Uncharted 3Back in 2022 I grabbed this trilogy to try and catch up on this PS exclusive series. was underwhelmed by the first one (playing the 2013 TR immediately before it didn't help!) but was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the second - it was more of the same but it seemed more confident and therefore more willing to push the boundaries in set pieces etc (plus Rene Auberjonois
). Despite that, the fact that it has taken me two years to finish the trilogy probably tells you my opinion on this game/series.
An exciting start - just like in Tomb Raider 3, we begin in London! As a Londoner this makes me very happy, until it becomes apparent that there isn't really any London in this section and it's just a slog through a dungeon nominally underneath the East End. I'm sure people in Cartagena or rural France or wherever will say that Uncharted 3 isn't exactly a Lonely Planet guide for their region, but it's still disappointing. As an aside, I refuse to believe that the main antagonist, the head of a global conspiracy steeped in arcane Drakean lore from across the globe, would pronounce it "
Carter-Jeena" - I'm just not having it...
From there we go on a trip through time and space through 1980s Carter-Jeena, then on to modern France, a ship graveyard, 123 Yemen Street, and then a big city hidden in the desert. And it's all just meh. Walk through an area trying not to trip over the totally-not-just-cover furniture. Climb walls where you'll instantly die if you fall from ten feet in the wrong place. Find something. Shoot your way out. Jump thirty feet in a cutscene and walk away from it.
The combat has some really annoying foibles. On the surface it's just a bog standard third person cover shooter, which is what it is and that's fine. But too often Nate will snap out of cover when you don't want him to and leave himself susceptible to enemy fire, not that the cover works at all when enemies can seemingly come from any direction. Grenade throwbacks are dodgy - the time I perfectly timed a grenade throwback only for Nate to
throw it against the pillar he was leaning against was almost a rage quit event for me. And woe betide the poor soul who tries to shoot an enemy at point blank range and ends up in the melee combat, with its over-reliance on mashing circle, counter QTEs, and the same four melee animations for the whole game. The combat is so annoying it actually makes me want to do stealth takedowns, but they're gooseberry fool too!
A word about the climbing. The climbing is one of the more fun parts of the game and you get some nice visuals as you scale these interesting buildings. Climbing up through the sinking ship is great! But they completely overdo the whole loose hold mechanic, to the point where you're more surprised if a ledge holds your weight than not.
Apparently this won loads of GOTYs but the whole trilogy just leaves me feeling cold.