The game begins in, of all places, an English pub. True, it may well conform to all known British stereotypes with a red phone box outside, beer towels on the bar and filled with Cockney football hooligans shouting “Oi!” but it also serves as a tutorial for the finer points of the game’s all new combat mechanics. In previous games in the series, Drake was pretty much only able to throw a few punches and snap a neck or too. Now he can serve up a number of new combos and even a counter attack move that comes straight out of Gotham City. There are also a couple of nifty moves whereby he can steal a gun from an assailant (in super slow-mo of course) and also one where he can pull the pin on their grenade and kick them off into the distance to explode in peace(s). There’s also a new dive bomb manoeuvre you can use on enemies from above. It’s no Batman to be sure but it’s a marked improvement on the previous games and it’s surprising just how often you find yourself resorting to fisticuffs over armed combat.

Once Drake and Sully are apparently left for dead in a back alley, we get a flashback to how and when they first met on the streets of Colombia many years ago. The very young Drake is attempting to steal a ring from a museum that belonged to his alleged ancestor, Sir Francis Drake. After Sully helps him to escape the clutches of a mysterious British criminal mastermind named Marlowe, who is also after the same ring, our friends agree to team-up in classic movie style; with the surly and unappreciative Drake reluctantly taken under the wing of the wise old master.

We return to the present day to find Drake and Sully once more hooked up with usual ally Chloe and newcomer Charlie Cutter, who also appears to have come straight out of the ‘British thug stereotypes’ handbook. With these two in the new gang, it’s time to begin the hunt and for the first part of the game we are in familiar territory. Our heroes' journey concerns the mythical ‘Atlantis of the Sands’; a lost city hidden somewhere in the desert. They track Marlowe’s car to a hidden library, where they manage to retrieve T.E. Lawrence's notebook and a map showing Francis Drake's secret voyage to Arabia, where he was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I to search for the lost city of Ubar. After our friends split-up, Nate and Sully head to France to find an amulet hidden in an old chateau. Once inside, they are ambushed by Marlowe’s chief henchman, Talbot, and the building is set on fire with them trapped inside.

Here is where we are introduced to the first of the grand set-pieces in the game. While the fire rages around them; Nate and Sully have to negotiate a safe passage outside while simultaneously fighting off Talbot and his henchmen. While the fire itself is graphically impressive, it’s the tension the situation creates that is most thrilling. Although the path out of the building is pretty linear, it does manage to generate a sense of panic as the fire spreads and the building begins to fall apart all around you. The added threat of armed assailants can make you rush when you should be patient and frequent deaths, just as in the rest of the game, are an occupational hazard.

After escaping, they reunite with Cutter and Chloe in Syria and our friends do a bit of ‘tomb-raiding’ together. It’s during these levels and the ones that follow in Yemen, where the game feels closest to the original Uncharted template, with hidden catacombs, darkened passages lit by torches, some open-air combat and even a few flesh-eating insects all the order of the day. It evokes strong memories of similar levels of Resident Evil 5, which is not to damn it with faint praise. It simply elucidates the feeling here, as with many of the levels, that they are similar to ones you have seen before. Whether it’s the combat from Batman: Arkham Asylum or the ‘following the suspect through a crowd’ mechanic from Heavy Rain, they say that if you are going to copy then copy from the best.

This is not a criticism, merely a statement of fact that whether done consciously or not, parts of Uncharted 3 replicate the best elements from other games. But one area where the Uncharted games have always come into their own is in the agility of Drake and his ability to scale walls and run across rooftops like no other mere mortal. Even the Prince of Persia would struggle to match his exploits at times. Drake’s athletic prowess is displayed in all its glory during yet another grand set-piece aboard a cruise ship. Although navigating your way through the ship to try and locate the now kidnapped Sully is enjoyable enough, it’s once the ship capsizes and Nate has to escape before being drowned that the effortless style of Naughty Dog really kicks into high gear. It’s fair to bet that few other developers would even have the balls to attempt to do justice to such a nuanced level design. Particularly as it runs the risk of feeling that it is there just for show. Instead, Naughty Dog give us a level that will remain long in the memory as players try to negotiate their way out of a watery tomb with the levels ever rising and Drake trying to negotiate his way through previously traversed passages where what was once up is now down and where beds and tables now provide an invaluable next point to leap to during the escape.

During this level we are also provided with ample evidence of the game’s remarkable graphics engine. As the world whirls and flips around you, the camera rarely fails to keep up and the water is as stunningly realised as the fire in the earlier chateau level. In fact the whole game is a graphical tour de force, easily outstripping the previous Uncharted game (which is no mean feat) and arguably providing the most impressive graphics ever seen on current-gen consoles. At times you simply have to stop and marvel at the stunning vistas on display, some which are utilised into the gameplay while others are apparently there just to show off. At times the game even goes so far as to pan out during certain moments to a seemingly absurd distance just to say, “hey, look what we can do!”

There’s still a multiplayer option, both competitive and co-op, and for the first time split-screen. As before, the co-op sections take scenes from the single-player campaign and toys with them in a non-canonical way, giving you goals to fight towards with one or two buddies at your side. It’s good, challenging variety, and being able to play on the same screen adds more immediate camaraderie. In competitive online modes it’s the maps that stand out, full of hidey-holes and vertiginous sections that require all of your acrobatics to access. Plunder, where you have to return a golden idol to your team’s treasure chest, is still the pick of the bunch, and the new ‘kickbacks’ (think COD’s kill streak perks, only rarer and less game-breaking) help to mix things up.

The puzzles are something of a mixed-bad this time. There certainly isn’t the heavy reliance on them that there was in the second half of Uncharted 2, where they did become something of an annoyance in many respects as the game was building towards its thrilling climax. Here they are more sporadic and pretty much absent after the first half of the game. The ones that are there are fairly difficult to solve but as well as the established hint system from the previous games, players are now given the option (after a certain amount of time has elapsed) to have the puzzle solved for them. This eliminates the problem of having the in-game puzzles spoil your progress. In truth, they are all fairly logical but those of a less parallel mind or simply just lazy will be glad of this new option.

There are two other major changes to the established Uncharted experience. Firstly, the game is substantially easier than previous incarnations. Although most enemies appear cleverer than before and will not blindly wander into your line of fire, Drake’s combat skills have evolved to make him more than a match for most of them. It’s no longer as easy to find yourself surrounded by bad guys and their health certainly doesn’t seem to be able to stand up to Drake’s arsenal of weapons as well as before. This means that progress is fairly straightforward and while this in no way does the game a disservice, it is a noticeable factor. Secondly, the changes hinted at in Uncharted 2 have now taken full effect: Drake is no longer a modern day Indiana Jones wannabe; the game is much closer in style and setting to Bond or Jason Bourne. Indeed, with its globe-trotting aspects, multi-faceted armed and unarmed combat and super villainess baddy, it could actually be the best Bond game ever made.