JOYSTICK: “Uncharted 3” more awesome movie than amazing game
Published 9:44 am Friday, November 4, 2011
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
4.5/5
Rated: M, PS3
—Beautiful cinematics and adaptive controls.
—Smart, engaging story makes U3 feel like a movie.
—Wonky tutorials and button locking may lose new Uncharted players in the first few hours.
“Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception” is not a game. It’s a movie disguised as a game and a pretty good movie at that.
U3 is the latest entry in a series known for its cinematic quality. Playing the game makes you feel like you’re in an action movie right from the start. You play as Nathan Drake, a roguish explorer and thief of priceless treasure — think Indiana Jones — who’s looking for the ring of Francis Drake, the 16th century explorer and privateer — a medieval Indiana Jones.
Without going into specifics, you have to run, jump, gun, climb, swing and snatch your way through the game with varying success. U3 does a great job at the beginning of guiding players through scenarios, and the opening levels are, well, shocking to say the least. The gameplay is fairly intuitive, especially when Nathan climbs from ledge to ledge. Nathan’s fighting skills have improved over the last game, with more weapon options and a barehanded fighting system that still feels like vaudevillian fun.
There are several bothersome gameplay aspects, however. While the game helps guide you through the first levels, that soon ends, making new players feel like they went from training wheels to a motocross race.
The cinematics can at times get in the way of gameplay. Jaw-dropping vistas aside, the cinematics are almost too distracting when you’re trying to find a way out of a building or down an embankment.
Don’t get me wrong, U3 is an amazing game with beautiful cinematics. It’s a worthy AAA title with characters more life-like than anything I’ve seen before. Yet it’s a game trying to be a movie, instead of a game that allows your imagination to grow.