Takedowns now had some flashy finishing moves, including a slow-mo catch-the-gun moment and pulling a grenade pin on the belt of an enemy then kicking him away. The combat also got a major overhaul, adding lots of fun new wrinkles: you could now counter-attack enemies while being grabbed by another, use objects in the environment such as beer bottles, use guns to smack the enemy, throwback grenades (if you timed it right). We were also treated to far more puzzles this time around and although not up to Tomb Raider levels they were more complex too. It was far more jet-setting than the previous games, taking in London, France, Syria, Yemen, a modern day pirate ship, and of course the Rub’ al Khali desert. Uncharted 2 took the combat and platforming from the first game and blended it to perfection, giving us set pieces like the train but the third game had a lot of new tricks of its own. (Fun fact: the guy about to shoot young Nate in the flashback is actually Nolan North – Nathan Drake himself!) (again, far more convincing than Tom Holland!) He already had that cocky, smart mouth we all know and love but in his first interactions with Sully there is a guarded vulnerability as he learns to trust him. Thanks to the wonders of computer animation we get Richard McGonagle (Sully’s voice and mocap actor) playing a younger Sully, so he’s still got that wonderful rich voice and a moustache (no Mark Wahlberg here thank goodness!).īilly Unger was cast as a teenage Nate and coupled with some incredible animation from Naughty Dog (Uncharted 4 was the first game that they did facial capture on) we had a perfect younger Nate. Uncharted 3 puts the Nate and Sully relationship front and centre and it’s a joy to experience this from its beginnings. Sully wasn’t in Uncharted 2 a lot, he bails Nate out of a Turkish jail and goes to Borneo with him but then leaves him to go on to Nepal with Chloe as his only companion (until they cross paths with Elena) only showing up again in the final scenes of the game. We then flashback 20 years to play as a teenage Nate and get to experience his first meeting with Sully. Thankfully Naughty Dog gave us a different start, more low key this time (sure, there’s a brawl in a London pub but you don’t get a gun until chapter 4!). After the reveal trailer showed Nate in the middle of the desert, standing in the middle of plane wreckage, there was talk about repeating the in medias res trick of Uncharted 2’s beginning, which I really hoped wouldn’t happen as it would feel a little lazy to repeat such an impactful opening.