The third entry in the famous Uncharted franchise is a great game, but the many problems hold the game back. (SPOILERS!)
STORY-The story is of Nathan and Co. going to discover what Sir Francis Drake did for his six month trip to the Indies, and it turns out he was looking for the lost city of Iram under her majesty's secret service. It also has a short story in the beginning of how Sully and Drake met, and why the new villain-Marlowe-hates them so much. This also introduces the new lovable Charlie Cutter, who is AWESOME. He cares about this stuff more than Nate does, which makes him hilarious and serious at the same time. But then he's gone after about four chapters. Well I said, "That's as much BS as when you took Sully out of U2 after only ONE chapter!"
Here's a great place to talk about the many plot holes in the game, which contains spoilers, so please skip if you haven't already played. One plot hole in particular that struck me as odd was when Marlowe says that Drake isn't Nate's real name, and then is never talked about again. That would've been great to explore on the backstory levels, but they just leave it alone. There is also another part where Charlie shoots the other villain-Talbot-but then he somehow remains unscathed, even after the bullet clearly hit him. There's also another part in the opening levels where Nate and Sully find a very old corpse of the secret agents trying to find them, but they just got there, and is never explained upon. I can understand why Charlie left-he broke his legs-but why did Chloe leave? It's never explained how Elena knew Charlie, or cared about him. There is a reference to Nate's and Elena's marriage and ultimate divorce, but is never explained why! The relationship between Marlowe and Sully is never built upon, as with Talbot's and Marlowe's.
You can see how pissed I am over this. Many people ignore these, and I envy those people. I wish I could enjoy the game as much as they did without caring about plot holes. I'll move on now...
The villains, I'm disappointed. Marlowe and Talbot are just not that threatening. Talbot is even more scary than Marlowe (who looks like Hellen Mirren, who isn't threatening at all.) but that's not saying much. Then you meet lovable pirate Rameses, who is the most useless villain in recent video game history. He's only in three chapters, and then kills himself for some reason. He's funny, sure, but his levels are merely distractions and could've been left out. The only good thing about his levels is to showcase the perfect swimming controls, and the amazing water engine. Even when Marlowe is killed in quicksand it's sad because I felt like I didn't even know her. She just wasn't there long enough for me to care.
GAMEPLAY-Well other than some fine-tuned shooting and controls and a much better combat system, Uncharted 3 actually is really good in this department. The special moves like kicking dudes in the face or throwing them off ledges is harder to pull off though. One thing that's weird is that the gameplay completely shifts from it's own awesome combat system to Uncharted 2's in multiplayer. Like I said, the swimming controls are actually really good and the new diving move is very useful.
GRAPHICS/SOUND-Eh, they're the same really. Same great facial and body animations, same great voice overs, same great music. But one thing I noticed is that in multiplayer, the music changes from awesome orchestra to stupid Dubstep. I guess they got a great deal with Scrillax and they put all they're crappy music on there. It's just annoying when you're listening to music that fits the mood, to a synthesized beat that sounds half-baked.
MULTIPLAYER-Well it's not a Modern Warfare killer, that's for sure. This is the topic I'm sure the three people who read these reviews are looking towards, because that's the only thing that matters now. Anyway, it's actually is pretty bad. It just feels tacked on at the last minute, kind of like the lackluster story. Competitive modes are TDM, three TDM, Plunder (CTF), and Team Objective (Domination). I find these modes fun and the starter guns feel balanced. I say starter because the power weapons are cheap. The sniper kills in one shot and you can easily quickscope in this game. The RPG and Grenade launcher both give you a chance to live, but said chance is used up when your avatar refuses to get back up. I wish there were more maps, but that's answered by the move Naughty Dog made with pre-launch DLC. This gives the rest of the maps that were obviously in the final product, but scraped to make more money, and all the old character skins, from Uncharted 1 and 2.
Cooperative multiplayer is the same stuff, just without the BS. Unlike U2's co-op, it has it's own story with five chapters, every locale from all three games, Borneo, London, Monastery, Syria, then Airport. It's confusing because the main villains are from past games, and they've already died. They are complete with mini and full boss fights. Mini bosses have abilities like grenade launchers, cluster/mega bombs, and never having to reload. Full boss fights are hard because they have one hit kill sniper rifles. It even has it's own customization screen, but it has less than competitive. One thing that's better is that you can mod a gun as many times as you want, but competitive only allows one mod. Boosters are less cheap and have become epically useless. They even have pre-game boosters that are even more useless, just a way to prove you have too much virtual money to spend. Kickbacks are new though, the idea's great , a reward system that grants advantages when you reach set medal limit. You can have RPGs, become a bunch of spiders, or even throw a cluster bomb that explodes into more bombs.
Overall, Uncharted 3 is a great game. It just a lot of plot holes in it and multiplayer is not that much fun. Anyway, pick it up if you want fun gameplay and head-scratching moments.