Bask in the glorious cover art as Arne Meyer spills the beans over at the Playstation Blog:

UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception features the return of famed fortune hunter Nathan Drake and follows him through a gripping, action-packed storyline that will take you all over the world. In his search for the fabled “Atlantis of the Sands,” Nathan Drake and longtime friend and mentor Victor Sullivan set off on a daring trek into the heart of the Arabian Desert. But when terrible secrets of this lost city are uncovered, their journey becomes a desperate bid for survival that will force Drake to confront his deepest fears.

Throughout UNCHARTED 3, you’ll be taken to spectacular new locations around the globe,that will showcase all of the work we’ve taken on to take acclaimed physics, particle and visual effects to a new level.

Competitive and co-op multiplayer will return as a key ingredient to the UNCHARTED 3 package, where all of the new features we have planned will combine with our signature single-player cinematic gameplay to create a unique action-adventure multiplayer experience that can only be found in the UNCHARTED universe.

Oh, and there’s one more thing – UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception fully supports high-resolutionStereoscopic 3D.

Also, THIS:

The Charge:

Opening Statement:
The latest from French Developer Quantic Dream (Indigo Prophecy) has been hyped and heralded as a boon to the PS3’s growing library of top-drawer exclusives since it was first announced way back in 2006. Does this latest experiment in cinematic gameplay deliver an experience worthy of two thumbs up?

Facts of the Case:
In a terrorized city, the hunt for a missing child will lead four disparate people to ask the question: How far would you go to stop a killer? Heavy Rain puts you in the shoes of each of the four characters as they piece together clues and attempt to track down the latest target of The Origami Killer, a ruthless serial killer who abducts young boys and drowns them in rainwater, before he becomes another casualty.

The Evidence:
The first thing you need to know about Heavy Rain is that it is as far removed from your typical triple-A console selling exclusive as it gets. This is not Uncharted 2 or Gears of War. There is no cover mechanic or on rails vehicle segment, and there is no 16 or 24 player online deathmatch. There is no horde mode. What there is, is a totally riveting, near flawlessly executed blend of video game and movie that will appeal to casual players and anyone who enjoys a great single player experience.

The “interactive movie” moniker has been being kicked around since the golden age of the Cd-Rom, where horribly compressed live action video clips passed as vaguely interactive video games with point and click interfaces. The medium was all but dead and buried until Quantic Dream’s ambitious and well received experiment, The Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit for those outside North America) hit the PC and last gen consoles in 2005. Heavy Rain represents the evolution of that concept.

The gameplay is simple enough; you move one of four characters around a 3D environment and interact with your surroundings using a series of on screen prompts, and the story unfolds over 7 or 8 hours. What makes the game so special is the level it immerses you into the action. You’re never passive in Heavy Rain. This isn’t Metal Gear Solid, where the story unfolds over mammoth cutscenes, and there’s not a single moment where the game lets you set the controller down and watch. On screen prompts pop up at a moment’s notice, you may have to hold a button or several buttons. You may repeatedly mash a few buttons or shake the controller (making great use of the seldom implemented sixaxis feature), or push analog sticks in various directions. Pretty much every button, knob or doo-dad on the controller is implemented in ingenious fashion, and while it may sound an awful lot like a game full of the dreaded “quick time event”, it never degenerates into random button slamming. Every prompt feels intuitive and logical, and a lot of thought went into making the actions of the player suit the action on screen. Even better is the complete lack of a ‘Game Over’ screen. You’re not required to hit every prompt or succeed in every scenario, but bad things can happen if you are too inclined to failure. The game never out and out halts or punishes you based on your skills though; the plot seamlessly steams along at full speed. It’s really an amazing thing to behold. The nature of the game’s progression makes it difficult to near impossible to put the controller down once you start in. Like watching a great movie, you just want to progress and see what happens next. It doesn’t help that the game doesn’t feel as though it’s broken into chapters or levels. Be prepared to marathon this sucker.

This sort of experiment would be all for naught if the storyline wasn’t interesting, and it’s here where Heavy Rain really triumphs. Much has been said in the past about games like Halo or Assassin’s Creed or especially Uncharted, and how their storylines could make for awesome cinema. In truth, these games are snippets of narrative stuck together with video game glue. Large chunks would have to be carved out, and narrative would have to be invented. Not so here. Heavy Rain bridges the gap between film and videogame like nothing else before it. The script is an incredibly well written and mature affair with a three-act structure that mirrors film, complete with dialogue and plot turns that don’t pander to a ‘gaming’ audience in any way, it’s one part Zodiac, one part Saw, and one part Seven with just a minor hint of Twin Peaks. Beyond that, the developers have seen fit to include multiple branching paths that allow for some incredible variety and some pretty stark differences depending on how you go about things throughout the game, including a multitude of different endings. The game quickly becomes a discussion piece when you run into others who’ve played it, talking about how drastically different your experiences were, just within my own social circle of five or six people, we all encountered different chains of events, and no two endings were identical.

On a technical level, Heavy Rain is a stunner in motion. The same level of motion and performance capture we’ve seen in games like Uncharted 2 is employed here to great effect. Environments look realistic and well planned out, even if textures occasionally appear a little flat, and the weather effects are fantastic at setting the gloomy mood of the game. Facial textures and facial animation are amazing and wonderfully emotive. The voice acting pales a little by comparison, with a few foreign actors trying desperately to nail that American style movie accent, but the excellence of the writing more than compensates. The music, fully orchestrated and recorded at Abby Road Studios in London is phenomenal, and demands a dedicated soundtrack release.

Rebuttal Witness:
There’s no such thing as a perfect game, and Heavy Rain doesn’t break that particular mold. The biggest issue is undoubtedly the clunky control scheme. The tank-like movment and static camera angles occasionally recalls the classic Resident Evil titles, and on occasion you may find yourself constantly correcting your position in order to properly interact with the environment. In a traditional action-adventure game, this would be a fatal flaw, but Heavy Rain is anything but traditional, and while occasionally frustrating, I doubt the controls will diminish too much from your enjoyment of the title.

More serious are a handful of plot issues that pop up here and there. When there are so many puzzle pieces floating around in the air, you can probably expect a few to go missing, or fall into the wrong place, and as a result, you may encounter one or two plot holes and logic gaps as you go. One thing myself and the three or four others I talked to who finished the game had in common: One VERY LARGE plot hole hits as you careen into the third Act. I won’t get into details; suffice it to say you get a plot revelation and the game shifts characters, with the new character magically knowing the information you just gleaned. It was distracting, and a real stand out sore spot in a game that had otherwise been fantastically plotted up to that point. One or two other lapses in character logic do crop up in the final third, but they aren’t near as distracting.

Closing Comments:
Bottom line, Heavy Rain is not a game in the traditional sense, it is an interactive experience. The narrative is the closest to films that video gaming has ever come, and is riveting throughout. The game is a technical marvel, and in spite of some control misgivings that twitch gamers may take umbrage with, it is an accessible title that will appeal to hardcore and Mature casual gamers alike. Those people who bought their PS3’s to serve principally as Blu-Ray players; let’s just say your first game purchase has arrived. Heavy Rain is a game you NEED to play. It’s one of the very best games on this or any console in this generation, and in years to come it will be one of those games that is fondly remembered whenever the Playstation 3 comes up in conversation. It’s destined to be a classic!

The Verdict:

Platform: Sony Playstation 3
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Release Date: February 23, 2010
Rated: M (17+) for Mature