As one of the most highly-anticipated PlayStation 3 exclusive titles launching this year, millions of gamers around the globe are keeping a watchful eye on this latest production from Naughty Dog, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Set for release throughout PAL territories tomorrow, many will be dedicating their time to the final chapter in this trilogy of adventures for Nathan Drake, and for most that will definitely be time well spent.
While Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is accessible to all – both fans and newcomers to the series – it does take some investment for those not previously familiar with Drake’s adventures to get up to speed. The story begins 
with Drake and Victor “Sully” Sullivan in a negotiation in a pub in England. Offered a large sum of money in return for a ring that supposedly belonged to Sir Francis Drake, Drake identifies that the suitcase loaded with bank notes is in fact fake. He takes the ring back, prompting a battle with hired thugs. After fighting their way out, Drake and Sully come up against Charlie Cutter, a thug who manages to put them down. They are then approached by Katherine Marlowe, who steals Drake’s ring. However, the whole setup was a ruse by Drake, who is keenly aware of the treasures the ring is capable of revealing; now giving his team the opportunity to pursue Marlowe and discover what she knows about the legacy of Sir Francis Drake.
Being an adventure videogame Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception of course takes players across the globe. From the humble beginnings in ol’ Blighty, Drake travels to the Rub’ al Khali desert in search of a lost city, the Iram of the Pillars. Along the way players will encounter dramatic set pieces; staged events that progress the story, keep the 
pace flowing and build for the next event. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a videogame that has been built – in its campaign at least – to be a non-stop rollercoaster ride from start to finish, and for the most part, its delivery is near-impeccable.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception has three legs to its interactivity, cemented together by the pacing of the storyline. Platform action, shooting and close combat make up the bulk of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception’s reasonably lengthy campaign, and each has clearly been refined to the point at which they compete with some of the best examples currently available. In respect to the platform gameplay Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception has obviously learned a lot from the Assassin’s Creed series in terms of making verticality accessible, though it’s still lacking in signposting. There are many occasions in which the player will be unsure of where they may tread next, simple spinning the left analog stick and pressing the Cross button in hope of finding a previously invisible point of contact.
The combat is Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception’s greatest quality when it comes to action gameplay. While the gunplay may well provide a balanced selection of weapons and an intuitive cover system, the brawling is presented like an extended cutscene. Players are
confined to small areas densely populated with the appropriate props, and the melee fighting engages with these items almost seamlessly for context-sensitive attacks. Players will soon learn to move the enemies into position near the windows, tables, barrels and other items in order to execute quick takedowns.
The structure of these components carries over to the co-operative game modes in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and to a lesser extent the multiplayer also, however in the latter they are less concerned with pacing and more so with player action and reaction. The multiplayer component offers the usual assortment of deathmatch and capture the flag modes, but where Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception differentiates itself is in the addition of modifiers. Known as Boosters and Kickbacks, these modifiers are earned through cumulative play and can greatly enhance your matches: Boosters add bonuses for an entire session, while Kickbacks offer immediate, time-based benefits. These can be anything from bonus cash to weapon upgrades, and they do enhance the longevity of 
the multiplayer mode considerably. However, in a field of videogame titles vying for you online attention, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is unlikely to beat-out titles designed specifically with competitive gameplay in mind. It’s a fantastic addition to the package, but not one on which it will secure additional sales alone.
While the core experience of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is easily on par with many of the competing big budget titles hitting the market, it lacks the sheer scale of presentation in Gears of War 3. The epic nature of a campaign path or the longevity of the multiplayer is not the question here, but rather the dressing surrounding them. It’s a modern idea that all gameplay modes should be connected, and that it is the player that should receive benefits for their expertise, rather than the character, but here in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception there is little evidence of either. It’s not exactly working against the quality of the production, but for such a high profile release it does seems a little passé to ignore such consumer preference.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is one of the best looking videogames released so far this year, but is best described in terms of the median quality for big budget productions. The animation is superb, though is inferior to that of L.A. Noire. The amount of detail packed into every area is staggering, though fails to add the depth to the scene evident in RAGE. The character models are presented as fantastically believable persons
in-game, though their personality is lacking the detail of Gears of War 3’s Delta Squad in all but the cutscenes. However, this doesn’t relegate Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception to a lower league, as each aspect is delivered with such finesse that the overall presentation is easily on par with any of the above titles.
Considering this fantastic visual quality, the lack of enemy character models is quite simply embarrassing. At any one point in the duration of the videogame the most different enemy character models the player will face is little over half-a-dozen; this surely isn’t the fault of a lack of resources, but more a lack of time or attention on behalf of the development team, and is arguably Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception’s biggest flaw. Also, just as with the recently released RAGE, players of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception will want to use the install option – even thought its not mandatory – simply to avoid the ridiculously long loading times. And juts like the aforementioned id Software release, even though they don’t occur very often, their duration is an incredible annoyance when it happens.
As one of the most anticipated videogame releases of the year, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception has garnered plenty of attention in the run up to release. It would take the harshest critic not to consider Naughty Dog’s latest worthy of such interest, though it may not be such a leap forward for the genre as many may be expecting. It’s a
fantastically complete world in which the player will thoroughly enjoy a reasonably lengthy campaign and a comfortable multiplayer mode, though not one which will compete with the many multiplayer orientated titles releasing this winter. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is a videogame experience that capitalises on the strengths of the adventure genre and couples it with the highest production values imaginable. Gamers are always looking for the titles which will define a console once it’s time in the limelight has ended, and even at this point in it’s lifespan, it’s unlikely that the PlayStation 3 will receive a more fitting title for such an honour before the arrival of it’s successor.
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