Look Closely: You Can See The Slightest Hint Of A Smile On Drake's Face. He Just Heard About The IGN Review Of Uncharted 3 Y'see.

An expectation that we're certain is probably shared by developer Naughty Dog. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was such a brilliant, run-away success that it increased the expectations of the series indefinitely.

As such, we were expecting Uncharted 3 to see some decline in terms of review scores. But early indications from the top publications are showing anything but decline.

IGN's gone with a perfect score all around. Not only did PlayStation editor Greg Miller attribute the game with a 10/10, but he also scored the game a perfect 10 in every category. Miller summarised, "Uncharted 3 is the reason I play video games".

GiantBomb was similarly complimentary, scoring the game a 5/5 and explaining, "Nathan Drake's new adventure doesn't rewrite the book like his last one did, but damn if it's not a great action game anyway".

Elsewhere, CVG plumped up a 9.5 while TheSixthAxis settled for another 10/10. The UK edition of the Official PlayStation Magazine served up another 10/10, as did PlayStation Lifestyle.

In fact the lowest score so far comes from Eurogamer, and that's an 8/10. Hardly the end of the world. Writer Simon Parkin ultimately concluded that, "As an expression of all that a video game could be Uncharted 3 is narrow, focused and ultimately shallow."

So, Uncharted 3 then. Can't come soon enough eh?