E3 2011 Eyes-On: Uncharted 3 - Preview
by Karl Koebke , posted on 09 June 2011 / 5,088 Views
One of the things that really makes the Uncharted series as amazing and widely renowned on the internet as it is are the truly impressive set pieces, and from what I saw today Uncharted 3 will be no exception. The scene I was shown has been hinted at before but hasn’t been shown in its entirety to the public titled “Cargo Plane Sequence”
We started out with Nathan and Elena sneaking across the rooftops of an airport presumably toward the cargo plane loading up far in the background. They soon came to a fence and Drake told Elena that he’d climb over and then give her a hand, but instead he climbed over by himself. After a short argument he told Elena that after almost losing her (in Uncharted 2) he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her again and she agreed to take a jeep and get out of there before things got completely suicidal.
Nathan than tried to continue sneaking over to the cargo plane but things got hairy real quick and a firefight broke out after he was discovered. This lead to Nathan running across the rooftops in a race to get onto the plane before it took off. He fought through a couple guards, even taking one out in a flying leap across a gap between buildings Assassin’s Creed style. Once Nathan had made it back down to the tarmac he broke out running to make it on to the plane but it was already taking off. Luckily Elena drove up in the afore mentioned Jeep and before long Nathan was playing backseat driver from the hood of the vehicle. Once he was close enough to the front landing gear he made a flying leap and held on as the plane took off and the landing gear was retracted.
A short break in what I assumed was a highly claustrophobic space was as much rest as Nathan allowed himself and he soon started making his way through the maintenance shafts in the bottom of the plane. Sneaking apparently wasn’t going to work at all today though because he was soon discovered and started fighting hand to hand against one of the bad guys (at least I assume he was a bad guy) right in front of the cargo bay doors. One thing that struck me during the fight was that it seemed like Drake had a lot more variety in the moves he could perform even though the actual game mechanics seemed similar to Uncharted 2. Nathan decided that the fight wasn’t really going his way and in a move I think most professional fighting organizations would consider cheating he unhooked the cargo to send it and his enemy flying out the back of the plane. That was followed by a brief feeling of victory before the rest of the cargo started rumbling towards Drake and he followed his adversary out the plane. He grabbed onto one of the boxes trailing behind the plane by its webbing and the video cut to black.
After the video was done I got a brief moment to talk to one of the guys from Naughty Dog about their plans to bring the set pieces from the single player into the multiplayer experience. One example of this is a map that tries to emulate the single player set piece I just saw. The heroes’ side is trying to protect the cargo plane taking off as the bad guys chase after it in jeeps. He told me that the gameplay ends up similar to the scene in Uncharted 2 where you jump from truck to truck. The match then goes to an airport so a single map actually has two areas in which you’ll be playing.
Uncharted 3 is looking great, but who didn’t see that coming? I’m sure we’re all waiting with bated breath to see where Naughty Dog takes us this November. What I’ve seen so far makes me certain that our expectations won’t be let down.
