After the launch of 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves', Naughty Dog started noticing they had more people in the company's employ than ever before, and realized that all could be put to good use, so the decision was made to split the team into two so that each side could work on their own game.
One team was working on 'Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception', and it was riding on the hype of 'Uncharted 2's success instead of standing on it's own...
This time, Nathan Drake is thwarting off an old foe from his youth named Katherine Marlowe, alongside her assistant, Talbot, and the pirate, Rameses, to uncover Sir Francis Drake's secret knowledge about the lost city of Ubar, A.K.A. Iram of the Pillars (A.K.A. The City of Brass, A.K.A. The Atlantis of the Sands). Aided once again by the usual suspects apart from Tenzin from 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves', Drake recieves additional assistance to series newcomers, Charlie Cutter and Salim, the leader of his local tribe at the Rub' al Khali desert. Study up on your T.E. Lawrence, kids, it's about to get sandy.
This installment allows for a miniscule raise in difficulty compared to the last game with more aggressive enemies who are more willing to confront you head-on for some all-out brawling. The mellee combat, though being the biggest improvement, also turns out to be the biggest focus in fighting enemies. You're now able to throw opponents and grab them against walls and object and even use environmental weapons against them in some cases (one fight in France, I knocked out a guy so hard that his head rocked back at the rear door of an armored HUMMER-like SUV good enough to pop the door off, allowing me to see all the details in the vehicle, that was awesome). Platforming is also less hand-holding in this game, as you make more mistakes and need more precision in certain areas to get through (or in other cases, more erraticism). The shooting went through a mysterious phenomenon at the game's launch that caused fan reaction to demand the aiming to be more like 'Uncharted 2', and thus a patch allowed an alternate aim method to please fans. SPEAKING OF WHICH, the initial launch of'Uncharted 3 had plenty of glitches such as game-breakers and missing animations and per-object motion blur, this was all fixed and restored in the same patch. The REAL downer is the removal of unlockable in-game goodies such as skins and weapons, which is really missed in this game.
The graphics had some interesting improvements and experimentation, the lighting was upgraded using volumetric light shafts, and while Havok was still utilized for ragdolls, Naughty Dog turned to HOUDINI for procedural water physics in realtime and fractured geometry for destruction. Naughty Dog also began experimenting with a new ZLib technique of spooling animations directly from the disc in the retail version, to save processor resources, this would be the cause of the game's initial launch problems as the method wasn't perfected and caused communication with the HDD to stress out and cause severe fragmentation with older PS3 HDD's. This was also fixed in recent patches and by building the database of the HDD at the PS3's system recovery menu (it's also vastly improved in the digital version by relying solely on the HDD). Character models had nice improvements as well, especially as clothes were changed from country to country. And environments are their most beautiful here in the entire series, especially with certain areas bristling with people, it's surely splendid.
The story, while still great for the game that it is, was raising more questions than answers, Naughty Dog explained that the story process was mired by time constraints and an unfortunate circumstance involving Charlie Cutter actor Graham McTavish (whom also did Lazarević in 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves'), who had obligations to Warner Bros. to do the 'Hobbit' trilogy and began to depart halfway through production. This forced the U3 team to change the entire second half of the story hastily as they also had to deal with the rest of the game development simultaneously.
Greg Edmonson's seemingly last hurrah on the 'Uncharted' series is a real blast perfectly worthy of his repertoire with the franchise. The Arabian tones could ideally be utilized in a 'Lawrence of Arabia' film reboot if ever granted, it's just majestic. Also, voice acting is is top notch as always, just like the first two 'Uncharted's.
The online is not so favorable here, as the competitive segments take too many pages from the 'Call of Duty' series to truly stand on it's own, despite the signature Uncharted gameplay. Co-op is harder than before and more elseworlds story scenarios, such as old foes returning from past games, keep interest at the possibilities of the 'Uncharted' universe. The cinema mode now includes the ability to record matches in-game and convert the clips to video so you can save to your HDD or upload directly to YouTube.
While some gamers may hate it for being more cinematic, they DO overlook the enhancements that HAVE been made, 'Uncharted 3:Drake's Deception IS the the best in the series to me, but still playable and tolerable to anyone else expecting a repeat of 'Uncharted 2's lightning-in-a-bottle. "YALLAH!!!"
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception has a lot to live up to as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an incredible and near-perfect game.
I cant even say what the point was its easily the worst story in the series. The online was a whole lot of fun though but overall doesn't come even close to 2
Villains were all over the place in this… one second they wanted Drake dead, the next they needed him, then they want him dead again, then they coulda killed him, but poisoned his friend instead, then coulda shot him again, but had brunch with him, then needed him alive, then coulda mowed him down, but decided to kill him by fire and let him escape… Uncharted 2 was way better. 😅😅
This was actually my least favorite in the series. Didn't have that same impact that part 2 set.
Uncharted 2 is the pinnacle of the series (to me).
Granted, 4 had the best story in my opinion, but 2 was the overall best game.
A decade after its release, how does Uncharted 3 fare today? Does its story still work? Was its precursor’s legacy a bedrock or quicksand for its own aspirations?
When arguably the weakest game in the series is still awesome and more fun than most games today, you know you're onto a winner!
They had to make some weird choices as far as story went because the actor for Cutter had to bail which left a few holes in the story.
Uncharted is one of my favourite series and while the leap from 2 to 3 was not nearly as big as the leap from 1 to 2, I think it was an amazing experience none the less.
I really liked part 3 ( Among Thieves is still the best in my opinion) My only complaint was the interactions with the villains and how they were a missed opportunity, Linda MacMahon (Marlowe) was an interesting antagonist due to the history with Sully and Nate but it fails basically flat especially with her ending. And I couldn't care about Navaro 2.0.
What I did love and made me care was Cutter, in the short time he was in the game you could feel that the guy was a good treasure hunter for example when he pulled his own notebook with the clues he founds so the team can escape a room.
It was a small touch that add a lot to the character.
I have mixed feelings on the series. I still own all of them on the PS3, and the collection for PS4, but I didn't truly "love" any of the games until 4.
They're good games, but they always stumble on some element.
The first is good, but the climbing mechanics weren't exactly fine tuned with the first showing. Not to mention the spongey enemies if you played on anything past normal; but you're then faced with a fairly unchallenging game experience.
The second mostly fixed the climbing, but added in a pretty clumsy stealth mechanic.
Three was just two with a new story.
Four got it right though.
I don't remember once getting annoyed by any mechanic had in the game.
I know that everyone has a soft spot for 2, and 3 is sort of the black sheep of the series; but they did, overall, get progressively better. Which doesn't always happen.
KeenGamer: "Which Uncharted game is the best? Uncharted is widely recognized as one of the most groundbreaking and consistently great franchises in gaming. For both long-time fans and newcomers to this action-adventure classic, here’s a ranking of the franchise’s four main games."
Great list and great article nicely writen and explained. Although for me personaly i would put Drakes Fortune above Drake’s Deception and Uncharted 4 is absolutely my favourite of the franchise and number 1 for me.
U2 is the only game playable on crushing without causing a great amount of frustration. Not to mention just how much influence it had that they redid some of U2s set pieces like the caravan twice, and armored truck chase in U4.
I'd rate it as the following.
1.) Uncharted 2
(Close to perfection of any game I've played in years. Single Player/Multiplayer/Co Op all amazing.)
2.) Uncharted 3
(On par with UC2 multiplayer/co op wise minus the kickbacks [aka killstreaks]. I really liked the Lawrence of Arabia story.)
3.) Uncharted 4
(Single player is amazing. Multiplayer was meh. Co Op had potential. Absolutely hated the health revive system it slowed down the game way too much. Always preferred the fast pace action of UC2/UC3. Made it way more fun that way. Recoil was too ridiculous that most people in lobbies would only do hip firing, using power weapons and using that OP grappling hook to melee people after dropping them. Nobody wanted to revive anyone.)
4.) Uncharted
(It's the first in the series so it's hard to judge. Though I loved the story.)
Come to think of it, the step between Uncharted 1 and Uncharted 2 is huge. It goes from the weakest in the series to one of the best games ever made.
I think I'm going to play all of them again soon.
I thought that Uncharted 2 was a little bit better than Uncharted 3, because the second Uncharted gave a new twist to the Action genre, where the third failed at giving anything new to it, except that it was more spectacular graphically. So for me, Among Thieves stays on top.
Uncharted 3 had some choppy framerate areas, where as 2 was silk smooth the entire game. But yes, Uncharted 3 is just as good and even more ambitious.
UC3 is the worst in the series. Overall, I didn't think it was a good game and a big step backwards for the series.
The Mp for UC3 is still very good! I still liked Uc2's barebones-style mp, especially the coop modes.
I always think of UC2 as a better game than UC3 but then I remember the desert scene, the plane, the cruise, the chateau, the chase...man, the game had flaws but it had some of the most memorable sequences of gaming for sure.