All things Uncharted

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Alex79
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (8.4.17) - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Post by Alex79 »

Having been a big fan of the series up to this point, Uncharted 4 was the game that prompted me in to finally getting a PS4. I was really looking forward to playing it, and the wait to finish work when I knew it had been delivered was excruciating. So this is where I say the game was a bit of a disappointment right? WRONG! I bloody loved it! The whole lot, from start to finish. Yes it was the same predictable fire fights, and yes it had a simple story, but it was brilliant. The whole thing was like a love letter to fans of the series. I found the mood setting and penchant for stimulating the old nostalgia gland exceptional. These are characters we've known for years, and the scene where Drake is messing about in his loft, reminiscing about past adventures really was incredibly well done. And Crash Bandicoot on the PS1? Another piece of perfectly worked fan service.

I loved the story, the look in Drake's eye when you just knew he wanted to go and do one last job, flashbacks to growing up and getting in to scrapes with his brother, and the relationships between the characters were all expertly put together. One scene in particular, where Nate and Sam were exploring that old house - the dust, the antiques, I could almost smell the must in the air. It took me right back to being a kid in my grans attic searching through her treasure from when she was a kid growing up in Africa.

The large open levels were both gorgeous and a joy to explore. The driving was great, the sneaking and shooting, the grappling and the grabbing, and that beautiful epilogue where their daughter discovers their stash and they have to come clean - There was nothing about this game I didn't love.

So Nathan Drake is a mass murderer. Yeah yeah, it's just a game, and it blew me away. Top marks all round.

THREE WORD REVIEW: The perfect swansong.
ToQi

Re: Our next podcast recording (8.4.17) - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Post by ToQi »

I really enjoyed the game, although I effectively had two experiences: playing an exciting, highly polished action game; and getting hooked by the game’s Photo Mode which is essentially an expensive-looking, global sight-seeing simulator. I spent 40% of my overall play time taking over 1,300 screenshots!

In a way, I wish they’d locked Photo Mode until completion, although I appreciate them giving me the freedom to spoil my own game flow.

The maturity of the storytelling felt like another step forward for big budget video games despite the tired men-with-guns foundation. Characters feel like actual human beings thanks to watertight performances backed up by bleeding edge motion-capture and animation technology. That said, this towering achievement blended awkwardly with some retrograde video game conventions.

Overall, I’m very happy Uncharted 4 exists but wonder what a team of this calibre might have done instead, outside the shackles of a last-generation franchise. It’s jarring in a game with such incredible production values that our adventurers’ progress is regularly hindered by the same old simple crate puzzles and collapsed brickwork.

It feels simultaneously groundbreaking and dated.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (8.4.17) - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Post by AndrewBrown »

I didn't think much of the first three Uncharted videogames, so it should have been an easy decision to skip Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Then I played and loved The Last of Us, and when I learned its writer/creative director, Neil Druckmann, would also be working on A Thief's End, I decided to give it a chance. I set myself up for a fall, as I was expecting more The Last of Us and what I got was more Uncharted.

Which isn't to say that A Thief's End doesn't feel like a product from a post-The Last of Us Naughty Dog, because it does. It's slower and more introspective than the first three entries. This got me totally invested for its first two acts. Even though Nate's character arc is a retread of Drake's Deception--will he destroy himself in his pursuit of treasure, or embrace a simpler life?--it was handled in a new and different way. Episode 4: A Simple Life is the high point, showing in excruciating detail the life that Nate has built with Elena and which he willfully endangers upon the return of his brother Sam. I was intrigued by the parallels between the Drake Brothers and the Biblical Penitent and Unrepentant Thieves; frustrated by Nate's lies to Elena; and actually interested in the conflict with Rafe, especially since previous Uncharted videogames have struggled to make the villain a relevant threat to the hero. The first two acts of A Thief's End tell a great story, hitting all the right notes to get me invested and interested in what happens next.

Then Nate and Sam reach Libertalia, Nate passes out in a cave, and all of these great ideas that should have built to an amazing climax are forgotten, never to be mentioned again.

I loved The Last of Us because Joel actually suffers consequences for his actions. He's a well-meaning, but cold and selfish man, and its final moment is not just a great ending to a videogame but a great ending regardless of medium. Just before departing for Libertalia, Elena finally confronts Nate for his lies and leaves him--a decision I whole-heartedly agreed with and supported her for. I expected that to stick and for Nate to have to deal with the consequences of that for the rest of the game, increasing tension and conflict between him and Sam. But then Elena shows up on Libertalia having resolved her conflict almost entirely off-screen. We're given an exposition dump on an elevator--which is a lovely scene, admittedly--and then the issue is dropped entirely. This is not only bad storytelling, it's a glimpse into what I really dislike about A Thief's End: Nathan Drake is a character who never suffers consequences for his actions.

The "mass-murdering sociopath" meme aside, Nate spends most of the plot lying to his wife, but she forgives him and returns to him. Between Drake's Deception and A Thief's End he has completely cut Sully out of his life--but Sully returns when asked with nary a comment or a hurt feeling. Sam is accidentally abandoned in a South American prison for over a decade, but bears his brother no ill will for that. All of these conflicts--and many others beside--should build to a conflagration in the third act, but none of them do. A Thief's End disappoints because it refuses to capitalize on any of these conflicts, substituting character drama for quips and empty pathos.

The Uncharted series has always been, in my opinion, a boring collection of shooters. It was the performances and, beginning with Drake's Deception, an increased focus on character-driven plot that kept me playing to the end. A Thief's End is in the same vein: the shooting is competent, but unremarkable; the stealth is rudimentary and best ignored (which was a huge disappointment after the great stealth systems in The Last of Us); some of the set piece puzzles are great, but for every one of them there are four crates to be pushed against a wall.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End disappointed me because I expected it to break out of the series mold, but didn't, and then further disappointed me by having a toothless story where everything turns out hunky-dory because the plot says so. This is why I feel disappointed with the epilogue as well; it feels like more treasure and happiness showered upon a man who doesn't deserve them. I compare it to Drake's Deception, where the relationship between Nate and Sully is imperiled and its resolution actually feels earned, and I become more and more frustrated that Elena's catharsis happens entirely offscreen.

But let me be clear: I fully understand that I have brought this disappointment upon myself. I played three Uncharted games and should have known what I was getting into, and for the past year I have grappled with whether it is "fair" to expect more from it just because Neil Druckmann also worked on The Last of Us. My complaints that Nathan Drake is a character who is never punished for his actions stand; it is my admiration for Joel's story which exacerbates my disappointment. The Uncharted series has always been a light, fun, and adventurous action series, a modern-day equivalent of Indiana Jones. Maybe it's good that A Thief's End, for all the pretensions it makes towards regret and middle-age, had the foresight to step back and just let itself be light, fun, and adventurous.

Or maybe the third act was rushed to meet a deadline.

NOTE: I also have serious issues with Rafe's characterization (he's a god damn hypocrite, jealous of Nate for his success in life in spite of not coming from wealth, then using his wealth to obtain his success), as well as the very presence of Shoreline and Nadine (they serve no function in the plot except to give Nate something to shoot at it, and I believe the game would be better overall with no gunplay whatsoever). But I already went on too long and my incogent explanation of my disappointment will already need to be edited for time. I'm also starting to recognize what might be called "Druckmann Cliches:" Flooded upper-class neighborhoods and children trying on hats/masks.

Lastly, casting a white woman as a black character is unacceptable.
stevenc76

Re: Our next podcast recording (8.4.17) - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Post by stevenc76 »

Three Word Review - Horizon is Better
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Suits
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Re: Our next podcast recording (8.4.17) - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Post by Suits »

Really impressive game that I just had to experience and after several months caved into the exclusivity nightmare for.

TWR - "Bought PS4 for."
Sam Worms

Re: Our next podcast recording (8.4.17) - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Post by Sam Worms »

Fantastic story, grounded villains, and more focus on platforming/puzzle solving rather than gun play made this my favorite Uncharted experience. Sad to see this series "end" but glad to see it go out on a high note.

TWR: Drake meets Goonies
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Re: All things Uncharted

Post by TheEmailer »

A fan of the series here, but 4 really improved some of the mechanical problems. Previous game ending suffered from repetitive waves of bullet sponge enemies, but I feel there was less of that here. Pairing down the volume of gunfights and giving players workable stealth to avoid them improved the formulae. Adding more vertically larger combat areas made combat more active and prevented me from just finding a good spot and moving through enemies. But why lose the grenade throwback feature from 3? I liked it

The story I think isn't particularly original, but its told very well with empathetic characters. I understood why Nate made bad decisions and Elena's response seemed real. What Naughty Dog does so well is narrative and painting characters. I think so many games have interesting and unique plots, but they don't write and reinforce that story anywhere as good as Naughty Dog.

Finally not including supernatural elements was a great decision
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