The Uncharted series has made quite a rapid rise to fame within the PS3 gaming realm.  The first game made a strong entrance, if lacking in variety in locations and features in gameplay.  The second game changed all that by taking what was right and making it better, while adding a decent multiplayer.  Then there’s the third game.

To start off, Uncharted 2 is one of my favorite PS3 games of all time.  The single player was fun in so many ways, the weapons felt great to use and the story and dialogue made the game richer than a bizarre bacon-fudge hybrid.  That game ran to the peak so hard it almost made the peak into a ramp so it could go higher.  This unfortunately raises the standard of the game much, much higher.

For the single player of U3, I just wasn’t feeling it.  For the gameplay, they give you puzzles that are either obvious or stupidly hard, then you’re in gunfights that evoke a feeling similar to constipation.  New mechanics were added, including more depth to melee and a way to throw back grenades.  Both were done well, but they didn’t feel properly utilized.  Back to the gunplay, in the first two games the fights felt more or less dynamic.  You were either working your way forward or around each battle, getting that feel of gaining ground once you popped the closest goon and moved to a different cover.  In U3, the gunfights feel far more static.  I found myself rooted to the same cover point for far too long, simply because other spots weren’t as good or there was too much firepower to tumble ten feet in the open without dying.  It was 90% of the time you trying to put out headshots before the enemy advanced on you, not the other way around.

The weapons are another downside to the game.  U2’s weapon system was an expansion upon the original set in the first game.  Each addition rounded out the set even more, and added this feeling of being an unstoppable machine whenever you used one.  In Uncharted 3, they essentially tried to do a model swap of the weapons.  You are allowed to see a few original weapons throughout the game, but you’ll often find yourself stuck with a weird AK that fires faster, a bizarre sniper pistol that is basically the Wes revolver with a scope, and power weapons that just felt different.  My biggest disappointment was with the big machine gun of the game.  In U2 it was this huge minigun that mowed down everything including other guys with miniguns, and it was damn cool to use it.  U3 gave the Pak-80, which looked mostly like an oversized FAL rifle that made you run slow.  And the worst part was in most of the situations it was presented, there was some sort of obstacle that prevented you from taking it along.  The weapons just don’t feel the same and left me wanting the U2 set again.

The story also felt weak.  To withhold spoilers, much of the storyline doesn’t have that drive it should have.  The only strong point I felt was in there was the focus on Nathan’s past, but that was it.  In any other aspect of the story, the justifications, details an dialogue felt weak, and at the end of the day I was left hoping for a DLC that would “patch” the ending to something more satisfying.

For the singleplayer, I would give it an 8.5 out of 10, which I would raise to a 9 if they ever did polish the story like they should have.  This feels much lower for me, since if I ever did a U2 post I would give the single player a solid 10.  They just made too many wrong changes.

The multiplayer feels far better though.  In U2 they came up with a rough system that worked, and every week or so they threw in a little experiment so they could try stuff out.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was decent.  They must have taken all of that data well as U3 is far better.  Loadouts are added, but only so you can get the weaker weapons, power weapons are still something you have to scramble over.  Gameplay felt better, as new aspects encouraged a more positive feeling towards it.  There was the constant challenge of difficulty caused by “power plays” in team mode, which gave the losing team a chance to catch up via some temporary change to the battle, and the fact that loadouts meant that you aren’t always met with AK-47 fire.  The free-for-all feels well done, because even though it’s still a haphazard mess in the battlefield it still feels balanced.

The only dip I see is in the co-op modes, which reflect many of the issues in single player.  The battles feel like a bumpy road where you have to stop for five minutes to remove the wall of bullets, then you progress forward and repeat.  And even though the co-op is technically non-canon, they still made an effort for dialogue and story to justify your shooting through two hundred mercenaries.  Unfortunately it feels even more garbage than the single-player.  Chloe is portrayed more as an immature slut, each character is given worse jokes to crack and more awkward behavior, and the story often didn’t feel well done.  My worst part was when none of you are even Drake, but he’s still there as an objective you interact with somehow.  It’s like having your pain medication split with other patients so you all share in the effects which don’t feel as good as they should be.  The co-op arena felt more disasterous, since it played like a harder (not more challenging, simply harder) single-player mode, but with stupid twists and mechanics to make it even worse.  The objective to kill x enemies wasn’t bad, then they went on to the “retrieve the treasure” objective which did add dynamic but still didn’t enhance the gameplay much.  Then there was territory where you were given a pretty damn small area you had to be in for your kills to count, further reinforcing the whole concept of “sit right there and shoot enemies forever, without moving forward”.

I would give multiplayer an 7 overall, but the non-co-op gets a 9.

If you want to buy this game, try to get it on sale or something if you aren’t a diehard fan.  And buy the doublepack of the first two games instead if you’re new to the series.