Uncharted 4 raises the bar for its genre.

After years of hype, I am surprised that no one is talking about Uncharted 4 itself. The only thing I'm seeing mostly in System Wars are graphics threads about the game. Anyways,,, so I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a PS4 for few days and finally played Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

While I played previous Uncharted games and think they are great games, especially the second one, I also thought that sometimes they came dangerously close to being third person version of COD. A lot of times I felt that the main focus of these games were set pieces, and in the third game they felt even more forced. But then Uncharted 4 came.

I expected Remedy to raise the bar for Third Person games with Quantum Break, just like how they raised the bar with Max Payne but they disappointed me a bit. Yes Quantum Break is pretty good but it's not as good as I expected it to be. Uncharted 4 on other hand exceeded my expectations because of the direction of Niel Druckman, who brought some of elements of The Last of Us in Uncharted 4.

I think gunplay is fantastic and environments are semi-destructible, which make every gun fight a lot of fun. Controls are better than the third game as well. Not only that but AI is also improved upon The Last of Us, even though sometimes I still saw my allies doing some stupid shit especially during Stealth sections, but mostly AI worked really well.

Speaking of Stealth, the game not only allows you to kill everyone in Stealth mode but a lot of times also lets you sneak pass them completely, without alerting anyone, which is a nice touch and something that I want to see in more Action games.

Story flows more naturally and carries gameplay with it, which reminds me of Half Life 2. Things start slowly and then the game builds itself as you progress, which means most of the high octane action is saved for final parts of the game. The encounters are really good and fit well with the story, and don't feel forced.

Same is the case with set pieces. They are no longer main focus of the game, and there are very few scenes with big ass explosions. Most of the time you are playing the game without being interrupted by the next big set piece or scripted event. Characterization is also a lot better this time around and storytelling is enhanced by top of the line visuals that are up there among the best that bring these characters to life.

These characters are also helpful during gameplay and can really save your ass sometimes, or help you solve the puzzle or find the way by observing the environments and then giving their suggestions. This time the story has a bit more darker tone as well, but meanwhile the game also keeps soul of series alive, despite being more grounded and personal journey. It's best in the series and I think this is how story driven Third Person Shooters should be done.

Share your thoughts.

Yeh I like how they made drakes brother up out of no where for this game lol

Meh

It's easily the best in it's genre. However I personally am not a fan of said genre, not that this changes things.

It's the best in the genre on the PS4.

As for third person action adventure campaign they did amazing. As for third person multiplayer shooter, they have long ways to go and has not raised or set the bar. It's no surprise no one is talking about the multiplayer even all those reviews. I don't know why they always want to tact on multiplayer, they should just stick with campaign.

@Cloud_imperium: how were the puzzles ?

theres more cutscenes than actual gameplay. still i take it over tomb raider. no game with wall cover and regen health can raise bar. come on OP.

It's the best 3D action adventure game I've ever played and one of the best games of all time IMO.

Definitely my GOTY for 2016.

It's the new standard for story telling and graphics, sure. Gameplay wise I prefer Rise of the Tomb Raider. Crafting, more varied combat and less linear progression make for a better "game." The story in ROTTR was forgettable and I didn't care for the characters while in Uncharted 4 I couldn't wait for the boring gameplay to be over so I could see what happens next in the story. If Naughty Dog would flesh it's gameplay beyond autopilot platforming and crate pushing they would have the new standard in the genre.

Still not up there.

That's not true. This game focuses more on gameplay and characterization than previous games. Previous games were all about high octane action and one scripted event after another. This one gets gameplay:cutscene ratio right.

still no game with wall cover and health regen can raise the bar

The only reason you're surprised "no one's talking about it" is because you skipped the giant Uncharted 4 thread where everyone's talking about it.

lol, I was going to say...

Good point.

Went through "Uncharted 4 10/10" thread, but this discussion needs separate thread IMO.

@Cloud_imperium: Not seeing it. Nothing wrong with it being a thread but the good discussion's been in that 10/10 thread.

I'm near the end and there isn't that much combat.

At least 70% of the game is story, puzzles and climbing.

As unacceptable as that is.....the story is great and the acting is better than most anything.

In the end....I'm somewhat disappointed and it's going to a real chore going through it on higher difficulties.

@Cloud_imperium: Also...I'm actually shocked you like the game.

This game is the very example of what you guys used to bash them for: being movie games.

Too bad Naughty Dog doesn't go independent like Bungie did or after a few years Sony ports Uncharted 4 over to the PC.

Uncharted 4 open the door to gameplay being second to cinematics and storytelling. I would not consider that raising the bar but lowering it.

What difficulty are you playing in? I started with moderate and felt that the battles ended too quickly. But now that I'm playing on crushing, well you can imagine.

It's the best Uncharted so far but I wish they made the main game longer. I love how you can shoot from any corner and the new swinging and sliding features. I came in guns blazing while swinging on the grapple rope and elbow dropped over the next guy and caught the gun he dropped in mid air! Of all the 3rd person shooters I've played, this is definitely the best one yet! The gun fights are literally limited to your imagination and it's crazy how resourceful you can be. Haven't reviewed it yet but Uncharted 4 deserves an easy 10/10. First time I agreed with GameSpot.

well , I solved few and it was piece of cake but I need to finish the game see if I can find something more challenging, just like the ones in click-point adventures , all in all UC4 is a great adventure but it didn't strike me as something different , not even much different from ROTR

@spicymeatball27: You obviously haven't played the game. Why are you commenting on it?

It's kind of alone in its genre if you think about. Rise of the Tomb Raider and the original Tomb Raider remix are basically the only game competing for space in the genre.

Naughty Dog kind of cornered that genre with Uncharted 2. Nobody outside of Crystal Dynamics is really trying to compete there.

It's a tough genre because it is so heavily scripted. There is tons of overhead and very little room for innovative gameplay or "video game concession" that are made. Everything needs to feel like a blockbuster movie and that heavily restricts what the developer can do and forces them to spend the time to craft nearly every minute of gameplay experienced by the players. This makes Naughty Dog's achievements in this genre even more impressive. They somehow included mechanics that slightly expand the core gameplay while still being able to craft amazing encounters and keep the production values to the highest we've seen in the industry today while still providing enough content to keep people occupied and interested for enough time to make them feel satisfied with their purchase.

I think the Uncharted series really kind of stands in a league of it's own and it's hard to compare the genre to others. Raising the bar there doesn't really have much affect outside of its genre. Other genres need to make more concessions to give the player a proper video game sandbox to have fun in. This usually comes with a reduction in production values.

I guess the only other series I would say falls into this genre is The Last of Us which is very similar to Uncharted with a different tone. Setup wise it's still an extremely linear game with everything being very heavily scripted and crafted by the developers for every minute of the experience.

Naughty Dog is kind of the king of that with Crystal Dynamics nipping at their heels.

Haven't played the game myself, but from the sections that I've seen there seems to be a relatively high amount of cut-scenes compared to gameplay. Understandably, cut-scenes add to that cinematic, action movie type feel the game is trying to achieve, but if a large proportion of the game is just me watching it instead of playing it, well then I don't think I can enjoy the game as much.

Is there a good balance between cut-scenes and gameplay?

Nope. You will be watching more than playing. If you want more gameplay you will have to play the game on a harder difficulty but that would only increase the grind and not the fun factor.

Very bad choice in games

I have yet to play Rise of the Tomb Raider or Uncharted 4...BUT I thought the Tomb Raider reboot took Drake to school. Besting the first and third game quite easily. Almost on par with Among Thieves.

I haven't made much progress yet , but imo ROTR had a better gameplay and mechanics , the way you could customize and craft your gears .. it was really kewl however tomb raider still lacks the great story and narrative of UC4 ,if you ask me the best thing about UC4 is being not repetitive

@the_master_race: I feel like customizing and crafting your gear takes a step back from what Uncharted 4 is trying to achieve. Uncharted 4 is the epitome of scripted gameplay. Everything is highly controlled. This gives the developer to craft the game exactly how they want it and I believe is why they are able to make such an engaging narrative. It's woven into the encounter design and set pieces.

A lot of the time this ends up feeling way to restrictive, but in the case of Uncharted 2 and now Uncharted 4, Naughty Dog is so good at this kind of design that it doesn't feel constrained at all.

This is why I consider Uncharted to be pretty much in a league of its own. Despite it being as narrow and scripted as you possibly can be, Naughty Dog manages to make the formula work. It's impressive considering I usually hate being constricted to very scripted and crafted encounters but I've always enjoyed it in Uncharted.

I'm still not getting the excitement surrounding this game. I know it's cliche to say, but UC4 barely feels like a video game. It takes the most uninteresting parts of Uncharted (platforming and puzzle solving) and builds 70% of the game around that stuff. The pacing in this game is just bad. It takes fucking forever to get going, and even when it finally starts to kick off, it's still a slow burn adventure.

The story is better then the previous three Uncharted games, but that's really not saying much. At the end of the day, it's still a popcorn movie, but instead of an 8 hour adventure, it's now 15 hours. Did this game really need to be this long? This game is padded all to hell.

People are all hyped now that they just beat it, but I bet this will turn out to be an MGS4 situation. Once you start thinking about the game, the entire experience starts to fall apart.

I never thought walking simulators would come so far.

@phantomfire335: Every cinema is about 4 to 5 minutes long and there is more than enough game play to fill in the gaps. The levels are still linear but massive in scope to boot!

The game is absolutely stunning. It has the best gameplay in an Uncharted game. The puzzles are great, the pacing is great in the second half, and the story is simply the best one in the series yet. It is stunning how emotive the character faces are in Uncharted 4- these are real people face., and they look and behave just like real people faces do and should.

The ending might also be one of my favorite endings in a video game yet. The story was great, well written, smartly told, with oodles of characterization and wit, and the presentation was amazing. it is also, in my opinion, the best looking game on the market so far.

Naughty Dog definitely outdid themselves. This is the best Uncharted game ever made, and one of the best games on the PS4. I don't like it more than The Last of Us, but I love this game regardless-it is absolutely a must play.

The puzzles are simple- they require some thought, but they are very easy to figure out. They make for a nice change of pace, but they never break that pace.

No there are not. Stop talking about games you have no idea about, all you do is make a fool of yourself.

It will be hard for a game to come and be better than this this year, I agree!

The gameplay is absolutely more than just autopilot. The platforming requires actual involvement from the player this time, and the gunplay is the best in the series yet. Add to that the stealth sections, and you get a game that plays well, if not as well as it tells its story, or looks.

The ratio between gameplay to cutscenes is roughly 3:1

The game is 16 hours long haha, that is plenty long for the genre it is in.

Well it definitely raises the bar on everything it does. The game is a pleasure thus far and its only getting better with each chapter.

I was not overly impressed by the game and I love the Uncharted series and this style of game. The game is over-rated and people will soon come to realize this. Being the lazy fucker that I am, I will copy and paste my mini review...

Great presentation and beautiful environments, but the actual level/mission design, enemy encounters, puzzles, etc. are disappointing. The game focuses too much effort on trying to make you care about the characters and look pretty (which it does well) and neglects the elements that make for a fun game. I enjoyed the cut-scenes a lot, but did not find the gameplay and overall pacing very engaging. There was a serious lack of quality environmental puzzles and the platforming/environment traversal was kind of boring and repetitive. Another thing that was bugging me throughout the whole game was the constant lifting of fallen beams and other obstacles to get through a passage. I thought this was ridiculous as in almost every circumstance, the characters could easily slide or crawl through the opening. It made no sense. This is just one example of how they struggled to design interesting things to do throughout the game.

Uncharted 4 is a solid game, but is nowhere near a 10. Time to slow down the hype train for this game as the station is approaching. The series peaked with Uncharted 2 which is quite a bit better IMO. Rise of the Tomb Raider may not have the presentation of UC4, but it is a funner game to play.

8/10

@BassMan: There is no way Uncharted 2 is better than Uncharted 4. For starters, Uncharted 2 is mechanically stupidly inferior.

The only thing UC2 has that UC4 does not is the best setpiece in the series, but that is literally it.

Agree it raises the bar in its genre. I can also understand though the balance may have been way too adventure, less action for some. It just fitted so well with what it needed to do to close out the series.

@charizard1605: So, we are just going to ignore that Uncharted 2 has a wider range of environments with better integrated gameplay, better puzzles, more interesting story with super natural elements, better sense of adventure, better plot/pacing, and the fact that the game came out 7 years ago on inferior technology? So, all this time has passed and they had plenty of time to master the formula and even borrow elements from the recent TR series and UC4 is the best they got? Come on... a 10 is ridiculous. The game has obvious flaws and other games have been better in many elements. To get a 10, the game must absolutely blow you away and do everything near perfectly and noticeably better than the competition. I played through the game and nothing really impressed me other than the graphics and character writing/performances.

except for new gameplay.

For me personally, I'm still haven't beat the game just yet, I'm still on the actual Pirate Island and without giving any spoilers here, I will share my opinion on the actual game itself.

I for one didn't care about this whole graphic king BS, I wanted a good story and well I got it. Naughty Dog did a really good job and I can see why they needed the delay, it shows that they push the PS4 hardware to it's limits, I was amaze by the environments on the console, the landscapes are really impressive, but not the best I seen so far but it's up there. The gunfights aren't the best though, but the stealth was a neat feature in it's own way, it but nowhere near like Splinter Cell though, but still good cause I'm more of a sneaky person then straight up fights. Getting to know Drakes brother was the highlight I wanted to know. I think he's cool and isn't too hardcore from a guy who came out from prison. So far, UC4 beats UC2 (and DON'T quote me on that Charizard1605 I'm not having it) and it set the standards to what ND wanted to end this series. I wanted to discuss about Tomb Raider/Rise of the Tomb Raider but this thread is all about Uncharted 4, I'm keeping it that way. I think it raises as to what the PS4 is capable of for other developers in my opinion.

I'm giving UC4 a 8/10 in my books.

Also Cloud, I don't blame Remedy for QB not living up to our expectations, I blame M$ for there stupidity.

@Zero_epyon: normal or whatever is the equivalent.

I like playing through games once on normal and then again on hard.

Uncharted 2 is a tight cohesive experience. Uncharted 4 is a slog by comparison. Being mechanically inferior is an odd thing to point out. The only mechanical portions that have been improved for UC4 are the shooting bits. Even with better shooting, very few action scenes in UC4 are well paced. And the shooting portions definitely make up a much smaller portion of the game. Everything else still has the no stakes climbing and overly simplistic puzzles that have been a staple since the first Uncharted game.

That's how I usually do in most games anyways. Play normal settings and when I beat a game and go on my second play, I go for hard mode.

but there is some in there, not to mention the AAAAe 10/10 exclusive essential GS score it got...awww yeahhh

MDK has a dog with four arms that smokes a cigar.

My second favorite ND game, behind TLoU. Also, I don't see how people thought this had a great ending. It was fairly generic and predictable, a mundane outcome (find the treasure, have swordfight, save brother), unlike TLoU which held a lot more narrative gravitas and controversial subject matter to be pondered over and debated for a long while even after the game released.