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Uncharted 4: A Thief's End |OT| You're gonna miss this ass

man, a couple of these encounters have whooped my ass on the hardest difficulty. It's mainly those aggressive as fuck, yet seemingly sneaky ass armored dude with pinpoint accuracy giving me fits. I'm also running out of ammo real quick.

I really need to get more stealthy, even if it doesn't interest me that much in this game.
 
Just finished, boy..what a ride. Couple of chapters dragged on a bit but for the most part a very solid game. Been a very long time since i've beaten a campaign, usually lose interest pretty quickly(mostly a multiplayer guy), happy it was Uncharted that brought me back.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I don't think its spoilery because it was basically the E3 demo, but that truck chase was the only time I noticed anything buggy. When you drive the jeep into the open square at the bottom, and you're supposed to go up the stairs to escape the area, the armoured car literally shot in front of me like it was on a rubber band. I drove around and came back in again and it did the same thing, only this time it was going backwards - basically teleporting to block me. Took me a few goes to get past.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Yeah. This one pulled some heartstrings. The various dialog surrounding this section as well.

that section scared me.
thought they were going to suddenly kill her off
I honestly put the controller down for about 15 minutes, not wanting to drive on.
 

Wollan

Member
I don't think its spoilery because it was basically the E3 demo, but that truck chase was the only time I noticed anything buggy. When you drive the jeep into the open square at the bottom, and you're supposed to go up the stairs to escape the area, the armoured car literally shot in front of me like it was on a rubber band.
Same thing happened to me. That and there was a slight animation mis-match when the chase was over and Nate and Sam came to a stand-still, laughing on their motorbike. The only bugs I saw for the whole adventure.
 

Slixshot

Banned
You can actually select Crushing even though it's greyed out. it'll say something like "this is too hard, don't play it" then will become selectable.

I thought it'd be along the lines of Grounded mode for TLOU, but that makes a lot of sense. I'll replay it on easy to make it more Indiana Jonesey

edit: wow there are unlockable cheats too!

You actually can play crushing first time, even though it is greyed out.

That's weird! Is it a glitch?

Anyway, yeah, I really feel like the games are meant to be played on the easier modes so it is more of an adventure with nonstop action instead of dying on a frequent basis. That being said... I want this platinum.
 

spekkeh

Banned
I'm at chapter 5 or 6 or something. Goddamn this is a handsome game. It's head and shoulders above anything else.

Also, I thought the previous Uncharteds were nothing more than ok, this one is doing a lot more right to me. It's got crazy variety, and the story feels like they actually cared.
 
I gave up on rushing through 3 and started this.

Holyyyy....2 chapters in and I can already predict that I'm going to absolutely adore this game.
 

Harmen

Member
Pretty big near-ending spoilers.



If
Sam had died, it would have been a heinous cop-out. It would have been what Hollywood has taught you to expect.

Hollywood's completely generic story layout:

First act: Emotional investment. Suggestion of romance. One character set up as the emotional scapegoat. Bad guys set up as bad guys.
Second act: Development. Romance turns bittersweet. Bad guys start winning. Get to know emotional scapegoat better.
Third act: Payoff. Romance 'is won' in the end. Bad guys lose unequivocally. Emotional scapegoat is killed off to catalyse the experience.

That scene
when Sam almost drowns and Nate saves him is my favourite scene in the game. I was thinking "Well, here we go, they're going to kill him off and do the generic thing." Then Nate's like "Wait a minute, no!" and saves him because he's Nathan Drake, Sam doesn't die because this isn't a hollywood movie.

It was so great.

I like how
by having a happy ending they actually did go against my expectations. I totally expected either Sam, Sully, Elena, or Nate himself to die at a certain point and there was a lot of foreshadowing one way or another. Having played quite some games were everything turns to shit in the end or most characters dying, this ending actually felt fresh yet still emotional in a different, more nostalgic way

I also like how they treated their villains
(Nadine just leaving was surprising and made sense ultimately)

Edit: messed up my spoiler for a very brief time, sorry if I did spoil that last aspect to someone, thankfully it was only a little part of the ending sequences as a whole, with no specifics.
 

LiK

Member
I gave up on rushing through 3 and started this.

Holyyyy....2 chapters in and I can already predict that I'm going to absolutely adore this game.

Wish you didn't. I think 3 has become just as important in the overall narrative after playing 4.
 
That's weird! Is it a glitch?

Anyway, yeah, I really feel like the games are meant to be played on the easier modes so it is more of an adventure with nonstop action instead of dying on a frequent basis. That being said... I want this platinum.

I kind of regret not just leaving it on normal, but I'm way too stubborn to even think about lowering the difficulty.
 
A game like this just begs for a co-op exploration/free roam mode. No story cutsecenes, just hanging out and meeting up in the various nooks marveling at the scenery. Maybe add an exaggerated amount of treasure around to collect together. Just choose a location and drop in.

PLEASE, ND!
 

LiK

Member
A game like this just begs for a co-op exploration/free roam mode. No story cutsecenes, just hanging out and meeting up in the various nooks marveling at the scenery. Maybe add an exaggerated amount of treasure around to collect together. Just choose a location and drop in.

PLEASE, ND!

I think they're doing a coop mode for DLC.
 

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Got together with some friends to start this yesterday, and we made it to ch12
(start of the boat section)
, before calling it a night (or more accurately, morning) There are some cool parts and the famous demo setpiece was amazing, but overall I came away pretty disappointed. The pacing feels off, and there are puzzle sections that last too long (like turning the symbols). There are less encounters, which I would be fine with, but most aren't even that fun, and have an overload of enemies. It's like the game goes from 0 to 11 at once in certain areas. The game looks stunning though,
dat Madagascar level
, wow.

But overall, still too early to say, but so far this feels like the weakest Uncharted game to me.
 

abundant

Member
I'm up to chapter 5 and I just got to say it, thank you Naughty Dog for giving me the option to chose between mashing the button or holding down the button during QTE. I hope other devs take note.
 

spekkeh

Banned
I was wondering the same thing. They improved combat (the stealth options are great) but decided to include much less of it. It seems like a very clear choice they made and i'm thinking it might actually be because of the mass murderer thing (which was ridiculous). It would be interesting to hear from the developers why they made this choice.

They probably did it for people like me, because I found the mass murdering thing ridiculous, and I don't mean the meme. It's much easier to suspend disbelief this time around for me.
 
Replaying this on hard and yeah gunplay is definitely not one of this game's strong points, but fantastic combat arena design helps make up for it.

I'm also playing with headphones this time and appreciating the sound design even more. Still don't think the soundtrack is very memorable, but it's serviceable.

The first third is less offensive the second time through once you know what to expect as I suspected. It kinda flew by tbh and it feels like a good setup to an action movie. Better than 3's opening chapters at least.
 
I was wondering the same thing. They improved combat (the stealth options are great) but decided to include much less of it. It seems like a very clear choice they made and i'm thinking it might actually be because of the mass murderer thing (which was ridiculous). It would be interesting to hear from the developers why they made this choice.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-hc-theplayer-uncharted-20160508-story.html

aqkrJMd.png
 

spekkeh

Banned
I'm up to chapter 5 and I just got to say it, thank you Naughty Dog for giving me the option to chose between mashing the button or holding down the button during QTE. I hope other devs take note.

Is there an option? Cause I tried and it didn't work for me.
 
This game is just incredible. I'm not a massive fan of the uncharted series, though I've liked and played all of them. Uncharted 2 was the best in the series and one of the best games last gen.

This game is decidedly better than uncharted 2 for me. TLOU is one of my top 5 games of all time, and this game incorporates a lot of great things from TLOU. The graphics are easily the best on console ever, and they give some of the best I've played on pc a run (i.e. witcher 3 ).

My mind melts trying to fathom how ND did this on ps4 hardware. Just amazing.
 

This is totally fair. I myself like games that mix up the pace. My issue with the down time in U4 is that it's filled to the brim with bog standard and mostly mindless traversal and bland chit chat. I like that they wanted to give us cool down time inbetween explosions, but wish they'd figured out how to make these in between sections more interesting. Looking at the scenery is nice, but only takes you so far.

As others have noted, I think TLoU did it better, in that you're scavenging for stuff that you may desperately need in the next encounter.

I play a lot of long RPGs that have a lot of downtime, but in these you're at least continually working on evolving your characters or improving your equipment. Don't think that's the solution for Uncharted though, shoehorned RPG mechanics don't do action games many favors. Maybe more involved puzzling? Or if they could figure out how to make the traversal more skill based without making it too difficult....
 

Osahi

Member
Speaking as a huge Uncharted-fan here, but I'll go for:

Let it be.

It will be hard for any other studio to capture the magic (which was evident in Golden Abbys, which had good gameplay but missed the sparkle the ND Uncharted's had).

Also, U4 ended on a high point and a pretty great ending for the series. So just give us the DLC (which I hope will be the perfect goodbye, like Left Behind was the icing on the cake of TLOU) and call it quits.

It's not like Sony didn't do this before... Letting their studio's make new IP's and letting their old ones rest.
 
It's so wierd to see people post trying to downplay people's thoughts when it comes to the folks that loved it. I mean I'm sure some people are riding high off the experience, but I know my thoughts on this game versus the rest of the series isn't going to change. I understand the pacing and way this one plays out is quite different in comparison, but after running through the prior games before and after finishing UC 4, hands down its just the way I've always wanted the series to be, finally realized. Exploration, beautiful locations, more story filled with emotional moments, expansive levels, better shooting, more gameplay options and variety.
 

m4st4

Member
Started playing on Hard today after couple of multiplayer matches and my theory on DLC right now is:

Sully, Sam, Chloe and Cutter on that new job.
 

zsynqx

Member
This is why chapters 14-16 were so boring to me. Yeah the scenery was pretty(well in 14&15 at least), but these big environments were filled with basically nothing interesting and weren't fun to actually play. The game picks up again in chapter 17 though and doesn't let up until
21.

12 is another offender too I suppose, but I liked using the
boat
at least and I think it was fine coming off the high of chapter 11, but 3 straight slow chapters in a row after 13? Doesn't work for me at all or at least not in their current design.

How can you say that? 14-16 were filled with optional moments with Sam and it is where you really begin to get a sense of what was going on with the pirates. Maybe it wasn't interesting to you, but there was a ton of stuff there.
 

Slixshot

Banned
I kind of regret not just leaving it on normal, but I'm way too stubborn to even think about lowering the difficulty.

I played on hard and the game killed me a bunch. But it didn't really detract from the cinematics or the story. What it did do is make me incapable of run and gunning out of cover and swinging and shooting. Mostly stayed in cover whereas some of the environments looked like they were made to do the opposite.
 

m4st4

Member
How can you say that? 14-16 were filled with optional moments with Sam and it is where you really begin to get a sense of what was going on with the pirates and colonists. Maybe it wasn't interesting to you, but there was a ton of stuff there.

And
15
is where shit gets real,
after the twist
. The whole pirate colony story was, in my opinion, the best adventure of this series.
Couldn't care less about supernatural stuff from the previous ones, these were just men, pirates; they were brutal, greedy and ultimately doomed because of it.
 
man, a couple of these encounters have whooped my ass on the hardest difficulty. It's mainly those aggressive as fuck, yet seemingly sneaky ass armored dude with pinpoint accuracy giving me fits. I'm also running out of ammo real quick.

I really need to get more stealthy, even if it doesn't interest me that much in this game.

From my experience, Stealth is only useful for a handful of enemies and youll end up firefighting anyway. Try backtracking or hanging on edges then cheese them.

That's weird! Is it a glitch?

Anyway, yeah, I really feel like the games are meant to be played on the easier modes so it is more of an adventure with nonstop action instead of dying on a frequent basis. That being said... I want this platinum.

I think its intentional as it'd be a pretty big bug if it wasnt.
 

spekkeh

Banned
This is totally fair. I myself like games that mix up the pace. My issue with the down time in U4 is that it's filled to the brim with bog standard and mostly mindless traversal and bland chit chat. I like that they wanted to give us cool down time inbetween explosions, but wish they'd figured out how to make these in between sections more interesting. Looking at the scenery is nice, but only takes you so far.

As others have noted, I think TLoU did it better, in that you're scavenging for stuff that you may desperately need in the next encounter.

I play a lot of long RPGs that have a lot of downtime, but in these you're at least continually working on evolving your characters or improving your equipment. Don't think that's the solution for Uncharted though, shoehorned RPG mechanics don't do action games many favors. Maybe more involved puzzling? Or if they could figure out how to make the traversal more skill based without making it too difficult....

Ugh, gamification is the opposite of down time. As long as you're working towards a goal (filling up bars) you're in a utilitarian mode. Down time is essential for elaboration to occur, so that you can mull over what just happened, but this doesn't happen when you're actively scavenging. Not saying UC4 does it right, but TLoU did it wrong, wrong, wrong. Certainly didn't help that the scavenging in TLoU constantly forced you to actively work against the flow of the game (walking away from someone talking to you, appraising whether an encounter would be triggered, ignoring the big house to go search for loot in the dog house, etc.).
 

I'm sorry this is a statement directed to nobody. Aside from UC1 which was generally not as well designed, UC2 and UC3 were not wall to wall action. As a matter of fact, the scenic village sequence in UC2 is one of the most consistently referenced sequences for ND, laying the groundwork for nearly all the in-game storytelling and interactivity in UC3, TLOU, and UC4. The village scene found in the UC where you kill the most enemies. The UC that, btw, still has the best pacing. Most of the action sequences UC4 aren't any more important than any of the other dozens of fights where you dispatch a bunch of dumb mooks. Most of em are still mercs with no sense of self preservation busting into places and taking stuntman bumps so you can feel great about yourself. Only this time there's 45 minutes of tired asset tourism between those sequences.

And even if it's not combat but action in general, there's very little sense of momentum or build to any of the crazy stuff that happens in this game. You're walking and talking doing nothing for 20 minutes, the next moment everything's going to hell, then as soon as you blink you've already moved on to more mindless climbing. There was an elegance to the way UC2 (or TLOU for a more direct comparison) ebbed and flowed that's almost totally missing from UC4. I never felt the traversal or story sequences were padding as much as I did here. it starts slow and continuously derails its own momentum all the way to the end.
 

Rixxan

Member
ending spoilers:

i know some people take issue with Sam, citing how they would have preferred more of Sully or Elena, or maybe asking how you can reasonably expect to care about this newly introduced character after 3 full length games with the core group.

To me though, Sam was executed about as perfectly as you could hope. His motivations, especially after Chapter 16, were crystal clear. This man was an orphan who finally found a calling in his life when he discovered his diceased mothers lifes work. I personally found the moment when he was stuck under the beam in Averys burning ship, the one where he says to Nathan, "All i ever wanted to do... was find this treasure with you." pretty spectacularly poignant.

To me, Druckmann and Naughty Dog more than succeeded when it comes to Sam, and he earned a rightful place at the table with the rest of this franchises beloved characters.
 
How can you say that? 14-16 were filled with optional moments with Sam and it is where you really begin to get a sense of what was going on with the pirates. Maybe it wasn't interesting to you, but there was a ton of stuff there.

There were some optional conversations and treasures like the poster I quoted said, but nothing interesting gameplay-wise. I did enjoy the story part at the end of
15
though. Those sections just felt like a slog to me.

Edit: It was mostly cinematic padding. It's okay to have downtime. Chapter
17
or
11's beginning
are examples of how to do it right. 14-16 missed the mark and I'm dreading getting to that section in my second playthrough.
 
This is totally fair. I myself like games that mix up the pace. My issue with the down time in U4 is that it's filled to the brim with bog standard and mostly mindless traversal and bland chit chat. I like that they wanted to give us cool down time inbetween explosions, but wish they'd figured out how to make these in between sections more interesting. Looking at the scenery is nice, but only takes you so far.

Having read all of Neil/Bruce interviews throughout their development of TLoU and in the lead-up to Uncharted 4, I've always seen their approach to UC4 as being one where they were making conscious design decisions as well as narrative preferences that all had their advantage,s but also distinct disadvantages along the way, more so than what we've seen with TLoU or prior UC games, leading up to what they have in their final product.

From the game design and mechanics stand-point, Bruce Straley is a fan of Ueda's design by subtraction, while also being very focused on developing gameplay bits and mechanics that feel true to the character. Granted, sequels almost always break these kind of design processes due to the need to have "additional' mechanics that previous games didn't have.

But by of that design mentality, gamification is not the go-to mentality of how to improve downtime. If anything, he wants to maximise the most of the lean mechanics that exist within what he feels is the arsenal that Nathan Drake would employ.

Eg. Crafting and upgrade are easy to implement mechanics, but from a story & character perspective, it doesn't feel right for Nathan Drake to have those. While the option of making existing mechanics more complex also exist, ultimately the game's principle objective is crafting an experience that serves the character's story, while immersing the player in the feeling of being Nathan Drake, and if the mechanics is too complex, it may serve to hinder the pacing further.

From a story and narrative standpoint... Neil Druckmann has said ever since he joined the project that he doesn't feel the desire or need to top the high-intense set-pieces that was set by UC2/3. If anything, his style of writing and narrative, which focuses on characters, as well as having a sense of groundedness, means that his approach to having high-intense action and stuff are still driven by the primary narrative threads, and by keeping it grounded, there is only so much that you can do while keeping it all tied together with the story that you have crafted.

In many ways, it's actually why I think they'd do well if they were to make an RPG. That way they can focus on mechanics that is of a broader toolset than those of just a action/adventure game expectations.
 

Vuze

Member
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

It's kinda unfortunate that the level design still gives away that a combat sequence is coming up far too often. I actually like the stealth system though, despite the lack of possibility to attract your victims (whistling etc).
 

Binabik15

Member
Got my copy today and the patch says it needs another four hours (it has been downloading for the same time already :/ ).

Is it really needed to start SP without crashes, etc?
 
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