Okay, so the game is really really fun.

I think Uncharted 3 is the most divisive entry in the series for good reason. The story is not as well-paced or well-written as its predecessor. Nathan Drake has a personal rivalry with Marlowe, which is never really fleshed out? The flashback does make it make sense, but I really felt there would be more to the treasure he wants to find here other than "I wanted to as a kid". The villains are also really weird. I get they are part of an occult but teleportation as a power? It seems way too OP for the villains to only use it once or twice in convenient moments. We never really get any answers behind a lot of what goes down, but I do think the character work and the obsession of Nathan Drake towards the treasure in this one makes the game stand out. I also like how, starting Chapter 12, the stakes are raised and the game doesn't slow down at all. Not one bit. It goes from setpiece after setpiece and gets batshit crazy, at times to a fault. There's a couple moments in this game where the plot armor gets RIDICULOUS, even for Uncharted standards. But it's all very very fun. I think this game has the best combat in the series by far (better than even 4). The hand to hand melee combat is completely revamped, and the addition of aerial attacks and more dynamic combat arenas make the game a blast to play, especially in the shipyard segment (it should be mentioned that this is the only game in the series where you can throw back grenades). This game also has the most Sully screentime and it really does make the best use out of it. Sully and Nate's relationship in this game is definitely a highlight. Overall, if you like the series and haven't given this one a shot, I think it's definitely worth a playthrough. I just can't guarantee you're going to love the story, despite there being some stuff to like in it.

Gotta be honest Uncharted 3 had such a slow start feels like I had to get through 5/6 chapters till I started caring about the story here but once I got through that man this was such an incredible game!

This Uncharted game had the most confusing puzzles of the series which I really did not enjoy because at times I was just staring at my screen questioning my sanity on what to do at certain parts and a Uncharted game had never done that to me before.


I think this Uncharted game probably has some of the most back to back action/unexpected moments in the series once you get through the extremely slow start of this game!

Nolan North as Nathan Drake continues to be amazing with another fantastic performance

It improved on the formula of the first two games. I was fond of the variety in the chapters, with a good mix of the different gameplay styles. Sequences like the mansion fire and the ship escape stand out a lot. Other than that, I had fun with the improved arsenal of weapons.

Graphically, this game has quite a distinctive artstyle. I liked the realism of it a lot, from the arid deserts to the intricate interiors. I also felt that the sound design was a step up from the first game, on par with the second. Some great tracks and performances.

I liked the game's story, but there are some aspects of it that didn't click with me. Chloe and Charlie being written out in favour of Sully was pretty weird, and I don't like how the game did yet another Sully fakeout death. The exploration of Nate and Sully's relationship and pasts was neat, the extents they would go for one another. Conversely though, I think Talbot and Marlowe could've been a lot better. Apart from the sequence where they drug you (and Charlie before that), I don't think they lived up to my expectations. Still, it was an exhilarating quest, even if it wasn’t for some grand treasure.

Uncharted 3 is a step backwards, leaning into the worst aspects of the series's gameplay and delivering a rather odd story.
Lstick holding is when the game forces you into a segment where you only hold the left stick, and nothing else. It's the most base form of gameplay, just moving your character in a direction mindlessly. Unfortunately, Uncharted 3 has quite a few of these, and they're quite lengthy. It takes you out of the game and makes you want to pull up your phone with your free hand.
Our two additions to combat for this game are expanded hand to hand combat, adding grapples and throws to the mix, and the ability to throw grenades back at enemies. The expanded melee combat is a good idea, but it led to some melee-only sections that really dragged on. The ability to throw grenades back at enemies is cool, except for towards the end of the game when enemies will spam the shit out of grenades at you- and you're expected to throw them back while taking heavy machine gun fire.
Concerning the story, it takes much longer in this game for us to actually figure out what's going on and what our ultimate goal is. It makes the pacing more awkward and the advancement of the plot feel more arbitrary. There's also some issues of Sully being out of character. It makes sense why they wanted him around for this story, but I think it would have been better served as a prequel. Sully's departure in Uncharted 2 felt properly timed and sensible given his age.
There's still some memorable setpieces here, and I had fun overall, but the game's mostly just okay. Is it worth playing when you're going through the trilogy? Sure. Is it worth going back to, or playing individually? Probably not.

Generally good and quite enjoyable on the gameplay front, but the story feels amateurish and weirdly cut down.

It starts with the barely characterized villains, who are almost omniscient and always do the exactly correct thing to keep the plot going. Why are they constantly drugging and not just shooting Drake? They were ok with killing him on so many other occasions and sending a small army after him.

Just like 1 and 2, nobody develops as a person, across these harrowing adventures, it's just more of the usual snarky commentary. It would have been nice, if Drake had an epiphany after the desert.
He should be like "Holy shit, I've cheated death so many times, it's only a matter of time before something kills me, I should actually commit to Elena and other people in my life I care about".

The side characters don't play any real significance (What the fuck was the point of Cutter and why does everyone know him?), Salim just becomes Nathan's steadfast ally for basically no reason, and disappears when convenient. There was a chance here for Nathan to reflect on the carnage that grave robbers and ex-colonial powers bring to the Middle East and places of culture and treasure through his interactions with Salim, and yet...nothing. The game genuinely just feels like a butchered cut of a theoretically good story.

Even the AK in the desert sand from the title screen feels cut. Nathan picks it up in a dramatic cut scene, and you can hold it for a few montages of desert walking and then it just... disappears from your back with 0 announcement? What the hell was the point?

They made a mix of Indiana Jones 3 and Lawrence of Arabia, that is worse than either one.

TL;DR Everybody outside of the writers did a great job though (especially the environment designers and the programmers for the hallucinations, holy shit)

P.S. The lamest parts where the ones with the spiders though. Are they even supernatural or related to Ubar? What was going on there?

An overall disappointment after the second episode. I understand why everyone pretty much dismissed it when it came out. Following up on something so huge was no easy task, and never ever does the ride entertain as much as the epic moments already lived in the previous game.
Still has every design problem the other games had with countless enemies coming out from God knows where to try and murder you, and a hero who has no problem brutally slaughtering legions of grunts but suddenly has a conscience crisis at the very end and attempts to save the big baddie's life for no reason.
Also hand to hand combat sucks ass and this episode insists on having way more of them.

You may have a loved one this Valentine's but I have the Uncharted 3 platinum so who's the real winner here 😎


This game still slaps. I wanted to replay Uncharted 4 but decided to go through this one first, then I quickly realised I had nothing better to do with my life at the moment and decided to platinum it and in doing so I've discovered a couple of things.

1. The bonus rewards in this are so much better than Uncharted 3, mainly the skins, you can be a skeleton... The most you get in UC4 is a scuba suit 😔

2. Despite most of the game aging surprisingly well it's still janky as shit even in the remaster, mainly the climbing and cover mechanics, those got me killed the most. Anger.

3. I've never memorised enemy spawn patterns as much as I've had to during Crushing difficulty for this game.. love that for me. Love this is what I've done with my week.


Anyway, still a very solid game. Nothing masterful but definitely a fun time to come back too. Although glad I never have to touch it again for completion purposes.

I really don't get how this one gets kind of a bad rep when it's literally the best in the original trilogy? They finally nailed the balance between exploration and shooting, sometimes even mixing them both in the same section which felt amazing. There are still some annoying shooting sections but they aren't as bad as in the previous titles.
The escape sequences are the best, the sinking ship, the chateau on fire, the crumbling city, I loved it!! This is easily the most cinematic one, the desert part was stunning and it was really clever to save the big one towards the end instead of making the same mistake uncharted 2 did.
They could do away with the supernatural element but still it was very brief and toned down so I didn't mind it that much. My biggest complaint is probably how they tried so hard to force us into using their new melee fight mechanics, which are an improvement, for sure, but still unnecessary and clunky, especially when they throw enemies that you're forced to melee in the middle of a gunfight while being shot at. Also don't get why Cutter and Chloe kind of disappear halfway through and we never hear from them again?
But all in all my favorite of the original trilogy and I'm super excited to play the fourth

Probably the best one of the original trilogy. I'm glad it wasn't 100% shooting like that first or even 85% shooting of the second one. The puzzles are the best yet. I appreciate the heavy focus on stealth even if they don't quiet nail it. It's interesting to see the progression that the games took in gameplay. The story especially takes a nice jump forward with themes of obsession and the sacrifices that come with it. It's cool to go back and play these after playing The Last of Us part 1 and 2 because you can really feel how the three games were a build up to the themes and gameplay of those two games. Overall mad decent. Excited to play the fourth.

Another solid improvement for the series, UC3 takes strides to be even more fun and bombastic than UC2. The gunplay felt slightly more smooth with more varied weapons, and the encounters felt a little less frequent in favor of more action set-pieces that have gotten even more awe-inspiring. Better writing, better puzzles, better brawling...

Unfortunately, Drake's adventures are becoming both more serious and more silly at the same time. His relationships with other characters is easily the highlight of the narrative, but each game tries to top the previous with a more involved (yet extremely similar) plot about a treasure that ultimately doesn't feel that important (and maybe that's the point). Meanwhile, Drake performs increasingly more ludicrous stunts and survives situations that absolutely boggle the mind. It's good fun, but it does feel like a game (series) that I have to turn my brain off a bit to enjoy.

Additionally, I encountered way more glitches in this game than the previous two, and the best parts of it often felt like the parts I wasn't actually in much control (hold forward, maybe press Jump a couple times). The combat really just isn't doing much for the series, and cover shooting versus hordes of mooks stops being fun about halfway through each game.

All-in-all, I'm not sure if I liked UC3 more than UC2, but I think that some of the more objective gameplay improvements warrant a slightly higher score.