt the same way about Uncharted 2... it's a good game, sure, but not nearly as good as it's made out to be. I also felt this way about Portal 2, which, in my opinion, lacked the charm of the first and had only slightly more content. I guess the old maxim is true: "The sequel is never (read: rarely, see: The Empire Strikes Back) as good as the original," though, ultimately, it's all a matter of taste.

[Rudrose]

Nice article Orsen, I like how you illustrated your thoughts, though I don't agree with them. I find it funny you slam the airplane section for being unrealistic, since he couldn't survive. A game with Mind Control Darts. And Ghost Rider Skeletons. And Giant Spiders. A series with Guardians dressed like Yeti's because they drank tree sap. Or how about the zombie/demon/cursed creatures from the first game? These games have always had unatural elements to them. Drake should be dead 15 times over now. The airplane wasn't exactly a new idea and it was done in a believeable way. If Drake had smacked into the ground face first at Terminal Velocity and then gotten up, yeah I would have gone, "You have got to be sh**ing me", but since he grabbed a cargo box with a parachute attached, that's about as believeable as you will get in that scenario.

I liked Marlowe, though Lazarevic was still my favorite. She was fine as a villian, not amazing by any means but the Uncharted series has never been about the villians. Many of the enemies look similar and the focus has always been on the heroes, Drake himself in particular. So while one could argue that as a valid critique, it's hardly new to this game.

Yes the shipyard is kind of out of place. Yes Chloe and Cutter don't return for the ending. Yes the hallucinogens could have been explained a bit more. But I could say that about any game or any movie. Even the greats have "plot holes" that you can nitpick about. I loved the horseback riding section of this game but it was obviously lifted right from the truck jumping section at the end of Uncharted 2. For my money, there was nothing glaringly wrong with this game and so many things amazingly right. Your points are totally valid but feel nit picky in my eyes. I loved this game and think it deserves every bit of praise it got, though I do think 2 was better overall. Thanks for the good read, and cheers to you sir.

[Vastet]

I agree the story in this game was not as good as previous. Though I don't believe any of it is less realistic than previous games. There's no way in hell Drake could have climbed the wreckage of a train in the freezing mountains as he did in 2 (not a spoiler, that's how the game opens).
So if I buy that, I'll also buy the plane sequence in 3.

But..

Spoiler! (click here to reveal)

There's a huge hole that makes the first 14 odd chapters pointless. You end up finding the city without any help provided by all the clues picked up along the way.

I think much of the game was designed by level designers who didn't necessarily have an idea on how to tie it all together. The boat chapter was possibly the best in the game, but was absolutely pointless to the story in general, for example.

It also...

Spoiler! (click here to reveal)

ended extremely abruptly, and with little sense, which screams sequel to me. I'd bet money that we haven't seen the last of Talbot. Took a bullet in the neck, but shows up right after? etc.

[Darcness]

Hey, I'm not the only one that doesn't like uncharted