Uncharted 3 Gameplay Breakdown

We recently saw some game play footage of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show. I just wanted to break down what it is that we actually saw in short segments.

We start out with developer Evan Wells taking the controller in hand, Drake and Sully burst through a door to reveal fire bellowing throughout the chateau. Next, we have your classic baddies firing off rounds at Drake who leaps from a balcony upon his prey rendering him unconscious. Now to break it down, the visual effects of the fire are marvelous, how CG in our day and age should be. Drake and Sully also look visually stunning with their re-vamped appearances. As we see Drake dive off the balcony we seem to go directly toward the enemy, without Evan Wells having to direct him.

A gun battle ensues in which Wells shows off his lack of accuracy, after missing quite a few shots he kinda just says screw it and charges in taking out the two shooters with melee. The fire effects at this point are also simmered down so you can concentrate on the enemy in front of you. The aiming mechanics seem pretty fluid, when the baddy was blind firing at Drake, he was easily outmaneuvered, so we know if you flank an enemy, they won’t automatically know where you went anymore. Another thing we noticed was a drastically enhanced display of melee here, this is the taking on multiple enemies at once Naughty Dog mentioned I suppose.

Wells finishes up his portion with climbing a ledge, the controller is then passed to Fallon who clumsily dashes forward as more fire springs up from the floors, Jimmy then goes toward a hole in the wall and falls through, barely grabbing the stair railing to avoid falling into a random pit of fire. Now for analysis, what we saw here was depending on how close Drake is to fire he will react different ways. When Drake fell through the hole, Sully immediately reached out for Nathan’s hand, which makes me think if Sully wasn’t standing there what would have happened? The climbing mechanics seem the same, but we can’t really tell with what little we were shown, so I’ll avoid touching base on that for the time being.

Fallon rushes up the stair only to get Drake’s foot stuck in a loose floorboard, as usual the baddies appear out of nowhere, Fallon goes on to show he’s not much better at aiming than Wells as he barely takes down one of the two aggressors. Finally Sully frees his foot and he runs up the stairs defeating the baddy with point blank hip fire before the logo appears upon the screen. In this portion of the demo we saw seamless transition from running to Drake’s foot getting caught. Maybe, something is going on with the aiming system? Nah, Fallon just sucks.

Although, we haven’t been shown much, what we have seen is great, and I’m sure I’m not alone in saying “Can’t wait to see more”. I wish some of the next level gun play Naughty Dog mentioned was showcased a little, but, with who actually played, that was too much to ask for. Now we know why they hire game testers.