Graphics: You may have heard about Uncharted 3's graphics being amongst the best seen so far and it's true. They may only look above average when inside a room, crouched behind a crate with a pistol, but when you see the set pieces: hanging 80ft in the air off of a broken mast or escaping collapsing ruins, you see some of the most impressive visuals of all time.

Although the environments and textures themselves still have a slightly old-school video game-ish look, the interactions with them (climbing, or grabbing an enemy and slamming his face into a door frame) look incredibly mastered and the game purposefully aims to make the player feel like their playing a film, not a game. A few times near the start, in a fight in an archetype London pub I waited for Drake to move automatically, thinking a cut scene had begun to play. Shooting dynamics are still fairly average, with little impact being made on the environment during gun battles. However, that's not what Uncharted is about and it show's you itself at its best in mythological, ancient civilisations, character facial/body movements and adrenaline-fuelled set pieces.

Gameplay: A strong mix of adventure, stealth and action with even the puzzles being less tedious this time. The fighting mechanics have also been enhanced, not to Arkham City standards, but with enough varsity to keep things interesting, like pulling a grenade pin out of an enemies' belt before kicking them away. Fun. The shooting is pretty much indistinguishable from Uncharted 2, but the environments are all so different you can play it in quite a different way. Hanging off a pirate ship, for example. Apart from an odd glitch where Drake insists on reaching up again and again for hours rather than jumping to a ledge, the free-running and acrobatics is the best in any game released yet.

Among the new locations are an airport, a Renaissance castle, a series of pirate boats and a ghost town in the middle of the desert. These are all much more interesting then they sound, and level design has always been one of the strongest points of the Uncharted series. Subtle movements make the game immersed in reality, the way Drake skids if he stops running, how he pushes off a wall if he runs near it, how he begins to see in monochrome when shot with a rifle in the head. Very realistic. Multiplayer manages to capture most of the essence of the campaign: the climbing is just as impressive and you feel a lot better leaping up like a alligator and pulling a multiplayer enemy of a ledge to the water below, then you would to a NPC. All in all, fantastic set pieces, great interactive environments and the occasional puzzle that's actually fun.

Story: Continued from the last Uncharted story, Drake inevitably finds himself looking for an extremely rare artefact and the same time as a ruthless, theatrical villain. This time it's the ring of Sir Drake, and Katherine Marlowe respectively (who isn't as fun as Lazarevic). Genuinely likeable characters such as Sully and Chloe return. The plot seems like the best adventure films you saw as a kid, and has the same driven feel which makes you want to finish the game and conclude the story. Maybe less action-packed than UC2, in these games the plot and dialogue is obviously paid close attention.

Sound: Voice acting, in the majority of the game, is above par. Although a few repetitive bangs and crashes are overused, the sounds add to the exciting, layered and hectic feel to the game. Noises such as grenades bleeping can get a little frustrating in long areas or hard ones, where you need to associate hearing certain noises with a cycle of failure. Still, the less used noises such as swaying boats and busy streets add another layer of realism.