Beat the game. Talk about it? (SPOILERS!)

Since I hadn't seen a topic on it, though I know people beat it already, I thought I'd make this. Alright, first off, what did people think of it? For me personally, I don't know if it'll match my fondest memories of the previous Uncharted games, but I think it is the best one. It definitely takes some cues from The Last of Us, which brings me to say that as impressive a game I felt this was, I still liked The Last of Us more, which is Uncharted 4's biggest issue to me really, but not a big one. Just because I didn't like it as much as The Last of Us, didn't make me disappointed in this. I kind of expected it to be honest. Playing through the first Uncharted game, on my first go, I wasn't that into it, but on my second on the hardest, I loved it; it became one of my favorite games of the time, and I played it multiple times over.

Two came out and I was left impressed with its visuals initially, but ultimately disappointed. For me, the game has a lot of shooting, and I didn't think it felt good, so it was kind of boring to me, and no matter how much I tried to love it, it didn't happen. It wasn't until the HD collection that I actually enjoyed it more. I still enjoyed seeing the characters, though Chloe took some time to get used to. Three came out, I was hesitant to pick it up, but I did late, and to my surprise I loved it more than the first. Then, The Last of Us came out. I suspected it'd be good, but I also got that a little bit late. I wasn't overly excited for it, nor did I have much expectation. When I finally played it, it turned out to be one of my favorite game experiences ever, better than Uncharted which to me was a hard thing to do.

I finished four yesterday. I'm going through Uncharted 4 on crushing now, and it's even more enjoyable, mainly because my first time through, which took 14 hours, was more or less running through it. At least, I know for a fact I could have searched more areas in the game, so going slower, searching every area I can, and having more challenging combat is more satisfying. This game does some good twists, be it normal story twist, or diverting expectation. When it comes to the later twist of how his brother actually made up that story, that got me. I didn't see that coming. The other smaller ones when it comes to expectation, like early in the game as you're on a job scuba diving. I expected something to go wrong with the air, and Nate keep saying he'll be fine, but for story purposes, it didn't happen.

I thought he might be on another treasure hunt, only to reveal that he's actually doing a normal, working class job. This game is really well presented to me. It is probably the best at making one feel as though they're playing a movie, at least I thought so. It does that Left Behind thing, where it takes normal gameplay mechanics, but twists it, like when early on you use a toy gun to shoot the targets in their attic. That was funny, with a bit of fan service just before. As much as I care for these characters, it brings me back to The Last of Us, and how well that game did emotion. I really felt invested in Drake and Elena's relationship, but beyond that, nothing gave me shivers down my spine in this, like The Last of Us' bedroom scene, or the beginning of that game. That all said, it's probably just because you can only go so far with Uncharted. Elana finding Nate, and Elana walking off, for Drake to tell Sully off was a good moment though.

Despite all that, the cast do an extremely good job. I kind of have an issue with the intro, where Sam supposedly dies. I mean, if we were supposed to feel for that part, it would have been better if we didn't know the outcome. I know they want to show the game off in some manner to get people hyped, but some of the really exciting moments were already shown before the game was out, and I found that unfortunate as well, but at least it's more exciting to play than watch. I still had a blast with that scene where Drake hangs off the truck. It's weird, because Uncharted has always had a lot of shooting, but due to this game being longer, I feel like this is hard to recommend to those that really just want the shooting gameplay (though there is a mode after you beat it that lets you play only those sections). There's a lot of moments that have you just climbing, or talking.

I really enjoyed the combat, and more so now on crushing. The best part is how fluid it feels, just with the things you can do. The act of shooting isn't the greatest, but I like it well enough. I made a topic about the soundtrack a while back, and now I have the answer to my own question: I think it's pretty good. There are a few too many times that the same notes play in my opinion. The rendition of the theme was really good though. Okay, I'm about to cut it here, but last thing, what'd everyone think of the epilogue? With a lot of the things in this game, there's things to be expected, or known, but in how it is presented was surprising. I loved that it was their daughter, and I felt it was a really good end to the series. Some say they don't want a The Last of Us sequel, but I don't feel that way, there's just so much more of that world that can be seen, with or without Joel and Ellie. I feel that way about Uncharted now though.

There doesn't need to be one, though I can see them doing something with the daughter, even though it's unnecessary. The ending did feel a lot like The Last Us' beginning, where it's the daughter looking for the parent (or in Uncharted 4's case, parents), so I really got the vibe that this might turn into those games connecting for a minute; that was exciting and weird. The dates I don't think would match up though, so it wasn't going to happen. I suspect, as with just about everything else in the game, it was intentional. I feel like I wrote a review here rather than a spoiler-filled thread; I guess I'm curious to see what you guys thought. I would have touched upon the Crash Bandicoot thing, but that was already a topic. Then there's also the story of Avery, and the uprising in Libertalia, as well as him not wanting others to get the treasure, with others coming after, after a century or so. That was all very cool; the best in the series in terms of historic stuff I thought. It also reflects Drake's story. Alright, what did you think of the game?

That ending was the ending I didn't realize i wanted out of the franchise and it was kinda perfect. I feel like they've made it exceptionally difficult to make another Uncharted game and that's great.

I loved the guerrilla tactics approach to a lot of the combat arenas. It's easy to mix and match stealth and gunplay and it's a lot more fun than only cover shooting or sneaking around. I think maybe I would have preferred more combat arenas overall because whole lengthy chapters of climbing around can be kind of a slog around the middle of the game no matter how fun the banter is.

It's a great game overall though and I feel like if they truly end it here I will always be able to look back now and have nothing but a positive impression on the Uncharted series.

I thought it was very good. If I was a paid critic, I'd rate it high but overall, I just didn't love it. The game's been getting a ton of praise for how the characters are "developed" and handled and of course it's very good, especially for a game but I think the other games already had it. Just cause the previous ones didn't have the intimate dramatic scenes doesn't mean the characters were one dimensional. You heard it through the acting, the voice work, and the interactions between them. I guess it's hard to compare them cause they're set in different genres. I'm replaying Drake's Fortune now and it's pretty awesome how much callback they had in 4. I wish I realized it more when I was playing A Thief's End.

The Sam revelation was terrific because they made the players believe the lie by having you play it.

A problem I kept running into w/ it was the pacing. Like TLOU, the world is built to be more explorable but the story and its predecessors really go against that design. So I was constantly conflicted by wanting to look around vs. moving along and keeping the momentum going.

I really enjoyed the epilogue. It's very cute and relaxing.

I hope people don't turn on the game like people seem to w/ the series as a whole. It's a mainstream blockbuster w/ a big heart. Yeah, its gameplay is not deep and the design is very limiting but it's a franchise that does it's thing better than anyone. You can like the summers movies and still be into the indie flicks. It shouldn't be any different w/ games.

My problem with the big open areas to explore is that I apparently have the ability to immediately find and hastily examine the exact thing I needed to find in order to progress the scene and it started to get kind of infuriating.

I pretty much agree with this. I think the characters were better than they have ever been and they managed to create a pretty engaging mystery that i wanted to find the answer to with the treasure hunt part of the story.

While from a story standpoint it made sense to not have constant gunfight I wish that there had been a bit more combat. The grappling hook does add a little to the climbing, but it`s still pretty simple. I think that`s fine and I enjoy it in smaller chunks, but there are some parts in this game were I ended up being pretty tired of climbing. Especialy since I actually think the combat is pretty fun and would liked to have seen more of it anyway.

All in all it while it didn`t have the same "wow" factor that 2 had for me, it`s still a really great adventure. And that epilouge was fantastic.

Why can't I throw rocks in the stealth section like come on I could throw shit in The Last of Us and every stealth section in this game has rocks fuckin everywhere

Yeah the lack of any way to distract or get enemies attention was a real tragic oversight for those segments. At least give me a fuckin' whistle or something.

@donchipotle: It is kind of dumb, I agree, but in the end it's not needed. I think the reason it's wanted is because they go as far as they do with it. You can use a grenade, though that obviously doesn't have quite the same effect, and there are that many in the game. Another issue, which was actually a non issue, but very well could be, is that the A.I. partner you're with can kill a guy and leave them in the open for a guy to see. Now, that only happened once, and the guys didn't see the body, but it is something that could happen, when you were trying to be stealthy. I think neither of those things is a big issue though. They went so far with stealth though, that I wish they also had whistling as you're sitting there behind cover, so a guy will walk up and you can take them out quicker, instead of waiting to see if the A.I. will walk over to you, but again, not a big issue.

@liquiddragon: Hm. I never saw anyone turn on the series. It's always been that some people liked the first; especially impressed with the visuals. Then they loved two and its improvements over the first, then felt three was samey. I've never seen someone say they loved it, and then ended up hating it. As for being conflicted, I don't know. The only moments I can understand that feeling is when you're supposed to save someone, but those are already fast paced parts for the most part, otherwise you're a treasure hunter, so exploring is what it's about really. Also, taking cues from The Last of Us, even with story, that's why it's more detailed if you will, but yeah, I don't think people should call them one dimensional. I think by comparison, perhaps, but these have always been likable characters, and you don't get likable characters from one dimension.

I really enjoyed the game and thought the pacing was fantastic throughout. I found it quite brave to divert from just ramping things up and up. My main problem with the final third of Uncharted 2 and basically all of Uncharted 3 was the relentless pace. This game takes regular breaks and trusts its characters and setting to meditate for times.

Specifically, my favourite examples of this are the parts with the young Drake brothers. Often when a game uses backstory it is for expositive reasons but this game uses it mostly for character development, though of course the mother's journal is used as a motivating factor for the characters. I could play a whole game with young Nathan!

The antagonists and the main threads of the adventure, just like in the previous games, will elude my mind in about a week. I could say I would like to have spent more time with Rafe and Nadine to develop those characters more, but actually I don't think it matters. The stakes feel sufficiently big and Rafe is sufficiently mean but they are really just a backdrop to further develop the main characters, which is done superbly.

In comparing the game to the previous ones, I'd say its most similar to UC1. That I didn't expect, but I like it because of the improved combat mechanics. For the most part I was on the edge between control and frantic scrapping. With the addition of the hook, tall grass, and somewhat useful buddies, every encounter had many possibilities. Just like the pacing at the macro level, the pace of combat encounters is well handled, fluctuating between the aforementioned frantic scrapping and slower deliberate stealth of The Last of Us. Though there are times later in the game where it felt like encounters only had one solution that I had to figure out.

There are less memorable "big" moments than either UC2 or 3 but in the context of this game those moments would feel superfluous. The parts that will stick in my mind are the quieter, personal moments. I love that about this game!

For a little context, I have very fond memories of the first Uncharted, no memories of the second, and an intense dislike for Uncharted 3. I wasn't even originally going to play Uncharted 4, but once Dan's review went up, I reconsidered. And I'm glad I did because I just absolutely loved Uncharted 4. It's a technical marvel, the storytelling has matured, and the gameplay has been fine tuned and diversified to a great degree. It also happens to be the best send off Naughty Dog could give to the series. I was originally drawn to Uncharted as a fan of Indiana Jones, and having just rewatched those movies, Uncharted 4 is The Last Crusade of the series.

Chapter 3, 4, and the epilogue are probably my favorite character moments, and being dragged behind a truck through Madagascar has gotta be my favorite action sequence of the game.

Also there's no supernatural bullshit at the 11th hour. The big twists are all strong character moments or interesting explanations for History.

Before this I had only played the first Uncharted and while I didn't hate it, I still didn't enjoy it enough to continue with the sequels. I was planning on skipping this entirely but due to the overwhelmingly positive reviews, I watched some Let's Plays to catch myself up on the story of the last two and hopped on the bandwagon here for the ending.

I'll get my negatives out of the way first: I didn't enjoy any combat encounter in the game, with the exception of the long action sequences. Anytime the shooting started I just wanted to end it as quickly as possible. I preferred stealth to shooting, but as the game started to drag on a bit in the latter half, my patience ran thin for those sections as well. I agree with the posters above that a distraction mechanic would have been welcome.

I think that the 4x4 stuff, while fun at first, overstayed its welcome by returning in the last area. Especially going through all that trouble with the elevator, and then the combat encounter around that, just for the car to serve no real purpose afterwards. Though there was that nice little quiet moment as Drake and Elena drive to the other side of the island that I really enjoyed.

Rafe has doggedly pursued this treasure for 15 whole years because everything has been handed to him on a silver platter? Okay. Whatever. I thought Nadine had a better motivation with wanting to rebuild her army's image after inheriting it from her father.

The stuff I loved: The traversal was a lot of fun, and definitely my favorite actual gameplay moments of Uncharted 4. Anytime I had to slide down one thing, jump and catch a ledge, climb up and then swing from a rope, I was having a blast. I thought that the sliding would have gotten old even up until the very end, but I ended up enjoying all of it.

Chapter 4, which I'm really glad wasn't spoiled for me beforehand as the dawning realization that I was actually going to play Crash Bandicoot in 2016, completely out of nowhere, put a big smile on my face. I never even liked Crash Bandicoot all that much, but this was still awesome. Easy moment of the year contender for me, and one of my favorite moments in any video game.

Along with the quiet moments that everyone has been gushing about, the characters were terrific throughout the game. My impression of Nathan Drake before this game was of him as just another smirky, wisecracking action-hero dude, like they talked about on the Beastcast. I thought that his story in this game was great. Opening up with him wistful about his past glories, getting dragged onto another adventure, and his conflict with lying to Elena but ultimately getting sucked back into his old treasure obsession until his big wake-up call with Elena confronting him, I thought it was all handled incredibly well. Everything after that was even better, with Nathan seeing his old self in Sam and trying his best to put him off of that path, actually echoing to himself what characters have said to him in the past, "Isn't this already enough?"

Hell, just about every second Nathan and Elena were on screen together was perfect. I loved those couple of chapters with them reconciling, and their married couple banter throughout gameplay sections. Because of how much I enjoyed their relationship in this game, the epilogue managed to hit a great nostalgic note for me, and as I've mentioned, I'm someone with no real prior fondness for this franchise.

Overall, I loved Uncharted 4. I don't replay games like this often, but I could easily see myself replaying this game on easy with infinite ammo every few months just to enjoy the story and the fun traversal parts again while breezing through the combat.

Really loved my time with it and thought the ending was a perfect way to wrap up the series. I do know that there'll be that story-focused DLC coming, but besides that, I hope that they really do end it here and continue with a new IP or the seemingly likely TLOU 2.

Having mentioned The Last of Us, as amazing as the story here was, it didn't top the one with Joel and Ellie. Like Brad said in the Bombcast, I definitely want to see what Druckmann and Straley do next.

I just beat it. It's fine. It didn't blow me away like Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us, but it's not bad or even mediocre.

Dan said there were a lot of great set pieces to come, but to me this game is very low key in that regard. The only notible set piece, to me, was the car/crane/motorcycle chase, which gave me legitimate chills. Everything else is super forgettable.

The "wide linear" stuff is, mostly, bullshit. There were 3 or 4 moments where you had a shred of player agency in combat. Besides those, the level design is the same as it was in Uncharted 2/3.

Don't know what Dan was talking about when he said it felt like there were unnecessary gun fights at the end. If anything it felt like there was very little shooting compared to the other games. I had like 500 kills in this game, where in other games I had almost double. There's a lot of climbing, but I like the climbing stuff.

The character momentts between Nathan/Elena/Sam/Sully were great. I would say the best of the series. Rafe is a really good villain. Nadine felt underused.

The actual treasure related quest was super boring.

The fact that the back half of the game takes place, mostly, on one Island is super disappointing. It felt like a combination of the globetrotting nature of 2/3 and the isolated nature of 1.

This is the first game in a while that really blew me away with its graphical fidelity. The fact that all the cutscenes are in engine/not prerendered is fucking crazy. Some people will nitpick about framerate/occasional pop in/occasional jaggy shadow, which is sad because this really is the best looking game released to date. The vegetation in this game is so God damn good, and borderline photo realistic. Even the grass looks realistic, which seems like a hard thing to pull off.

The crash Bandicoot/ps1 cameo is so dumb. And also the best moment of 2016.

The ending is perfect, which is the most important detail to me. They were never going to mess with the formula in a way that would surprise us. It was always going to be another Uncharted game, which is fine; I like these games. What mattered to me was that they end the saga really well, and they did that. So kudos to ND for pulling off something very difficult.

I'm happy the series is over and I actually can't wait for what ND's next game is. They are capable of so much, and I hope they move onto something new and surprising. I would love for them to make an open world game, or at least something with more player agency.

Anyone else catch the Last of Us poster in Cassie's room? I'm gonna guess its another comic book since the "American Daughters" title is close enough to the comic book "American Dreams" that released. Of course, tons of sites are just running with it and saying its Last of Us 2 and you play as a pregnant Ellie.

Just finished the game, it pains me to say this but-

I thought the pacing in this game was pretty bad.

Normally I don't think this is that big of a deal, but with Uncharted it kind of is. The game is so horribly front-loaded with story exposition. Chapter 4 was great and I understand the need to not make Sam feel hamfisted, but man, it feels like the actual game doesn't properly start until chapter 10. Which brings me to my second issue, while the the first half of the game feels like it has too much story, the second half feels like it has too little. It almost felt like most of the actual playing was during the island part of the game, which brought back some memories of Uncharted 1's stretched feeling.

Also the climbing in Uncharted is still painfully unengaging, which after 4 games is crazy to me. You're basically just pushing the stick and pressing X, with barely any skill or risk of failure involved. It made the Scottland part of the game such a bummer. Ultimately I liked the game, but I don't feel it's quite the flawless masterpiece some make it out to be.

This was my first Uncharted game and I disliked it greatly. I thought the climbing was finicky, the shooting was unsatisfying and I was fighting controlling Nathan the entire game. Technically the game is beautiful, probably the best looking game out there and all the characters and performances are outstanding but I absolutely didn't like playing it. None of the set piece moments really hit for me either. Most were frustrating to play. I really wanted to like this game, I loved the Last of Us, but it just didn't let me.

I really really really enjoyed that epilogue! Such a great game

yeah, i really loved it. i felt much more at one with the world than any other entry in the series, and thats probably due to the high attention to detail and big open areas. navigation felt like it had weight to it, and i loved trying to figure out where to go next. the combat felt tighter, and climbing as well felt amazing. imo, the clmibing in U4 is better than any climbing in any other game. unlike assassins creed, i barely if ever got stuck on environments while climbing. it was really, realy fluid. and with the scope of everything, along with some cool camera tricks, i really felt how small drake was in some of the enviroments. also, i really loved the stealth. marking enemies and having it not auto fail on you was a great addition. story wise, there are so many great beats. like, moments where you go "they arent gonna actually let me explore this area..right?" and then boom you have player control in a sequence where in another game it would just be a cutscene. overall, its my goty so far.

@lucifer: just out of curiosity, you said the climbing was not engaging. so can you give an example of a game that's climbing is in your opinion?

@mathj: Shadow of the Colossus, when climbing the giant creatures it not only looks thrilling, but it can also be very tense from a gameplay standpoint thanks to the grip meter. Of course, this also leads to some frustration at times, but the pros outweigh the cons.

In Uncharted I have never had an actual fear of falling. 4 added some neat mechanics like sliding and the pick, but it's not enough. Sure, seeing a ledge break as Nathan grabs it is very heart-pounding the first time, but then you realize it was all by design and no actual danger was involved, it comes off as a bit plastic. Uncharted's climbing needed more player agency, giving the player a feeling that they might actually fall. Whenever you die while climbing in Uncharted, it's most likely because you simply jumped at the wrong place, trying to grab something the game won't allow you to, and that sucks.

It just feels like the climbing needs bigger stakes, like a timing grab button, every time Nathan jumps to grab a ledge, you actually have to time the grab with a press or something, to give players the fear of falling.

I thought the climbing in Tomb Raider was much better too. I never played UC3 so maybe it was in there (or i'm really not remembering 1 or 2 that well) but that pick for digging into rocks seemed really poorly done. I'd constantly find myself missing the mark by a hair so I'd have to jump back and try again, when in Tomb Raider, Lara could just continuously use the pick.

Finished it last night. Loved the game. I think some of the hyperbole about it being the greatest game of all time is a bit overwrought. That said if we we're talking purely about greatest presentation or direction in a video game then this might be in that conversation. As a game it's good but nothing amazing. Some of the platforming got a bit finicky here and there and the combat can be a bit punishing on Hard mode which is how I first played it. I have to imagine that it's a lot more enjoyable as a thrill ride on the lower difficulties. I wound up finding a good flow to the combat eventually but you go down quick on Hard. Other than the grappling hook and piton it's pretty much the same game as the previous two. I also found a couple of quantum roadblocks, which is knowing a way to get past a problem or obstacle that the game won't let you. It's really dumb that you're boosting Sam up to a high ledge and he doesn't just drop his own grappling hook to pull you up, instead he has to go look for something or you have to find an alternate way around.

The adventure itself was quite possibly everything I could've wanted out of a globetrotting pirate treasure hunting story. I ended up really liking how they portrayed both Drake brothers as being such selfish assholes early and often and yet still giving them redemptive arcs by the end. Like when I'm watching Nathan doing this elaborate auction heist and how much he's enjoying it, he's made to look like a piece of shit. He's lying to his wife, who has literally treasure hunted with him in the past all because of "one last big score, for the kicks man the kicks". Gotta love that this game got to One Piece in a fraction of the time that the manga is getting there. The most heartbreaking thing about these kinds of stories is the way the protagonist never gets away with the big treasure in the end. There are so many awesome sequences and moments in this game both loud and quiet ones. The best one for me was in chapter 4 and it wasn't because of Crash Bandicoot, it was playing with his toy gun in the attic.

Am I the only one who thought of the possibility of the epilogue turning into a Last of Us universe tie in? I'm not saying it should have happened or anything, as I thought the ending was perfect. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of the possibility of signs of a fungal outbreak would have showed up to close it out.

Pros:

• Rope swinging.
• You don't feel overwhelmed by gunfights like you did with U3.
• Chapter 4.
• Adding new elements to traversal made me really enjoy climbing/exploring sections (rope swinging, sliding down, sticking things into walls).
• Vehicle sections were great.
• Looks real good.
• New characters were great.
• Drake is a very flawed person in this one, makes some bad, but human decisions. Really appreciate writers who can do that in video games and make it work.

Cons:

• Exploding mummy section was the most un-fun hour of video game history.
• Nadine had a great introduction in the auction, but after that she really does absolutely nothing in the story.
• Nate & Sam left that old lady to die and that wasn't really brought up ever again.
• Fighting against people with rocket launchers will never be fun.
• One section should have been cut out of this game. There's a bit too much "clues leading to a new place" in this game.
• The same complaint of "Nathan Drake kills a lot of dudes and 30 seconds later he tells a dumb joke and that's real weird" still holds true.

U4 is a flawed game, but it's still the best in its class in a lot of different ways.

My only complaints are:

Too many crates.

The grappling hook makes no sense.

Game of the Year:

/insert Jeff/Vinny cackle

Note: I haven't beaten the game yet

They didn't leave her to die she just died and they left because 'Uh Oh there's no positive way to explain this!'

Her drama induced sudden death was maybe a little much but there wasn't exactly much to bring up afterwards beyond that scene of "Man that's fucked up but not really your fault".

Also god, yeah, I had apparently created a mental block for those mummy bombs..

I beat it a couple days ago, and the one thing that's still driving me crazy is how Guybrush Threepwood is one of the founders of Libertalia. I thought it was a one-off joke at first, but wow I was shocked to see his actual corpse near the end there.

Pros

-It's beautiful! Probably the best looking game I've ever played.

-The rope was great

-The huge environments

-A better mix of shooting and traversal

-Multiplayer is still great

-More things to collect, reasons to explore

-More random interactions

Cons

-The story. Troy Baker did a great job, but I don't care about Sam, I don't like Sam, I don't like how he was crammed into the series, and the entire game is driven by Sam.

-No Cutter or Chloe

-Nadine is super lame

-Really slow to start

-The flashback chapters

-As mentioned previously, the exploding mummy chapter was incredibly boring and far too long

-Not as light and fun as the previous games

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Having less than a week to think about it, I'd say:

Uncharted 2 >>> Uncharted 4 > Uncharted 3 >>> Uncharted 1

@marc: Funny enough, I also got this odd shiver in the end, that this is suddenly somehow related to TLOU. Maybe it was because I was able to control to a character similiar to Ellie in an urban enviorement, but I did think about it. But the main story takes place in 2015 and epilogue like...ten years in the future? TLOU's universe began to crumble in 2013 already. That sure would've been a really depressing ending, though!

I have been thinking a lot about the young Drake brothers. It really makes me want a 'my first treasure hunt' DLC with the teenagers going after some relic, and getting into trouble. The part with young Nathan was the highlight of Uncharted 3.

I thought it was definitely something worth experiencing if you've been playing these games. It has some serious pacing issues at quite a few points in the campaign, and is about 2-3 hours too long. You see the same tropes a few dozen too many times. Nate reaches for a ledge, it breaks. Nate tries to cross a bridge, it collapses. After one of these things happen Nate will slide down a hill and have to grapple a conveniently placed grapple point to swing to another ledge, which will probably break. The game just runs too long and there are too many of these exact moments, it kinda just blurs together and becomes forgettable at a point. That, and they still haven't managed to get the shooting mechanics right, even though TLoU felt really good in that regard. Strange.

That all being said, there are a lot of visually impressive stuff in this game, it might be the best looking game I've ever seen, on PC or console, and that's very impressive. Chapter 11 was really unbelievable too play, I've never seen an action sequence that impressive, ever. From when the clock tower crumbles to when you and Sam ride off on the bike, it's just the most incredible thing I've seen from games. I have no idea how anything is going to compete with that for "best moment or sequence". Immediately after that sequence is a really tense emotional scene with Elena, just to quickly remind you that visual grandeur and amazing set pieces isn't all the game does, it also has incredible acting work, as well. I would not say that it compares to TLoU, but it's really well done and Sam & Elena really stand out.

With a name like "A Thief's End" I was really expecting something much darker to happen in the game, but I suppose Uncharted has always been more lighthearted. A happy ending is nice every once in awhile, and this certainly puts a tidy little bow on things. I think I'll give the shooting mechanics one more shot with the multiplayer, because the single player didn't have a ton of it, all said and done.

I will echo what was said above. I have a lot of respect for Naughty Dog for not going down the road of ramping the set pieces up at a relentless pace and letting it breathe. I absolutely loved my time with the game and I can't wait to platinum the game.

I actually love the shooting in the game, I think it's a big step up over the previous games in the series. I do think it's strange that you can't throw grenades back at enemies like you could in 3, unless I'm missing something?

@grulet: Oh definitely. I didn't think it would happen, but I got some very The Last of Us opening vibes with their daughter walking around unable to find her parents.

The epilogue was real cool.

Most of the cutscenes were pretty good.

It didn't have the impact of 2, but at least it wasn't frustratingly unfun like 1 or relentlessly boring like 3.

I still don't like the shooting at all.

But I'd totally be down for a Cassie Drake game in like 5 years.

Alright so bunch of stuff. Game is way better at being an exploration/treasure hunting thing, which has never really been what Uncharted was about; so if you consider it from that direction like it's a new game with some similar mechanics then you'll probably like it better. Game is full of shit that game reviewers like, not to say that's a bad thing but that's like almost exclusively the direction they went with the design. I took 17.5 hours with liberal exploration time for treasures, think that's about 3 hours longer than Uncharted 2 in the same vein. Story was good.

It does not have the same highs or action sequence competence that Uncharted 2 and 3 have and in general the action is very intermittent, I guess Drake's a bit less of a mass murderer this time around (Looked at the stats and guess it's comparable, hope Cassie enjoys the story about how Mommy and Daddy murdered a couple thousand people over the games) even though the game's longer so that's nice but I like shooting in my shooty shoot games. There's literally one sequence in the game where the combat lasts for longer than 5-10 minutes, and that was a fun battle but there's spots in 2 and 3 that go on for like 2 hours or something and it's fun the whole way. The stealth is better sure but so what, MGSV exists, if I want to play a hyper competent stealth game then there you go, I'm here to shoot dudes and make wisecracks about it but I really have no idea how the game plays because there's not enough of that in it. I'm curious about the co-op since Uncharted 3 Co-op is easily the best ever for any shooter (shoutouts to Bulletstorm); but that shit doesn't exist yet and will probably be paid DLC.

This was a lot more fun than doing the same sequence stealthily, but ultimately it still only took like 3 minutes, so while I can imagine all the fun ways I can murder dudes it's never going to chain together in a longass sequence of mayhem and glorious destruction as it should in Uncharted:

The multiplayer is just fucking weird and oddly addictive for no apparent reason, it's super duper easy to get get a shitload of bonuses every round regardless of how well you do and some of those are utterly broken (Radar Staff), but it does seem to be slightly balanced on the gun front which is new for Uncharted, never been even remotely close to balanced in the past. Maps that don't have water are way too rigid and linear but I am coming from MGO where there's 7-8 places to attack any point and that kind of map design is a little unrealistic to expect, but the maps do seem worse than most of their Uncharted 3 counterparts regardless. The Last of Charted.

Chapter 10 is awesome.

Waterfall Elevator was garbage, not looking forward to doing that on crushing.

They did good with modifiers and shit which were sorely lacking in Uncharted 3, so props for that, will be fun to play the game with a thousand different visual/audio schemes.

Like the previous Uncharted games, it took me a bit to get back into the mechanics. The auto-aim you set in the settings, isn't for any sort of Call of Duty aim-snapping, but rather for your hipfire. Uncharted wants you to run n' gun, stunning enemies and knocking them over with a melee finisher. That became par for the course in The Last of Us too, where you instead of 45 rounds of 9mm you'd use a bottle or a brick to stun the baddies.

I still felt rather fragile though. Enemies were pretty brutal when it came to flanking and it was hard to find a safe spot to recover, which made it even harder to exploit the rope swinging and go out and do cool shit with it.

I'm looking forward to the co-op stuff though. I haven't given MP a go yet, but I will when I have time.

I thought it was pretty smart of them to have the option to load an Encounter, rather than a whole chapter, so you can get to the actual game part of Uncharted 4. I mean, it's riveting and amazingly done walking-sim sections they put in it, but how many times do you really need to play those sections, contra the action sequences?

Having just finished it, I definitely have a few thoughts. Mostly good, some bad.

I didn't love Uncharted 2 or 3 when I originally played them. I enjoyed them, but found them somewhat frustrating to play. As it turns out, my frustration with them (and many other PS3 games) stemmed from the incompetencies of the DualShock 3. Playing them all again (including the original for the first time) on the PS4 via the Nathan Drake collection gave me a much better appreciation for them. 2 is the highlight, though 3 is also a fantastic game that makes slight but notable improvements over 2.

Uncharted 4 brings a lot of gravity to the fun but admittedly archetypal story and characters of an action-adventure tale by taking itself more seriously and humanizing its characters. I loved the character work and drama in this game. In the past, we've only seen hints of that stuff, but you can tell how much was learned from the Last of Us in that regard. It just has, overall, a far more mature take on the formula and it works wonderfully. Everything feels more grounded and real, especially without any shred of the supernatural elements. Sam ends up being an intriguing character who I enjoyed getting to know, especially since he doesn't seem like the best dude right off the bat. Rafe is also a compelling villain that I loved to hate. Man, what a smarmy douche wad. Showing Nathan living his normal life with a job and being married to Elena was great, too. I've always liked these characters, but within the first few hours of 4, I found myself caring about them far more than I ever had with the original trilogy. A sign of truly good writing, for sure. Everything is aided by some absolutely incredible animation and very noteworthy performances. The story goes to some good places and held my interest til the end. It's just too bad that the pacing feels really disjointed.

The gameplay is, for the most part, just refined from the previous entries. The shooting feels actually pretty good this time around. Certainly the best its been in the series, but I found it impactful and satisfying in a way it never has been. I was honestly a bit let down that there wasn't more action in the game to give me a chance to just...y'know...shoot dudes. This game is probably the length of 2 and 3 combined. There are a lot of slow, quiet moments, and as a result, the action feels a bit more meaningful when things start popping off. But things needed to pop off a bit more. And those slow, quiet moments sometimes tended to be a little too slow and too quiet.

It also doesn't help that a lot of them involve climbing. LOTS of climbing. And then still more climbing. Like, holy shit. I'm not inherently against the platforming. I think it is fundamentally sound, and the addition of the grappling hook and sliding add some good variety to the mix. Although the shit that you are able to pull off with the hook is absolutely fucking ridiculous, even by Uncharted standards. But goddamn, some of those climbing sections are excruciatingly long for a gameplay element that involves no stakes and only artificial tension. Here's a fun drinking game: every time you climb or jump onto something that then crumbles apart in spectacular detail, or when Drake narrowly escapes death or crippling injury and he says "Holy shit!", take a shot. You will die of alcohol poisoning half way through the game. I feel like this game was at least 70% climbing. I understand that they needed to fill their longer game with more character development through banter and exposition, but I think it was too much here. That and the overemphasis on helping your AI partner up onto ledges through the same means over and over. The one upside to all the climbing is that there were at least a dozen moments throughout the game where I just stopped and looked around in awe at the scenery. This game is unbelievably, jaw-droppingly gorgeous all the way through.

Sometimes the only reward for getting through those extended climbing sequences was a brief spurt of action, followed by more climbing. As I said before, the pacing felt off in many spots because of this. The few hours really move in terms of story, and then slows down a bit, then really picks up for awhile again. Then the island ends up being like the last third of the game at least, and while some amazing stuff happens there, it is stretched thin in spots.
In the end, I think I would also have to say that U2 and U3 have the overall more memorable set-pieces. The huge chase through Madagascar is fucking AMAZING, unarguably the best of the entire series. But that's kind of THE big one of the game. And they showed it off a year ago at E3. There are a handful of other cool moments like the collapsing tower, but nothing to that level. And overall, there just aren't enough of them for how long the game is. This is maybe the most disappointing aspect for me. I was definitely hoping for more in the "huge spectacle action sequence" department.

All that said, I don't think there were any moments I was disengaged from the game. I did get bored of all the climbing, but the story kept me hooked. I loved the game, just not every part. The end was beautiful. A bit evocative of The Last of Us' opening, but far happier. I was legitimately sad when it was all over, but it was a heart-warming send-off for these characters.

Just some quick thoughts. Thought the game was amazing. My favourite of this generation by far. The story was engaging and the gameplay was exactly what I expected, which I like. The ending was fantastic and really put a nice bow on it, but it also leaves things open with a Sam/Sully spin-off or perhaps one with Cassie years down the line. If I had to guess, the single player DLC will be Sam/Sully, doing that job they mention on the dock at the end.

Side note, one scene I really enjoyed was the one driving in the Jeep with Elena. Where they have a bit of a talk beforehand, then the music ramps up to above the levels of the sound effects. A really powerful moment, IMO.

I absolutely loved it. I'm so glad I stayed away from all the media this time. Everything was a surprise, I didn't even know who Sam was.

One of the best moments for me was when you're playing around in the attic and Elena calls you down for dinner. I went "They live together? are they married? awesome!"

I also chuckled when I got a trophy called Ludonarrative Dissonance after killing a thousand enemies.

That moment was great. Brought me back to similar scenes during RDR like your arrival in Mexico.

Just finished it and it was kinda like all Uncharted games has been for me.

All parts of the gameplay exept walking around and clicking things sucked. Graphics are best in class and Naughtydog has delivered on loadingfree gameplay ever since Jak and Daxter, what a joy. The setpieces didnt impress me as much this time around but the scenery delivered all the more instead. What a stunning game, its just a shame it feels like 50% of the game was set in the least impressive area (the jungle).

The story and characters are what drives this game and even if the overall story and setting is just pure dumb as always its so well executed that the atmosphere sucks you in moment to moment. You will feel like an badass Indiana Jones eating cool shit for breakfast playing this game, just dont think about anything that happens when youre not playing and not actively engaged with it.

The Crash bandicoot moment was awesome but quickly fades to considerably less awesome when it becomes clear its impossible to beat Elena. Also its kinda sad that part has the most fun gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saxI0Zu1ABI ;)

I had a moment in the chapter where you first are driving around the jeep and you can stealth take out a bunch of the Shoreline guys. As I was ducking from cover to cover I notice a detonator on the side of a building and was like "Can I really use this to blow something up?" So I went ahead and hit the switch and while the explosion didn't take out the tower like I thought it was going to I did have a smile on my face the rest of the encounter because of such a dumb little detail.

Single handily beats out Uncharted 2 as my favorite in the series. So many good moments throughout the entire game but it was the lack of supernatural elements that put it over the top for me. When exploding mummies started happening I was like "oh boy it begins" but it never really goes off the deep end. It's basically like playing an adult Goonies and that isn't a bad thing.

Well my thoughts are that while it was an excellent game, uncharted 2 is still the best in series. I feel that although it was technically a better looking game, nothing really left an impression until over halfway through when you finally get to the islands. It had a lot of pretty good character moments that helped build sam and nates relationship but ultimately they came at the expense of the games pace, which i felt was at times unbearably slow. Uncharted has always been a focused action packed adventure from start to finish, which i think 2 did the best job of. I think certain scenes like when they go to the old lady's house for example should have been shortened a GREAT deal as that after 5 minutes i kinda got the point already. Once you get to the island though the game really does a great job of channeling the feel of what uncharted does best. The shooting was bleh, a bit better than the older shooting but not by much and the pacing of the story just made them all the more frustrating. Nothing came close to the train sequences in uncharted 2, or the scene when nathen gets shot and is barely surviving but the game still had some cool moments.

I'm probably in the minority here but i always felt like uncharted made the best case for pretty much unlimited sequels. The whole approach was always like an annual tv show or indiana jones film where all you need is good characters and a treasure to find, so the finality of the ending kinda disappointed me a bit. I mean take tomb raider, love it or hate it it's still going strong for over 20 years or so now. I absolutely HATED the last of us(story was and voice acting were good but the gameplay was terrible) so i'm definitely not looking forward to anymore of that, and i could go for some more uncharted in a couple years.

All in all i feel the game tried to hard to be some serious take on uncharted and missed out on a lot of the fun of the earlier games, but found it's stride in the late game and had a really good conclusion.

Sam was introduced well I thought. It's the Nolan North/Troy Baker combo everyone has been wanting.

I wonder why they didn't just dredge up Avery's ship after they had found it. I mean, Nate even has a shipping company now. Or do they? Where are they living at the end of the game? Is that Libertalia in the background?

It was a good game but it didn't blow me away. It's an Uncharted game. I found myself (unfairly) comparing it to Tomb Raider, where I now much prefer the combat, climbing and mostly, treasure hunting (the treasures in TR all have these cool little details on them, Uncharted's just felt meh).

There's no questioning how good Naughty Dog are at character development, in engine cutscenes and optimizing the hell out of their games to get the best out of the consoles they work on. This was a beautiful game. I had fun with it, I'm glad enemies were fewer and less bullet spongey. I think I ran in to maybe 5 fully armoured guys the whole game, so that was nice. I thought stealth was a good implementation but it didn't really work the way I'd have liked it to. Always devolved in to a fire fight for me, that's cause I'm crap at it.

I never realised how the running towards the camera section in UC4 (mainly from the APC at the end) and in other Uncharted games is essentially just the Crash Bandicoot game mechanic.

I'm done with Uncharted now though. New IP time. Saving that, a new game set in The Last of Us world with none of The Last of Us characters.

I know you have to suspend your disbelief when playing these games but one thing kept bothering me during the ending chapters. Do these people not have GPS or Google Earth? They were in such a hurry to get out but all they needed to do was save the GPS coordinates and come back for the treasure. They don't show what happens to Nadine but I'm pretty sure that's what she had in mind.

Just because the ship exploded doesn't mean the treasure is gone. Its not like there was a sinkhole that swallowed it up. Heck they even bought a salvage company in the end. Why not use your salvage equipment and dig out the treasure? They were happy just to have found the treasure but I bet they would have been more happy millionaires...

Also for someone as wealthy as Rafe, why doesn't he have a command ship with a helicopter deck. Nadine must be poor if all she can afford is trucks and inflatable boats.

I like this game a lot, but I can definitely say it did not blow me away like Uncharted 2 did when it came out. I was in middle school when Uncharted 1 was released, so I basically grew up with the series and while I'm a little sad to see it go, the ending was pretty satisfying.

I was really impressed with the overall production value. It comes so close to a Hollywood movie. But the gameplay falls kind of flat compared to the cutscenes in my opinion, while I did not have this feeling in The Last Of Us at all. It was a treat to play the game between the cutscenes in TLOU, but not so much here. It's more like; ah damn, now I have to walk a bit again and do some climbing and shooting I guess before getting another juicy cut scene. The slower pace and stealthy melee focused combat in TLOU was far more enjoyable to me, instead of spraying dozens of guys with a machinegun.
Especially in the epilogue I got the feeling I really wanted a new TLOU with U4 graphics. Go Naughty Dog, go! :)