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Uncharted 4 spoiler free early copy impressions

I feel like every time I got in this thread I am risking my life. That said I just keep F5ing it because I want to read that dude's final impressions! #ThugLife
 
 
My 2 cents for people who will just start the game: start on normal instead of hard.

I am 16 hours in and felt the need to say this... I consider myself decent at games, love a good challenge etc. But despite how amazing of a game UC4 is, playing on hard might be diminshing my first experiece somewhat. For how i typically play Uncharted games, hard is not so much difficult in this game, as it veers a bit on frustration. Your health is FAR diminished, so going out of your way to do crazy, fast paced combat doesn't seem to be working for me. A few times i tried to do the rope swing kill at full health, and died mid way in the swing, from gun shot fire... This is with a few enemies already taken out.

Maybe i am just becoming an old fart and now suck, but i had to slow the pace of fights way down compared to previous uncharted games on hard difficulty. Since i plan to platinum i will not change to normal as seems like a waste, especially at this point.

My first replay will be on easy lol... Want to feel like i am strolling through a garden full of flowers and butterflies.
 
I meant to post this.. which was taken in game while I was in the middle of driving.

CG6i5GL.png
 
Goddamnit... Going by impressions I'm going to have to play on normal aren't I? I just finished playing the collection on crushing and I absolutely loved it! But people saying that harder difficulties in Uncharted 4 drag the experience down gives me second thoughts about playing on hard the first time :/
 
Kambing said:
My 2 cents for people who will just start the game: start on normal instead of hard.

I am 16 hours in and felt the need to say this... I consider myself decent at games, love a good challenge etc. But despite how amazing of a game UC4 is, playing on hard might be diminshing my first experiece somewhat. For how i typically play Uncharted games, hard is not so much difficult in this game, as it veers a bit on frustration. Your health is FAR diminished, so going out of your way to do crazy, fast paced combat doesn't seem to be working for me. A few times i tried to do the rope swing kill at full health, and died mid way in the swing, from gun shot fire... This is with a few enemies already taken out.

Maybe i am just becoming an old fart and now suck, but i had to slow the pace of fights way down compared to previous uncharted games on hard difficulty. Since i plan to platinum i will not change to normal as seems like a waste, especially at this point.

My first replay will be on easy lol... Want to feel like i am strolling through a garden full of flowers and butterflies.
Click to expand...
Yeah when I get a new game its always normal and never failed me yet!
 
Kambing said:
My 2 cents for people who will just start the game: start on normal instead of hard.

I am 16 hours in and felt the need to say this... I consider myself decent at games, love a good challenge etc. But despite how amazing of a game UC4 is, playing on hard might be diminshing my first experiece somewhat. For how i typically play Uncharted games, hard is not so much difficult in this game, as it veers a bit on frustration. Your health is FAR diminished, so going out of your way to do crazy, fast paced combat doesn't seem to be working for me. A few times i tried to do the rope swing kill at full health, and died mid way in the swing, from gun shot fire... This is with a few enemies already taken out.

Maybe i am just becoming an old fart and now suck, but i had to slow the pace of fights way down compared to previous uncharted games on hard difficulty. Since i plan to platinum i will not change to normal as seems like a waste, especially at this point.

My first replay will be on easy lol... Want to feel like i am strolling through a garden full of flowers and butterflies.
Click to expand...
I was originally going to go through on hard the first time but seeing how it apparently makes it very hard to use the new rope mechanic in combat/is frustrating enough to take away from the story (according to your and Chalupa Batman's impressions) I will go through on medium. Then I'll go through on crushing later for the plat.
 
Loudninja said:
Yeah when I get a new game its always normal and never failed me yet!
Click to expand...

Has to be normal especially something like Uncharted so you can soak it all in without any frustration.

Then comes hard + collectibles to unlock crushing. Then crushing. Then speed run.

I plan on playing through this game many times.
 
10 hours in, gonna take a break for today

so far, ND's best game, easily. best Uncharted story, easily, best graphics in a videogame, easily, best gameplay from ND, easily.

Also, playing on hard, and it's not an inconvenience what so ever. Managing easily enough and still can be a badass in combat. Just mix it up with going silent and loud.
 
Psychological Intellect said:
10 hours in, gonna take a break for today

so far, ND's best game, easily. best Uncharted story, easily, best graphics in a videogame, easily, best gameplay from ND, easily.

Also, playing on hard, and it's not an inconvenience what so ever. Managing easily enough and still can be a badass in combat. Just mix it up with going silent and loud.
Click to expand...

So to the other guy you are basically saying, git gud :P

I'm playing on normal anyway.
 
Psychological Intellect said:
10 hours in, gonna take a break for today

so far, ND's best game, easily. best Uncharted story, easily, best graphics in a videogame, easily, best gameplay from ND, easily.

Also, playing on hard, and it's not an inconvenience what so ever. Managing easily enough and still can be a badass in combat. Just mix it up with going silent and loud.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'll start on hard and switch to a lower difficulty if things become too frustrating.
 
Okay, here are my impressions/review. I don't have a particular structure, so I'm gonna go off my head.

Graphics/performance:
Let me start by getting the complaints out of the way. I don't like the implementation of camera motion blur. It gets a bit hazy in certain cases. Temporal AA artifacts also get annoying at times. The explosion and smoke effects don't look that great. Those are probably the three things that stuck out to me as worth mentioning. FPS is largely a solid 30 FPS. I was expecting it to have performance issues based off another user's impressions but I didn't see any. There's minor dips here and there during certain explosions but otherwise, it's fine. There were only two noticeable dips I can recall. One, I chalk up to a glitch as there was nothing intensive going on but the FPS dropped. The other was in the final chapter if you take too much damage and the screen turns black/white, which applies a small sharpening filter. I assume that's the cause of the FPS drop. Otherwise, very solid and no complaints from me.

The good? Almost everything else. The game looks absolutely phenomenal. And it looks better and better as you progress. It's concept art brought to life. Do me a favor and don't enable photo mode on your first playthrough. You'll kill the game's pacing with how often you take pictures. It looks stunning, it animates beautifully and you'll just be engrossed by the cutscenes. It's the best looking and best animated game I've played. Speaking of animations, they are unmatched. The way everything blends together just makes the game feel so cinematic.

Story/Pacing:
I think this game has great pacing. It starts off slow as it builds up and just slowly kicks into gear. And really, it's the perfect kind of pacing for a setup like this. Because this isn't just Uncharted 2 or Uncharted 3. There is not an automatic pass to have Drake go adventuring right off the start. The game needs that breathing room to set the characters and story up, to kind of introduce everyone and their motivations. I think it does a brilliant job. And that's why I really think this is my favorite intro to a Naughty Dog game. TLOU had a great into because it was concise, gave you that emotional gut punch but ultimately cinematic. UC4's task is to introduce a character, who is otherwise integral to Drake's life but has never appeared before in a UC game. The intro does that and more and most importantly, it does it well and convincingly.

What the story does really well compared to past UC games and you can really see the TLOU influence here, is that it sort a gives a lot of the characters depth that they didn't really have in the past game, especially for the bad guys. And that makes the story that much stronger because it gives you a reason to care just beyond "I must stop so and so from getting to Shambala."

Truth be told, I was never a fan of the older games treasure hunting stories. They were always kind of there and I didn't really care for them. They were more of an excuse for the adventure to take place, rather then being the adventure itself. And to a degree, I feel the same way about UC4's treasure hunting story. But I did enjoy it the most out of all 4 UC games by a decent margin because I think it was executed upon much better and that ultimately made it more interesting.

Gameplay:
The gunplay in this game is tight. My biggest worry was how the 60 FPS MP mechanics would translate to 30 FPS. Worry not, they translate extremely well. The mechanics are largely the same but with some welcome additions. The guns sound great, the weapons control really well, the enemy hit reactions are fantastic and it's just an absolute blast to shoot stuff in this game. I barely did any stealth in my playthrough. I went guns blazing because it was that much fun.

What really brings it together are the animations. The animation blending combined with how great the animations look just make it a joy to play through. Just all the little stuff Nate does, like removing the weapon strap properly or getting down really low to the ground due to incoming fire, it really puts it over the top. There are a few minor issues. Nate does have a problem sometimes with going past friendly NPC's. He'll kinda bump into them and stand still. Not in gunfights mind you, just sorta in general when your walking around. Not really a problem but it's noticeable given how well he controls. The sticky cover system can sometimes pose problems when your trying to stick to a specific one. Though, I can only recall two instances in which that occurred.

The platforming is great and much improved over the predecessors. It feels a lot more organic despite still being largely automated. This is a combination of the animations, the new tools, the paring back of overly blatant visual cues telling you where to go and just general creativity in how the platforming stuff was designed.

The pacing of the gameplay is also done really well. It strikes a good balance between the combat, platforming, story bits and exploration. You never do one thing too much before another takes over. There's a good amount of everything in the game.

Final Thoughts:
I loved the game. It was a joy to play through. It's pretty clear that ND put in a lot of love and passion into the game. Lots of good character and story moments and I especially got emotional at a few of them.

I'm not sure which one I like more TLOU or UC4. TLOU is kind of ND given creative freedom to do what they wanted. UC4 is quite brilliant because they really tried to do so much within already existing limitations. I'll probably make up my mind later, they're both brilliant.

I loved the ending. Just.. a lot of feels and emotion. Incredibly well done. I'd score it a 10/10.

Ranking: UC4 = TLOU > UC2 > UC3 > UC1

Edit: Yikes, I typed a lot. And mostly rambled. I'll try and edit my English to be... proper.
 
I just finished whatever comes after the E3 demo.

This game is starting to finally come together for me as one laser focused package. I really think the writing and story direction is beginning to unfold in a wonderful way and I no longer have qualms with the tone because it makes sense for what this story has become. It's not quite Uncharted 2's silly youthfulness but it's a different game and Nate is a different man now.
 
Good god prim.

That's got me hyped

Especially since you ranked it with last of us

Really hope you guys aren't just honeymooning hard lol

I wonder what the uncharted 3 impressions were like
 
TimeEffect said:
Good god prim.

That's got me hyped

Especially since you ranked it with last of us

Really hope you guys aren't just honeymooning hard lol

I wonder what the uncharted 3 impressions were like
Click to expand...
Aiming was broken and I was annoyed with the missing motion blur at launch (which was patched in).

I still loved the game, though, but it played worse than UC2 until the remastered version.
 
TimeEffect said:
Good god prim.

That's got me hyped

Especially since you ranked it with last of us

Really hope you guys aren't just honeymooning hard lol

I wonder what the uncharted 3 impressions were like
Click to expand...

I'll clarify the TLOU comment a bit since I don't want people to take it the wrong way. While I was playing UC4, I loved it. I really enjoyed almost every bit of it. And that got me thinking early on whether or not I'd end up liking UC4 and TLOU and really, what I enjoyed so much about TLOU.

And here's the way I see it: TLOU had a huge impact. It kind of, for me, came out of nowhere with its sheer amount of critical acclaim and how highly praised it's story and story telling was. I have high doubts the same will happen for UC4 because it's just a different time. TLOU has come and gone. The standards are higher. So, UC4 isn't really going to be able to replicate that sort of impact.

But purely from a perspective of storytelling, gameplay, encounters and so on? There's a case to be made for both. What's makes the comparison problematic is that both games have wildly different tones. So the way I see it, whether you prefer TLOU or UC is going to come down to which tone you prefer.

That's why I put em as equals for now. They're wildly different. But they both do the things they set out to do so well.
 
NateDrake said:
Crushing is available right away in UC4.
Click to expand...

No it's not. It's weird, you can select Crushing in the Options menu but when you go to actually start a new game it's greyed out.

Edit: Read the replies and apparently you can still select it even when it's greyed out? I am 99% sure I wasn't able to do that (not that I would have).
 
Kambing said:
My 2 cents for people who will just start the game: start on normal instead of hard.

I am 16 hours in and felt the need to say this... I consider myself decent at games, love a good challenge etc. But despite how amazing of a game UC4 is, playing on hard might be diminshing my first experiece somewhat. For how i typically play Uncharted games, hard is not so much difficult in this game, as it veers a bit on frustration. Your health is FAR diminished, so going out of your way to do crazy, fast paced combat doesn't seem to be working for me. A few times i tried to do the rope swing kill at full health, and died mid way in the swing, from gun shot fire... This is with a few enemies already taken out.

Maybe i am just becoming an old fart and now suck, but i had to slow the pace of fights way down compared to previous uncharted games on hard difficulty. Since i plan to platinum i will not change to normal as seems like a waste, especially at this point.

My first replay will be on easy lol... Want to feel like i am strolling through a garden full of flowers and butterflies.
Click to expand...
This is helpful. I was leaning towards playing on hard my first time but I think I'll just do the default for the first experience.
 
As a young gamer I would always play on easy but my standard's been normal for a long time now since I want to experience the story, have a bit of challenge but nothing immersion breaking; later on I'll try other difficulties on my way to Platinum.
 
Primethius said:
Okay, here are my impressions/review. I don't have a particular structure, so I'm gonna go off my head.

Graphics/performance:
Let me start by getting the complaints out of the way. I don't like the implementation of camera motion blur. It gets a bit hazy in certain cases. Temporal AA artifacts also get annoying at times. The explosion and smoke effects don't look that great. Those are probably the three things that stuck out to me as worth mentioning. FPS is largely a solid 30 FPS. I was expecting it to have performance issues based off another user's impressions but I didn't see any. There's minor dips here and there during certain explosions but otherwise, it's fine. There were only two noticeable dips I can recall. One, I chalk up to a glitch as there was nothing intensive going on but the FPS dropped. The other was in the final chapter if you take too much damage and the screen turns black/white, which applies a small sharpening filter. I assume that's the cause of the FPS drop. Otherwise, very solid and no complaints from me.

The good? Almost everything else. The game looks absolutely phenomenal. And it looks better and better as you progress. It's concept art brought to life. Do me a favor and don't enable photo mode on your first playthrough. You'll kill the game's pacing with how often you take pictures. It looks stunning, it animates beautifully and you'll just be engrossed by the cutscenes. It's the best looking and best animated game I've played. Speaking of animations, they are unmatched. The way everything blends together just makes the game feel so cinematic.

Story/Pacing:
I think this game has great pacing. It starts off slow as it builds up and just slowly kicks into gear. And really, it's the perfect kind of pacing for a setup like this. Because this isn't just Uncharted 2 or Uncharted 3. There is not an automatic pass to have Drake go adventuring right off the start. The game needs that breathing room to set the characters and story up, to kind of introduce everyone and their motivations. I think it does a brilliant job. And that's why I really think this is my favorite intro to a Naughty Dog game. TLOU had a great into because it was concise, gave you that emotional gut punch but ultimately cinematic. UC4's task is to introduce a character, who is otherwise integral to Drake's life but has never appeared before in a UC game. The intro does that and more and most importantly, it does it well and convincingly.

What the story does really well compared to past UC games and you can really see the TLOU influence here, is that it sort a gives a lot of the characters depth that they didn't really have in the past game, especially for the bad guys. And that makes the story that much stronger because it gives you a reason to care just beyond "I must stop so and so from getting to Shambala."

Truth be told, I was never a fan of the older games treasure hunting stories. They were always kind of there and I didn't really care for them. They were more of an excuse for the adventure to take place, rather then being the adventure itself. And to a degree, I feel the same way about UC4's treasure hunting story. But I did enjoy it the most out of all 4 UC games by a decent margin because I think it was executed upon much better and that ultimately made it more interesting.

Gameplay:
The gunplay in this game is tight. My biggest worry was how the 60 FPS MP mechanics would translate to 30 FPS. Worry not, they translate extremely well. The mechanics are largely the same but with some welcome additions. The guns sound great, the weapons control really well, the enemy hit reactions are fantastic and it's just an absolute blast to shoot stuff in this game. I barely did any stealth in my playthrough. I went guns blazing because it was that much fun.

What really brings it together are the animations. The animation blending combined with how great the animations look just make it a joy to play through. Just all the little stuff Nate does, like removing the weapon strap properly or getting down really low to the ground due to incoming fire, it really puts it over the top. There are a few minor issues. Nate does have a problem sometimes with going past friendly NPC's. He'll kinda bump into them and stand still. Not in gunfights mind you, just sorta in general when your walking around. Not really a problem but it's noticeable given how well he controls. The sticky cover system can sometimes pose problems when your trying to stick to a specific one. Though, I can only recall two instances in which that occurred.

The platforming is great and much improved over the predecessors. It feels a lot more organic despite still being largely automated. This is a combination of the animations, the new tools, the paring back of overly blatant visual cues telling you where to go and just general creativity in how the platforming stuff was designed.

The pacing of the gameplay is also done really well. It strikes a good balance between the combat, platforming, story bits and exploration. You never do one thing too much before another takes over. There's a good amount of everything in the game.

Final Thoughts:
I loved the game. It was a joy to play through. It's pretty clear that ND put in a lot of love and passion into the game. Lots of good character and story moments and I especially got emotional at a few of them.

I'm not sure which one I like more TLOU or UC4. TLOU is kind of ND given creative freedom to do what they wanted. UC4 is quite brilliant because they really tried to do so much within already existing limitations. I'll probably make up my mind later, they're both brilliant.

I loved the ending. Just.. a lot of feels and emotion. Incredibly well done. I'd score it a 10/10.

Ranking: UC4 = TLOU > UC2 > UC3 > UC1

Edit: Yikes, I typed a lot. And mostly rambled. I'll try and edit my English to be... proper.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the impressions dude. Even though you claim you were rambling, I feel like I got a lot from it.
 
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