a5c7b9f00b Treasure hunter Nathan Drake embarks on a quest in search of the Atlantis of the Sands while battling an ancient, sinister organization. Fortune hunter Nathan Drake is catapulted headlong into an adventure that takes him on a daring trek into the heart of the Arabian Desert in a search for the fabled "Atlantis of the Sands." This journey pits him and his mentor Victor Sullivan against the occult treachery of a shadowy clandestine organization and its ruthless leader. When the terrible secrets of this lost city are unearthed, Drake's quest descends into a desperate bid for survival that strains the limits of his endurance and forces him to confront his deepest fears. I will admit to being blown away by the sheer spectacle of Drake's Deception. Visually it is the best of the 3 titles and the action scenarios are fantastically choreographed.<br/><br/>However, the main problem with the latest game is largely down to the success of its predecessor. Among Thieves pushed the bar so high that it became difficult to go much further without retreading stuff that obviously worked. Trouble is, as the 3rd in the series, it doesn't feel so fresh anymore. It is quite apparent that most of the scenarios from Among Thieves have simply been rehashed: The train became a cargo plane, the collapsing building became a cruise ship, the convoy chase was revisited on horse back and Shambala was replaced with the Atlantis of The Sands.<br/><br/>Even on my first play through I found the novelty started to wear thin. On my second play through I noticed it more acutely and began to get quite bored. What's worse is that, unlike Uncharted 2, there aren't any weapons, skins or tweaks to unlock, so not much incentive to play campaign more than once, even on a higher difficulty.<br/><br/>The gameplay mechanic in story mode also suffers from being too linear and overly choreographed. I just felt like I was moving from one quick time event to the next. I would hope that if there ever is an Uncharted 4 that the developers put time into giving the player more options and not forcing them down a path of elaborately constructed sequences which trigger when you step on or climb something. This may have been fun in the first 2 games, but it's starting to feel old and unnecessary.<br/><br/>One thing that has always been free is the combat, which has been greatly improved, particularly the stealth attacks which are much more diverse. You can now stealth kill many enemies in one large area, but there is a crucial problem with this: In most instances you cannot wipe out 100% of enemies with stealth. For example in one area the last 2 guards I had left to kill were deliberately placed standing side by side. Since there is no double kill mechanic, you cannot kill one without the other raising the alarm. It seemed like a complete waste that I had been carefully sneaking around for 15 minutes trying to stealth these guys out and suddenly I was being swarmed by reinforcements. There just doesn't seem to be any point in using stealth at all if it can't be 100% effective.<br/><br/>Lastly I found the story to be a bit weak. I appreciated how it delved deeper into Nate and Sully's relationship and enjoyed playing as the younger Nate, but Carter, Chloe and Elena just seemed like irrelevant tag-alongs. There were also a few poorly explained elements; such as the significance of the flesh eating spiders. All in all I felt like I enjoyed Among Thieves more as a complete game although Deception certainly took my breath away more than a couple of times. As I do not have online capability in my house, the multiplayer mode is something which I cannot participate in and so this again sways my opinion. It's still an outstanding game I just hope if we get a sequel in the future, its campaign mode will have evolved sufficiently enough to surprise us. Console: PS3 Genre: 3rd person action/adventure/shooter Story: <br/><br/>It's been a while since I've played this, so it's not fresh in my memory...you know the drill! More of the same, I suppose, which isn't necessarily a bad thing...Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones type adventures. For those who are invested in the characters of this series, you will no doubt appreciate the back story of Nate and Sully...how they first met and some of their early adventures too...which are playable.<br/><br/>Graphics: <br/><br/>Spectacular at times, but sometimes characters don't seem real...they're less than realistic, but pretty good nonetheless. Nate has his patented running style, which looks put-on. Occasionally the vehicles look like toys...as if you're watching "Thunderbirds are go" or something. From memory, the jump in visual quality from the first in the series was more marked with the first sequel. Can't say the same thing for this second sequel.<br/><br/>Strengths of the game: * Whilst I think that the first half of the game is very poor (reasons given below), the game really launches into the atmosphere once Nate ends up in the pirates' ship graveyard...it's cinematic (in a good way). Once you get up to this part of the game it does become addictive...you just want to play that little bit longer.<br/><br/>* Having played all the major chapters of the Metal Gear Solid series, I did enjoy the stealth gameplay at the airport section of the game. A pity it didn't see that right through to the end of the section.<br/><br/>* I'm not sure if this was good AI or just dumb luck, but I liked how at the airport Elena would shoot at the gas cylinders I had strategically placed around us and cause them to explode, killing the enemies nearby. If it's just dumb luck, hopefully the devs can do it on purpose next time! * I enjoyed the brief horse riding section of the game...cf. the horrible jet ski section in one of the previous games which was sooo frustrating! <br/><br/>Weaknesses of the game: <br/><br/>* The first 47% of the game. These might be positives for some people, but for me, I got really bored with the on rails gameplay, which you will remember from the previous games...sections where you have to move to the right place or whatnot to progress. If you make a wrong turn or pause too long, you get a cutscene which means you will then reload to an earlier part of the game. This can happen multiple times, until you 'do the right thing'. This is cinematic gameplay...of a bad sort. If I want something cinematic, surely the cinema is the place for it? The game wants you to create a cinematic moment, but the problem for me is that creating that moment involves trial and error and rote learning. It's just annoying. If the entire game was like that, I would be looking at a score of around 60% for this game...at best.<br/><br/>* For me, replay value might be affected by such gameplay as found in the desert sequence...right after that scene which was lifted directly from a James Bond movie (the fight on a net in the air, on a plane...can't remember if that was a Roger Moore scene or Pierce Brosnan scene from a Bond movie). Whilst the game in the desert works well on a cinematic level, again, it's not very satisfying as a gaming experience. Once was enough. At least it's not like the train section in the previous game...where you have to replay the same event again! That too had (art) cinema pretensions.<br/><br/>* The enemy A.I. was very disappointing. Specifically, the goons and their grenades. Often I would hear explosions and not experience any visuals of it. Which made me wonder what was happening. Here's what I think was going on...the goons had forgotten that throwing grenades was a two step process (they only followed the first step): 01) Pull the pin on the grenade 02) Throw the grenade at the enemy * There was only one tip in the game for dealing with the grenades which followed the two step process...I wasn't particularly attentive when it appeared, so it would have been good to be able to access that info again. Towards the end of the game, it does seem that dealing with grenades becomes more necessary. I tried throwing one of the grenades back but it only landed near me, causing me to take some damage, perhaps. Perhaps the mechanic is too precise to be useful (to me) or not forgiving enough. In any case, a virtual map to practice that skill would have been appreciated.<br/><br/>* My biggest disappointment, I would say, was the lack of quality dialogue in this game. If I was looking forward to anything in this game, it would have been the interaction between Nate and Elena and Chloe et alia. Here, Chloe might just as well be any old non playable character. It's like Uncharted 2 never happened. Same goes for Elena. The dialogue is more business orientated than relationship/humour orientated. However, there are a couple of very sweet moments between Nate and Elena of a nonverbal sort...tender.<br/><br/>* I did get the feeling that a fight between Nate and some freaky creatures near the end involved those creatures endlessly respawning, which meant I had to go online to learn how to get past them. I was mistaken on them respawning. It would have been good for Nate to clue you in on what was happening...just a comment to make you think you had to learn a 'trick' to get past them.<br/><br/>* Camera angles sometimes suck and cues don't work, so you can't progress until they work.<br/><br/>* Sometimes the stealth moves don't work as intended so I'd have to reload, which could get annoying. The UK (London), Colombia (Cartagena), France, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia Drake claimed that it required months to sail through the East Indies during his famous circumnavigation, when it should have needed no more than a few weeks. Records of his voyage were declared classified by Elizabeth on his return to England. Official documents were falsified, and the surviving sailors compelled on pain of death to stay their tongues, to prevent sensitive informtion from falling into the hands of the rival Spanish.<br/><br/>Some believe that the discrepancy occurred because Drake actually attempted to find and navigate the Northwest Passage, the Arctic Ocean sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific. Drake's Deception, however, implies that Sir Francis Drake was charged by Elizabeth and her advisors to make a stop in Arabia to find Iram of the Pillars, a lost city. They hoped that he might at least return with plunder and, if legends were true, a source of great power. On reaching a temple in Yemen, though, the explorer was deeply alarmed by the warnings he found there; abandoning his search, he lied to Elizabeth on his return to England. This event is the origin of Uncharted 3's subtitle. Marlowe is the head of a secret society that dates back to Elizabethan England. Sir Francis Walsingham, Principle Secretary to Queen Elizabeth, was a pioneer of modern espionage techniques; it was he who created the spy network of remarkable reach and sophistication. Among his many innovations, he is believed to have recruited agents to operate in numerous foreign courts to gather intelligence and distribute misinformation. There is a famous portrait that shows the monarch wearing a dress where, if you look closely, you can see that it is covered with symbols of eyes and ears; a far from subtle warning to those who might conspire against the Crown's interest.<br/><br/>This spy network is the basis of Marlowe's order, with Walsingham, John Dee and even Elizabeth herself among its founding members. It has operated in secret throughout history, manipulating individuals and world events through the use of deception, drugs and "magic". In its post-Elizabethan form, it should not be regarded as an explicitly political organisation; think of it more as a secret cult with clandestine motivations, in the style of the Illuminati. Marlowe harboured an ambition to restore the organisation's power and, in a dream passed down through 400 years, sought to exploit the secret of the Atlantis of the Sands...an aspiration long frustrated by Nate's theft of Sir Francis Drake's ring in Cartagena Whether affection or biological fact, there is no doubt that Nate is insistent on the authenticity of his lineage...no matter how cynical others may be. We see the truth behind his explanation of how he came to possess his ring in Drake's Fortune - "I kind of inherited it," he told Elena, obliquely admitting to the theft - in the Cartagena flashback early in Drake's Deception.<br/><br/>No matter his precise heritage, there is at very least a thematic relationship between Nate and Sir Francis. They can each be said to have lived in accordance with Drake's motto of sic parvis magna, "greatness from small beginnings". Both are remarkable men of action who are as moths to the flames of noteworthy experiences and wondrous sights, despite their humble origins: Nate as an orphan, Sir Francis Drake as a commoner eventually knighted by his Queen. In Uncharted 4: A Thieve's End, it is revealed that Nathan and his brother Sam changed their identities and adopted the last name of Drake. Because their mother was a brilliant historian who researched Sir Francis. Known under many names throughout history - Ubar, the City of Brass, Iram of the Pillars - the "Atlantis of the Sands" is a mythical lost city located in the Rub' al Khali desert. It was constructed over an underground spring that made it a miraculous, verdant settlement in the middle of a desiccated wasteland. Salim tells Nate that the city became a "place of evil" when Solomon imprisoned malevolent Djinn ("genies" of supernatural origin and made of pure fire) inside a brass vessel and cast it into the aquifer that fed the oasis.<br/><br/>We clearly see Marlowe's cultists attempting to retrieve a vessel from beneath the waters of Iram. Whether this vessel actually contains legendary Djinn or a natural psychotropic substance is left to the player's interpretation. Thirsty and exhaused on arrival at the Atlantis of the Sands, Nate drinks the city's water and is - to paraphrase Chloe's appraisal of Cutter's state earlier in the adventure - "tripping balls" when he fights the fiery creatures. This was almost certainly inspired by his earlier conversation with Salim. In his highly suggestible state, Nate interprets his opponents as being Djinn, or at least an approximation conjured up by his addled mind.<br/><br/>As an orphan, abandoned at the tender age of five, Nate's foremost fear is to be left alone...which, almost paradoxically, has made it almost impossible for him to form lasting relationships. Being his mentor, closest friend and essentially a surrogate father, Sully's death is the most traumatic event Nate can imagine. Though Marlowe argues earlier in the story that Sully perceived the young Nate as an opportunity, a "long con" of greater value than the commission she offered, Nate's most cruel hallucination shows that he sees no abiding truth in her unsentimental appraisal. They actually got married after the events of Among Thieves. The revelation is perhaps a little subtle, but it's there: when Nate says "You're still wearing it," (referring to her ring), Elena's blunt response to Nate's observation ("It helps in this part of the world. Seriously, don't flatter yourself.") makes it clear that it is a wedding band, which she uses to deter aspirant suitors.<br/><br/>Though wealth eludes him at the conclusion of Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves, Nate on both occasions gains a treasure of great value in Elena...and, on both occasions, he blows it, walking out when his phobia of commitment drives the couple apart. Elena perhaps best understands Nate's existential fear: he's afraid of admitting who he really is, and almost obsessively takes refuge in an identity that doesn't truly belong to him.<br/><br/>The motto on Drake's ring has defined Nate's entire life; there's a sense that he has always walked backwards into his future, defined by his troubled childhood. In the closing cinematics, however, his reaction to his wedding band when Sully produces it - so much like the one belonging to Sir Francis, but lacking the motto; a blank slate - perhaps suggests that it might finally be "Nate", not "Drake", who accompanies his closest friend and wife to the plane before the closing credits roll. In one level of the game, Nate manages to climb aboard a cargo plane heading out into the desert. However, he is soon discovered by a guard on board who attempts to throw him out the back of the plane. Nate manages to defeat the guard by releasing the chute of a container, sending the guard and the planes cargo out the back. This causes the plane to lose control and catch fire as a result of the ensuing gunfight. Nate and all the people on board are sucked out into the sky as the plane plummets to the ground. Luckily, Nate manages to manoeuvre himself to a crate with an attached parachute midair. He pulls the cord and floats safely down into the desert.
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