Don't know, not a fan of the motion blur that causes visual artifacts when you move the camera fast. But it's better than what The Order used which made the screen turn into mud the millisecond you started to pan around. Here at least details don't immediately disappear, still took a few chapters to get used to it and I wish I could turn it off completely and instead get more 'stutter'.
I wish every 30FPS game had this quality motion blur and control responsiveness, but I'm all for disabling any effects that people want to. Collection was good with that, maybe they'll patch the switch for the motion blue here as well.
definitely didn'l look washed out for me at all. There were places where the colors and contrast would really pop. There's a location after that where I thought some of the indoor scenes didn't look so hot, but you spend only a few minutes there. But maybe adjust the brightness or contrast on your TV until you're happy with it, specifically for this game, then revert back when you finish.
I beat the game last night. Just not that good. I felt bored most of the time, to be honest. That article seemed very correct to me, about this game feeling like a walking/climbing simulator. I guess I'm just done with the series. U3 and U4 just weren't that fun for me, while U1 and U2 were probably both in my top 10 last gen.
The quality of the writing has caught up to and is beyond that of The Last Of Us, IMO. TLOU felt pretty standard fare, for me, while this story feels much more layered which more interesting themes...maybe it's just more appealing. I've never felt really impressed with Naughty Dog's writing until this game, except for maybe the last third of TLOU. Loving it.
Tuesday, May 10th, Uncharted 4 is released to astounding reviews. The next "blockbuster hit" with GOTY portential. Considered a technical marvel/powerhouse...
it is...
Friday, May 13th, Doom is released without reviews and GAF word of mouth spreads like wildfire that the game is great. Possible GOTY. The game is good...
it is...
Monday, May 16th, Uncharted 4 story is being dissected and over analyzed. Story beats and pacing are being criticized, hence overshadowing the other many accomplishments this game has achieved.
Doom is still fun...
GOTY!!
Congrats GAF, you've gone from Uncharted to Doom as your GOTY in less than a week...
I only kid. They're both great games. But lets be honest Uncharted is too freaking great.
definitely didn'l look washed out for me at all. There were places where the colors and contrast would really pop. There's a location after that where I thought some of the indoor scenes didn't look so hot, but you spend only a few minutes there. But maybe adjust the brightness or contrast on your TV until you're happy with it, specifically for this game, then revert back when you finish.
I am surprised this game is getting so much criticism in the story and pacing when TLoU didn't.
Pacing takes a massive nose dive after
Tess dies right until you get to play as Ellie.
Literally that entire section contains many hours of nothingness..Nothing happens in the story and all the characters you meet are inconsequential characters.
Sam from TLOU, although he died, had the purpose in telling a story. A story about how other good people (unlike Joel) are trying to survive this world and get fucked anyway. And it paints the despair of people having to choose to kill their infected loved ones to protect themselves. Bill was also important and interesting, not just because he was a homosexual.
I am surprised this game is getting so much criticism in the story and pacing when TLoU didn't.
Pacing takes a massive nose dive after
Tess dies right until you get to play as Ellie.
Literally that entire section contains many hours of nothingness..Nothing happens in the story and all the characters you meet are inconsequential characters.
I mean, you were talking about it being a plot hole that the family of mercenaries haven't tracked down to kill Nate as if that's relevant at all to what UC4 Is trying to do with its story. That's some 'overanalysis' from my POV.
Of course your criticism is valid because it's mostly your opinion and that's awesome and good for discussion.
UC4, like everything Naughty Dog does is held to a much higher standard than almost any other game's narrative. Not every game's story is broken down minute to minute like this one is.
If you usually spend this much time critiquing all the releases you play to the same degree as you have done with this game, I applaud your contributions.
Just beat the game, and I have to say that I am massively disappointed. The two things I absolutely loved about the previous three games where a) the light, breezy tone that didn't take itself particularly seriously and b) the gunfighting. This game had a completely different tone, and very little combat relative to any of the other titles. This is just my impression, but I'd be surprised if there was even one fifth the combat in this game as there was in U3, for example.
The graphics are gorgeous, the characters are well-developed, and story is solid, so it's not like it's not a good game. It's just really not a good Uncharted game.
Tuesday, May 10th, Uncharted 4 is released to astounding reviews. The next "blockbuster hit" with GOTY portential. Considered a technical marvel/powerhouse...
it is...
Friday, May 13th, Doom is released without reviews and GAF word of mouth spreads like wildfire that the game is great. Possible GOTY. The game is good...
it is...
Monday, May 16th, Uncharted 4 story is being dissected and over analyzed. Story beats and pacing are being criticized, hence overshadowing the other many accomplishments this game has achieved.
Doom is still fun...
GOTY!!
Congrats GAF, you've gone from Uncharted to Doom as your GOTY in less than a week...
I only kid. They're both great games. But lets be honest Uncharted is too freaking great.
Good for you ( I think ? ) . I really don't like platforms but that does not make Tropical Freeze a bad game ( it's a very good one ). It's just not for me. Uncharted 4 is not a perfect game , it has his flaws ( like 99,9999999% of games) but is really well made.
Finished the game over the weekend. Overall, it was good. Really like the ending, felt satisfied with it. I agree with the pacing comments, though. Game had its moments, but never reached the level I was expecting it to. If they ever revisit this franchise, it needs an overhaul for sure, as the mechanics need updated.
UC4, like everything Naughty Dog does is held to a much higher standard than almost any other game's narrative. Not every game's story is broken down minute to minute like this one is.
Good for you ( I think ? ) . I really don't like platforms but that does not make Tropical Freeze a bad game ( it's a very good one ). It's just not for me. Uncharted 4 is not a perfect game , it has his flaws ( like 99,9999999% of games) but is really well made.
Finished my second playthrough. It is a good game, just not as great as I expected.(8/10) I thought this would be a contender for my personal GOTY, but DS3 trounces it handily.
---
Although chapter 21 was a clear misfire, I do think that
chapter 22 was great. The boss battle felt like a music rhythm game and is arguably the best one of the series. Love his taunts and it's so fitting thematically.
The only thing that fell flat for me was that
song when you're swimming away with Sam. Sure it was okay in the context of the game, but it didn't feel like the 'right' final song for the last Uncharted. Luckily the cutscene at the end was pretty good
and the
epilogue
is still awesome. Time to check out multiplayer and I await the DLC.
This game kinda reminds me of Arkham Knight. It has plenty of things going for it, but they all just didn't come together in the right manner. Uncharted 4 is better than Arkham Knight, but it gives me that same feeling of wasted potential.
Edit: Also think hard is the ideal difficulty with moderate being too easy
i replayed it in the collection before UC4 came out and i had forgotten how quickly you fall in love with the characters right from the start. the chemistry was already there.
Sam from TLOU, although he died, had the purpose in telling a story. A story about how other good people (unlike Joel) are trying to survive this world and get fucked anyway. And it paints the despair of people having to choose to kill their infected loved ones to protect themselves. Bill was also important and interesting, not just because he was a homosexual.
Why are you comparing those two games outside of them being made by the same company? They have completely different aims.
As for the lack of 'depth', speak for yourself. As someone who got married in the last year and was with the same person for years prior there is an amazing amount of truth and pathos in so many scenes in this game. A lot of this stuff hit me hard.
What other action blockbuster does things like explore a turbulent marriage, explain and explore an entire sibling relationship and have a protagonist that finally grows up and improves as a human being over the course of a single game?
Comparing TLOU and UC4 is difficult because one game comes with no baggage whereas the other is living down a trilogy of games and trying to wrap up an entire series. It has a lot of heavy lifting to do.
A Thief's End does the previous games justice, enhances them by giving depth to its protagonist by showing and explaining who he is, why he has lived this life and how that has affected the people he cares about. That's an achievement.
I wish people would stop being dismissive of the narrative or characters just because it's not the same as a very different game just because it was made by the same studio.
ND improved almost everything : gunplay, animations, IA , level design , stealth ... It has pacing issues , especially in the beginning but that is not a deal breaker, at least for me.
ND improved almost everything : gunplay, animations, IA , level design , stealth ... It has pacing issues , especially in the beginning but that is not a deal breaker, at least for me.
Holy shit at the visuals in that Madagascan market town. Couldn't stop walking around and taking shots. The lighting and use of colour in this game are so good.
Overall maybe, but the chase and convoy sequence were better, more dynamic and engaging than any of the past games. It's a shame they don't really attempt to match that at any other point in the game.
I mean, you were talking about it being a plot hole that the family of mercenaries haven't tracked down to kill Nate as if that's relevant at all to what UC4 Is trying to do with its story. That's some 'overanalysis' from my POV.
Hmm well that was like 1-2 days ago, not what anyone was talking about right now, and it's not so much a plot hole so much as a niggling, obvious possibility that this game world is immune to (kind of like being arrested for destroying a city lol).
Of course your criticism is valid because it's mostly your opinion and that's awesome and good for discussion.
UC4, like everything Naughty Dog does is held to a much higher standard than almost any other game's narrative. Not every game's story is broken down minute to minute like this one is.
If you usually spend this much time critiquing all the releases you play to the same degree as you have done with this game, I applaud your contributions.
Oh I don't! And I don't have to. I don't care about as many franchises as I do this one. I also don't think all other games try with their story as much as this one. So it's obvious for me to pick at it. I also discussed TLOU ad nauseum.
I actually criticize/complain the most detailed about games I enjoy the most. This game has been all I've played for the past 2 weeks. Lol. Before that it was DS3 (which admittedly I don't understand SHIT about its story) and I did my fair share of complaining about that too (like how vague and complicated the NPC quests are).
ND improved almost everything : gunplay, animations, IA , level design , stealth ... It has pacing issues , especially in the beginning but that is not a deal breaker, at least for me.
This is an interesting one that I haven't made up my mind on yet. On one hand, you're clearly right that this game has a more modern and robust stealth system than any of the previous games. U1 didn't have stealth to any meaningful degree (aside from a handful of enemies who you could walk up on while their backs were turned), and even in U2 and U3 it was pretty clearly a second-order mechanic to be used in specific spots. In U4, you can stealth your way through most of the fights in the first two thirds or so of the game, and it gives the player a lot more freedom in how they choose to approach a given encounter.
On the other hand, I frequently found myself thinking "If I wanted to play Far Cry, I'd just pop in Far Cry." There were a few spots where I deliberately came in guns blazing because I felt like I was missing out on the traditional Uncharted shootouts. This just wasn't what I was expecting or particularly looking for, I think.
I am sending you a mother fucking friend request. lol
The worst example of this comes in Chapter 16 when you have just gone through a setpiece after literally hours of walking. Just when you think the game is going to pick up they literally stop you on your tracks and have you play a half an hour long chapter where you do absolutely nothing but press triangle every now and then. it's bizarre.
Oh, yeah. I knew there was another one in the middle I forgot about. The whole middle of the game is chalk full of this so it's hard to remember where they fall in the game. And yeah, that one was pretty boring and frustrating, too.
The other one that stood out to me is...I think 12 into 13?
The boat chapter on the island. Again, stand alone, I'm fine with this. It happens right after the most high octane setpiece in the entire game, and has similar things that you mention (Sam & Nate character moments) though it perhaps lasts overly long with the sheer amount of climbing and crate pushing. But what gets me is how this mirrors UC2, and what they did differently--the opening setpiece. Once you solve some puzzles and get back outside on the island, you clearly notice the storm brewing. It's a cool moment that signals to the player that it's going to lead into the boat segment the game opened with.
However...it skips it. After this slow chapter that builds up, you are thrust into 13. Marooned. On a rainy island, slowly walking for awhile. Then climbing, meeting up with sam, etc. It's VERY slow and follows an already slow chapter, actually playing that setpiece at the start and covering it with a few quick flashes in a cutscene felt like it was missing in a spot where it was sorely needed.
UC2 opens with you climbing a train, without telling what happened to get here. Once you get the scene with Elena picking you up in the jeep and jump to the train ingame, the player KNOWS this is going to end poorly, but get to see it all unfold. Then they play a shortened version of the intro. It was much more effectively done, as opposed to the UC4 handling.
This is the type of stuff people talking about the pacing are talking about. It's not like our hands are shaking after 5 minutes of not killing someone.
I hated how it skipped over it. It really bothered me Sure, I knew what was coming and all, but it just seemed a weird way to do it. Like, "you already saw this so let's skip". It's so weird, because it's one of the few examples where ND actually utilized editing but they utilized it to edit out the interesting bits. Kind of hilarious if you think about it.
Does it really need to be explained that it's perfectly reasonable to compare any two things to a certain extent? College essays are founded on the backbone of comparing two different things. Different philosophers, different political candidates, different solutions for designing a technology, different books or movies, why is there always this arbitrary mind block on people's minds for comparing TLOU and the Uncharted series as if they're immune from each other? Besides them being by the same team, the list of similar features to compare is incredibly long.
As for the lack of 'depth', speak for yourself. As someone who got married in the last year and was with the same person for years prior there is an amazing amount of truth and pathos in so many scenes in this game. A lot of this stuff hit me hard.
Yes but none of it is particularly multi-dimensional or complex in character compared to TLOU. It would have been nice to end Uncharted and say I have any clue as to Nate's personality other than he likes treasure and one-liners and Elena/Sully. It's perfectly arguable to say we learned more about Joel and Ellie in one game and DLC than we have about these characters in 4 games, and that they have more flaws and insecurities and strengths and humanity to them than Drake started to scratch the surface in U3 and U4. I could write a shit ton of examples but I'm on my phone and want to jump into multiplayer lol.
What other action blockbuster does things like explore a turbulent marriage, explain and explore an entire sibling relationship and have a protagonist that finally grows up and improves as a human being over the course of a single game?
Lmao, we did almost exactly that in TLOU (except the marriage is interchangeable for a father dynamic that was lost and regained).
Comparing TLOU and UC4 is difficult because one game comes with no baggage whereas the other is living down a trilogy of games and trying to wrap up an entire series. It has a lot of heavy lifting to do.
A Thief's End does the previous games justice, enhances them by giving depth to its protagonist by showing and explaining who he is, why he has lived this life and how that has affected the people he cares about. That's an achievement.
I wish people would stop being dismissive of the narrative or characters just because it's not the same as a very different game just because it was made by the same studio.
I don't dismiss it because it's different. I criticize it because, regardless of being tied down by prequels, the story was not as ambitious or ambitiously-executed as TLOU. It was very safe. Especially the surface-level exposition of the traditional villains.
Btw safe doesn't mean the same as predictable. The story was very simple and straightforward compared to what they COULD have done.
This is just a personal "wish they had done this," but I liked how TLOU had competing plot parties. You had evil civilians, the government, good civilians, and the zombies all interacting together and having competing motivations and fears. This game could have taken that writing complexity and incorporated something like having more characters involved and properly expositioned(?). Instead it was just Nadine/Rafe vs the Drake gang in a very linear plot path.
I can't think of anything from the previous three gamed that was as impressive as the jeep level they showed in the E3 video. Even if that's the only thing in the game like that (which I don't know), it's the best.
Just beat the game and I have a lot of thoughts on it. I want to say first that watching my friend play Uncharted 1 on his PS3 back in the day is what made me get my first job and purchase a PS3. I have all three games platinumed so I really do love this franchise, so I think what I am about to say may be the result of me just being over critical because I love the franchise so much, but I am pretty "meh" on this game. The game is beautiful, extremely well put together and enjoyable, but I have a lot of problems with it.
First let me get what I liked out of the way.
-Graphics, game is beautiful.
-The
Crash
easter egg was fantastic
-Epilogue was fantastic
-The game has a lot less combat sections and far more "adventuring" which I actually prefer (reasons why i'll get to in a bit).
-Music is the best in the franchise. I've never been big on uncharted's Music tbh and I still don't think this games music is anything to write home about, but it'sdefinitly better than the music in any of it's predecessors imo.
-Rope was fun
Now what I disliked
-
No Chloe
-
No supernatural enemies at the end
-Shitty final boss (but then again it wouldn't be an uncharted game without it).
-Not that much globe trotting, and the little bit of it you do, is mostly to not very interesting locals. You spend far too much time on that damn island.
- Aside from the
car chase in Madagascar
the set pieces are a huge step down from previous games imo.
Now for my two biggest grips, the story and combat.
First the story. It felt super phoned in, and familer. Another person from Drake's past shows up, a rich douche and a mercenary leader with an infinite army are the antagonists, etc.. The story really felt lazy when it really shouldn't have had for this serie's final outing, I was excited at the butcher of Panama, and was super interested to see how he'd fit into the dynamic but
it ended up being a lie and squandered potential
. Also Sam was a very meh character. He wasn't all that interesting and the whole time I was with him, I kept wishing he was Chloe, or Sully, or Elana. Overall the story did not impress me at all, and I think it might be tied with U3 as being my least favorite.
Now my biggest issue with the game is the Combat. Oh where do I start. This is easily my least favorite aspect of the game and imo the worst combat in the franchise. Now I played it on hard my first time through so it may be a completely different experience on the easier diffulties, but there's so many odd changes that honestly feel like a regression. The list of things I didn't like
1)Switching shoulders while aiming is done by pressing X instead of just clicking the left stick. This change makes no sense to me.
2)Weapons contain too little ammo
3)You can't throw back grenades
4) Destructible cover seems good in theory, but I didn't like it.
*Now it's seem clear to me that 2-4 were intentional changes. It seems like ND really wanted you to move around during combat instead of hiding out around cover all the time, but on the higher difficulties when 2-3 bullets can kill you. This is a huuuuuge pain the ass, and ensured that I didn't enjoy a single combat encounter in the game. They all felt like annoyances to me. Now Uncharted games have always sucked on their higher difficulties but this increased focus on offense made this one the worst offender at this. Thankfully combat encounters are shorter and far fewer than past games.
5) stealth sucks. At first I was really happy that ND gave us this option but it was implemented horribly. which is disappointing considering they nailed it with TLOU. But the stealth mechanics just don't mesh well with Uncharted's more fast past, platformy combat.
6) you can't pick up ammo just by walking over it anymore. If there's a gun with the same kind of ammo as what you have equipped you have to pick it up manually pick it up. Why they decided to revert back to the way the first game had it? idk.
Overall I still enjoyed the game, but It should've been a much better experience. It still doesn't even come close to unseated Uncharted 2 as the best game in the franchise for me. Still haven't tried out the multiplayer. I enjoyed the beta so I'm assuming im going to enjoy this one as well.
I'd definitely call The Last of Us a masterpiece. It's one shortcoming is that combat is shoehorned into a lot of scenarios, to the extent that it becomes unrealistic in an otherwise believable narrative, but the character work and thematic development is nearly unparalleled in gaming imo. The last moment is as profound and ambiguous as similar moments from many great novels (I'm saying this two years after graduating in English Literature + Linguistics)..
No worries. I would still disagree that the last of us is a masterpiece regarding story (I also majored in English Lit), however I do think it is a masterpiece of a video game. I would probably give the story 8/10 and the gameplay 9/10 personally.
For those that feel there was no supernatural element, I feel there was one there though it was actually quite subtle and nuanced.
Warning end game spoiler!
The treasure was cursed, in that everyone who desired it ended up dying in the pursuit of owning it. Sam and Nate escaped as they no longer wanted the treasure by the end, infact Sam is almost certain to die until he finally let's go of the dream, almost immediately Nate has the idea that saves him.
This is not a supernatural element, but in fact the exact opposite, it is a very human element. I am personally glad they didn't add anything supernatural to the story, as that was the only thing I didn't like about the first three. I think this is a large part of what made it my favourite story of the series, they brought it down to a more simplified template of a classic treasure hunt, with the added personal stake of bringing in his brother and his marriage troubles.
Oh, i just remembered another thing: Please, no matter how stupidly trivial the puzzles are, stop telling us the solution before i even start looking around the room, ffs.
Enter a room with massive puzzle, and before i can even move, Drake goes something like "Oh, i bet i have to align the symbols!" or some shit.
I mean at that point just have it be a cutscene, if you're afraid people can't solve even basic riddles.
I disagree, I think TLOU would no doubt hold up as a well received film if it had been released that way instead of as a video game. Obviously, because it is a video game you are going to have some pace issues with the story, and it needs to be designed differently, but that doesn't mean the story couldn't hold its own on other mediums, if properly adjusted. While I don't think the Uncharted series would hold its own as well as TLOU on a different medium, I still think story wise it would make a decent film series.
TLOU had the benefit of building up an interesting world along with its characters. Not to mention, the survival aspect of searching for supplies was important, so the game portion never suffered. UC4 pales in comparison.
I agree that this is an important aspect of the game, and the down time in Uncharted feels a little less productive, but the two are so different in genre that I think it is really unfair to compare the two. Some people will prefer the TLOU and some will prefer the Uncharted series. They are both expertly done in their respective genres.
Eh in my opinion it easily beats the train. The level of intensity, the cinematic nature of the set piece, etc, just seems a step up. The most impressive thing about the train sequence was that it created an enjoyable action sequence on train which moved in real time between two distinct environments. This one beats that, in my opinion. There is more variety, more intensity, and much more visual punch.
This is the worst soundtrack and worse use of a soundtrack in a Naughty Dog game for 10 years, probably longer. Literally a poor note to end on.
I've warmed to the rest of the areas I wasn't so enamoured with, specifically the tone. It's still not what I'd have loved of Uncharted 4, but we always kind of knew it'd be a more serious ride thanks to the writing credits. And it manages to do that well, even if I don't feel it fits the characters I know.
The gushing critical reception it's been getting for it's story are clearly from people who wanted Uncharted to take itself a little more seriously. Perhaps that's more fashionable nowadays? I am glad those people are catered for, but the soul-searching didn't need to happen for me.
I can't think of anything from the previous three gamed that was as impressive as the jeep level they showed in the E3 video. Even if that's the only thing in the game like that (which I don't know), it's the best.
Yeah, you really don't sound like you know what you're talking about.
Game stories aren't all that great as a whole, but people eat plenty of shit stories up. Quality stories isn't why gaming doesn't resonate with more people.
One is interactive, the other isn't. You're ignoring the numerous other barriers there are between games and non-gamers.
