Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Remastered - Review

 A thief's trickery.

Console: PlayStation 4 game played on a PlayStation 5.

Coming off of the massive critical and commercial success of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, developer Naughty Dog felt that the sky was the limit for their next game. That they could achieve any wild blockbuster idea they could come up with. The team wanted to push itself both creatively and technologically which heavily influenced the title. From the dessert theming to the scale of the action set pieces. This would differentiate the feel of the adventure from 1 & 2 while providing quite the design challenge. 

In other words, they wanted to outdo themselves yet again and create the best Uncharted game yet. Did they succeed? While the fanbase at large will disagree with me, and Uncharted 3 is certainly not perfect, I think that they did. 

Let's talk about Uncharted 3 and let me explain to you why. 

Archaeologist and adventurer Nathan Drake and his partner and mentor Victor 'Sully' Sullivan once again find themselves embroiled in a race for lost treasure. When the sale of Nate's Francis Drake's ring becomes an (expected) double-cross, the two learn that Marlowe, Sully's old employer and who is responsible for Nate and Sully meeting 20 years ago, plans to use the ring to find the lost City of Ubar. Together with their friends Chloe, Cutter and Elena, the two set out to find the City and its treasure before Marlowe and her associates can. They quickly learn that Marlowe is not an adversary to take lightly and Nate finds his relationship with his friends, and the very reason for adventuring, tested like never before. 

The story of Uncharted 3 is the best of the series so far which is in large part thanks to the deep dive into Nate and Sully´s relationship and history. Naughty Dog must´ve heard my complaints about Sully getting benched in Among Thieves through both time and space because he´s next to Nate for almost the entire adventure. We get to see the start of the relationship, the two have each other's back but also butt heads a bit. It's good stuff and forms the real meat, the emotional core, of the adventure. 

Beneath all the action and grandeur, Uncharted 3 is about the bond between Nate and Sully. 

Less successful is the 'why are you doing this' subplot for Nate. The game beats you over the head with this question but never gives a satisfying or concrete answer. The point even becomes mute in the 2nd half of the game when the focus shifts from treasure to saving Sully and stopping Marlowe when it becomes clear that she is after something a lot more dangerous than immense wealth. It feels forced, is what I'm saying, and while I see the point of this plot point it could've been handled better. 

They could've also melded the two halves of the story better. There's a noticeable contrast between the first and second half of the story both in pacing and side-characters. It almost, but not quite, feels like two separate adventures back-to-back instead of a single large journey. 

Now that I've mentioned one forced element let's tackle another but in a positive light. I never liked that Uncharted 1 & 2 had 'magical' elements in it. That didn't fit the image of Uncharted I've in my head from the movie and cultural osmosis. Clashed with the tone too. I'm happy that Uncharted 3 finally gives us a narrative that gives us a believable explanation for the magical/'out there' elements you encounter. It's a smart one too. It ties into the tricks the bad guys pull throughout the adventure. 

Said bad guys were solid threats by the way. Nothing outstanding but nothing grading either. Nate's crew of friends are pretty likeable as well. Enough that when they were in danger I genuinely feared for them. And yes, that includes Chloe. The lesser amount of screen time might be the reason for that though. 

The gameplay has remained largely unchanged. Uncharted remains an action-adventure game with the occasional puzzle. Combat consists of firefights, stealth sections and dedicated action set pieces. Nate is still a spider monkey that climbs all over the place moving from one section to the next.

You punch, shoot and take cover while taking out the bad guys and trying not to die. You can carry both a small and large weapon at a time as well as four grenades. You can now also throw grenades back at enemies if you press the button on time. You don´t have to abandon you´re current cover position when a grenade is thrown next to you, which is always nice. 

The gunplay itself has been altered from the previous entries and it´s hands down the most noticeable change in the entire game. A new system is implemented that more accurately tracks the bullets once shot and adds recoil. As a result of this, the gunplay feels different here than it did before. Heavier and more difficult to pull off headshots. It takes some time getting used to, especially if you´re used to the gunplay of Among Thieves. 

Gunplay is most of the combat but at times it´s better to use stealth or hand-to-hand combat. You can quickly move from cover positions and when close to an enemy you can perform a stealth takedown. Even if you get spotted, if you react fast enough, you can knock them out with some good old fisticuffs before they raise the alarm. They have become more QTE-like but I still found them fun. 

There are also some dedicated brawling sections and this is where the last, and to me the most frustrating, change comes in. You can now grab enemies, throwing/pushing them away. Not the improvement to the 'grab and throw objects during fights' like I wanted to but it's an OK idea I guess. The problem here is that the grab and dodge buttons are the same. I can't count the amount of times I wanted to dodge but instead grabbed an enemy. It reads like but a small thing but I'm not exaggerating when I say it's my biggest issue with this game just through the sheer amount it got me killed alone. 

The blockbuster-level set pieces here are my favourites so far. The first half is lower on these and has a slower pacing on the whole, but the second half has them in spades. They are creative, cinematic and well-realized sections with good sound design and music to get your blood pumping even more. I know that the plane sequence gets the most attention, the boxart alludes to it and it was reused in the movie, but I find the ship sequence the best. 

Just look at the cinematography in this scene. What an amazing way to show the scale of this thing.

The puzzles are also quite good. I found the puzzles in the previous titles too easy. You just looked in your notebook and the answer was right there. Here not so much. Some are still clear on what needs to be done from the get-go, but performing the solution does take some thinking. We also have puzzles that give you a hint to the solution but the heavy lifting, figuring out how it all fits together, is up to you. 

Collectables are once again not all that worthwhile. Like any good treasure hunter, Nate explores each area to find some treasure. Said collecting is not very intuitive. Yes, you can now see the actual models in the overworld but they're placed rather haphazardly and easily misseable with the higher pace of this title. In the remaster, they still unlock extras such as outfits but I didn't find these bonuses worth hunting relics down for. 

Now it's time to circle back to the opening. I can see why the fanbase at large feels this game is a step down from its predecessor. It's because, aside from the issues I already highlighted, Uncharted 3 is very similar to Uncharted 2. There are tons of similarities between these two games specifically, big and small. Both are about finding a long-lost city said to hold immeasurable wealth and power. Both final levels are basically the same and one character specifically is just a new version of a character they killed off in Drake's Fortune, just to name a few.

The jump between Drake´s Deception and Among Thieves in terms of improvements to the graphics and such is also not as big as between Among Thieves and Drake's Deception. For instance, while the game does look better than Uncharted 2 with more detailed environments, more and smoother animations and more cinematic cinematography, the ´jump´ if you will is not so high that it's immediately noticeable. 

Conclusion

When you take into account the many similarities with its predecessor and the smaller technological jump, I can understand why people prefer that title over Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. However, that doesn't mean that the game is not worth your time. While the game does feel rather similar to Among Thieves and has issues of its own, like the gunplay, it's still a blast. It has an excellent story, fun gameplay and above all else exciting setpieces. For my money, Uncharted 3 is the best of the PS3 trilogy and worth checking out.