My Thoughts On Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception

A day one purchase is a verbal vow that some of us promise ourselves. It’s something we internally agree on as early as the viewing of the first trailer or even teaser of a certain game. Recently, I’ve been going through an annoying lack of time issue when it comes to wanting to play games. When I eventually get time off work and when I’m not using that time for dance training, I usually spend the hours playing Starcraft 2 or Final Fantasy XIV. (now that it’s much more playable) The great advantage I get from mentally deciding on a day one purchase, is that I will plan very far into the future and make sure that on the morning of the chosen games release, I have no commitments on that day other than to be a couch potato with a rotting video game addiction. Thanks to Naughty Dog and their great craftsmanship, from the minute I completed Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3 received the title of day one purchase. Little did I know that I would be somewhat disappointed with my purchase and that I would have much rather waited until the game went down to at least £25. I really would like to start off by saying that I don’t feel that Uncharted 3 made a big enough leap from the previous game but I can see where it could be debated that the second game didn’t leave much room to be improved upon due to it being such a masterpiece. Due to that fair and understandable counter argument, I won’t make that statement. What I will say though, is that while UC3 didn’t exactly need to refine the majority of its mechanics, that shouldn’t have given it a free pass to bore me to death with the exact same things. Resuming control of Nathan Drake 2 years after Among Thieves was like a weird friendship that gradually degenerated from a happy reunion into trying to remember why and how you became such close friends in the first place. This slow grinding realisation came into fruition at about 40% through the game. There is only so much I can take of running, shooting and climbing in one sitting. I completed the game in 2 days but was tempted to put the game down to carry on later quite a few times. Yes, Uncharted 3 is a third person action game. I know this. It’s about a brave, witty and acrobatic treasure hunter who reminds us of his wit whenever things aren’t going his way. Bad guys come after him all the time, so you have to hide behind cover and shoot people in the face. Occasionally, a puzzle will have to be solved which will require you to look through Drakes nicely organised notes in order to get an idea on how to solve it and you can bet your two shoes that once you have, you’ll be right back to the gunplay because you most likely just solved the puzzle for your enemy that was too dumb to do it himself. Believe me, I understand what this game is all about but I can’t help but feel insulted when I climb a ladder, then climb another ladder. Then I almost reach the top but then the middle bit breaks causing Drake to fall and potentially break his neck, but wait!… it stopped half way! Phew! Then I’m climbing a ledge that crumbles but Drake manages jumps on to something else at the last second! That was close! After that I’m climbing on a giant chandelier that suddenly falls apart but then Drake uses the broken apparatus to help him in his climb. How nimble you are mister Drake!
It was nice in Uncharted 2 and I understand that “it wouldn’t be Uncharted if that didn’t happen” but there is no need to constantly shoehorn it into almost every single climbing encounter in the game. I didn’t have a problem with it in UC2 because it was still a bit fresh to me but I can’t say the same anymore now that I’ve been strangled with the run, shoot, climb cycle. It becomes extremely predictable and I start to get annoyed. Not because it began to get so pre-emptively obvious but because I wonder if the developers actually thought I would be shocked and entertained each and every time it happened. It’s just like when I was 6 years old and I would suddenly jump into my older brother’s room while he did his school work, in a foolish attempt to scare him. Instead I would fail, wait round the corner for 2 minutes and then do the exact same thing hoping that maybe, just maybe, I might get a jump out of him. With these instances, Naughty Dog insulted my intelligence, which is something I was very displeased with.