Since buying my PS4 last November, I have been trying to play the Playstation exclusives I missed out on. I purchased the Last of Us which I’m about a fourth of the way through along with the Uncharted remastered series. Uncharted was a series I dived into because I never get tired of shoot-out sequences in video games. I haven’t played Uncharted #4 A Thief’s End, but I wanted to rank the three Uncharted games based on how much I enjoyed playing them.

Developed by Naughty Dog, the series stars Nathan Drake, an orphan recruited at a young age by his mentor Victor “Sully” Sullivan. Nathan believes he’s a descendant of Sir Francis Drake who was an English sea captain and explorer on behalf of Queen Elizabeth. All of the games somehow have ties to Sir Francis Drake’s past explorations.

1. Uncharted #3 Drake’s Deception

My favorite game of the series was the third game: Uncharted Drake’s Deception. In Drake’s Deception, Nathan Drake is searching for a lost city in the Arabian Peninsula titled “Atlantis of the Sands”. Katherine Marlowe (who could be Helen Mirren’s identical twin) is also searching for this city but has awful plans for the city once she reaches it. Drake and Sully must stop her and another guy named Talbot.

I liked this game the best for a couple different reasons. I liked how some in-game chapters feature young Drake as a child and how he came to meet Sully in the first place. It’s heartwarming to see how Sully saw his potential and gave him a better life than the one he had on the streets. It made me enjoy the relationship between Sully and Drake more when I played through these chapters in the game.

I thought out of all the Uncharted games, this game was the most difficult. There is one shootout where Drake is in the water and enemies are shooting at you from all sides. I would hop out of the water for cover, but the crates would crumble as enemies shot at me. I had to replay this shootout quite a bit because of the level of difficulty involved. It’s more satisfying beating this game with the challenge of the various shootouts.

The final positive feedback for this game is the hand-to-hand combat has improved. In the other Uncharted games, I wouldn’t have thought to run up to an enemy and punch them. In this game, the counters are more prominent which makes hand-to-hand combat easier.

2. Uncharted #2 Among Thieves

In Uncharted #2 Among Thieves, once again Nathan Drake is searching for a lost city, this time in Nepal titled Shambhala. In this game, Drake is battling with Harry Flynn, a former colleague who betrayed him resulting in Drake spending some time in prison. Flynn has tagged along with war criminal Zoran Lazarevic who’s a genuinely horrible person.

Overall, I thought Uncharted #2 Among Thieves was a great sequel, but the third game captivated me a lot more than the second one.

3. Uncharted #1 Drake’s Fortune

This game is probably the most important game in the franchise because, without this game, we wouldn’t have the others. However, Uncharted Drake’s Fortune is my least favorite game I played. I found that this game is slower-paced than the others and the locations don’t intrigue me as much.

However, this game is important because it’s how Drake meets Elena Fischer who ends up being his wife in the fourth game. Elena is a journalist who has made an appearance in almost all of the Uncharted games released. She’s always after the one story that can net her a Pulitzer Prize.

Uncharted was a great series I missed out on being an Xbox gamer throughout middle & high school. I’m glad it was remastered for the PS4 otherwise I probably wouldn’t have played it.