As far as Uncharted goes, 4 was definitely the slowest, sometimes to it's benefit but mostly to it's detriment as it allowed you to pay attention to how weak the actual plot is.
3, for all its faults, was better paced with the downtime waay better managed but enough momentum that you didn't realize that the plot was also nonsensical.
Well that's just how I see it, I know most people love the game and I see why. There are segments I loved too. There are just some elements introduced that I don't see as a perfect fit for the franchise.
I understand, and that's alright. It's just that the way you phrased it made it seem as if the slight shift in direction was a failure, but going by overall performance it was definitely not.
As far as Uncharted goes, 4 was definitely the slowest, sometimes to it's benefit but mostly to it's detriment as it allowed you to pay attention to how weak the actual plot is.
3, for all its faults, was better paced with the downtime waay better managed but enough momentum that you didn't realize that the plot was also nonsensical.
I remember after trying to replay 4, I realized I consistently had more fun and/or was more engaged throughout 3. Which was horrifying
If 3 had 4's combat and rearranged and altered some of its sequences, I'd probably consider that a better experience than 4 outright, rather than flip back and forth between wondering which was better.
I remember thinking how egregious 3's desert walk was, then 4 had slow/non-gameplay focused moments all throughout. 4's post-shipwreck sequence loses so much of its potential impact because slowly traversing an environment after some intense action (which, in 4, they put at the beginning of the game as en media res, but then replace it with a cutscene once that sequence is reached halfway through the game for some unknown reason) happens all the time.
The lack of interactivity or consequence for exploration in 2's village segment aren't sticking points for me because it feels special in that gameit followed one of the most action-packed and varied stretches of gameplay I've experienced in a game, and while I wasn't bored of that action (due in part because it was varied/diverse/well-designed/etc.), that moment of respite really left an impression because it was unlike any other part up to that point. Getting to interact with other non-hostile people, no matter how simple, was really nice and did a good job characterizing that area (which was then used for emotional effect in subsequent action).
I actually liked the story and tone in 4, feeling it stayed true to the pulpy nature of the series while injecting more mundane, yet personal turmoil and development. This entry still treats death and destruction as more of abstractions rather than literallygetting into shootouts with mercenaries over treasure and destroying towns in the process is pretty bad, but not war crime level so long as the mercenaries are bad, or at least consensual in the combat. None of the story or story beats really rubbed me the wrong way, I just never found those elements necessitated all the frequent, restrictive and overly non-interactive slow moments. The island hopping with Sam after the Madagascar chase and subsequent "oh... hi honey!..." moment? That came at the perfect time, wasn't super restrictive, and had dialogue that showed continuity and consequence of previous events. The post-shipwreck part though? It wasn't the first time Nate and Sam had been separated or that Sam was in danger, nor is there any real choice on where to go throughout that sequence. It's just forced slow walking and linear, uneventful climbing after a cutscene which itself came after a series of slow island hopping.
I understand, and that's alright. It's just that the way you phrased it made it seem as if the slight shift in focus was a failure, but going by overall performance it was definitely not.
It doesn't seem like there's any way to tell one way or the other. Uncharted 4 was going to sell a lot no matter what, regardless of what individuals eventually thought of the game, and no one really expected the ratio of action and slow moments prior to release. There's no parsing which of those day 1 or near day 1 sales came from people who thought they knew for sure what they were getting.
On Crushing this game shines. I found the combat encounters to be for the most part fantastic. Easily some of the most engaging and dynamic encounters in a TPS. And after a few of those bitches yes I loved and wallowed in the tame exploration..
On Crushing the game fucking falls apart and shows how ND doesn't know what makes Uncharted great. Enemies become aimbots and hit you the very moment you exit cover, not to mention your health is downgraded to wet tissue levels. What could have been the best way of playing the game, going from cover to cover to temporarily throw off enemy aiming and keep flanking attempts at bay, becomes just another "sit down and kill enemies quickly and precisely before you get overwhelmed". Wow, a minigunman that can snipe you one kilometer away, can only be hit on the head, makes you flinch, and thus is nearly impossible to kill with aim-assist off? Sounds like super Uncharted fun to me!
It doesn't seem like there's any way to tell one way or the other. Uncharted 4 was going to sell a lot no matter what, regardless of what individuals eventually thought of the game, and no one really expected the ratio of action and slow moments prior to release. There's no parsing which of those day 1 or near day 1 sales came from people who thought they knew for sure what they were getting.
Still, the game was pretty well received by critics and users overall.
Aside from a pretty loud minority, the perception seems to be that the game is a suceess. If it was a failure at what it tried to accomplished it wouldn't have performed the way it did regardless of people's expectations before playing the game.
I bet you played on Normal, Hard tops. Play Uncharted 4 on Crushing and watch how the game design crumbles. I'm certain that Naughty Dog didn't even try to balance the game on Crushing.
The game is made with a "You're gonna get hit with bullets" mindset, so when the game throws at you 25 dudes at once, you simply can't rely on skill, you can't rely on the game's swinging mechanic(so there goes that mechanic and it's bombastic outcomes, never used it, couldn't use it. Sad.), you WILL die, a lot and out of nowhere.
When you die in basically 2~3 hits, every imput HAS to be precise, the game NEEDS to go where I'm pointing at. Unfortunately, in my experience, the game just didn't know which ledge I wanted to magnetize to(seriously, Rise of the Tomb Raider does a better job at it, in Uncharted 4 is so blatant, is cringe worthy), resulting in numerous deaths and frustrations.
Stealth is worthless when all of your path is blocked by a enemy, every damn alternative path.
It's like the level designer and whomever did the enemy placement had different ideas for that area.
Shoot-out are almost inevitable.
"So, how did you manage to beat Uncharted 4 on Crushing?" Well, Auto-Saves. The game Auto-Saves a fucking lot. You will die numerous times, until you find an "optimal route" and then you will still die, until luck is on your side and you don't.
aaaaaand some other times I have to fight through 2 Shoot-outs full of high gear enemies until it auto-saves again. It's inconsistent.
There were situations were I was haning on a ledge, had 3 bullets and there were 5 dudes, one with an RPG, the game autosaved. The game basically fucked me, had to restart.
I probably should have played it on Hard my first time
Felt like Uncharted 3 had the same bad, predictable pacing. It's the reason I ended up mostly hating the game while playing it.
I hate how the games had predictable shoot-out encounters. You walk through some non-combat zones, and then spot a zone with two half-height walls, with guns leaning up against them, and you realize "aah, another monster closet encounter where you have enemies above you and in front of you that appear from nothing."
The alarm mechanic was probably my most hated mechanic in any game. Where becoming spotted by one bad guy, no matter how non-sensical it was, would trigger 6 guys to show up in magic locations that you had already cleared, or at least in some cases, they'd appear NEXT to you with grenade launchers.
Still, the game was pretty well received by critics and users overall.
Aside from a pretty loud minority, the perception seems to be that the game is a suceess. If it was a failure at what it tried to accomplished it wouldn't have performed the way it did regardless of people's expectations before playing the game.
Public perception is always relevant, but it being positive (even mostly positive) doesn't equate to outright proof of quality. No matter how many perfect scores Bioshock Infinite received or how much it sold, it will always have fequent combat that's an amalgam of commonly hated FPS faux pas, nonsensical story (even in the realm of Doctor Who-level dimension shenanigans) and about-as-close-to-objectively-poor-as-possible handling of serious issues and themes. Something/someone can gain the adoration of millions and still be bad.
I wouldn't disagree that 4 succeeded at what it set out to do though, which was to wow people. It's story resonating with many/most doesn't mean it's good, same with its use of slow moments and lite(really, really lite) exploration without much payoff of any kind (lore discovery, character development, collectibles that tie back into the gameplay loop somehow) aside from sight-seeing.
But I try not to get too caught up over individual terms and lose the forest for the trees. It's also fair to say it's a failure at what it set out to do when focusing on the actual quality of the game. If the game does stuff that is lambasted in other games for being boring or stupid, yet it's praised here, it's not so clearcut that it's good just because there's positive reception. If a sequence that's supposed to make the player feel like they're really exploring an environment ends with them feeling as if they're just pushing "up and X" without anything to show for it all (again, stuff that's tangibly worthwhile to find), then that failed for them, and it's hard to argue against their expectations being high for a developer of this caliber in an industry with games that do parts of this game in better ways.
The game was too long. I found the pacing fine and could do with out the gunplay completely. im looking forward to revisiting after the new one drops this month? I think? not sure about release date.
I wish I could say I agree or disagree. At times I thought it was fine and other times I definitely felt like I was just chugging along to get to the end of the game. I wish I had more time, because I want to replay. I feel like I can form a better opinion about it if I replay it.
Public perception is always relevant, but it being positive (even mostly positive) doesn't equate to outright proof of quality. No matter how many perfect scores Bioshock Infinite received or how much it sold, it will always have fequent combat that's an amalgam of commonly hated FPS faux pas, nonsensical story (even in the realm of Doctor Who-level dimension shenanigans) and about-as-close-to-objectively-poor-as-possible handling of serious issues and themes. Something/someone can gain the adoration of millions and still be bad.
I wouldn't disagree that 4 succeeded at what it set out to do though, which was to wow people. It's story resonating with many/most doesn't mean it's good, same with its use of slow moments and lite(really, really lite) exploration without much payoff of any kind (lore discovery, character development, collectibles that tie back into the gameplay loop somehow) aside from sight-seeing.
But I try not to get too caught up over individual terms and lose the forest for the trees. It's also fair to say it's a failure at what it set out to do when focusing on the actual quality of the game. If the game does stuff that is lambasted in other games for being boring or stupid, yet it's praised here, it's not so clearcut that it's good just because there's positive reception. If a sequence that's supposed to make the player feel like they're really exploring an environment ends with them feeling as if they're just pushing "up and X" without anything to show for it all (again, stuff that's tangibly worthwhile to find), then that failed for them, and it's hard to argue against their expectations being high for a developer of this caliber in an industry with games that do parts of this game in better ways.
Yeah UC4 being the best controlling "tps" is laughable and whoever can say that with a straight face is delusional.
Max Payne 3, Vanquish, MGS5, RE4, hell, even Warframe (a free to play game..) has way better tps combat mechanics. It would take a hell of a lot more than what UC4 does to knock MP3 off thd top of the list though, game is still unmathed in bullet response and gunplay.
I agree. My biggest issue was how Uncharted 4 suffered from the "National Treasure" syndrome. Nicolas Cage (Nathan Drake) goes to one locale and finds a clue, then has to go to another locale and find a clue, and again and again and again. I felt like ND always wanted to include some of these locations in other games. Since this was supposed to be the last Uncharted game, or at least we all thought it would be, they tried to cram too many locations in and doing the get clue here, go here now, get next clue, go here now, over and over got tedious just so we had an excuse to visit said locations. I enjoy narrative, but when you have tedious filler breaking it up and not enough action to at least go along with it, it does hurt the pacing.
Public perception is always relevant, but it being positive (even mostly positive) doesn't equate to outright proof of quality. No matter how many perfect scores Bioshock Infinite received or how much it sold, it will always have fequent combat that's an amalgam of commonly hated FPS faux pas, nonsensical story (even in the realm of Doctor Who-level dimension shenanigans) and about-as-close-to-objectively-poor-as-possible handling of serious issues and themes. Something/someone can gain the adoration of millions and still be bad.
I wouldn't disagree that 4 succeeded at what it set out to do though, which was to wow people. It's story resonating with many/most doesn't mean it's good, same with its use of slow moments and lite(really, really lite) exploration without much payoff of any kind (lore discovery, character development, collectibles that tie back into the gameplay loop somehow) aside from sight-seeing.
But I try not to get too caught up over individual terms and lose the forest for the trees. It's also fair to say it's a failure at what it set out to do when focusing on the actual quality of the game. If the game does stuff that is lambasted in other games for being boring or stupid, yet it's praised here, it's not so clearcut that it's good just because there's positive reception. If a sequence that's supposed to make the player feel like they're really exploring an environment ends with them feeling as if they're just pushing "up and X" without anything to show for it all (again, stuff that's tangibly worthwhile to find), then that failed for them, and it's hard to argue against their expectations being high for a developer of this caliber in an industry with games that do parts of this game in better ways.
I think you're over thinking this. There's really no basis right now to say Uncharted 4 was a failure in its accomplishments, whether you or others don't agree with it.
Using the tools we have at hand (sales, GOTY awards, perception, overall impressions) as a barometer, we can safely say that the game succeeded at what it set out to do. There's enough proof out there to understand that the game worked and it was a satisfying gaming experience for the majority of people.
The only way you could really have a case on that would be if Uncharted 5, or to some extent TLL, is designed similarly to UC4 and it has a major decline in sales.
Right now there's just no foundation to conclude what the poster I replied to did.
I agree. My biggest issue was how Uncharted 4 suffered from the "National Treasure" syndrome. Nicolas Cage (Nathan Drake) goes to one locale and finds a clue, then has to go to another locale and find a clue, and again and again and again. I felt like ND always wanted to include some of these locations in other games. Since this was supposed to be the last Uncharted game, or at least we all thought it would be, they tried to cram too many locations in and doing the get clue here, go here now, get next clue, go here now, over and over got tedious just so we had an excuse to visit said locations. I enjoy narrative, but when you have tedious filler breaking it up and not enough action to at least go along with it, it does hurt the pacing.
I think you're over thinking this. There's really no basis right now to say Uncharted 4 was a failure in its accomplishments, whether you or others don't agree with it.
Using the tools we have at hand (sales, GOTY awards, perception, overall impressions) as a barometer, we can safely say that the game succeeded at what it set out to do. There's enough proof out there to understand that the game worked and it was a satisfying gaming experience for the majority of people.
The only way you could really have a case on that would be if Uncharted 5, or to some extent TLL, is designed similarly to UC4 and it has a major decline in sales.
Right now there's just no foundation to conclude what the poster I replied to did.
Yeah UC4 being the best controlling "tps" is laughable and whoever can say that with a straight face is delusional.
Max Payne 3, Vanquish, MGS5, RE4, hell, even Warframe (a free to play game..) has way better tps combat mechanics. It would take a hell of a lot more than what UC4 does to knock MP3 off thd top of the list though, game is still unmathed in bullet response and gunplay.
Sorry, bud, you lost me there. MP3 and MGSV, sure, but in what dimension does RE4 have better TPS controls than U4? You can't even manually control the camera in that game.
Sorry, bud, you lost me there. MP3 and MGSV, sure, but in what dimension does RE4 have better TPS controls than U4? You can't even manually control the camera in that game.
I don't believe this at all. The formula of the previous games was combat, combat, combat with some downtime. UC4 is the opposite until the final chapters where it amps up.
There were plenty of sections with downtime. Traversing some areas with Chloe in 2, strolling through the village, taking a walk/run with that one villager, etc.
Only 1 was really nothing but combat since they even admitted to padding the game with waves of enemies since it wasn't a long game.
Sorry, bud, you lost me there. MP3 and MGSV, sure, but in what dimension does RE4 have better TPS controls than U4? You can't even manually control the camera in that game.
