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

Nev

Banned
I just finished it and I totally agree. The pacing was just fine through and through.

I was surprised to see some people complain about the pace, I found it to be one of the best paced games I've ever played. In fact, I thought it was one of the game's biggest virtues, it was absolutely perfect in this regard to me. I guess some people just want "moar gunzzz".
 

Mirrintu

Neo Member
There is more to story than plot and exposition...Uncharted games have always had great character interaction in my opinion. I think the writing as a pre-text to the gameplay is every bit as good as TLoU. I enjoyed the story in the Last of Us, but within its own genre, I didn't find it particularly unpredictable or revelatory. It was the execution. Just as it is in Uncharted.

I agree. TLOU is a fantastic game, but the story isn't exactly original. Some people might prefer just due to preferring the genre itself, and that is fine. The story in Uncharted is basically just a feel good adventure, and some people may not find that incredibly interesting. Also, you can't ignore the fact that zombie stories are extremely popular and people are going to eat that up a lot easier. I actually just started playing TLOU again, and still find I prefer the characters in Uncharted, though not because I think they are better crafted, I just find the lighthearted tone and charisma more enjoyable.

I've just finished Uncharted 4 and was really impressed. It was a little more story based than the other games and had less action, that is true, but overall the experience was extremely enjoyable. There were a couple scenes I probably could have done without, but nothing so tedious as to ruin the game for me. Also the combat scenes and chase scenes were all so amazing they easily make up for anything lacking, in my opinion. It just saddens me this is their last instalment as it is one of my favourite gaming series I've ever played.
 

James93

Member
Currently in chapter 12. Its another great uncharted game with the same issues every uncharted game has had. Average gameplay with pacing all over the place.
 

SomTervo

Member
Last encounter spoilers

Finished the game. Fantastic, even if the last chapters feel a bit stretched and that fucking
swordfight
was soo bad it almost ruined it for me. However, the epilogue more than made up for all.

It was absolutely fine.

I really don't get why people rag on it so much.

Sure, on paper it fell into the "
introduce a new gameplay mechanic at the 11th hour" trap,
but in practice it was so fucking simple and they explained it so well that it was absolutely fine.

I would have preferred something else, but it was still fine. Good in some ways. So fucking dramatic.
 
Just finished it.

Really enjoyed it. I would have to say this game as perhaps the best written characters..certainly in it's genre. i have ever played. The relationship between Nate, Sam and Elena is outstanding. They all have motives and have issues tugging at them. They are fully realised human beings with emotions, confliction and a sense of their own worth. The unfolding narrative between
Nate and Elena
i thought was mighty impressive. It is not something i have really seen in a Voice acted game before, or done this well at least. They felt like real people. The quieter moments i enjoyed because it was genuinely interesting and gave you insight into the characters. There was no filler in there.

What impressed me most was the 'game' story revolved around the story between Nate, Sam and Elena. The story of Avery was a side show, which also allowed the mystery of Avery, and the unravelling of it to breathe and be interesting. Avery story felt more like Time Team In that the later chapters it felt as though you were discovering his story which i really appreciated.

The game mechanics were fun as ever, although starting to feel a bit old, but the vista's and environments were genuinely jaw dropping. The game really needed it's story, it elevates what is becoming old and slightly stale (but fun nevertheless) gameplay and without it i wouldn't care as much as i do for this game.
 

LiK

Member
The audio glitches really start getting bad in the back end of the game.

i didn't encounter any until i was trying to do an encounter for a trophy last night and the two guards weren't having their convo and were just standing there. never played for me. seemed to happen after the latest patch.

when i was playing with 1.02 patch, i had zero issues.
 

Thrakier

Member
I'm just watching the game, not playing it, since I don't own a PS4. Huge fan of UC 1-3 though. Anyway, the murder dissonance gets worse and worse the more likeable and concrete the characters get.

In UC1, Drake was just that adventure thief guy, no he's a likeable husband a potential father. And he's running through africa snapping necks left and right with is old sidekick Sully stating that "I'm really enjoying myself". Wow.

I mean, if he's going back to Elena, do you guys think that she's thinking about how many necks the guy snapped she is hugging right now? Seems so weird.
 
Finished it

I'm getting serious MGS4 vibes from this entire experience. UC4 felt far more interested in being a movie than a video game. This simple treasure hunting narrative didn't need to be 15 hours long. Most of that 15 hours was a bunch of mechanically uninteresting climbing and exploration.

The slowly paced moments in The Last of Us felt far more satisfying. UC4's just felt over-indulgent most of the time. The game needed to get to the point instead of wasting my damn time.
 

SomTervo

Member
Thoughts on UC4:

Issues:

Backward Steps - No more grenade throwing/awful hand to hand combat. Removing the dodge button didn't fix the issues with UC3's melee, it just made it more boring. It's pure button mashing now (only 1 button does anything and rolling to dodge looks stupid). Hell, I think I preferred UC1's bizarre system to this. This makes the 3 forced melee encounters (2 against the villains, 1 arena one) not even up to par of the opening fist-fight of UC3.

No grenade throwback is a good thing

And the hand to hand is as good as Uncharted 2's (it's literally the same system with rolling to dodge added) and infinitely better than Uncharted 3's. The Arkham system didn't work in Uncharted 3. The combat was trivial and it was ridiculous that Drake could beat off 10 people in a fight. Plus 90% of the encounter design in UC3 was very poor and combat almost never got a chance to shine because you'd be shot from lots of ridiculous angles while doing so.

For it's hand-to-hand, Uncharted 4 has the best animations, the most responsive controls, the most options (the leap takedown, the rope takedown), the roll-to-dodge thing, and the mixing it up with NPCs. Honestly, the
prison
arena fight alone is infinitely better than any single fight in Uncharted 3.

Pacing - People are right. It's a longer game with less combat encounters and the platforming just isn't engaging enough. What's more frustrating is that the systems they added (the rope/pick) are great and add much needed interactive elements. But they're barely used at all. The one new system which is used a lot (sliding) is done so too much and just looks weird in spots.

It's a long game – I'd bet money that there are more good platforming parts than you remember. I'm replaying the game now and there's way more content/good platforming than I remember after my first playthrough.

Lack of Set-pieces - As far as I'm concerned, there are only 2 set-pieces in this game and we've all seen the first major one via that E3 demo. The second is nowhere near as dynamic and I was frankly a little disappointed. I know that they wanted to ground the game and make it more relatable as some of UC3's stuff would have been hard to beat without going too far into the realm of the ridiculous, but it's a shame to not see anything that even equated to that stuff. The ship and burning chateau will be my favourite UC moments apparently. Heck, UC3 even had a better ship graveyard - shocked to see UC4 fail to combine traversal and combat in such an inventive way, outside of the rope points in combat areas.
[/LIST]

Having more and more ridiculous set pieces would have compromised the game a lot, I think. It's already hard to believe Nate is doing half this shit when it looks so real, and add in more of those and it would just be too unrealistic.

Also, there are probably 4-5 more 'set pieces' than you've mentioned there. As I said, they are toned down a bit, slightly smaller scale but way more realistic and 'intimate'. I really appreciated that.

E.g. [lots of set piece spoilers]
when the car slips off the cliff, the chamber in Scotland collapsing while you tried to clamber back up, the entire Libertalia colony + tower falling to pieces while you tried to make a break for it and almost falling off several times, the stones in Libertalia collapsing after you get the piton,
and a couple of others I can't remember. Plenty of great set-pieces, although yes, only one to top Uncharted 3's highs, but Uncharted 3 with these graphics would be near-impossible to get behind, there would be such a disconnect between his actions and the realistic graphics.

So besides your list of negatives, was there anything you liked about the game?

Is it just me? The encounter everyone is trashing at the end of the game I loved. Playing in normal though. I was swinging like Tarzan.

Samsies

With bullet time active this is almost like a Max Payne 4. Damn Rockstar get on this. Or let Remedy do it like they offered.

Wait, what? Remedy offered to do Max Payne 4?
 
I was surprised to see some people complain about the pace, I found it to be one of the best paced games I've ever played. In fact, I thought it was one of the game's biggest virtues, it was absolutely perfect in this regard to me. I guess some people just want "moar gunzzz".
I think people are harping on the part in jungle where you gotta keep doing the same thing over and over again yeah it's frustrating but let's be honest there's an army after you so I'm pretty sure you'd be running into them the whole time lol
 

SomTervo

Member
Finished it

I'm getting serious MGS4 vibes from this entire experience. UC4 felt far more interested in being a movie than a video game. This simple treasure hunting narrative didn't need to be 15 hours long. Most of that 15 hours was a bunch of mechanically uninteresting climbing and exploration.

The slowly paced moments in The Last of Us felt far more satisfying. UC4's just felt over-indulgent most of the time. The game needed to get to the point instead of wasting my damn time.

Uncharted 4 still has something like a 3:1 gameplay:cutscene ratio, against MGS4's heinous 1:2 gameplay:cutscene ratio (it's even worse than that by my memory, too).

You spent a lot more time playing Uncharted 4 than watching it, even if it might not feel like that sometimes. The same is not true of MGS4.
 
Don't take this as a indicator of how I feel about the game, I love it. I just don't have a big gaming budget right now.

Why the hell is the trade in value for this game only $15 at BestBuy? Other popular games you'll get like $40 or more within the first week.
 

SomTervo

Member
I agree. TLOU is a fantastic game, but the story isn't exactly original.

Nothing about TLoU or Uncharted 4 is original, at all. They have completely unoriginal stories.

That doesn't stop them being masterpieces. Originality should never, never be a metric for storytelling quality.

Added to that point, I feel like this is the first time I've seen video game characters act. That may sound weird but I feel like there's so much that can be drawn from the performances aside from how lines are delivered. ND has done a fantastic job with facial expressions and body language in general.

TLoU had this, too, to the same masterful extent. But I think there is actually more drama and intensity in Uncharted 4 in terms of [no spoilers] betrayals and disagreements, and North's acting specifically is just brilliant on this.

You high son.

Uncharted 2 is a great shooter. Amazing level/encounter/sandbox design, especially on Crushing.

1 and 3 are great games but larrydavid.gif shooters
 

LiK

Member
Damn, you guys reminded me there's no ability to toss grenades back. I dunno why they took that out from UC3. kinda bizarre.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
Why the hell is the trade in value for this game only $15 at BestBuy? Other popular games you'll get like $40 or more within the first week.

Past Uncharted games were probably traded in en masse after players completed the campaign, perhaps they're suspecting the same will happen here.
 
Uncharted 4 still has something like a 3:1 gameplay:cutscene ratio, against MGS4's heinous 1:2 gameplay:cutscene ratio (it's even worse than that by my memory, too).

You spent a lot more time playing Uncharted 4 than watching it, even if it might not feel like that sometimes. The same is not true of MGS4.

I don't really consider holding up on the stick and occasionally hitting X to be engaging gameplay. I might be playing it more, but it still feels uninvolving the majority of the time. UC4 spends insane amounts of time on fleshing out it's narrative in over-indulgent story sequences...just like MGS4. Seriously, this game did not need to be 15 hours long.
 

Javin98

Banned
Damn, you guys reminded me there's no ability to toss grenades back. I dunno why they took that out from UC3. kinda bizarre.
Probably because they wanted to make grenades frightening again. I don't know about you guys but I thought grenades were terrifying in this game. The sound of the explosion is just superb and when you are within the blast radius, Nate gets stunned and gunned down easily.

Also, I wonder if the people complaining Uncharted 4 is too long are the same people who complained that The Order was too short.
 

LiK

Member
Probably because they wanted to make grenades frightening again. I don't know about you guys but I thought grenades were terrifying in this game. The sound of the explosion is just superb and when you are within the blast radius, Nate gets stunned and gunned down easily.

Also, I wonder if the people complaining Uncharted 4 is too long are the same people who complained that The Order was too short.

I thought they were still a big threat even if you can toss it back because you need to grab it during a specific timing to do it. Was pretty good and I liked how random you can toss it away in panic. Now you just need to roll away and it's not a big issue. Never died to grenades in this game compared to the previous ones.
 

Javin98

Banned
I thought they were still a big threat even if you can toss it back because you need to grab it during a specific timing to do it. Was pretty good and I liked how random you can toss it away in panic. Now you just need to roll away and it's not a big issue. Never died to grenades in this game compared to the previous ones.
I never died to grenades either, but Nate getting stunned from the blast that usually gets me killed. Also, the grenade throwback mechanics in Uncharted 3 were very simple.
 

dalin80

Banned
Not being able to throw back grenades combined with the bad guys ability to throw them pixel perfect everytime does get very frustrating. I can see why they do it, to stop the player safe cover camping but it feels like a step backwards.
 

SomTervo

Member
I don't really consider holding up on the stick and occasionally hitting X to be engaging gameplay. I might be playing it more, but it still feels uninvolving the majority of the time. UC4 spends insane amounts of time on fleshing out it's narrative in over-indulgent story sequences...just like MGS4. Seriously, this game did not need to be 15 hours long.

Re the phrase 'over-indulgent': Every single narrative sequence was important to the message they were trying to convey. The message about Nate's life, about his decisions, about the characters and how they were coming to terms with the end of their journey. As well as filling in the plot (re the Madagasar job, about Nate's new life, about Sam's motives and their backstory) so that it wouldn't have any holes. I can't think of (m)any parts of the story you could remove without impacting some bit of character development in a big way.

MGS4? Drebin can go. Johnny can go. Act 3 can go in a oner except the last part, which was still done fucking shit, so it should go too anyway. Sonny can go. All of the briefing/in-between bits can go. Hours and hours and hours of the game can be sliced and it wouldn't impact shit. And even worse, the gameplay was great but, Act 1 and 2 besides, took a complete back-seat. Act 5 took like 30 minutes to complete, boss battle notwithstanding. They completely threw hours and hours of sublime gameplay under a bus to service a really flawed and mainly badly written narrative. Where Uncharted 4 moves towards a more realistic structure of hours and hours of exploration/travel with gunfights only where it made sense in the context, and a roughly similar playtime to MGS4 to boot.

Re platforming: While the platforming was straightforward, after Scotland Uncharted 4 gives you more and more climbing routes to get from A to B. There are a couple of parts where I climbed through an area then when I stopped and looked back I saw a huge alternate path I missed entirely. Even though it's mechanically simple it's great that they added this padding and space to let you explore more.

Plus, I'm replaying it right now on Crushing to get all the treasures, and treasure hunting legit becomes actually fun in this. There are so many nooks and crannies to explore and places to go. You're often solving little puzzles to get to a piece of treasure, almost like an Arkham game for a Riddler trophy. It's easy to miss 9/10 of those.

Damn, you guys reminded me there's no ability to toss grenades back. I dunno why they took that out from UC3. kinda bizarre.

Because it meant you could sit in cover and just throw grenades back until the end of time, popping and shooting.

Removing it meant you had to move around and, you know, play Nathan Drake
 
Not being able to throw back grenades combined with the bad guys ability to throw them pixel perfect everytime does get very frustrating. I can see why they do it, to stop the player safe cover camping but it feels like a step backwards.

yeah i didn't like how they took that away
 
Too my rant the other night, It was because my TV was not on game mode and was causing a delay lol.
No wonder I could not hit shit :(

Because it meant you could sit in cover and just throw grenades back until the end of time, popping and shooting.

Removing it meant you had to move around and, you know, play Nathan Drake

But when most the cover breaks down in this game it kind of counters that, and the AI been aggressive and charging you helps that.
Should of left it in.
 

Audioboxer

Member
Not being able to throw back grenades combined with the bad guys ability to throw them pixel perfect everytime does get very frustrating. I can see why they do it, to stop the player safe cover camping but it feels like a step backwards.

On normal difficulty the bad guys missed me a LOT. Or at least the grenade was slightly behind me so not instant kill lol.

Now those grenade launcher bastards! Although it's glorious when you pickup the grenade launcher.
 

Keihart

Member
Haven't seen anyone mention it but there is a lot of use of color and climate to acentuate the mood.

My favorite example is when drakes gets marroned and the rain tries to show how horrible the situation is and that something is coming then with sam in libertalia goes from sunny to cloudy and becomes slowly less saturated and the when Elena saves you is all sunny and colorful, i though it was a pretty powerful moment.

I wanna play it again already, thank ND for encounter select being a thing.

Edit: Also those explosions, i know they probably are using some 2d trick , bu damn they look good. Using the RPG was a blast.
 

LiK

Member
Because it meant you could sit in cover and just throw grenades back until the end of time, popping and shooting.

Removing it meant you had to move around and, you know, play Nathan Drake

What do you mean "play Nathan Drake? And why are you emphasizing it with italics? Lol

You can basically just roll away from a grenade and then run right back into the same cover and keep shooting. This is easily observed in those narrow levels. UC4 is much more open and more flexible so there's no reason to take away that mechanic. You can play super stealthy if you want but that's not my playstyle for the UC games.
 

SomTervo

Member
But when most the cover breaks down in this game it kind of counters that, and the AI been aggressive and charging you helps that.
Should have left it in.

FTFY

Maybe. Cover doesn't always break, though. I think no-throw-back meant that you had to move faster. With throwback you still could have made way too much space for you to sit behind cover.

Also I don't think it's very intuitive for new players. I remember that, even as an experienced Uncharted player, getting a little triangle icon on-screen while you were in the thick of a gunfight often overwhelmed me rather than helping me.

Haven't seen anyone mention it but there is a lot of use of color and climate to acentuate the mood.

My favorite example is when drakes gets marroned and the rain tries to show how horrible the situation is and that something is coming then with sam in libertalia goes from sunny to cloudy and becomes slowly less saturated and the when Elena saves you is all sunny and colorful, i though it was a pretty powerful moment.

I wanna play it again already, thank ND for encounter select being a thing.

The
'rain when you arrive in Libertalia' thing felt forced and pretty bog-standard
, but well said about the rest of it. I never really thought about that, how it clears up more and more.

What do you mean "play Nathan Drake? And why are you emphasizing it with italics? Lol

You can basically just roll away from a grenade and then run right back into the same cover and keep shooting. This is easily observed in those narrow levels. UC4 is much more open and more flexible so there's no reason to take away that mechanic. You can play super stealthy if you want but that's not my playstyle for the UC games.

Um, because I'm emphasising that? Using italics to emphasise things, which is what they were invented for?

"Play Nathan Drake" as in play a swashbuckling, on-the-move, improvisational guy who is a master of scrappy gunfights and combat. With a grenade throwback, you can sit there and throw and throw and throw while taking it slow and playing it like Gears of War. Yes, cover often crumbles, but most of the time you would be free to just sit there. With no grenade-throwback, you have to move out of cover and jump/roll/punch/blindfire/grenade, you have to just start doing shit. Like Nathan Drake would.

It was a carefully considered decision on Naughty Dog's part. They probably tested the game a lot with grenade throwback in and decided it wasn't an improvement.
 

Mirrintu

Neo Member
Nothing about TLoU or Uncharted 4 is original, at all. They have completely unoriginal stories.

That doesn't stop them being masterpieces. Originality should never, never be a metric for storytelling quality.

My comment was regarding someone saying the Uncharted story was inferior to TLAO because it was unoriginal, when in actuality they both are. I agree that it does not make them bad stories. In fact I went on to say how much I enjoy them. They are certainly not masterpieces story-wise, but they are solidly entertaining and expertly executed.

Damn, you guys reminded me there's no ability to toss grenades back. I dunno why they took that out from UC3. kinda bizarre.

I agree, I was surprised that they took that aspect of the game out, since it was such a great addition to the third game. But then again they added in a lot of very cool new gameplay maneuvers that more than make up for it.
 
Re the phrase 'over-indulgent': Every single narrative sequence was important to the message they were trying to convey. The message about Nate's life, about his decisions, about the characters and how they were coming to terms with the end of their journey. As well as filling in the plot (re the Madagasar job, about Nate's new life, about Sam's motives and their backstory) so that it wouldn't have any holes. I can't think of (m)any parts of the story you could remove without impacting some bit of character development in a big way.

Thanks for putting into words what i have been thinking. I thought ND did a super job with this. Everything story wise was done for a reason. In C16 , Having Nate and Sam talk
as teenagers about archaeology about the items in the old lady house was impressive, but using their mothers journal as justification and the reason for Sam's late life motives was really well done. Then for Cassie to find the same journal in the epilogue was great to see. The thought and use of recurring motives and themes was really well done.
 
Probably because they wanted to make grenades frightening again. I don't know about you guys but I thought grenades were terrifying in this game. The sound of the explosion is just superb and when you are within the blast radius, Nate gets stunned and gunned down easily.

Also, I wonder if the people complaining Uncharted 4 is too long are the same people who complained that The Order was too short.

Grenades scare the crap out of me in this game, more than any other Uncharted. It blows your cover away and knocks you around depending on explosion proximity.
 

Catdaddy

Member
Did they disable vid capture during some parts? I was trying to capture that epic Jeep/Armored Truck sequence and it would not record, I made sure with wasn’t during a cutscene and no matter how many times I tried to capture it wouldn’t take. During the next chapter it was working again.
 
Re the phrase 'over-indulgent': Every single narrative sequence was important to the message they were trying to convey. The message about Nate's life, about his decisions, about the characters and how they were coming to terms with the end of their journey. As well as filling in the plot (re the Madagasar job, about Nate's new life, about Sam's motives and their backstory) so that it wouldn't have any holes. I can't think of (m)any parts of the story you could remove without impacting some bit of character development in a big way.

MGS4? Drebin can go. Johnny can go. Act 3 can go in a oner except the last part, which was still done fucking shit, so it should go too anyway. Sonny can go. All of the briefing/in-between bits can go. Hours and hours and hours of the game can be sliced and it wouldn't impact shit.

Re platforming: While the platforming was straightforward, after Scotland Uncharted 4 gives you more and more climbing routes to get from A to B. There are a couple of parts where I climbed through an area then when I stopped and looked back I saw a huge alternate path I missed entirely. Even though it's mechanically simple it's great that they added this padding and space to let you explore more.

I didn't say that the story sequences weren't important, it's just that the game takes fucking forever in trying to convey them. Every sequence just feels drawn out and has a plodding pace for no good reason.

I'll just say, I don't care at all about the exploration in these Uncharted games. I'm just here to experience the story. I didn't get any satisfaction in finding hidden treasures. That stuff is just a pointless distraction that rewards you with basically nothing.
 
Just played the second part of E3 demo last night.... MY GOD!!!! WTF. I didn't watch the second part and lawd have mercy that might be one of the most memorable moments I've played in games. That was seriously incredible. I wish I could have done it in go without dying since it looked so amazing.. everything I was doing looked so amazing. Wow...

I had to be out of town and haven't been able to binge play this weekend and finish it. The idea of releasing games on Tuesdays instead of Fridays is beyond moronic by the way, the only day it would be worse is Monday.

I removed the awful yellow outline on characters right off the bat (recognize meter?), the game looks more realistic that way and doesn't break immersion. I'd recommend it to everyone.
 

nib95

Banned
The only thing that'll make me feel less bad about ND dropping Uncharted is a buddy cop Sci Fi drama adventure a la Savage Starlight. I can't even begin to imagine ND's take on Sci Fi, with amazing bustling futuristic cities, some grimy and dark a la blade runner, others glistening and beautiful, then all the alien planets etc. Do it ND. Do it.
 

LiK

Member
Grenades scare the crap out of me in this game, more than any other Uncharted. It blows your cover away and knocks you around depending on explosion proximity.

The explosions are much bigger too compared to the older games. altho I find the grenade launchers much more of an issue cuz those assholes can keep shooting them from a distance.
 

Audioboxer

Member
I've said it before but I'll say it again a PS Neo patch will literally melt my face.

Some of the graphics in this are just flat out insane.
 

LiK

Member
I've said it before but I'll say it again a PS Neo patch will literally melt my face.

Some of the graphics in this are just flat out insane.

After playing this, other games just don't compare. Altho I'm gonna play R&C soon and I hear that's another beautiful game.
 
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