Uncharted 1 I have fond memories of for the first hour or two due to a demo I played obsessively when I first got my PS3 but couldn't afford any games for it. However it hasn't aged well and a lot of its gameplay is stuck in the PS2 era which clashes with graphics that, especially if you're playing the remaster, still hold up today.


Uncharted 2 is a total thrill ride with a HORRIBLE final chapter that is a real chore to get through, something it actually shares with Uncharted 1. It's a real shame because otherwise Uncharted 2 is still the gold standard when it comes to set piece-based video games. It is a very linear experience but it is constantly throwing amazing sights at you.


That said, Uncharted 3 gets a bum rap because it doesn't refine the gameplay much from Uncharted 2, and those who waited a couple years for it seemed very let down by the sequences compared to Uncharted 3. Like I said, though, I played them all back to back and Uncharted 3 for me was EASILY the best of the three games. All three have enemies that are a bit bullet spongey but Uncharted 3 finally found the right environments to where its not as annoying because it's just so fun running around the encounter maps; I think of the three this is the only one that'll come even close to what Uncharted 4 is going for in terms of options during a fight.

It's also the only game of the trilogy to have a truly memorable villain, and honestly I'm surprised she wasn't brought up more often as one of the best video game villains of the last generation. Again, I think that speaks to the general fatigue the gaming public seemed to have with the series. But if you play them all in sequence, I think you'd similarly be relieved to see Uncharted do away with its One More Thing trick the first two close out with and create play areas that feel a lot less like monster closets than the first two games.


As for the question of playing all three, or skipping 1? It's hard to say. If you're there for the gameplay then it's a no brainer, skip 1. But if you're there for the characters, the games are all connected in various ways and although none of them are super related to each other it's not exactly James Bond either. The series does take plenty of inspiration from Indiana Jones, though, so if you've seen all three of those movies and are of the opinion it didn't really matter what order you saw them in, you could likely just mix and match Uncharted however you'd like as well.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz