Uncharted 3 Yes - No - Maybe

Had the perfect start to a lazy Sunday afternoon.  Awesome breakfast, coffee, catching up on social media and current news. Then it was time to "hit the books" so a relatively small portion of the afternoon was spent reading up on github, since it is going to be necessary to use it to hack my LCA2012 name badge figure I should do some reading on the subject.

Sunday afternoon wasn't spent in Linux/Unix geekery, suffice to say a severe case of lack in motivation caused me to put away the laptop.  Fat with fine food and coffee it was a perfect time to sit back and play some.... UNCHARTED 3!!!  After the previous evenings espcapades in acquiring Uncharted 3, there was no way in hell that I was not going to get some game time in this weekend.

Uncharted 1 & 2 completely blew me out of the water.  It was magical in so many ways, Naughty Dog seemed to have perfected the combination of cinematic cut scenes and game play.  I enjoyed the character mannerisms and witty repartee, the landscape and of course the over all feel of the games.  They were inevitably too short and with game there is an obvious formula used, which was clearly identifiable.  Never the less, there were some significantly noticeable differences between Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 2, there were massive improvements in game controls and features.  It was as though Naughty Dog was listening to me, the issues I had with 1 were resolved and the features I wanted to see were incorporated in 2.  Uncharted 3 just doesn't appear to be the leap forward that Uncharted 2 was.

After spending a good 3 or 4 hours playing/watching the game I haven't been WOWed.  Sure the graphics are wonderful but I haven't noticed anything super exciting, new or different.  It appears to be exactly the same repetitive formulaic game play as provided by it's predecessors and I'm disappointed.  The levels feel shorter and faster, it consists of the same puzzles, jumping/climbing challenges and wave style attacks from enemies.  The controls for shooting feel more laxed, nowhere near as sharp as was in 2, which I suppose isn't a bad thing it just adds to the challenge.  The game definitely feels different and I can't decide if it's in a good way or a bad way.

All that aside, I'm still enjoying the storyline and amalgamation of first person shooter, puzzler and  cimematic style that Naughty Dog seems to have nailed.  The script and conversations are still engaging and incredibly amusing.  It's definitely a game I can enjoy, it's just not as addictive and I certainly didn't clock it in one weekend.

In retrospect, I think we should have gone with Skyrim, but that's for another weekend.