Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
PlayStation 4
Well at last it happened. Dan finally caught up with the times and got himself a PlayStation 4. Woot!
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I still have so many video games in my library I haven't even touched yet that I probably could have held off for at least another year or two before getting one of these. But by then the PlayStation 5 would likely have been on the horizon. And hey - I'm sick of forever being a generation behind with my gaming consoles.
So here I am. Finally got a PlayStation 4, got a whole library of games in front of me. I'm ready to rock and roll! First game on the agenda was an easy one for me: Uncharted 4. I have been a big fan of the Uncharted series since its first game hit the shelves for the PlayStation 3 back in 2007. I had read a few reviews of this game and they had all been overwhelmingly positive. I'd heard it was the best Uncharted game ever. The best game released in 2016. The best PS4 game of all time!!1! I don't know about any of that, but I had not read a bad word about the game and I was more than ready to give it a go.
Uncharted 4 jumps around through several different time periods and it can be a little confusing when you first start out playing. The game starts with you controlling Nate as he is piloting a boat through a torrential rain storm. Several other smaller boats are in hot pursuit, their passengers firing on you relentlessly. This type of high octane opening sequence is not uncommon for the Uncharted series. In almost all the games they toss you into an action sequence right off the bat and then explain things later. This game is no exception. After an intense battle, Nate is thrown overboard and the ship explodes. Fade to black.
We experience a few more jumps through time. A younger looking adult version of Nate is posing as a prisoner in a Panamanian prison along with his older brother Sam. They are looking for a cell that once held a famous pirate in order to see if they can find a clue in the cell for a missing treasure. We jump back further in time to Nate and Sam in an orphanage when they were kids. I don't ever recall Nate mentioning a brother in the other Uncharted games. We even saw Nate as a young kid in Uncharted 3. Was there a brother present? Nope. When playing this I couldn't remember if he was younger or older than in the previous game. When was this flashback supposed to be taking place? Gah! I was very confused. We jumped back ahead to the younger adult version of Nate, racing to escape the prison with his brother before Sam appears to be tragically gunned down during the escape.
So the brother died, or at least Nate thought he had died. No wonder we never heard from Sam in the other Uncharted games. Then we jump forward in time yet again, this time to Nate in the present day. He is out of the adventure business, married to Elena, and working for an underwater salvaging business. But wait, when was that boat chase from the beginning supposed to have taken place? I was once again uber confused. But the good news is that I didn't have to worry about any of that much longer. Here in present time is when the real game began for me.
Sam, who Nate assumed has been long dead, shows up at his front doorstep. They have a long conversation that clears things up for everyone. The prison flashback was from about 15 years ago when Nate and his brother had been looking for a clue to a missing treasure. Sam survived the gunshot wound and since he had been left behind, he was taken prisoner and forced to stayed locked in the prison for 15 years. Nate never knew he was alive nor that he was locked up. Obviously he would have helped him if he did. But now Sam is out and in serious trouble. A powerful drug lord had helped Sam escape, with the promise that he would find the missing pirate treasure (the one they were looking for 15 years ago) and give it all to him. An overwhelmed Nate agrees to help his brother. Just like that, he is dragged back into the treasure hunting business once again. And thus we begin.
The first half of the game takes you on a wild search all over the globe. Think Indiana Jones, think the DaVinci Code. You have to find clues that lead to the next clue, then the next, etc etc, in the hopes that one of these clues will lead you to the location of famed pirate Henry Avery's legendary missing treasure. But in true Uncharted fashion, you aren't the only ones looking for these clues. Former ally and current bad boy Rafe has hired a band of ruthless mercenaries and is in hot pursuit.
Your search leads you to a Italy, where you must plan a heist to steal an artifact from a high powered auction in a fancy mansion filled with mega millionaires and billionaires. It's a super cool mission that brings to mind stuff like Ocean's Eleven or Mission Impossible. The clue in this artifact leads you to the Scottish Highlands for another clue, then to a volcano in Madagascar, then into a city in the same country.
I have to say that the game is visually very stunning. The vistas, the landscapes, everything is drawn up in such great detail. I had to stop and just look on in complete awe on many occasions. The scope of the game is amazing, and the makers of the game do a terrific job in focusing in on and impressing you with the beauty of every location you visit. Many of the game's locations look like they belong on a postcard. Interiors are well done too. Even areas that you don't get to enter or rooms with nothing in them are extremely detailed and look lived-in. I can't say enough about how great this game looks visually.
Not only is the scenery great, but the animations are perfect too. Nate Drake and company have never looked better. Little things like your characters getting wet after jumping in the water or mud making their clothes dirty are nice touches. The characters are also very expressive and show true emotion when they are talking with one another. Shout out once again to the voice acting crew of this game. The Uncharted series has always had a great cast of voice actors, and this game is no exception.
In addition to improved visuals, the game also mixes things up with the combat a little bit. Not everything is just straight up duck and cover shooting anymore. Uncharted 4 adds stealth elements to the mix. You can sneak around and take out most of your enemies stealthily before they even know you are there. Or you can go in guns blazing, it is up to you. You can also hide mid-battle, which makes the enemies give up looking for you. You can then pop back out again and resume trying to kill everyone stealthily, or you can just use this time to charge up your health before coming back out and trying to bust a cap in everyone again.
Other new things have been added as well. You can use a rope to swing across chasms or lower yourself to unseen platforms. Certain levels offer you the use of a vehicle to travel around in. Levels are a lot bigger this time around, and the car definitely comes in handy. It has a winch on the front of it that you can use to pull down trees, poles, or other things to help you solve in game puzzles. It is also necessary to use the winch to pull the car through the mud or up too-steep inclines.
The basic way the game plays is very similar to other Uncharted titles, but I do like how they throw in some wrinkles and new little twists to keep the formula fresh and interesting.
Back to the game's story line, eventually it takes you to the lost pirate utopia of Libertalia, resting place of Henry Avery and home to his massive treasure. But the dastardly Rafe has of course arrived just at the same time you have. Will he get the treasure first or will you? Is there even a treasure to find at all? I can tell you one thing for sure, things aren't what they seem in Libertalia. And one very explosive confrontation is about to take place.
As I played the game I became very invested in its story line. I liked the stories of the other Uncharted games, but I guess I had never really paid THAT close attention to them. This one, however, sucked me in. Not only the pirate stuff (I read up on pirate Henry Avery for hours on end online) but the interpersonal stuff too. Nate's relationship with his brother. His relationship with his wife and how he had to lie to her to go along on this mission. I felt torn right along with him. As the game took us to Libertalia I was on the edge of my seat. I had been looking for all the clues and following the trail right along with Nate, Sam, Sully, and company the whole time. I was just as invested in finding out if the place was real as they were.
When they finally did make it there, I got sucked into the intrigue of what happened to all the people who used to live in Libertalia. Where did they go? What happened? Like I said, the game's story line gripped me like no other Uncharted game had before. As I got closer to the end of the game, I became convinced that someone was going to die and it filled me with a sense of dread and foreboding. The game was called "A Thief's End" after all. I had become so attached to the characters and didn't want to lose anyone. I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that the ending is a big roller coaster ride that should leave most of us feeling very satisfied with how the Uncharted series has ended.
I had a really fun time with this game, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel that it was a bit over hyped. It is a great game, sure. But game of the year in 2016? Best PS4 game? I don't even know if it is the best Uncharted game out there (I have a soft spot for part 2). Best story and best characters in an Uncharted, sure. I give it that. But this all felt like been there, done that - even with all the little wrinkles and additions to the gameplay. I know they aren't going to break a successful formula like Uncharted completely, but this all felt just a little too familiar to all the other games in the series. You find clues. You shoot the shit with your traveling companions. You're up against an evil corporation with a small army that is after the same thing you are. You do a lot of climbing. You push a lot of blocks around. You fall A LOT. Ledges, platforms, and bridges give way under you A LOT and you have to miraculously grab on to something to avoid falling to your doom. You shoot the same exact types of enemies with the same exact types of weapons. This is all stuff that we've seen a countless number of times before.
So I do think the game has an originality problem. I also feel as if the game is a bit over hyped. Like I said, great game yes but is it the Uncharted to end all Uncharteds? I don't know, to me it feels like a whole lot more of the exact same thing. Even still, it says a lot about the quality of the series that even though it plays out so similar to its predecessors it is still a terrific stand alone experience. I had a blast with this game. I didn't want it to end. It is just flat out FUN. Sure it has some small flaws and sure maybe it is over hyped but I loved it and had a great time nonetheless.
I don't think it is this amazing once in a generation type game. It wasn't really groundbreaking for me. But it is fun, it is gorgeous, the cinematics and action sequences are top of the line, the story line is intriguing, the characters I deeply cared for. Original? Not necessarily. Earth shattering? No, we've seen Uncharted before and this is essentially "just another Uncharted game." But it is a damn fine Uncharted game.
Overall:
A
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