The Uncharted series is an award winning one that has been one of Sony’s top franchises. I’ve been generally aware of them but never got a chance to play them before now. Well, this was my chance and I can definitely say that the games live up to the hype. They are super fun to play through and really nail the third person shooter genre. I don’t think I’ve played any this smooth since Star Fox Assault. The 3 games are all comparable and everything about the experience is super smooth. It’s clear that they had the gamer’s comfort in mind.

The first game introduces us to Nate who is basically a treasure hunter/explorer. He has always been obsessed with his ancestor Francis Drake and seeks to uncover the treasures and discoveries that he made. This latest one takes him on a trip abroad where he is followed by the reporter Elena. Unfortunately, Nate’s partner Sully owes some money to the mob and they come to collect. Nate must now try to stay one step ahead of them to whatever treasure is buried. This treasure may be guarded by supernatural creatures though. Perhaps it isn’t worth obtaining?

A common thread throughout each game is that Drake only discovered powerful artifacts that really shouldn’t be discovered. Drake often tried to bury the evidence but unfortunately Nate always ends up finding out about it anyway. While Sully had a rough start here, he does tend to be a very reliable ally to Nate for the rest of the adventures. It really does make a difference to have someone at your side that you can count on. When you’re all alone inside some of these old dungeons, well that starts to feel very tough.

Elena also ends up being a main supporting character and she does a good job of keeping Nate on his toes. She can keep up with the banter and even knows how to shoot a gun. They have to rely on each other in order to survive these life threatening encounters after all. While the romance may not be the strongest for me with how Nate tends to always be rather flirty, it was good to see Elena show up in all of the adventures.

The gameplay is a mix of parkour, shooter, and puzzle solving. Naturally the puzzle solving is the weakest element but the game handles it way better than most. The game will throw you hints if you are stuck for a long time and then most of them actually make sense anyway. You’ll be turning wheels and following shapes in the sky. The toughest puzzle in the trilogy was one where you had to shine shadows on the surface of a wall. I just did not understand the hints and had to just go with brute forcing the solution.

All of the puzzles in these games can be brute forced if you have to do that but there are around 50 possible solutions in each case so it sure takes a while to get to the right one. The puzzles aren’t super intrusive though. Then you have the parkour which should feel a lot like Mirror’s Edge. In some ways it’s actually smoother which I found to be super impressive. It’s not every day that you can top that game in movement after all. One of the biggest reasons for this is that the game is intuitive. So when you’re climbing a rock, you can spam jump to move up very quickly. At the same time if there is no where to jump to, the game will stop you instead of just letting you jump to your doom.

It’s a subtle but great quality of life feature. Then you also have the fact that Nate can jump rather far so it’s not like you will constantly have to be stopping and wondering where to go next. That’s another really big one. Then we have the gun combat which is where the game absolutely thrives. You have a wide range of different guns to use and can hide around cover and also use hand to hand combat when necessary. The game has a realistic feel to it where a headshot will take down any enemy in one hit even if they are a powerful boss.

The only exceptions are enemies who are undead or ones that wear a helmet which makes sense. The game encourages you to get really good at making headshots and I was able to do this very easily in the first game. The second and third games were just different enough where it threw off my timing a bit but I was still able to do pretty well overall. The game even keeps track of your stats relative to your friends on PSN which is pretty fun.

Each of the guns have their pros and cons without any of them being too weak. I had fun using a whole bunch of weapons throughout the game and you get a trophy after hitting milestones with all of them. So there is plenty of reasons to experiment. You can also shoot while running, swimming, and climbing. There is just a ton of freedom here which is really nice and you won’t be running into any glitches or issues.

The game can be rather difficult so you can expect to die a lot. That said, the deaths are always fair so you don’t feel too bad about it. Often times I was just going too fast or I would underestimate an opponent. The game’s difficulty also forces you to be creative and rethink your approach in each case. At times if you die next to a checkpoint, the game will actually push you forward a bit which is always funny tho.

The graphics are also really sharp. The game has a realistic art style to it which may not work as well as a more colorful one but it’s clear that a lot of detail was put into this. The landscapes also look great. The soundtrack is more on the invisible side though. You’re probably not going to really remember any tracks by the end of this. They tend to just blend together and fade into the background. That’s probably the idea, the only track you may recall is the main theme of the games which will sound familiar while you’re hearing it, but is just generic enough where you will forget it afterwards.

The second game expands things quite a bit as Nate has to team up with Chloe and Harry to infiltrate a palace and find more means to treasure. These two have always been bad influences but Nate likes hanging out with them. Both guys like Chloe but Harry is the one who is oblivious while Nate tends to have the advantage. Of course Elena shows up later on and things get complicated. Drama aside, this was my favorite game of the trilogy. I thought the pure gameplay was at its peak here. It’s very similar to the first game but the hand to hand combat has been further refined.

There is a lot of variety among the levels and it’s also the longest adventure from the first 3. It really feels like they went double time on this one and playing both games back to back, you can feel the improvement. I really had no complaints here, it’s just a great game that works seamlessly after the first one. The climax also has some really hard levels with how durable the creatures were.

Finally we have the third game which wraps things up. We learn about Nate’s past and he is forced to deal with some familiar foes. This game had my favorite villain of the trilogy. An unassuming guy who ends up being great at parkour and is always one step ahead of Nate. In the end, Nate is really only able to win thanks to having Sully around. This villain felt like a “what if” version of Nate who had decided to go it alone. It’s a great narrative way to end the trilogy off.

On a gameplay perspective, the combat may have taken a slight step back but the rest is about the same as the first two. You’ll be handling a bunch of fights and solving some puzzles. The puzzles may be the weakest overall. This is all very relative among the three but that’s part of what keeps part 3 from beating the second one.

There is plenty of replay value among the 3 games as you will want to get all of the Trophies for each one. That will not be an easy feat as you will have to play each game more than once. That said, the constant checkpoints do help with this. I wouldn’t plan on getting the Platinum anytime soon, but I did complete two games with a D ranking so I need to fix that asap! I just don’t like seeing those D ranks in my profile score. It just feels so messy you know?

Overall, I highly recommend playing through these games. They deserve all of the accolades that they get and then some. They were crafted extremely well and having 3 games in one makes for an incredible amount of content. You’ll be really engaged with the story and absolutely entertained by the gameplay. If they kept this gameplay intact, it would make for an awesome multiplayer battle game. Sony should give that a try at some point, there’s a ton of potential to be had there. I’ll be working on the 4th game right away so stay tuned for that!

Overall 8/10