UNCHARTED 4: A Thief's End

A friend got me the 1-3 remastered collection for my B-day back in April. I finally got around to playing it. I played a little bit of 1 months ago but the shifty camera made me want to barf when my vertigo was acting up. I marathoned the rest the past 2 days.

The first game is really dated. I'm sure it was amazing when it first came out. The jump and grapple mechanics are pretty poor causing me to rage during some of the jumping puzzles when Drake failed to grab onto the platforms I was jumping too. The one thing that has been consistent through the first 3 games is inconsistency in makeable jumps. For the most part you can tell if you can make a jump or not, but sometimes you can make these absurdly long jumps that normally aren't possible... so it gets confusing where to go at times because you're telling yourself that isn't a possible jump, when it is, and the animation is funky looking because its a distance that's not normal any other time. Despite its problems though, the story was really good, and the characters likeable. There were some really great watershed moments too.

The second game frustrated me the most. I liked the puzzles, but many of the first games issues were still present, and since there was more action, it compounded the problem. My main issue with 2 is the stupid amount of segments that last under 10 seconds if you successfully complete them... but you never are successful because you don't know what the fuck to do. Its always some moment where if you don't act fast you die... so you die about 4-5 times and then the game points out something that wouldn't be obvious in such a short time frame.... or something you already did and it didn't work, but magically it does once the game tells you about it... this is shit design. Games like MGS and God of War never had to rely on things like this, and it really ruined the flow of the game for me. It story wasn't my favorite either, but I liked the characters so much I went with it.

Despite the apparent plot holes of 3, It was my favorite... probably because the gameplay was the most polished, and the vast majority of the issues I had with 1 and 2 disappeared. The puzzles where the best, the journal was more clear, the jump mechanics were better, and the weapons were great. It has a ton of great watershed moments and was just more enjoyable to play for me. The flow of the game kept on going. My only gripes about 3 are the hint system regressed horribly for no good reason, and you could get stun locked to death... which was the cause of 90% of my deaths in the game. Nothing a little bit of muscle memory couldn't fix the second go around, but the die/retry until you take out common NPC's in a certain order, is a bit dated. Boss fights are one thing, common grunts not so much.

I'm currently waiting on 4 to download. I enjoyed myself enough to buy the 4th game since I've read pretty great things about it, and I want to play it before it feels like Uncharted 1 to me. Its like going back and playing Mass Effect 1 after playing 2 and 3. Getting stun locked by biotic powers was so damn annoying, especially during the justicar fight. You just forget how annoying it was when it was taken out of the sequels.

UPDATE:

Holy crap this game is beautiful. I played up to Chapter 9 and had to force myself to stop. The story's opening is leaps and bounds better than the previous 3 games, and they actually did a pretty decent job of making it to where you wouldn't be too lost playing this one without the last 3. You'd miss some subtle jokes, but thats about it. The stealth mechanic is much improved to where each enemy has a suspicion meter. The basic mechanics of the game are the same, except reloading has swapped to Triangle rather than R1. The melee system is basically the same with a few added touches. The aim assist is a big noobish as it basically locks on to enemies as long as you keep snapping in and out of aiming. Its different from BF1 and COD as it actually locks and tracks... odd, you can turn it off at any time. Along with jumping and climbing there is now sliding down slopes into jumps, and a grappling hook mechanic thats pretty neat.

I'll pick this game up next time I see it on sale thru PSN. I loved Uncharted 2, but the plot holes on 3 pissed me off too much. I love these third person action/adventure games. Uncharted, Last of Us and Tomb Raider have been some of my favorite games over the past couple years.

I just beat this and I was thoroughly impressed. Surprisingly the game was pretty light on the gun fights. The had a few classic "run for your life" segments that were smooth and to the point. There was no confusing bullshit that makes you die repeatedly, and the hints are good again if you get lost, which I only needed about 2 times the entire play through. The majority of gameplay was cliffhanging and puzzles. They threw in some dialog choices at 2 points in the game, but that was it... it felt kind of forced, or maybe something that was scrapped and never finished, but they left it in those two spots.

The story was the best of the 4, and I liked that it didn't feature supernatural stuff. The journal was more like a scrap book where you kept folded up letters and clues with in it. It was very interactive, you could take stuff out and look at it when ever you wanted too. There was also a cool puzzle where you had to line up certain things and you had a few cut outs of it in your journal you could play with to match symbols. The letters that could be found, provided a lot of lore and went hand in hand with what you were doing. There were two stories going on at once, one about your bro, and the other about the adventure, they both progressed nicely through out the entire game.

The jump mechanics were very well polished, and the grappling hook was the best addition to the game. The game eases you into the added mechanics like the hook, gravel/mud sliding, and another climbing tool you get later through the game. eventually you have to string these all together in some with some quick thinking to get through areas. It definitely keep things interesting, rather than spamming the jump button from ledge to ledge, jutted out brick to brick.

The gun fights when they happened were pretty great. The variety of weapons was a lot larger, They toned down the grenade launcher to where you can't keep a lot of ammo for it (half the time it only had 3-4 rounds left when I got it), but the one shot kill weapons like the magnum and sniper rifles were more readily available than in previous games to where it was worth taking it to the next fight with you, rather than picking up a trusty AK with 150 rounds. The enemy types stayed exactly the same, but when you pick up the big chain gun, its actually useful, unlike it was in Uncharted 2. Provided it doesn't have 500 rounds and only 190... but at least they don't cheese you and make you drop it to climb up a ladder to the next section. Armored shotgun guys are still assholes, and I hate them.

In the end, I beat the game in 15 hours... It felt like double that though.

Good review. I hate those shotgun guys. No supernatural stuff sounds fine to me. I loved the supernatural stuff in the first 2 games and then the 3rd one dropped the ball by making me think I'd find a genie in a box or some crazy thing. Oh well, that escape scene in 3 at the end made up for it. I look forward to playing 4 in the near future.

I started playing this last week. Only finished the prologue so far and now my character is swimming in water.. This game looks amazing. I thought Last of Us was breathtaking but Naughty Dog out did themselves and knocked it out of the park with Uncharted 4. All the plant life looks more realistic than any other game I've played and the controls for swimming is even better than Last of Us. But the biggest draw for me is the faces. Uncharted 3 had alot of the same recycled bald guy enemy look going on, but everyone in Uncharted 4 so far looks unique and the facial animations are some of the best I've seen. I'm looking forward to playing some more.

You have to remember that The Last of US was a PS3 game. The PS4 may have made it look a bit nicer, but there is only so much more that could have been done without overhauling with a complete update. 

I beat Uncharted 4 tonight. Took me a little over 19 hours. I loved the plot and the epilogue brought the feels. This really made Uncharted feel complete and not an endless franchise. I always liked the supernatural aspect of the games, but I see why they made it more down to earth this time around. The focus on the adventure and brother bonding didn't need to be overshadowed by anything else. Overall I'm extremely impressed and loved the Crash Bandicoot mini game. I was a bit disappointed in the lack of propane tanks. There were some fuel tanks or powder kegs with red x's around and most of the time I never noticed them. A couple combat scenerios were really lacking grenades which seemed odd. And damn those shotgun guys, 1-2 hit instant killing me, wtf. It felt a bit like I was playing a different game since I had to stealth kill so many people compared to the traditional uncharted of ducking and head shotting people with my pistol. So much cover was destroyable that I had to keep moving, and getting riddled with bullets by 5 guys at once isn't nearly as forgiving as it was in the previous games. Aside from that I loved all the lore involved when finding old notes on dead pirates. The companion AI was decent too since they actually killed some people for me or helped finish some off. I'd like to see an Uncharted 5, somehow but I have a feeling it won't happen. I'll pick up the spin off game Uncharted: Lost Legacy at some point, but it doesn't seem as appealing to me as a Nathan Drake game.

I don't remember the shotgun guys being that big of an issue, but then again I refused to pick up some weapons. I always stuck with the AK/AR and the burst fire pistol or uzi type pistol. If i picked up a sniper or grenade launcher I'd use all the ammo right there and pick up my assault rifle again. I did to a ton of sneaking though. This one just seemed built a lot better for it. You def died a lot faster getting lit up. You're probably right about it being the last game in the series, especially since Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog in the middle of U4's development. I could see an U5 on PS5 where they do an Indiana Jones gumpy old man type deal but thats about it.