I can at least say that I’ve attempted more than three times to think of Nathan Drake as someone who could be likable, trying to dig down deep and find what Elena sees as endearing. I can’t do it. Quite frankly, he could be spider food for all I care. His cinderblock for a jawline and Joss Whedon-style snarky quips won’t save him when I get a woodchipper and use him as fertilizer. He is utterly detestable, yet the games (and the film) act as if he has a magnetic personality.

Last week, I continued my short run of playing the Uncharted games and reviewing them for our YouTube channel. Now, playing catch-up to myself, I’ve made it to the third game: Drake’s Deception. If it isn’t clear already, I hate Nathan, and as I said in the video from Thursday, I’ve grown bored of the formula that the games follow. It is a series of loosely connected adventurous locations dressed to be either a shooting gallery of the natives, a small room to climb around, or a corridor to be chased down as the camera backs up because Naughty Dog needs to remind you they made Crash Bandicoot. It is dull and tired.

I didn’t go into great detail because I knew I’d do this review sooner rather than later, but I do think there was something early on that did offer a chance to make me like Nathan. The trouble is, it was short-lived, and he ends up killing people so quickly during it that I instantly lost all interest. When you play as young Nate, climbing the outside of buildings and clambering over rooftops, that offered a far better viewpoint into why he does it in later life. Returning to what I said in the video, the world always looks far bigger to those with the smallest legs. The idea of a naive kid following a mystery with proper pacing is what I would have liked to experience way more.

It was not to be, as the breakneck pace of Uncharted continues to show a lack of interest in telling a coherent story concisely. Drake’s Deception (like its forebears) has you globe trotting with interconnected action sequences that are reminiscent of Captain Scarlet. If you go back, you’ll see that it is a collection of scenes with explosions and violence to the backdrop of comedically superficial characters. The same could be said of Captain Scarlet too. In fact, another comparison I could make is that Sully is much like a wrestler formally known as The Big Show, as he has switched more sides than Ephialtes of Trachis.

The trouble I’ve had with the Uncharted series is the way it progresses, not for you as a player but for the games as a whole. It focuses on refining ideas from 2007 instead of adding something interesting and taking risks. The gunplay is a little more refined, the climbing continues to be the job of touching the yellow thing before it crumbles to pieces a moment later, and generally, I don’t feel like I am doing anything other than walking down a corridor. As an experiment I replayed the first few hours, skipping the cut scenes, and it is staggering watching 35% of the game fly by in about an hour and a half (maybe two) for a nine-hour game.

My point here is that in that short amount of time, you are thrust into a fight in the Queen Vic where everyone looks like Grant Mitchell, a generic-looking late 80s Hispanic town either in south America or Spain (with young Nate), and back to the underground with secret vaults. Then to cap those short hours off, there is a generic mansion in the woods with no infrastructure surrounding it. That makes it impossible to get to by vehicle unless you go around the back. Flashbacks, flashes-sideways, and all of it is made to give the impression that there is a progression of the plot, but there isn’t really.

Plot holes are mentioned ad nauseam, yet we don’t seek to resolve them. Instead, they are shrugged off and ignored. Nathan himself asks why he’s being shot at over others as if he’s the most magnanimous person in the room while clutching his little picture of Al Jolson and shooting with the other hand. Yes, he has moved on from killing people of color and Russians by the thousands to a bunch of overdone tea drinkers coming in waves like Agent Smith. Between that blind stupidity, the needless ship scene with its Crash Bandicoot requirements to run towards the camera, and everything that is Uncharted 3, I’m tired of it.

I preferred Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and yet somehow Uncharted 3 is a point-for-point retread of both that and Indiana Jones. I honestly couldn’t tell you what it is that is different that makes me prefer Among Thieves over Drake’s Deception, they are so interchangeable. My best theory would be that it is down to this simply being the third game in a row that does the same thing, and finally, I am exhausted by it. Among Thieves at least had some mysticism surrounding it to keep me enchanted. I don’t even have the excuse that he is killing anyone in Scotland, yet.

I don’t hate Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. I’m tired of the entire minstrel show starring the world’s most unlikeable man. Politicians and villains are hateable, but Nathan is just plainly unappealing. It is his attitude and character that is detestable and unappealing. As an adventure, sure, you do travel to a number of locations in quick succession in search of a treasure, but again, we’ve done the story twice already. The characters are awful, the story is tired, the gameplay is incrementally getting more refined, and none of it is interesting from the word go.

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Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

$19.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• The young Nate offered hope of character.

Cons

• The same tired story, again.
• What is likeable about Nathan or the team?
• Gameplay continueing where it left off.