Naughty Dog’s latest sees you return to the now familiar role of dishevelled fortune Hunter Nathan Drake. Your quest to find the fabled Atlantis of the Sands sees you match wits with rival adventurers (not to mention pirates and mercenaries) in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

If you’re a fan of the series, the areas in which Drake’s Deception stumbles will already be familiar to you. Quite simply, it places far too much emphasis on shooting, which unfortunately  is its weakest feature. During the opening act, the game seems to strike an excellent balance between platforming, puzzle solving, fisticuffs and gunplay. However, as the game wears on, it relies more and more on its barely adequate aiming mechanics. By the end of the campaign, you feel like you’ve been playing a straight up third person shooter for hours on end.

Where some titles offer targeting assistance and others leave you to your own devices, Drake’s Deception feels like it actively sabotages your attempts at accuracy. During your darker moments, you begin to suspect that an invisible force is pushing your reticle away from its intended victim. That said, fixing an opponent in the crosshairs is hardly a guarantee of success. Oftentimes, you squeeze the trigger only for the game to fail to register what should have been a bullet between the eyes.

Your frustration is then compounded by the narrow range of adversaries on offer. It’s often said that everyone has a double, but according to Naughty Dog, everyone has a triple, a quadruple and a quintuple as well. One or two bosses aside, you encounter only four enemy types throughout the entire campaign, and they all look pretty much the same. If the game has an Achilles’ heel, it is a lack of combat variety.

Whenever you’re beginning to feel discouraged by the cover based shooting, the game hits you with one of its many stunning action sequences. This is one area in which the series simply has no equal. If you’re not dangling from the back of a cargo plane, you’re trying to escape a burning chateau or chasing down a fleet of trucks on horseback. Scenes that other games relegate to cinematics or barely interactive quick time events are brought to life with accessible and exciting gameplay. The game looks and feels like a genuine blockbuster.

If you’re at all familiar with the first two games in the series, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that Drake’s Deception is a stunning visual showcase. While the large scale set pieces make a strong first impression, quieter moments like wandering into a London pup or drifting off to sleep on a loved one’s lap may well linger longer in the memory. Naughty Dog employs subtle animation, deft shot selection and dynamic editing to turn seemingly mundane events into compelling viewing.

Your quest not only takes you to the four corners of the globe, it also reunites you with your remarkably likeable supporting cast. You learn a little more about your grizzled mentor Sully in an extended flashback sequence that only makes you love the guy more. Romantic interest Elena solidifies her reputation as a feisty, capable and sensibly dressed gal. Even Cutter and Chloe score some decent screen time. Without exception, the dialogue is lively and amusing, the voice acting pitch perfect. If nothing else, it proves that an action game doesn’t have to be filled with steroid abusing meat heads.

Multiplayer isn’t the strength of Drake’s Deception, far from it, in fact. The adversarial modes are passable (clumsy gunplay notwithstanding) but the co-op component is practically a write off. Here the developer recycles environments from the solo campaign and offers only the most rudimentary attempt at a plot. Expect to encounter a series of barely ambulatory shootouts interspersed with footage of you and Sully opening doors and climbing ladders. In short, Naughty Dog still hasn’t done enough to suggest that this should be anything other than a single player experience.

Drake’s Deception is a game of highs and lows. If this is your third time in the saddle, all you need to know is that Naughty Dog hasn’t dropped the ball. If you’re about to mount up for the first time, be aware that you’ll need to endure some clumsy and repetitive combat in order to experience some of the most thrilling action available on the PlayStation 3.