Uncharted: Unchartable

This post is a continuation of my series (does 2 count as a series?) of reviews where I tell you about a game you most likely have not thought about in over a year.  Now before you say something hurtful like "get with the times gramps," or "suck a dick fag-wad," or "you'll never amount to nothin'," or "I don't even like your band's cover of Fun, Fun, Fun by the Beach Boys," keep in mind that I don't regard anyone's opinion except my own as valid.  

I am perhaps the least qualified person to write a review of Uncharted 3 because it is seriously like this series of games was made with me in mind.  So let me check my white male privilege at the door and break this down for you, Romney style (political references are SO in right now), with my five year point plan:

A. I can do, like, a TON of pull-ups but even I envy the level of swolebro-hood that Drake pulls off in these games.  Dude has the upper body strength of a orangutan but is more stunningly handsome.  This leads me to my larger point -- namely that I want Drake's life.  Like every sad, sad, history major, I dream of launching my treasure hunting career, jet-setting around the world and using my immense historical knowledge to unravel the mysteries of time and prove to mom that an engineering degree is soooo overrated.  The plot revolving around Iram of the Pillars and T.E. Lawrence makes me feel way cooler than I should.   Plus Drake gets to kill a horde of pirates in this one.  Fuckin' awesome.  

Drake from Uncharted fame

II. Less importantly, game play.  The shooting and beat-em-up mechanics are as tight and polished as the ps3 controller will let them be.  The action is well-paced, leaving just enough time in between bouts of gun-slinging for me to cram a couple pizza bagels down my gullet.  The shoot-outs do just enough different every time to keep it from feeling repetitive and the game gives you enough cool toys to experiment with how best to murder hundreds of enemy suited-up dudes, pirates, and innocent Omani citizens.  Furthermore, the puzzles never get harder than a 4/10 on the how-long-it-takes-Andrew-to-go-to-gamefaqs-scale, which in turn makes me feel smarter than I should for solving them quickly.

Of course! The bigger ones go in the bigger ones! I am crushing it!

D. Uncharted does the whole game-saving thing right, unlike another game I played recently.  I can turn the PS3 off whenever and it will have autosaved not more than 5 minutes from that point.  I share a TV with 6 other dudes so this is a significant function.

5. The graphics are very very good, and often I will stop and admire how neat a particular wide-lens shot looks in one of a myriad of environments.  The voice acting does not make me want to choke small children and the plot, as I've mentioned, drops just enough history for me to care.

Lawrence of Arabia, was, in fact, the fucking man. Dude wrote the book on guerrilla warfare in the middle-east and he was white.

All in all, Uncharted 3 is a perfectly put together action-adventure game that does absolutely nothing new, but I don't play enough games to care about that.  I give it a fun-enough-to-play-even-when-there's-a-party-going-on-in-the-same-room/100.