Games, PS3, Releases, PS3, Uncharted 3 

Uncharted 3: The Review

December 4, 2011

As many of you already know I’m an avid PC gamer and there are very few games out­side of the PC sys­tem that I enjoy.  Uncharted is one of those fran­chises, one that I thor­oughly enjoy and when I heard that Uncharted 3 was com­ing to the PS3 I was very excited.  As with all sequels today I’m always wary of a sell­out, under­de­vel­oped or oth­er­wise incom­plete release.  I’m happy to say that the Uncharted fran­chise hasn’t and still does not suf­fer from any of these calamities. 

Out of all three I’d have to say this one is my favorite.  Gen­er­ally games don’t hold my inter­est for more then a few hours before I set them down and pick up some­thing but Uncharted 3 as with it’s pre­de­ces­sors held my inter­est from start to fin­ish and I even found myself want­ing to go through another play through.

Graph­i­cally Uncharted 3 is the best look­ing game on the PS3 if not the best look­ing game on both the PS3 and Xbox 360.  I know I will get flack from many Cry­sis 2 diehards but there sim­ply isn’t a pret­tier game on either con­sole sys­tem.  It’s also rivals many mod­ern PC titles which is say­ing a lot com­ing from me, some­one who gen­er­ally doesn’t think con­soles games hold a light to mod­ern PC titles.  Uncharted 3 takes you across the globe to many var­ied envi­ron­ments all of which have an incred­i­ble amount of detail put into them.  The only other game I can think of in recent his­tory that paid this much atten­tion to details is Deus Ex: Human Rev­o­lu­tion.  One thing that I really noticed that really stood out to me is the char­ac­ter ani­ma­tions.  Drake has some incred­i­bly life like reac­tions not only in the way he moves but in the way he reacts to whats going on around him.  For exam­ple if you run by some­thing and you are very close he will react with his hands and body like he is avoid­ing the impact.  Or if things are explod­ing around him he duck and cover his head and slightly stum­ble as he is run­ning away.  Drake also has some swag­ger in his walk instead of the generic walk and run.  It’s lit­tle details like this that help add to an amaz­ing over­all experience.

The story, like it’s predaces­sors, is fan­tas­tic,  it’s grip­ping, excit­ing and cap­ti­vat­ing.  If you are a sucker for a good story like me Uncharted 3 will not dis­ap­point.   It picks up shortly after the events of the sec­ond but it also cov­ers and explains alot about Drakes child­hood and what made him what he was.  The chap­ters that cover Drakes child­hood are suprisignly inter­est­ing.  I didn’t think I would like them at first but I actu­ally enjoyed them.  I won’t spoil any­thing for you but it’s my favorite of the series thus far and it had my favorite ending. 

In addi­tion to being one of if not the best look­ing game out on any con­sole sys­tem it also sounds amaz­ing.  I have an Onkyo 7.1 1000 watt sur­round sys­tem and there are plenty of bass booms, explo­sions, chat­ter­ing of machine gun fire to anger even the most tol­er­ant of neigh­bors.  The voice act­ing is also top notch and that is actu­ally one of the things I most appre­ci­ate about the Uncharted fran­chise.  They don’t and haven’t skimped on get­ting qual­ity actors to do their voice overs.  There are plenty of cheesy and witty lines through­out and good vocal responses to what­ever is going on around you. 

Uncharted 3 does have some minor annoy­ances but noth­ing major.  There are some times here drake will get stuck in the ground, on a wall or in a rock… I had it hap­pen a cou­ple of times and I had to reload to a pre­vi­ous check point.  I also had times when I could not change weapons, reload or fire the weapon (no I wasn’t in a cutscene) and I would quickly get killed.   The other com­plaint I had, and this could be because I suck with con­trollers, is that the dif­fi­cultly seemed to vary a lot.  It would go from crazy easy to oh my god what does it take to kill this guy. 

One other thing that I really enjoyed about Uncharted 3 is it’s fist fights.  I’ve not seen a game with good hand to hand com­bat since the Matrix and I don’t think any game in recent his­tory has done fist fights well.   They took me down nos­tal­gia game to the old Clint East­wood and John Wayne movies.  I’d have to say they were one of my favorite aspecst of Uncharted 3.

Is Uncharted 3 a per­fect game?  Almost, it had a cou­ple of issues that kept me from giv­ing a other per­fect game a per­fect score.  Uncharted is a MUST have title for PS3 own­ers and for any gamer for that mat­ter.  Uncharted 3 is my favorite game on the PS3 and one of my top 5 to ever come out on the PS3 and the Xbox 360.   The more expe­ri­enced con­sole, who doesn’t suck with the con­trols like I do should get around 8 — 10 hours  on the first play through.  I took about 12 hours on my first playthrough but I attribute that to my ter­ri­ble han­dling.   Over­all Uncharted 3 is the pre­miere expe­ri­ence on the PS3.  Do your­self, your friends and fam­ily a favor and get this game for your­self and for them. 

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