Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 92: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

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Todays game is Uncharted 3. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

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Previous Results:
Planescape: Torment - 9.83 (12 votes)
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.6 (21 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.18 (34 votes)
The House in Fata Morgana - 9.14 (7 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 9 (8 votes)
Steins;Gate - 8.94 (9 votes)
Zero Escape: Virtues Last Reward - 8.89 (19 votes)
Grim Fandango - 8.88 (13 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.85 (10 votes)
Silent Hill 4: The Room - 8.83 (6 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.82 (11 votes)
Persona 3 - 8.82 (20 votes)
Xenogears - 8.71 (23 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.67 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.65 (23 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask - 8.56 (27 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.56 (16 votes)
Undertale - 8.45 (42 votes)
Chrono Trigger - 8.41 (39 votes)
What Remains of Edith Finch - 8.41 (19 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.38 (28 votes)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 8.37 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.35 (55 votes)
Final Fantasy VII - 8.28 (37 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.17 (18 votes)
The Walking Dead Season 1 - 8.17 (21 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.15 (40 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.13 (35 votes)
Horizon: Zero Dawn - 8.06 (18 votes)
The Wolf Among Us - 8.04 (14 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles - 7.94 (27 votes)
Spec Ops: The Line - 7.9 (17 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.88 (20 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.85 (31 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.81 (25 votes)
Bioshock - 7.64 (23 votes)
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors - 7.7 (30 votes)
The Sexy Brutale - 7.7 (5 votes)
Celeste - 7.62 (25 votes)
Skies of Arcadia - 7.62 (13 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.47 (29 votes)
The Last Story - 7.47 (6 votes)
Mortal Kombat (2011) - 7.46 (13 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.24 (28 votes)
Red Dead Redemption - 7.23 (11 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (24 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 7.1 (30 votes)
To the Moon - 7.07 (7 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7.05 (22 votes)
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - 7 (5 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (21 votes)
INSIDE - 6.93 (15 votes)
Gone Home - 6.91 (17 votes)
Bioshock Infinite - 6.87 (19 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.69 (16 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.67 (31 votes)
Firewatch - 6.65 (10 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.62 (20 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.61 (28 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 - 6.5 (13 votes)
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - 6.38 (12 votes)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 6.31 (35 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.16 (14 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.15 (13 votes)
Star Fox 64 - 5.8 (25 votes)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 5.72 (9 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.78 (30 votes)
Metroid Prime - 5.67 (24 votes)
Kingdom Hearts - 5.59 (30 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.26 (28 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 4.83 (12 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.79 (29 votes)
Fallout 3 - 4.76 (17 votes)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4.72 (9 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.43 (15 votes)
Final Fantasy - 4.24 (19 votes)
Resident Evil 6 - 3.74 (17 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 3.69 (13 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3.46 (15 votes)
Starcraft II (overall) - 3.4 (5 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates (overall) - 3.32 (11 votes)
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void - 2.83 (6 votes)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) - 2.66 (16 votes)
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm - 2.57 (7 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 2.33 (9 votes)
Tales of Zestiria - 2.14 (7 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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4

Wasted potential

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5

It's easily the weakest of the Uncharted mainline stories. Mostly due to pacing issues.
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7

3

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5

Good old Naughty Dog

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7/10

I think the Nate/Elena scenes were excellent, and it was good to get lots of Sully after he was largely absent from the second game. Plot did feel aimless at times though.

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4

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6.6
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9.5/10

This is peak Uncharted for me. I love the flashback scene that helps better establish a character for Drake beyond mere action hero. The villains are incredible, and for the first time don't feel like mere caricatures of people. It also leans far less into supernatural territory which I think works for its great benefit here. Drake's trek through the desert was one of the most memorable moments for me, both in terms of engrossing, immersive gameplay and as a character trial for Drake. Plus, the supporting cast is at their best, and delivers on a fantastic ending for the core trio (4 is a great game too, but I think the wrap-up was better here).

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7/10

Intro sequence was fantastic. The rest was enjoyable but forgettable.

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Nominate The Last of Us Part II

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7

Unfortunately ends up being the weakest of the trilogy because I don't feel a lot of it comes together in a cohesive way, especially in the finale. A lot of good build up and all around excellent setpieces and some good intrigue, but left me feeling a little disappointed.

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7

I remember the plot the least of the four games but I still loved playing it as much as the others


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9

The only thing that holds it back for me is the end of the story feels a bit rushed.

4

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6

It's the weakest of the four, in part because there are too many side stories irrelevant to the main narrative. I also feel the finale leaves a LOT to be desired. The environments are awesome (though not overly relevant to the writing), the dialogue is great, and more Sully is always nice, but a lot of things feel like they're a step back from the second game, the plot included.
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5/10

This one is not good. If Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is peak mediocrity this is only marginally better. If the first one is too basic, this one is stuffed full of filler.

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Nominate:
Final Fantasy XIV (overall)
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Let's get these out of the way before the new expansion in a few months.

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Nominate Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

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6

Not nearly as memorable as Uncharted 2 or 4.

4

It should be the best in the series, then they completely botch it. Not through a particular plot decision, but because they clearly didn't even finish writing it.

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6.5

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4

I really hated parts of this one. It has Sully and the characters are charming and interact with each other in fun ways, but it isn't enough to carry the story. There are a lot of annoyances here, and a lot of it comes from the fact that it is clearer in this game than any other game that the set pieces drive the narrative. I know Naughty Dog talked about this so it isn't a secret, but it at least worked in the other games. Here it makes the story borderline nonsensical at time.

"Hey that one thing we're looking for that we needed to break into the bad guys hideout to find a clue for? It happens to be in the exact same room, in some artifact that the bad guys really should've searched at some point because they were looking for the exact same thing"

"Hey you know how Nathan Drake gets blown off a ship in the middle of a storm? He's going to land at exactly the place he needs to go to because we don't want to write an extra scene"

"Hey you know how Drake is wandering lost in one of the biggest deserts in the entire world? Lets have him stumble upon exactly the place the bad guys are at when he's on the verge of death looking for water"

There are like six different miracles in this game that were lazily put in because the writers couldn't think of how to link the story to the set pieces. The set pieces were really good, don't get me wrong, and fighting in a crashing cargo plane or sinking ship gives those fun "OH WOW" moments that made Uncharted 2 an instant classic. Those are the only things that make the story interesting though, and the game relies way too much on the spectacle.

There were other issues as well. I feel like the game is really setting up some sort of consequences for the series of bad decisions that Drake makes in the game, but they weren't brave enough to pull the trigger here. Like the whole game is people going "Drake why are you pursuing this treasure something BAD will happen it will be YOUR FAULT and you will have to deal with it" but then...nothing happens. I mean Drake gets dropped in a desert sure and Sully gets captured, but by the end there are absolutely no consequences for his actions and everyone walks away happy and healthy.

Them reusing Drake and Elena breaking up also gets old here, because the same trick was used in the second game and I don't see any real reason for Elena to take him back by the end. There is no evidence Drake has learned his lesson (other than the fact he doesn't chase after his ring which is literally sinking in quicksand) and I don't really care they got back together because they got back together once before and it clearly didn't take.

The villains are underdeveloped, the writing feels lazy, the plot feels too convenient, it kind of feels like a rehash of a better, more interesting story in the second game...there are a ton of issues here. This should be lower, but I did really like some of those big action scenes and they helped keep me a bit more interested in the story even if the actual written plot was really dumb.

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9 might be my favorite uncharted

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I agree with Suprak's take almost completely. I just give really high points for really good presentation. Especially in video games, excellent acting/motion capture and directing of scenes puts you ahead of most of the pack.

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I dunno. I think I tend to judge a story by its highs more than its lows. I get all the complaints about UC3, but there are enough good moments in it to offset them for me.

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5

There is a lot of great moment-to-moment writing, interesting backstory, and setup that completely fails to come together in a cohesive way. The potential of having villains tied to the characters is completely squandered. I think the final act is the only part of the plot that is actively bad, but a lot of other parts arent good. More than any other Uncharted game, UC3's storyline is an excuse to shuffle you from setpiece to setpiece, but UC3 has SO MANY totally ridiculous setpieces (that are admittedly some of the best in the series) that they fail to come up with coherent connective tissue.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

More than any other Uncharted game, UC3's storyline is an excuse to shuffle you from setpiece to setpiece, but UC3 has SO MANY totally ridiculous setpieces (that are admittedly some of the best in the series) that they fail to come up with coherent connective tissue.

I feel like the banner example of this is the "pirates" segment where Drake is basically teleported there and then teleported back to the main story. Zero connection at all to anything else in the game, just an excuse to jump around in the junkyard and do the cruise ship sequence. It's so blatant.

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Leonhart4 posted...

I dunno. I think I tend to judge a story by its highs more than its lows. I get all the complaints about UC3, but there are enough good moments in it to offset them for me.

This. Rocky 4 is one of my all-time favorite movies for this reason


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I never get tired of watching Rocky win the Cold War either

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Bartzyx posted...

I feel like the banner example of this is the "pirates" segment where Drake is basically teleported there and then teleported back to the main story. Zero connection at all to anything else in the game, just an excuse to jump around in the junkyard and do the cruise ship sequence. It's so blatant.

Yep! I would never cut this sequence from the game, the cruise ship segment absolutely slaps, but there is zero narrative reason for it. It's the poster child for this for sure.

It still applies to other stuff like the airplane and wandering through the desert too. In these cases it's just really cool vignettes but they disrupt the narrative so much that you really have to stretch your suspension of disbelief when the story contorts itself to get it back on track. I'm more than willing to suspend disbelief in most stories but this pushes it.

Tangentially related, I don't remember why you have to go to the spider mansion but I assume it's to find a macguffin. That's usually what I expect from these games But even that felt really disjointed. Still, I remember the part with the spiders!

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4.

Very messy storytelling and the weakest narrative in the series overall.

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