Ahhh. The ole Dude Raider. A series I didn't think I would be a fan of ended up being one of my favorite reasons to own my PS3. Hard to believe that its been about 5 years since the last game came out. If you read back to that very very old blog post of mine, I enjoyed Uncharted 3 quite a bit but ultimately felt like it was very much of the same game that came before.
So there has been a significant amount of time that has passed since the last game, and I'm sure there was no way in hell Sony was going let Naughty Dog go without giving them one last installment of this series on their shiny new console (that's already about to be outdated, but that's another issue). So here we are, one last go around with Nathan Drake to get one last treasure.
So there has been a significant amount of time that has passed since the last game, and I'm sure there was no way in hell Sony was going let Naughty Dog go without giving them one last installment of this series on their shiny new console (that's already about to be outdated, but that's another issue). So here we are, one last go around with Nathan Drake to get one last treasure.
UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END:(PS4)
The story bounces around for the first few chapters so I'll try to summarize. The game begins in medias res with Nathan on a high speed boat chase with somebody named Sam. They are at high speed and being shot at, and the water conditions are less than ideal. As is with all things related to Nathan Drake, the situation gets out of hand quickly as the boat crashes and they are flung into the sea just off the shore of the island.
We then flash back roughly 18 years, Nathan Drake is slugging it out in a Panamanian prison, be we find out that its a work. He, his contact Rafe, and the man from before on the boat, Sam. We find out that Sam is Nathan's brother, and they have weaseled into this prison because they are on the trail of lost treasure of the notorious pirate Henry Avery. Things however don't go as planned as they try to make their escape from the prison. During the escape a gunfight ensues and Sam is shot. Nathan, unable to save his brother, is dragged to escape but gives up the will to find this treasure.
The story flashes 15 years forward (3 years after the events of the 3rd game). Drake has finally got out of the treasure hunting life and is working a regular salvage job. He also is now happily married to long time Uncharted protagonist Elena Fischer. They are happy with the marriage, but its apparent to both of them that Nathan still longs for adventure. Elena pushes him to do a little more risky job to try to satiate his need, but he affirms that he is committed to this life with her.
However, a curve ball is thrown at him at work as he is visited by his assumed dead brother Sam Drake. Sam informs him that he was patched up and stuck in that prison for the past 15 years since the escape. He often spoke of Avery's treasure to his cellmate and notorious drug lord Hector Alcazar. Hector helps Sam break out, but upon escape tells Sam that if he doesn't find that treasure and give up half, Hector will come back to kill him. Nathan is reluctant and tries to stay out of that life, but wracked with guilt about leaving his brother stranded, he calls and lies to Elena about a job so he help his brother find the treasure they were on the hunt for so long ago to save his life.
There is something really important about the story that I would like to address here. The first thing I want to make note of here is this is probably the first time in the history of Uncharted that I can think of where Nathan Drake as a character actually seems to show a sens of growth and development. In the previous iterations of the game, Nathan basically would go through adventure to adventure gunning down any brown people that get in his way, despite what is friends and colleagues think he should be doing. He often wouldn't listen to reason and would end up in a bad situation because of it.
This time around, I got a real sense that while Nathan still longed to adventure, he finally has a sense of the bigger picture. He's been through so many life and death struggles and walked away with almost no reward for it. Some treasure from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune but ultimately not much else. He has a steady job and happy marriage. Even when his brother comes back he clearly still doesn't want to get involved. But he does only because he feels he owes Sam for leaving him, and wants to help save his life. It is very clear this time around, that Nathan is not motivated by finding the treasure. He wants to save his brother.
The other thing about the story that I really noticed the entire time is that practically every scene in this game some how gives this sense of sadness and finality to it. Naughty Dog, the title of the game, and every news outlet really let every know that this was the be the last Uncharted game. Everything about this adventure really gives me that sense too. I don't know if its how scenes play out or just some exceptional voice acting. But a whole lot of the game makes it feel like this is intended to be the last go. There is just a real weight to the story.
So, the Uncharted series is a game that has never really broken the mold as far as game play goes. It is still operating on the cookie cutter 3rd person shooter control scheme with cover mechanics and a fading color screen to determine damage that has been so prevalent for the past decade or so. If you have ever played one of the other Uncharted games, Gears of war, the new Tomb Raiders, Resident Evil 6, etc, then this game is going to feel real familiar aside from figuring out which button reloads for you.
The melee combat never seems to stick to the same system in these games though and it kinda changed again here too. You can still wail on the square button to punch the crap out of enemies and if you do a physical attack while blind firing you can do a take down move. But the brutal combos are still gone, you can still stealth kill from behind, and much of the quick time events for the most part are gone. For major portions of the game it seems like melee sequences are meant to be cinematic rather than actually skill based. They essentially simplified the game play to assist those with physical disability to finish the game.
Uncharted games typically are broken up into 3 parts: Beautifully motion captured cut scene, Nathan Drake climbs on stuff that falls apart on him while he does, Over the top action sequence with gunfights and explosions. This is about as formulaic as Uncharted gets and the pattern is alive and well here. It's usually this "Drake climbs stuff" segment where the puzzle sections of the game take place. The majority of the puzzle is just "find which ledge to grab to move forward" but the game does feature a handful of nifty little puzzles to solve. Most of them aren't too difficult to solve, and after if you struggle the game will eventually throw you a hint.
Speaking of hints, I'm not sure if I am thankful or insulted by Uncharted 4's direction assistance. The game features some incredibly beautiful landscapes and locations for you travel in. It easy to sit back and marvel at just how beautiful the game looks. The problem is, sometimes that doesn't exactly provide you a clear path of where you are supposed to be heading. After a while, Nate will talk to himself or the NPC you are with will kinda point out the path to you.
But if you take too much longer still, it will highlight an arrow and let you press up on the D-pad to lock you in on the direction you should be going. This isn't something you can spam like in Dead Space so basically you have to wait until the game gets impatient with you. I'll be scaling around a wall looking for the proper ledge to climb on, not seeing which way I need to go, and then I'll get that highlighted hint button in the left corner of my screen. Hitting it will show me that there was another series of ledges going to opposite direction, with a fast camera swing as if the game was saying: "Hey stupid, the path is actually this way if you are done doing the wall mambo over there."
Fuck you Uncharted 4. you can't make a game about exploring for treasure and then get impatient with me that I'm not exploring the story driven correct direction. If you wanted me to follow the appropriate path then make it so I have to go that way, or let me figure it out of my own accord until I am ready to ask for help. Don't be a patronizing asshole about it, ya jerks.
That being said, The game somewhat has a sense for when you might be getting bored with exploring environments. Typically in situations when you are out exploring landscape like jungles, forests or cities you will find small patches of soldiers to skirmish with. You can stealth your way through and try to take them out that way, or you can go in guns blazing and try to shoot everyone down.
The stealth mechanics here are pretty good and more often than not it's the preferable solution to the gun fights. There is usually plenty of tall grass to sneak around in or walls to duck behind. You usually have a pretty forgiving amount of time if you start to get noticed to duck back into cover before they start shooting at you. And while it doesn't have The Last of Us's super sonar hearing mechanic, if you happen to see people in stealth, you can mark them with L3 to at least keep of sense of where they are at and where they are moving to. Usually if you can choke out 3 or 4 guards before you start a gunfight, that's a pretty good run.
Naughty Dog should really be given a lot of credit for the stories that they weave. While its not the face to face copy of say Beyond: Two Souls, the motion capture work that they do for their games is nothing short of impeccable. Nolan North and Troy Baker are really on top of the voice acting world it seems as they find their way into everything, so it only made sense to cast Baker as Nathan Drake's brother Sam. They have a similar sounding voice and are both supremely talented. They managed to quickly get me to believe that Nate's brother was a character who technically has been around this whole time even though I'm just seeing him now for the first time.
I have to give special mention to Emily Rose here. She always does an exceptional job as the Elena character, but in this game she too is obviously wrestling with some conflicted emotions. She's been on the white knuckle adventure before, but she is also comfortable with being in a happy home. And despite clearly trying to work with him to give him some sense of thrill back in his life, he lies to her again before going off to another adventure. It's happened in between each of the games in the franchise, but this is the first time we see it and it's heartbreaking since Elena is probably the most human and relateable character in this whole series.
That being said, its because we see it this time that we end up getting the best rendition of Nathan Drake that we get because for once like I said above, we actually see some growth out of the character. We get some sense that he isn't out for the treasure just to get the treasure, and through the majority of the adventure, he very much is wrestling with what he is gambling to save by trying to find Avery's treasure. It's probably one of the few times I actually felt sympathetic for him. He essentially was stuck in a very shitty situation and was forced to choose between the two people he calls family.
Honestly, I had completely forgotten that this game featured a multiplayer mode. I haven't actually fired it up myself but I'm sure it features some sort of 5 on 5 game where you can play deathmatch, CTF, or some kind of king of the hill game. It was only just recently reminded because Kotaku posted a gif of Nathan Drake doing the musician Drake's doofy hotline bling dance. I am sure if you like multiplayer games this is probably alright but I've cited why I don't play these a billion times already. No need to really dwell on that point.
There really isn't a lot that I didn't like about this game that I haven't already made much mention to. Like I said I find the hint button to be condescending in its current iteration. if you are going to provide the hint button, then that's fine. But make it so I have the option to press it at any time I want to. Or if you are going to wait for me to appear stuck, at least give me a little longer to figure out what it is I need to do. Sometimes I would just be exploring the cool environment and it would pop up to remind me it thinks I'm stupid.
Honestly, I know its part of the Uncharted core gameplay at this point but there were a handful of times while I was playing the game and I felt like I was getting bored scaling stuff. I know, I know. It's a game about exploration. But I can't think of how many times I would approach a new location and would see like a massive clock tower or something and think "Ugh, I'm going to have to get to the top of that, and I bet its going to fall apart as I do and collapse when I reach the top." Only to have that exact thing pretty much happen as I said it would. It's annoying, but its even more annoying when the characters actually poke fun at it, like the game is totally aware how often it happens.
The story in this game is really good, but there were points in the game where it felt a little predictable. They set up some story line elements fairly early on and they are some pretty common tropes. I've mentioned how Nate is gripping that he feels he needs to do this adventure for his brother, but not because he wants to. So he lies to Elena about it. This is spoiler but I'm sure most of you have already figured out that Elena figures it out too. It doesn't make the scene when it happens any less powerful for sure, but it did leave me with the dumb question of "how the hell did she know where to find him?"
Here is ANOTHER BIG SPOILER, but it bears mentioning because it was something I personally appreciated. So if you don't want to have it ruined for you I give you this opportunity to SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH AND THE NEXT ONE..... Everyone gone? Good. Of the main series of Uncharted games, this is the first one that didn't have a supernatural element play into the story. No Infected people from El Dorado, no magical steroid of Shambala, no mind controlling cistern of the Djinn. It's just people out there fighting for pirate treasure.
I discussed this with a friend was unhappy to see there was no supernatural this time, because its always been a regular part of the series. I personally contest that it was better without it. That was always my biggest complaint from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: the story and the characters had already gotten me totally wrapped in tale it was weaving. Throwing in the monsters felt like a cheap throwaway to just get them in there. The game was doing perfectly fine without them and seeing them cheapened the whole experience for me. In this new one, the only monster in this game is the greed of the characters.
Here is the thing about Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. If you played any liked any of the other Uncharted games then you know you are probably going to like this one as well. They have been talking and in the story telling that this is going to be the last Uncharted game, but without spoiling things too much, you get one last little epilogue chapter after you beat the game that shows you that at lease this bit of story is really over, it was beautiful and perfect. When it ended, I felt satisfied. I didn't need one more adventure with Nathan Drake. It felt complete.
Lots of other outlets are giving Uncharted 4 perfect scores. I very rarely do that and it holds true here. Things that annoyed me in the previous Uncharted games still annoy me here, but none of them ever did enough to make me think they were bad games. The game is not perfect, but it was complete. It's very rare does a series come to end where I feel the ending gives me a satisfying conclusion. The moment I finished this game, I took to facebook with a simple post that pretty much explained my feelings on it: "The ending of Uncharted 4 was the ending this game deserved". While the game itself doesn't get a perfect score, it's ending does.
I was able to happily close the book on the Uncharted series with this. If they make a new one with a new cast, I'll be along for the ride, but as far as Nathan Drake's escapades are concerned? A very wild wild ride has come to a satisfying conclusion.
We then flash back roughly 18 years, Nathan Drake is slugging it out in a Panamanian prison, be we find out that its a work. He, his contact Rafe, and the man from before on the boat, Sam. We find out that Sam is Nathan's brother, and they have weaseled into this prison because they are on the trail of lost treasure of the notorious pirate Henry Avery. Things however don't go as planned as they try to make their escape from the prison. During the escape a gunfight ensues and Sam is shot. Nathan, unable to save his brother, is dragged to escape but gives up the will to find this treasure.
The story flashes 15 years forward (3 years after the events of the 3rd game). Drake has finally got out of the treasure hunting life and is working a regular salvage job. He also is now happily married to long time Uncharted protagonist Elena Fischer. They are happy with the marriage, but its apparent to both of them that Nathan still longs for adventure. Elena pushes him to do a little more risky job to try to satiate his need, but he affirms that he is committed to this life with her.
However, a curve ball is thrown at him at work as he is visited by his assumed dead brother Sam Drake. Sam informs him that he was patched up and stuck in that prison for the past 15 years since the escape. He often spoke of Avery's treasure to his cellmate and notorious drug lord Hector Alcazar. Hector helps Sam break out, but upon escape tells Sam that if he doesn't find that treasure and give up half, Hector will come back to kill him. Nathan is reluctant and tries to stay out of that life, but wracked with guilt about leaving his brother stranded, he calls and lies to Elena about a job so he help his brother find the treasure they were on the hunt for so long ago to save his life.
There is something really important about the story that I would like to address here. The first thing I want to make note of here is this is probably the first time in the history of Uncharted that I can think of where Nathan Drake as a character actually seems to show a sens of growth and development. In the previous iterations of the game, Nathan basically would go through adventure to adventure gunning down any brown people that get in his way, despite what is friends and colleagues think he should be doing. He often wouldn't listen to reason and would end up in a bad situation because of it.
This time around, I got a real sense that while Nathan still longed to adventure, he finally has a sense of the bigger picture. He's been through so many life and death struggles and walked away with almost no reward for it. Some treasure from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune but ultimately not much else. He has a steady job and happy marriage. Even when his brother comes back he clearly still doesn't want to get involved. But he does only because he feels he owes Sam for leaving him, and wants to help save his life. It is very clear this time around, that Nathan is not motivated by finding the treasure. He wants to save his brother.
 |
For the first time, it seems like Nate has finally taken stock in how good he
actually has it. I mean come on, Elena is the best.
|
The other thing about the story that I really noticed the entire time is that practically every scene in this game some how gives this sense of sadness and finality to it. Naughty Dog, the title of the game, and every news outlet really let every know that this was the be the last Uncharted game. Everything about this adventure really gives me that sense too. I don't know if its how scenes play out or just some exceptional voice acting. But a whole lot of the game makes it feel like this is intended to be the last go. There is just a real weight to the story.
So, the Uncharted series is a game that has never really broken the mold as far as game play goes. It is still operating on the cookie cutter 3rd person shooter control scheme with cover mechanics and a fading color screen to determine damage that has been so prevalent for the past decade or so. If you have ever played one of the other Uncharted games, Gears of war, the new Tomb Raiders, Resident Evil 6, etc, then this game is going to feel real familiar aside from figuring out which button reloads for you.
The melee combat never seems to stick to the same system in these games though and it kinda changed again here too. You can still wail on the square button to punch the crap out of enemies and if you do a physical attack while blind firing you can do a take down move. But the brutal combos are still gone, you can still stealth kill from behind, and much of the quick time events for the most part are gone. For major portions of the game it seems like melee sequences are meant to be cinematic rather than actually skill based. They essentially simplified the game play to assist those with physical disability to finish the game.
 |
| A gamergater got thrown out of a focus group for swearing at this scene. Girls can be tough and that's OK. It's actually pretty rad. Grow the fuck up already. |
Uncharted games typically are broken up into 3 parts: Beautifully motion captured cut scene, Nathan Drake climbs on stuff that falls apart on him while he does, Over the top action sequence with gunfights and explosions. This is about as formulaic as Uncharted gets and the pattern is alive and well here. It's usually this "Drake climbs stuff" segment where the puzzle sections of the game take place. The majority of the puzzle is just "find which ledge to grab to move forward" but the game does feature a handful of nifty little puzzles to solve. Most of them aren't too difficult to solve, and after if you struggle the game will eventually throw you a hint.
Speaking of hints, I'm not sure if I am thankful or insulted by Uncharted 4's direction assistance. The game features some incredibly beautiful landscapes and locations for you travel in. It easy to sit back and marvel at just how beautiful the game looks. The problem is, sometimes that doesn't exactly provide you a clear path of where you are supposed to be heading. After a while, Nate will talk to himself or the NPC you are with will kinda point out the path to you.
But if you take too much longer still, it will highlight an arrow and let you press up on the D-pad to lock you in on the direction you should be going. This isn't something you can spam like in Dead Space so basically you have to wait until the game gets impatient with you. I'll be scaling around a wall looking for the proper ledge to climb on, not seeing which way I need to go, and then I'll get that highlighted hint button in the left corner of my screen. Hitting it will show me that there was another series of ledges going to opposite direction, with a fast camera swing as if the game was saying: "Hey stupid, the path is actually this way if you are done doing the wall mambo over there."
Fuck you Uncharted 4. you can't make a game about exploring for treasure and then get impatient with me that I'm not exploring the story driven correct direction. If you wanted me to follow the appropriate path then make it so I have to go that way, or let me figure it out of my own accord until I am ready to ask for help. Don't be a patronizing asshole about it, ya jerks.
That being said, The game somewhat has a sense for when you might be getting bored with exploring environments. Typically in situations when you are out exploring landscape like jungles, forests or cities you will find small patches of soldiers to skirmish with. You can stealth your way through and try to take them out that way, or you can go in guns blazing and try to shoot everyone down.
The stealth mechanics here are pretty good and more often than not it's the preferable solution to the gun fights. There is usually plenty of tall grass to sneak around in or walls to duck behind. You usually have a pretty forgiving amount of time if you start to get noticed to duck back into cover before they start shooting at you. And while it doesn't have The Last of Us's super sonar hearing mechanic, if you happen to see people in stealth, you can mark them with L3 to at least keep of sense of where they are at and where they are moving to. Usually if you can choke out 3 or 4 guards before you start a gunfight, that's a pretty good run.
Naughty Dog should really be given a lot of credit for the stories that they weave. While its not the face to face copy of say Beyond: Two Souls, the motion capture work that they do for their games is nothing short of impeccable. Nolan North and Troy Baker are really on top of the voice acting world it seems as they find their way into everything, so it only made sense to cast Baker as Nathan Drake's brother Sam. They have a similar sounding voice and are both supremely talented. They managed to quickly get me to believe that Nate's brother was a character who technically has been around this whole time even though I'm just seeing him now for the first time.
I have to give special mention to Emily Rose here. She always does an exceptional job as the Elena character, but in this game she too is obviously wrestling with some conflicted emotions. She's been on the white knuckle adventure before, but she is also comfortable with being in a happy home. And despite clearly trying to work with him to give him some sense of thrill back in his life, he lies to her again before going off to another adventure. It's happened in between each of the games in the franchise, but this is the first time we see it and it's heartbreaking since Elena is probably the most human and relateable character in this whole series.
That being said, its because we see it this time that we end up getting the best rendition of Nathan Drake that we get because for once like I said above, we actually see some growth out of the character. We get some sense that he isn't out for the treasure just to get the treasure, and through the majority of the adventure, he very much is wrestling with what he is gambling to save by trying to find Avery's treasure. It's probably one of the few times I actually felt sympathetic for him. He essentially was stuck in a very shitty situation and was forced to choose between the two people he calls family.
 |
| Little scenes like this always impress me with mo-cap in games. Poor Elena. |
Honestly, I had completely forgotten that this game featured a multiplayer mode. I haven't actually fired it up myself but I'm sure it features some sort of 5 on 5 game where you can play deathmatch, CTF, or some kind of king of the hill game. It was only just recently reminded because Kotaku posted a gif of Nathan Drake doing the musician Drake's doofy hotline bling dance. I am sure if you like multiplayer games this is probably alright but I've cited why I don't play these a billion times already. No need to really dwell on that point.
There really isn't a lot that I didn't like about this game that I haven't already made much mention to. Like I said I find the hint button to be condescending in its current iteration. if you are going to provide the hint button, then that's fine. But make it so I have the option to press it at any time I want to. Or if you are going to wait for me to appear stuck, at least give me a little longer to figure out what it is I need to do. Sometimes I would just be exploring the cool environment and it would pop up to remind me it thinks I'm stupid.
Honestly, I know its part of the Uncharted core gameplay at this point but there were a handful of times while I was playing the game and I felt like I was getting bored scaling stuff. I know, I know. It's a game about exploration. But I can't think of how many times I would approach a new location and would see like a massive clock tower or something and think "Ugh, I'm going to have to get to the top of that, and I bet its going to fall apart as I do and collapse when I reach the top." Only to have that exact thing pretty much happen as I said it would. It's annoying, but its even more annoying when the characters actually poke fun at it, like the game is totally aware how often it happens.
 |
| Totally sure he'll get to the top without anything breaking (-_-) |
The story in this game is really good, but there were points in the game where it felt a little predictable. They set up some story line elements fairly early on and they are some pretty common tropes. I've mentioned how Nate is gripping that he feels he needs to do this adventure for his brother, but not because he wants to. So he lies to Elena about it. This is spoiler but I'm sure most of you have already figured out that Elena figures it out too. It doesn't make the scene when it happens any less powerful for sure, but it did leave me with the dumb question of "how the hell did she know where to find him?"
Here is ANOTHER BIG SPOILER, but it bears mentioning because it was something I personally appreciated. So if you don't want to have it ruined for you I give you this opportunity to SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH AND THE NEXT ONE..... Everyone gone? Good. Of the main series of Uncharted games, this is the first one that didn't have a supernatural element play into the story. No Infected people from El Dorado, no magical steroid of Shambala, no mind controlling cistern of the Djinn. It's just people out there fighting for pirate treasure.
I discussed this with a friend was unhappy to see there was no supernatural this time, because its always been a regular part of the series. I personally contest that it was better without it. That was always my biggest complaint from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: the story and the characters had already gotten me totally wrapped in tale it was weaving. Throwing in the monsters felt like a cheap throwaway to just get them in there. The game was doing perfectly fine without them and seeing them cheapened the whole experience for me. In this new one, the only monster in this game is the greed of the characters.
Here is the thing about Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. If you played any liked any of the other Uncharted games then you know you are probably going to like this one as well. They have been talking and in the story telling that this is going to be the last Uncharted game, but without spoiling things too much, you get one last little epilogue chapter after you beat the game that shows you that at lease this bit of story is really over, it was beautiful and perfect. When it ended, I felt satisfied. I didn't need one more adventure with Nathan Drake. It felt complete.
Lots of other outlets are giving Uncharted 4 perfect scores. I very rarely do that and it holds true here. Things that annoyed me in the previous Uncharted games still annoy me here, but none of them ever did enough to make me think they were bad games. The game is not perfect, but it was complete. It's very rare does a series come to end where I feel the ending gives me a satisfying conclusion. The moment I finished this game, I took to facebook with a simple post that pretty much explained my feelings on it: "The ending of Uncharted 4 was the ending this game deserved". While the game itself doesn't get a perfect score, it's ending does.
I was able to happily close the book on the Uncharted series with this. If they make a new one with a new cast, I'll be along for the ride, but as far as Nathan Drake's escapades are concerned? A very wild wild ride has come to a satisfying conclusion.
Kinda surprised at no appearance of Chole in this one.
