Uncharted 4: A Thief's Thiefing Thief

[TCP]

[deanb]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.playstation.U4

 

If you're wanting to take not-Uncharted 4 on the go

[TheMightyEthan]

Looks a lot like Lara Croft Go.  Hope it's as good.

[Hot Heart]

I'm only up to chapter 8 or 9 currently, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I say "only" because it doesn't feel like I've gotten to the meat of the adventure yet I've still done a bunch of cool stuff. Barely any shootybangs so far, and one I was completely trying to avoid participating in until it made me do so.

 

I'm loving the actual character interaction stuff too. The animation and acting really sells it.

 

I can definitely feel a sort of Last of Us influence in terms of how it's a lot of exploring with some somewhat open encounters along the way.

 

Also the little white circles that show a triangle button prompt when you get near. That too.

[SomTervo]

Yeah, those little design things that scream 'The Last of Us'. There are also slightly spoilery non-combat sequences (you've seen one, Hottie) which are lifted straight out of certain parts of TLoU. I'm not 100% convinced they worked as well in UC4 as they do in TLoU, but they are still good bits.

 

FYI You have a long way to go. It's a long game. The adventure is only just getting started at Chapters 8/9.

 

I'm replaying it on Crushing skipping most/all of the cutscenes, and it is fucking great. There's something so vital about the gunfights now. Feels closer to 'movie gunfights' than we've ever seen before.

 

Also there are a lot of optional conversations, texts and treasures. Many of which add a lot to the context. Hottie:

 

 

You know the chapter where you're scuba diving in NYC as Drake? When you hit the surface and you get a minute to walk around the boat, there are actually two optional conversations there. Just Drake shooting the breeze with a couple of the salvage guys. It's a really nice touch and something I completely walked past on my first playthrough.

 

 

This is definitely the most replayable Uncharted game, I think. The loading times and pacing are a bit frustrating sometimes but there's so much more content, and so much more choice.

[Strangelove]

Finished it last night. Great game. Still prefer TLoU and Uncharted 2 though. TLoU is just plain better, but I can almost assure myself that my Uncharted 2 love is partly based on nostalgia. I hadnt played anything like that at the time and at that point(and still now) I was primarily a single player story focused game type of person. Those are the games I love and Uncharted 2 at the time did it the best by a large margin.

 

Also - this game has way more platforming than combat. Its like 60% platforming, 30% combat and the rest is...the rest. Puzzles, dialogue, cutscenes, etc.

Lucky for me, I enjoy the platforming. I'll defend Uncharted's gunplay til the end, but I was always a fan of the platforming and even moreso the platforming mixed with the combat. Adding the slide thing and rappeling was very nice. I love rappeling in this game.

Also, every character gets a nice big chunk of time in the game. I was worried Sam was going to completely take over, but theres a healthy amount of Sully and Elena in this. Elena is my favorite character of the series, so I was really glad.

 

I honestly have two problems with the game overall - and that's that there's a very long non-interactive cutscene somewhere in the middle of the game. As a MGS fan Im used to long cutscenes, but Im not a fan of them in Naughty Dog games. I like that they seem to limit themselves on how long their cutscenes are. Most in their previous games end at about the 3 or 4 minute range. It keeps the pace going. But here there's a pretty long cutscenes where I actually was able to put the controller down. I didnt like that too much. Good cutscene and all, but I wish I was playing something during it.

And the second problem was the boss fight. Its not very good. It's good as a spectacle, but its not very fun. Which is dissapointing since the David boss fight in TLoU was so great.

 

Still though - great game.

Edited May 12, 2016 by Strangelove

[SomTervo]

Uncharted 2 is still great, and I think as a straight-up videogame with lots of action-packed gameplay, it's better than UC4. Only in that regard, though.

 

The Last of Us is better, I'd agree with that.

 

But Uncharted 4 is also just on another level in so many senses. It's flawed in minor ways but the overall thing is just... Another level. A huge leap.

 

That makes it really hard for me to choose between TLoU, UC4 and UC2.

[Hot Heart]

Umm... where the fuck is co-op? I sincerely hope that's in a future multiplayer update. The little missions and wave modes were dope.

[Mister Jack]

I believe I did hear something about a fall update.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

[TCP]

The best PS3 Uncharted game is clearly UC3, for the record. I mean, UC1 to UC2 might have been a bigger for the franchise, but from a pure moment-to-moment gameplay level, UC3 reigns supreme.

I can't comment on UC4 yet I haven't finished it, I'm savouring it, like the fine wine that it is.

[Eleven]

I agree Hot Heart! My friends and I are waiting for the co-op missions. Those are fun to do with friends. Don't care so much about pubs.

 

Played the campaign over the weekend, but have not finished it yet. Mostly because I keep jumping off cliffs and imagining the pain Sam would have gone through if Drake really died jumping off cliffs ("Oh god! Nathan!"), then laughing about it. Every time I see one of those rope swing thingies I jump first then on the last moment press L1. In my head it's because Sam left and Drake never really learned how to do the rope thing properly. I dunno it's hilarious to me haha.

 

Yeah I know it's weird.

[TCP]

Massive end game spoilers:

It's midnight, I have to be up in 6 hours. Drake has just sword fought, saved his brother, and is saying goodbye to Sully and Sam. Great, game over, great game. But wait... all of a sudden I'm playing Crash again?? Weird I don't hear Elena or Drake talking about it like last time. Who is playing this game? What's going on here?! The game finishes, there's a dog, an unknown messy bedroom. WHO IS THIS GIRL!?!?! OH SHIT IT'S LITTLE DRAKETTE!! We walk through the house and look at the Drake and Elena's wedding photos, play a record, read a letter from Sully (who must be old as fuck at this point), I'M TEARING UP GUYS. Finally, we get to this cabinet, open it up, and she explores all these items from the previous Uncharted games. Drake and Elena come in and start talking about the opening to Uncharted 1. Now I'm holding back the tears. Drake and Cassie walk out the room, Elena stops and looks back at the photo of Elena, Sully, and Drake from UC1. Roll credits. That's how you finish a franchise, my friends. Bravo, Naughty Dog.

 

[deanb]

http://i.imgur.com/cP2xQME.gifv

 

Saw this yesterday, looks all kinds of amazing.

[TheMightyEthan]

Holy shit.

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay, so looking into it, the way it works isn't quite as impressive as it looks, but it's still damned impressive.  Basically rather than there being rocks already on the hill that start sliding when disturbed, whenever there's a disturbance the hill spawns a bunch of rocks that previously didn't exist, and those are what slide down the hill (I think the first 2-3 rocks were already there, but the rest are spawned as needed).  They use the motion blur and the dust effects to cover up the spawning.  Still looks amazing though.

[deanb]

Oh yeah, it'd be insane to have all the rocks on that cliff be individual units with their own physics and such (the rocks that do fall are also notably bigger than the rocks already on the cliff). It's a pretty dang neat effect though given most games have rather flat inactive cliff faces.

[TheMightyEthan]

I had thought maybe the rocks were already there but weren't physics-enabled until disturbed.  Similar to how in TES or Fallout sometimes when you pick up an item it causes all the items around to jump or settle because suddenly they have physics whereas before they were fixed.

[Hot Heart]

I AM SO STEALTHY

[Hot Heart]

So, I finished it.

 

Gotta agree with Nate a little: the adventures leave you with that feeling of emptiness.

 

Good fun while it lasts though and you gotta love the characters.

 

It seems like they're never going to "figure out" combat, and I kind of wish they borrowed more from The Last of Us there as they did in other places. Make it more tense and impactful when you can, rather than the running around, rolling away from grenades clusterfuck that it can be.

 

I actually kind of enjoyed a lot of the stealth stuff but it's too easy to get caught by one guy because you didn't spend five minutes working your way round to the opposite side of the combat arena in order to see him standing against a truck. There was even a later section where I'd done well, been patient, etc. but there was one fucking guy high up at the back who I had no way of reaching and I couldn't find any other sneaky route in that wouldn't start a massive gunfight. Plus, it's clear that the game spawns in additional enemies as soon as you initiate combat, even if you get into hiding again (as you can see in my "stealth-bomb" video) which just makes you think that you might as well just go in guns blazing anyway. The game wants you to shoot stuff.

 

Which is funny because it feels like 80% of it is exploration and playable "cut scenes". Very nice looking exploration and playable cut scenes, mind, but too much of the latter, I think. And they still know how to do big setpieces. You can sense that they took all the previous criticisms onboard but maybe swerved a little too into safe territory though.

 

On reflection, I'm half sure it's my second favourite Uncharted experience but it's probably actually the best from a more objective standpoint.

[SomTervo]

Umm... where the fuck is co-op? I sincerely hope that's in a future multiplayer update. The little missions and wave modes were dope.

 

I believe I did hear something about a fall update.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

 

Honestly, there's a pretty solid chance the co-op mode is going to be the best one yet. It's being given a full 3-7 month delay and coming out as its own expansion, pretty much.

 

I'm hoping it's at 30FPS will the full fidelity of singleplayer, with a 'Survival'/horde mode, and can be played alone. That will be... Just the greatest

 

Imagine co-op in the large playable areas of SP, with vehicles. Could be insanity.

 

FYI the multiplayer mode is really good generally, too.

 

Also the more I'm replaying the more I'm appreciating Uncharted 4's campaign. There's a lot more combat in there than it feels like. There are long stretches of Scotland and Madagascar which are pretty much constantly combat.

 

 

Okay, so looking into it, the way it works isn't quite as impressive as it looks, but it's still damned impressive.  Basically rather than there being rocks already on the hill that start sliding when disturbed, whenever there's a disturbance the hill spawns a bunch of rocks that previously didn't exist, and those are what slide down the hill (I think the first 2-3 rocks were already there, but the rest are spawned as needed).  They use the motion blur and the dust effects to cover up the spawning.  Still looks amazing though.

 

The background 'sliding scree' is also just a flat texture moving down as a group. If you look at it up close it's actually pretty ugly, haha.

 

Still, a fantastically designed effect and its impact is flawless when outwith 15 feet distance.

Edited May 24, 2016 by SomTervo

[Pojodin]

I just finished it yesterday and it was really good. Gorgeous, well-written, and a nice balance of action and exploration. I have no real complaints about it.

[deanb]

 

Survival mode rolling out start of Dec