I enjoyed the first few chapters of Uncharted 3 more than any part of any of the other three Uncharted games I’ve played. Some of this is simply related to the intro putting Nathan Drake in London, the traditional Uncharted vista provided by a night-time view of the Gherkin and Canary Wharf from the roof of a pub. This happily familiar sight comes alongside the sheer joy of the combat tutorial coming in the form of a carefully choreographed pub brawl. Forget cinematic action, give me a scene which is just some ashtray-based violence short of being in EastEnders. It is only further improved on by the revelation that the gang-based brawl was carefully choreographed in-world too, as part of an elaborate con.
After some marvellous unhighlighted uses of the similarity between “Nate” and “mate”, proceedings in London end up in a deserted tube station. It more than makes sense for Uncharted 3 to be doing Tomb Raider III. Before that though, there is a more Tomb Raider IV-like flashback to a much younger Drake in Colombia, and though I’ve never even been to Colombia I enjoyed that even more. It’s a particularly vividly and colourfully realised place, but its success is more to do with the change in stakes and pace.
Drake is a hesitant kid trying to steal a key to break into a case in a barely-guarded museum. Given that it’s a flashback, we all know nothing too bad is going to happen to him. We know that he and the older man he circles at a distance are going to end up partners in crime. There is real tension to what will happen if he gets caught, though. He is properly alone and powerless. Without having to make him bloodied or dazed or at the end of his rope, there is a low-key sense of someone working out the edge of their abilities.
He makes just the same kind of gravity-defying leaps as older Drake, but there is at least a small possibility that he won’t. Tracking one man through a market becomes a matter of high drama because he won’t just confidently power his way through it with a casual wisecrack. Even once he inevitably ends up being chased across rooftops by men with guns, it’s a relatively restrained sequence by Uncharted standards.
Back in the present day, there’s lots more men with guns. Having the same Hollywood English bad guys show up everywhere around the world is a slight improvement on the optics of slaughtering locals everywhere. The action is conveyed through plenty of set pieces even more spectacularly realised than those in previous Uncharteds. Uncharted 3 also has a similar eye on doing something in between to make the characters feel like people, be that suffering through claustrophobia, making jokes about phone top-ups, or a continued line in obnoxious masculinity (“don’t be such a sissy”). It is structured like an action movie rather than just taking the highlights of one.
This is a video game, though, and Naughty Dog don’t leave its big moments to cutscenes. When you run away from an infestation of spiders and then pretty much straight into escaping a burning castle, you keep control for every run and jump. Which presents its own challenges. Make it too confusing or difficult and the whole thing would lose its rhythm, caught up in failures and restarts. Take the control out of the player’s hands and it would just be another game full of quick time events. Uncharted 3 threads the needle with a middle way, giving you control of Drake’s movements but giving you a helping hand in several ways.
Mostly this is through keeping things as simple and straight-line as possible while adding in falling beams and collapses to try to make it less obvious. It’s easy to fall into making blind leaps in the one way out, confident in the fact that handholds will turn out to be there because they always do. Sometimes when you don’t judge that quite right, the game actively steps in and redirects you to where you were meant to go, even if it means a nearly 90 degree turn.
On a moment-to-moment pacing level, this works rather well. It continues to feel like you’re in control while offering spectacle beyond what would be possible if you genuinely were. The problem comes with the fact that this is, again, a video game, and that at the minute-to-minute level (not to mention the hour-to-hour), it is paced like a video game.
The player’s investment in managing to pull off a series of skillful moves is something which games can turn into a long-running pleasure. In Uncharted 3, The lack of a full level of control and skill means that when it frequently apes that approach,it’s a bad move. Ticking off a series of prepared and barely disguised stunt marks is something with a shorter appeal. Once Uncharted 3 turns to France and Yemen and Syria and longer action sequences, I found them quickly becoming exhausting. As close as it already comes to Indiana Jones and its other cinematic influences, the biggest thing it could benefit from is being paced more like an action movie. There’s a reason they don’t last nine hours.
Top of the charts for week ending 5 November 2011:
WCRobinson
That’s a good point on pacing and length – there is a reason that I tend to like the action games that manage to maintain a shorter length without leaving me feeling shortchanged. It’s remarkable what an hour or two less runtime can do to make a game feel tighter and mroe replayable.
I really enjoyed Uncharted 3, and it obviously has some great cinematic moments, like the plane. My favourite is actually The Lost Legacy though, as I love the sense of exploration and discovery in it. 🙂
iain.mew
Thanks! I’m looking forward to The Lost Legacy. I have only played the first three and one which is coming up for me to write about in eight games’ time.
WCRobinson
If you play The Lost Legacy I would be excited to hear your thoughts on it! Ah, I think the game you mention is the one I (and many others) have never played – it could do a remaster (cough Sony cough)