Game: (4.5 out of 5)
You can never go wrong playing the Uncharted series on the PS3. Uncharted 2 was a huge leap forward over the original Uncharted. In some ways Uncharted 3 is even better than 2, but not the game changer some had been anticipating.
One area where the Uncharted series always shines is the story line. Playing an Uncharted game is as much like watching a movie as it is playing a video game. The story in Uncharted 2 was the best I've ever experienced. In my opinion, while the story in Drake's Deception is good, it's not quite up to par with the second one.
The game play itself is pretty much unchanged, although at times the aiming mechanism seemed a little harder to control than in earlier versions of the series. The multi-player continues to be one of the best out there and will add hours and hours of replay value to your purchase.
I'm the kind of guy that gets bored very easily while playing games. I've yet to finish a single GTA game to the end, and have dozens of games I've only gotten about 1/4 of the way through before I moved on to the next game. But with Uncharted 3, the disc never left my PS3 from the moment I started until the moment the credits rolled at the end of the game.
All in all Uncharted 3 is a great release and should rank right up there as one of the best PS3 releases of 2011.
3D Effect: (4.5 out of 5)
Even more than the game itself, I was really looking forward to experiencing the 3D in Uncharted 3. Naughty Dog had spent a lot of time talking about how much effort they put into the 3D and how great it looked. And early reviews were very positive.
Personally, I found the 3D in the first couple chapters of the game to be "ok". It added a little depth to the scenes, but certainly didn't add much to the game play.
However, about half way through the game the 3D really starts to shine. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but there is a scene where Drake is battling bad guys while the building they are in is burning down around them. This has got to be some of the best 3D I've seen in any game, and possibly any movie. The burning embers are floating around you while the flames flicker in and out of your screen. You can almost feel the heat emanating out of your TV screen.
Tip: I found that the 3D effects are a little bit conservative even when maximizing the 3D setting in the menu. However you can enhance the overall 3D effect by lowering the TV size setting in your PS3 display menu. You might have to play around with it a bit, as lowering the size too much could cause discomfort or increase crosstalk/ghosting.
The crosstalk/ghosting using the standard settings (even at maximum 3D) was very minimal with my Sony HX800 3DTV. This says a lot, since my TV is prone to significant ghosting at times.
As with most 3D video games, I found the 3D to be a little distracting when playing multiplayer so I usually revert back to 2D for multiplayer. But for the standard campaign mode ramp up the 3D and enjoy!
(Click the image below to read more Uncharted 3 Reviews on Amazon.com)
