Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: What Does the New Game Have in Store for Nate Drake Fans?

Fans of PlayStation's Uncharted franchise are certain to be the first among Black Friday shoppers to pick up the Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception for Christmas. But it certainly won't be Christmas 2010. It's Christmas 2011.

In a completely unfair decision to push off Uncharted 3 into the practically unforeseen future, Naughty Dog game developers thought it best to make their fans see red by telling them Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception won't release until November 1, 2011. What were they thinking?

But in the meantime, they've given us a beautifully rendered - if cleverly disguised - teaser trailer. The scenery looks nothing less than the crisp graphic visuals we've come to know and love as in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Nate is shown shuffling through an Arabian desert, picking up an AK-47 from a dead mercenary buried in the sand and trekking off to a sizeable airplane wreck.

His narration reads from an ancient book, presumably from whatever explorer's directions he's following to reach the next lineup of treasure, located in the fabled Atlantis of the Sands. It all sounds very quaint until Victor Sullivan, his somewhat trusty sidekick, cuts him off and asks him what in the world he's talking about.

And it's Nate's answer that concerns me as to what Uncharted 3 might entail.

Nate's synopsis of his next journey is, "Be careful what you wish for - it might just get you." And that's where the "deception" must come in. I'm hoping the game developers don't have Drake going through any sleep trances filled with "what could be happening right now" and have him wake up to a reality that's totally different.

Of course, there's another potential problem with the game that I see happening right off the bat. You might remember in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves how Nate spent countless hours trekking through snowy Mongolian mountains with a man who spoke nary a word of English. Or perhaps when you had to master that train climb at the beginning... and then do it all over again after Nate "wakes up" out of his memorial dream.

Well, I see similar things happening again in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. Players might easily be stuck controlling Drake through mile after mile of desert sand. Sure, there might be a treasure here or a weapon there, but if the scenery calls for Nate to walk painfully slowly through sand, it will take forever to finish the game.

That said, there are plenty of opportunities for the most action we've seen from all three games. From Drake 1 to Drake 2, game creators gave us bigger, better and more devastating weapons, like the GAU-19 and the FN-FAL rifle. It's not unreasonable to expect even more weapons selection from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.

And of course, we can make plenty of speculations about Nate's romantic life. At the end of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Nate chooses Elena over Chloe (probably the better selection, in my opinion). But will Elena return in the next installment? It's quite probable, to say the least, but not a guarantee.

All in all, Drake fans will love Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception no matter what. But let's hope the developers listened to players the first two times around and made all the right improvements - without taking away the perks - to the new game.