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

Impulsor

Member
After playing UC1, there is one major plot hole that they never explained in UC2:
Drake left the ring with Francis' corpse. So not sure how he magically got it back for all future sequels
.

Elena secretly picked it up and gave it back to him at the end
 
After playing UC1, there is one major plot hole that they never explained in UC2:
Drake left the ring with Francis' corpse. So not sure how he magically got it back for all future sequels
.

Mmmm I think Elena gives it to him later in the game (UC1).

Edit: Beaten.
 

Wollan

Member
I traced the Madagascar escape/chase route you end up driving:

CiqxW5UWYAAsQZX.jpg:large


CiqxW5JXEAAUbfF.jpg:large


CiqxW3kXEAANwq-.jpg:large
 

Wollan

Member
I'm not sure if it swings back around and comes back to the visible dock there or if there exists a different dock on the other side. Anyhow, I don't think the gameplay route is a complete science.
 
Uncharted is also not a slow paced game full of quiet moments...Uncharted doesn't necessarily need crafting mechanics but it most definitely needed some form of player/mechanic progression, the game introduces mechanics incredibly early on and those mechanics are not expanded on at all, you're doing the same stuff at the end as you are in the beginning, rope swinging in the first chapter is exactly the same as rope swinging the second time with no additional challenge that it becomes mind numbing. The MP definitely doesn't have any form of mechanic or player progression at all either unless you count incredibly contextual perks as player progression. Tomb Raider HAS exploration, jumping, and puzzle solving AND player progression in a globe trotting campaign. And you know what, for all the stuff borrowed from TLOU, the player progression would've worked wonders here because these environments are mostly for eye candy and nothing else. Imagine being able to get a better rope and access new parts of the environment during encounters. No one would complain about that at all and it would provide a better incentive for "exploring" than possibly finding a journal entry or treasures or one of the two optional conversations in each chapter, (seriously the majority of them only have two). And i'd certainly prefer that over "push this block."

I agree to some extent.
I wouldn't want skill trees, exp or spending the game collecting crap (TLOU did this well, games like TR and Dead Space 3 went way overboard) but sometimes getting a reward that impacts gameplay after going out of my way to find a hidden cavern would've been nice. I like finding treasures but they're ultimately inconsequential. A gun upgrade or an improved rope for example, TR did a good job with this, it did help keep things fresh to some extent.
They can Fuck off with all that garbage collecting though and the less said about characters and story, the better.
Still fun games though, RotTR in particular feels great to play.
 
Pray, explain why they need to be?

This is a bizarre commentary.

I think she means that your abilities at the beginning of the game are the same at the end. I mean, I guess there's the pick you get about 2/3rds of the way through, but its not particular well-utilized.

Compared to say, God of War 2, where later in the game you get things that change or expand your abilities, like the Golden Fleece that allows you to reflect back projectiles and opens new paths, or the Icarus Wings will allow you to float across large gaps, launch people in the air, or using vents of air to reach higher places.

I think the only real addition in UC4 after the first couple hours is that pick axe thing, but its almost hilariously underutilized
 
I'm not sure about the upgrades some people want... those are fine in their respectives games like Tomb Raider and Batman but... I like the world of Uncharted as it is a normal place where people behave always the same and don't level up or stuff... it could work but I feel comfortable the way it is. Surely I don't want to go back to previous locations to open new areas with my improved rope... no, nope!
 
I've been thinking about the game a lot since I beat it (and started it again).

It tells my favourite story, has the best character moments and combat of any Uncharted game. I didn't have an issue with the pacing and felt the ending was perfect.

But my gut is telling me I'm not desperate to replay it - even though I really want to be.

The world is bigger, there's more to find and see but it's a long game and can't be consumed quite as easily as the earlier games (for me anyway).

The tone isn't quite as breezy either, which makes it a little hard to just jump in.

I also didn't realise just how much I
miss having Elena around. Cutscenes aside, you don't see her for a dozen hours or so. It's like waiting for Ross and Rachel to get together after the opening seasons of Friends. She certainly gets her time near the end but the final few chapters made me wish she was there all along.

As I said, I am playing it again (with my partner who was away during my first playthrough - she loves the series and wants to know what happens) and I am enjoying it.

It's just an odd feeling, I can't quite put my finger.

UC4 was a really emotional ride for me, maybe my feelings are spent?
 

SomTervo

Member
The vehicle handling in Uncharted 4 is awesome. It's like a more realistic take on Halo driving physics with the mud spin-outs and whatnot. I really would like to see a future Multiplayer mode include vehicle driving. The A.I can already shoot while driving, ND just have to implement player-passenger mode.

Give us a 'Blood Gulch' set in Madagascar:

1000

I've got a really excited hunch that co-op is going to be feature extensions of these large open spaces with vehicles. They must be doing something more ambitious than normal if they're giving co-op an extra 4-8 months of development time.

Is that confirmed? I know Druckmann is a huge MI fan but it seems like a blatant reference to the end of UC3.

Yeah it works OK as a reference to UC3, but
'this is the biggest cistern I've ever seen!'
is a direct line from Monkey Island 1 or 2 IIRC.

I've been thinking about the game a lot since I beat it (and started it again).

It tells my favourite story, has the best character moments and combat of any Uncharted game. I didn't have an issue with the pacing and felt the ending was perfect.

But my gut is telling me I'm not desperate to replay it - even though I really want to be.

The world is bigger, there's more to find and see but it's a long game and can't be consumed quite as easily as the earlier games (for me anyway).

The tone isn't quite as breezy either, which makes it a little hard to just jump in.

I also didn't realise just how much I
miss having Elena around. Cutscenes aside, you don't see her for a dozen hours or so. It's like waiting for Ross and Rachel to get together after the opening seasons of Friends. She certainly gets her time near the end but the final few chapters made me wish she was there all along.

As I said, I am playing it again (with my partner who was away during my first playthrough - she loves the series and wants to know what happens) and I am enjoying it.

It's just an odd feeling, I can't quite put my finger.

UC4 was a really emotional ride for me, maybe my feelings are spent?

FYI I feel exactly the same in every respect – I've since started replaying on Crushing even though I felt no drive to do so, and it is actually probing to be probably my favourite Uncharted to replay. Even though I don't feel the need, finding the treasures is better than ever, exploring is better than ever, and combat is better than ever. I'm skipping the cutscenes/rushing sequences whenever they break the pacing and it's playing brilliantly.
 
I'm not sure about the upgrades some people want... those are fine in their respectives games like Tomb Raider and Batman but... I like the world of Uncharted as it is a normal place where people behave always the same and don't level up or stuff... it could work but I feel comfortable the way it is. Surely I don't want to go back to previous locations to open new areas with my improved rope... no, nope!
It doesn't even make sense for this game. You don't backtrack, so upgraded tool will do nothing. Weapons are suppose to be used then thrown away for another once you are out of ammo. The only things these ideas does is to add needless chores into the game, all for the sake of carrot on a stick. Tlou made sense because it is a game where you scavenge for materials to survive and you don't throw away your weapons.
 

CrazyDude

Member
So what is likely to be the dlc for this game? They said it is going to be in the same vein as left behind makes me think it will be about Sam and Nate's younger years.

Also about the game in general,
I know many people wished for supernatural stuff, but I found Libertatia's whole fall to be far more interesting without it. I never was interested in the lost cities before because I always felt the mysteries behind their downfalls to be kind of shallow and poorly explained.
 
There are plenty of games where you can fill up bars, one of the things that makes Uncharted great is because it forgoes all that fluff for just the player versus well designed, most of the time, map or arena full of enemies
 

Nev

Banned
There are plenty of games where you can fill up bars, one of the things that makes Uncharted great is because it forgoes all that fluff for just the player versus well designed, most of the time, map or arena full of enemies

Yeah, I don't want to be forced to explore every corner because I need stuff to upgrade stuff so I'm able to stand a chance in the next combat encounter, I want to explore just for the sake of it, Nate's drawings and journal entries are enough of an incentive to me. If anything, I'd put some text with the treasures, but that's it.

If I want to continue making progress, I don't want to think I'm handicapping myself by not upgrading shit, I'd rather have encounters that are winnble entirely on the player's skills and not on XP and numbers. If I want that I play a RPG.
 

SomTervo

Member
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.

Opened up this tab on my home PC and saw I never responded to you - fully agree.
 
Just finished it. Naughty Gods did it again. I absolutely fell in love with TLoU and UC4 is just as good. There's not so many feels, but its a different kind of pony. Amazing.

And the ending. It's so good. I was on a media blackout, so it came as a surprise. I only read it's going to be divisive. It is that, yeah, and I was expecting totally different outcome. Perfectly happy with it. Amazing ending for a great series.

I think ND is now my favorite game dev of all time. I'm a fanboy.

Only negatives I could find were some stupid plot holes and how the characters meet at really unbelievable ways. They must be psychic to know where everyone are. Though that happens in the movies as well, so I can forgive it.

10/10

EDIT:
I hope to see a Cassie DLC. That is how they introduce ND's new adventurer to us. She's the explorer of the future, maybe in space. Scifi Uncharted with Cassie. I'd play that!
 

SomTervo

Member
Just finished it. Naughty Gods did it again. I absolutely fell in love with TLoU and UC4 is just as good. There's not so many feels, but its a different kind of pony. Amazing.

And the ending. It's so good. I was on a media blackout, so it came as a surprise. I only read it's going to be divisive. It is that, yeah, and I was expecting totally different outcome. Perfectly happy with it. Amazing ending for a great series.

I think ND is now my favorite game dev of all time. I'm a fanboy.

Only negatives I could find were some stupid plot holes and how the characters meet at really unbelievable ways. They must be psychic to know where everyone are. Though that happens in the movies as well, so I can forgive it.

10/10

I can only think of one instance of the bolded. What others are you thinking of?

Fairly late-on spoilers: I can only think of when
Elena magically finds Nate after he busts his head falling off the cliff. However, this is pretty easily explainable by the fact that Elena/Sully were probably following them (on foot or via biplane) prettyclosely.
 
Go play Far Cry, Dying Light or ROTR, even TLOU. Is it that hard to understand that some people don't care or are just tired of crafting, upgrades and looting shit? I'd rather find a journal entry than some worthless junk to upgrade my weapon with some shitty scope or a damage boost, in a Tomb Raider game I don't want to upgrade shit or level up Lara fucking Croft, I want to explore, jump and solve puzzles, if I want to play a RPG lite I will play one of the thousand RPG lites on the market (basically most of the AAA releases of the last few years).

At least Uncharted did the right thing and put all of that in the multiplayer, while Tomb Raider couldn't and turned the franchise into yet another shitty checklist Ubisoftish game with half-assed, barely relevant RPG mechanics.

That's not what Uncharted is, get over it. Plenty of alternatives out there.

I wouldn't complain about that stuff if the exploring, platforming, and puzzle solving was actually good. None of that stuff is fun to play, it's just downtime for the story sequences. The only portions of this game that are not dull from a mechanical standpoint are the combat sections.

It's like in RPGs. The combat in most RPGs is actually quite bad as its own thing. However, the progression system definitely makes the game far more involved overall.
I'm just suggesting something they could have done to make the same game more involving. As it stands, I think half of UC4 needs a complete overhaul. The game is just dull 70% of the time.

What you described would have been extremely lame and unnecessary.
The whole story sets up how close Nathan and Sam were and at no point did one or the other give a reason to fight to the death. Yes Sam lied to Nathan and they'd get into little arguments, but the game did a great job of explaining why Sam is so passionate about Averys Treasure and why Nathan was ok with going along for the ride. Nathan absolutely loves the adventure even though he's been lying to himself that he doesn't. That dinner scene highlights this very well. Nathan or Sam wanting to kill eachother would have come out of left field and would have made for a incredibly ridiculous conclusion.

It would have been far more interesting than what they have now.
Sorry, but the whole "I just wanted to find this treasure with you" thing is cliche and pretty underwhelming considering how long the story is.

I never said that they should fight to the death or anything like that. The tension between them should have escalated more besides just a petty argument here or there. This game didn't need to be 15 hours long if they were just gonna conclude the game in such a safe fashion.
 

Liamc723

Member
Also about the game in general,
I know many people wished for supernatural stuff, but I found Libertatia's whole fall to be far more interesting without it. I never was interested in the lost cities before because I always felt the mysteries behind their downfalls to be kind of shallow and poorly explained.

People wished for supernatural stuff? They were the worst parts of the previous games and pretty stupid.
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Pray, explain why they need to be?

This is a bizarre commentary.
Replay value is upped, the overall game quality gets better because instead of doing exactly the same things we did before with a new skin, the mechanics are being expanded upon, this is like, game design 101. This is why the desert area of Skyward Sword is better and less tedious than the rest of the game as you revisit it, because they introduce a mechanic initially and then expand upon it during later sections of the game.

I agree to some extent.
I wouldn't want skill trees, exp or spending the game collecting crap (TLOU did this well, games like TR and Dead Space 3 went way overboard) but sometimes getting a reward that impacts gameplay after going out of my way to find a hidden cavern would've been nice. I like finding treasures but they're ultimately inconsequential. A gun upgrade or an improved rope for example, TR did a good job with this, it did help keep things fresh to some extent.
They can Fuck off with all that garbage collecting though and the less said about characters and story, the better.
Still fun games though, RotTR in particular feels great to play.
I don't exactly find the collectibles in UC4 to be very compelling either. The good thing about TR's level design is that it has open interconnected spaces and actually makes use of that space.
 
I can only think of one instance of the bolded. What others are you thinking of?

Fairly late-on spoilers: I can only think of when
Elena magically finds Nate after he busts his head falling off the cliff. However, this is pretty easily explainable by the fact that Elena/Sully were probably following them (on foot or via biplane) prettyclosely.

I felt that everytime Nate and Sam got lost, they found each other. No matter where and how, they just go "oh, there you are". Also Sully and his plane, always on time at the end of the gun fight. Nadine and Rafe seemed to stumble at Nate and Sam even after the phones were destroyed. It just felt that even though world is big, no matter where and when, in the end everyone always connected with each other in a surprising way.
 
People wished for supernatural stuff? They were the worst parts of the previous games and pretty stupid.
I love that stuff. The twist in the first game and the tone change with exploring the nazi uboat in the dark is one of my favourite moments in the series. Same goes for fighting off the Djinn in Uncharted 3, I love how you think it's just a regular encounter and then suddenly a guys head starts catching on fire and he starts teleporting, thought I was imagining the whole thing. The one thing I'll say is that I didn't like the Guardians in Uncharted 2 werent just straight up yetis. But I did like fighting them, howd they chase you around like big gorillas. Also liked using their one hit kill crossbows.
 

Jamiaro

Member
Question:
I am now at chapter 12, I'd quess near the end.
If I choose Encounter Select and show a certain fight to a friend, will I lose my progress on chapter 12?
 
Random musings from my play session of chapters 14 up to the start of 18:

- Chapter 14 might be my favorite from the game thus far. Firstly my jaw was on the floor the entire time because of how stunning the environment is. The mist rolling through, the foliage, the lighting and colors...just amazing. And then I really dug the
exploration of the colony in the first section. It reminded me a lot of the section after the sewers in The Last of Us where you're exploring the neighborhood and it's peppered with great character moments and lots of visual storytelling.
The encounters at the end were fantastic too and a much needed jolt of action.

-I like how much time you spend on the
island/libertalia, and learning about the pirate colony. The other games always seemed to rush the hidden city aspect and the central mysteries were rarely this compelling. The island is a great location too, and brings back Uncharted 1 vibes but this island is so much better.

-I wish the
Nadine fist fights were more dynamic, but they are pretty cool.

-Chapter 16 has some *cringe* dialogue. Good lord. Really misplaced chapter too. It was like Left Behind but bad, and I feel like we really didn't need to be shown the information this sequence conveyed.

- The jeep section
with Elena with the piano music playing
was incredible. Someone should show Kojima that sequence.

-So far I've encountered lots of little setpieces, but yeah nothing touches the
jeep chase in 11
. They really were not a priority for this game. I was okay with them being smaller scale than what was in 2 & 3, but I thought they would still be mechanically interesting and used in combat but largely they are just "things falling down around you" which is disappointing.

-But the
jeep elevator
shootout sequence in 17 counts as a set-piece than I take it back, that part was amazing. It was like the sign post shootout in 2 but dialed up to 11. Gimme more of this shit.

-At the start of 18 I love all the
traitor cages outside New Devon
. Spooky shit, and the sound design is perfection.

-A lot of great story moments (besides chapter 16 in here) throughout. Not just the obvious stuff like the dialogue scenes, or environmental storytelling, but also how the environments and gameplay sequences sort of evoke and play off the emotion of the scenes.

Still want a lot more combat :( This game also has way more guns than the other Uncharted games but you barely have time to use some of them. I've never felt so disappointed in a game that is so good. Like I love everything about the game except the one flaw I have is a really major one. It'll be hard to rank this against Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us because it does almost everything better, except the pacing of combat. It kinda feels like this game was designed to be played a chapter or two at a time, with brief little action scenes serving as mini climaxes, rather than an escalating conflict that is a through-line throughout the entire experience.
 
Just beat it. I really don't think any other game will be able to top it this year. Best game of the generation so far.

Now I can surf the Internet in peace again 😳
 
Question:
I am now at chapter 12, I'd quess near the end.
If I choose Encounter Select and show a certain fight to a friend, will I lose my progress on chapter 12?

You aren't near the end. Not even close, really.

I'm not sure how the Encounter Select works but you can always save your current progress to a new file. I had three save slots going throughout my playthrough.
 
Is this how a 'fanboy' feels all the time? I feel like I need to defend this game even though it's been received incredibly well for the most part. Why is it bugging me that people are not 'getting it'?

This is a weird feeling. Like I look at this thread from ND perspective "No, no, no, that wasn't the point! How did you miss it? Ugh, I spent so much effort on that part of the game and you totally misunderstood."

I feel like an idiot. Obviously TLOU and UC4 have resonated really well with me. And that's awesome. But I should not care so much about wanting people to like the game and appreciate it the way I do. I should probably leave this thread.

I fucking love the game, and I guess I'm a total ND fanboy. I'll try not to act like one (anymore) though.
 
People wished for supernatural stuff? They were the worst parts of the previous games and pretty stupid.
Wasn't UC3's supernatural elements
explained away as a hallucinogen in the groundwater? I don't remember any purely mystical stuff except maybe some super aggro spider hordes. Maybe I'm forgetting something obvious?

But it gave me the feeling they were moving the series away from magical zombie and blue monkey stuff. At the very least towards a middle ground where any magic could be explained away in some sense.

Also, gave Encounter Select a shot over the past few nights. It definitely throws you into each sequence, but they feel like tiny little snacks of shooter gameplay. This game really needs some co-op adventure mode / siege/ horde focused on larger scale and longer lasting battles stat. I hope ND has something solid in the works considering the wait. It would retroactively cast the main game's story focus in a better light.
 
Wasn't UC3's supernatural elements
explained away as a hallucinogen in the groundwater? I don't remember any purely mystical stuff except maybe some super aggro spider hordes. Maybe I'm forgetting something obvious?

But it gave me the feeling they were moving the series away from magical zombie and blue monkey stuff. At the very least towards a middle ground where any magic could be explained away in some sense.

Uncharted 3's is left ambiguous. The hallucinogen could have been something in the metal of the container, or djinn inside of it.
 
I can't fathom how people are disappointed by the soundtrack in this one. It's honestly incredible, might like it just as much as 2's. Crazy how this is by far Henry Jackman's best work.
 
I reached chapter 18 last night. The graphics are beautiful, and I love the characters as much as ever, butt the pacing really is an issue with this game.
My other gripe is why the hell can I not throw back grenades like I could before? This is especially annoying when enemies are seemingly able to throw grenades with laser precision every two secconds. Seriously, there was a part when I was hanging by a ledge, and their grenades kept landing right at my fingertips.
 
Just got done with the game.
A fantastic Naughty Dog experience, the way they needed this franchise was absolutely perfect.

Need time to think through my long ass play through and get some points down but safe to say this is easily the best UC game ever and my front runner for GoTY.

Fantastic job ND and thanks for 10 years of Nathan Drake and co!
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
You know little about game design 101; you also don't understand what false equivalency is, as evidenced by comparing Uncharted 4 with Skyward Sword and TR. I bolded some hints for your consideration as to why a progression system is in place in those games. (it's because the fucking games are designed around said system! Uncharted isn't).

Ten years after playing a game, people don't look back and go "Oh...my god...that moment when I upgraded my gun and later unlocking my double jump...Soooooo GOOD!"

Thank fuck I am not playing an Ubisoft Uncharted game.

Pac Man Championship Edition DX is a prime example of everything that is wrong with your views on "game design 101"
They advertised this game as having much more open but still linear levels than the previous games, where you'd have multiple ways to get to an objective. Not to mention, player and mechanic progression has been giving us great results this gen, (and in most games really) in terms of game design to make sure that using an item in a late stage has more weight and feel to it than using it in an earlier stage. This is especially true in terms of replays because the game's design is so incredibly limited that even on the highest difficulty there's little challenge aside from some bullshit encounters that force you into combat in the later stages. In some ways it straight up feels like it's designed for player progression, later in the game I stealth the exact same way as in earlier in the game, by rolling through grass, occasionally using the rope to get a cheap kill, snapping necks when people aren't looking etc. I can't get a silencer, I can't hide manually hide bodies, the game's design is limited in a detrimental way imho because the mechanics really don't stand on their on to carry the entire game through multiple times.
 
Uncharted is also not a slow paced game full of quiet moments but UC4 is certainly designed that way...Uncharted doesn't necessarily need crafting mechanics but it most definitely needed some form of player/mechanic progression, the game introduces mechanics incredibly early on and those mechanics are not expanded on at all, you're doing the same stuff at the end as you are in the beginning, rope swinging in the first chapter is exactly the same as rope swinging the second time with no additional challenge that it becomes mind numbing. The MP definitely doesn't have any form of mechanic or player progression at all either unless you count incredibly contextual perks as player progression. Tomb Raider HAS exploration, jumping, and puzzle solving AND player progression in a globe trotting campaign. And you know what, for all the stuff borrowed from TLOU, the player progression would've worked wonders here because these environments are mostly for eye candy and nothing else. Imagine being able to get a better rope and access new parts of the environment during encounters. No one would complain about that at all and it would provide a better incentive for "exploring" than possibly finding a journal entry or treasures or one of the two optional conversations in each chapter, (seriously the majority of them only have two). And i'd certainly prefer that over "push this block."

Maybe you should just stick to playing Tomb Raider and leave the Uncharted game to you know people who like uncharted games. Not sure what you want to happen at the end of the game. For it to turn into a space combat game or something? i'm pretty sure at the beginning of a Tomb Raider game you are jumping, exploring, puzzle solving, shooting, stabbing , grunting , talking, running, moving, falling, traveling, etc and at the end of the game you are still jumping, exploring, puzzle solving, shooting, stabbing , grunting , talking, running, moving, falling, traveling, etc. Am I missing something here?
 
I would say the only beat in the story that didn't completely work for me was (Fairly late game spoilers):
When that old lady dies right in front of Nathan and Sam as police are coming, forcing them to adopt a new identity. When it was revealed in Uncharted 3 that his real name wasn't Drake and that he was in an orphanage, my head-canon was that Nate adopted the "descendant of Sir Francis Drake" persona as a coping/survival mechanism while in the orphanage. I think making it into an identity taken out of necessity lessens the character's agency slightly, and I think that whole sequence is pretty contrived. Of course she dies right as the police are on the way.

I thought about this after that scene too. Probably a part of why that chapter is so annoying to me. I don't like the change.
 
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