uncharted 3 uses one of my favourite structures a developer can use when making a game, it's a game made with cool stuff in mind first, a cool sequence or location and then it builds the rest of the game around it, context and sense be damned. it does this a lot, chase sequences that make no sense, jungles in the middle of france which i dont think even has jungles and even sequences with seemingly no real point beyond that the people making it thought it'd be cool to put in, like the over an hour long ship graveyard/cruise ship segment that just comes out of nowhere and serves no real purpose beyond "wouldnt it be cool to have a titanic level" and it is cool to have a titanic level. they even admit this in interviews with at one point talking about how the talbot chase sequence didn't even have a character in mind whenever they made it, they just wanted a cool chase sequence in a desert town and then worked around it after the fact, i love this! throw sense out the window and just give me cool stuff, i'll always be here for that because it always makes for a more interesting project, without it we may not have gotten those cool sequences and since those are easily some of the games highlights, it'd be lesser for it. the story isn't bad at all though, it's still charming and the cast from 1&2 are always fun to be around, you get scenes from both elena and chloe and they get time to shine and the new characters are a lot of fun, charlie especially is a great addition even though he gets abruptly written out far too fast and you also have talbot who's a fun villain, probably the most interesting in the series so far, but marlowe the other villain is just kind of lame, she's just a nothing character.

the game isn't massively different from the second game, which wasn't massively different from the first game, standard shooting with a lot more mobility than your standard shooter, some stealth elements that don't work well and are thankfully mostly optional, though the melee options are massively upgraded here with a lot more focus and a lot more options, you even have enemies that will be mainly focused on melee combat that are a lot of fun to fight, really spices things up especially when you consider that you can occasionally use items in the environment in melee but it's all contextual and can feel random at times, i had a lot of issues getting it to actually function. beyond that you got your platforming which hasn't changed at all and you can collect trasure in the environment. there isn't really much new here unlike the gimmicks of golden abyss or the rope of 4, but that's also okay, the game has a lot that still makes it feel different from the first two. really if you're here for this then none of that will bother you because you probably know you're here mainly for one thing, the set-pieces, and they're all cool here. from foot chases across desert cities, clinging to a falling airplane, chasing down a convoy on horseback and a lot of "escape place you did the level in but now its on fire or sinking" which is my favourite, the game does it a lot, like at least 4 times, one time even with a wave of spiders chasing you down, but every time it's cool and fun and honestly probably the games highlight, the ship sequence especially, it's worth playing the game for on its own. it's nice and short too, at most maybe 8 hours which is a perfect length for something like this, it has a lot of variety but never outstays its welcome, though a level or two does go on a little too long, like the citadel and certain sections are a little too hard, like the citadel or the post-convoy sequence. there's some decent replayability too with a bunch of difficulty modes and a multiplayer mode thats's sadly now defunct, though this did lack a lot of the cool unlockables from uncharted 2 like the drake costumes and the filters. the multiplayer i can't fully speak on because i'm only familiar with uncharted 2's but reportedly it was just a better version of that games mode, it even had all of its maps added as dlc, there's a co-op mode too thats like a fun survival mode with objectives but this i was able to play! it still works offline with a second player and its fun, but i enjoyed 2's a lot more, the more simple style of its mode just made for a more fun experiance, it's just too chaotic and difficult.

it's also super pretty, it's easily one of the most big money games on the ps3 and it uses almost all of the effects the ps3 can do, it's easily one of the most technically impressive games on the console, some of the desert areas use lighting so harsh it's actually hard to look at and the detail in every area is amazing. this one is mostly focused on a lot of middle eastern settings as opposed to 1's jungles (but theres at least one) and 2's snow areas and they all look really cool, the dense cities are fun to look at all the little stall details and the deserts feel as harsh as they should, there's even a cool level set during a sandstorm that looks amazing, you even have a bunch of tombs an airport and a castle level, it has a ton of variety. i also really want to note a really cool drug sequence around the games 2/3rds point that really blew me away, i wasn't even sure the ps3 could handle the kind of things that level was doing, the level geometry twisting with the effects and the hallway repeating seemingly endlessly until you get it right, it was amazing to see and i absolutely reccomend looking it up even just to see the kinds of things the ps3 could pull off. my only real issue w the game honestly is the music, cinematic movie style osts just do nothing for me, it's not a bad ost but it's also like, the only memorable track is the main theme, but it does work for the game super well, just doesn't stand out beyond that though.

the game was a big hit for the console, it's one of the most common and easy to find games, it even had a bundle with a random the rock movie that you can find for pennies in the wild, and a game of the year edition that i would say to go for if you can, since you get all the co-op maps with it and those are still readily playable as long as you have another person, the remaster is also fine, though it cuts the multiplayer for both 2 and 3 but it's a fine way to play. it's a great time no matter how you play, ideally play the whole thing as a trilogy though, they all complement each other well and each has strengths to its own, 1's peak of the exploration vibes, 2's peak action vibes and 3 feels almost like the overtly ambitious one that goes far harder than it needed to.