Video Game Review #118: Paperboy

Paperboy

Sega Genesis

I have very mixed feelings about this game. I was raised with the NES version of Paperboy. I played the heck out of it and I loved it. I had played the arcade version a small handful of times when I was a kid as well, but I had never owned or even played the Genesis version of the game. I had played its sequel, Paperboy 2, over at a friend's house on his Genesis once. But the original? Nope.

Well that changed here in January of 2018. It only took me 27 years from the game's initial release date, but hey - I finally played it. Upon booting it up, I immediately noticed that it was different from the 8-bit NES version. Like the arcade version of the game, Paperboy for Sega Genesis offered 3 different routes to play: Easy St. Middle Rd. and Hard Way.

I started out on Easy St. because... well, because. I was going to play all 3 of them anyway. Why not start on the easiest one? Turns out, "easiest" would be a relative term.

For those of you not familiar with Paperboy, I really don't want to associate myself with you. How da eff could you not know what Paperboy is? I kid, I kid. I hope you know the idea of the game, but I will explain it anyway. The premise of Paperboy is simple. You control a boy on a bicycle. Not just a boy, a PAPER boy. The goal of the game is toss your newspapers onto the doorstep (or directly into the mailbox) of your subscribers. If you succeed, congrats! You just hung on to a subscriber. If you miss, you lose their business. Oh noes!!!! You can tell the difference between a subscriber's house and a non-subscriber's because of the way their houses are painted. Subscribers have nice white, blue, or yellow houses. Non-subscribing households have the whole all black goth thing going on, complete with signs in the yard saying "go away! or "keep out!". They must REALLY want everyone to know that they don't want a paper and that the paperboy better stay away. Now that is dedication to their cause.

That is the basic premise of the game, but things aren't quite that simple. If you successfully deliver a paper to a subscriber but do damage to their house or property, you lose that subscriber. How do you damage someone's house? The number one culprit in this game is missing the mark with your paper and knocking out their window.

The game is structured around days of the week. Each day of the week, the game gets progressively harder. If you successfully deliver a paper to all your subscribers, you gain a new subscriber. The more subscribers you have, the more points you can earn in the game. I tried my dardnest to complete a perfect run on Easy St, but it just wasn't meant to be. I could never do it on the NES version either. Something always managed to pop up and throw a monkey wrench in my plans.

On the flip side, if you miss a subscriber's house or break their window, you lose that subscriber. I think you start the game off with about 10 to 12 subscribers. If you lose all of them it is game over no matter how many lives you have left. Bummer.

If you have never played Paperboy before (I'm still judging you), you are probably thinking that this sounds really boring. So you drive around on a bicycle and chuck newspapers at peoples' doors. What is the big deal? Let me explain what makes the game interesting: the obstacles.

The neighborhood in this game comes directly from the nightmares of Tim Burton. It looks like a nice little suburb on the outside. But no! Its residents seem to have one thing and one thing only on their minds: murdering the paperboy. Construction workers hammering on the sidewalks. They want to kill you. Old ladies with shopping carts. They want to kill you too. Break dancers, kids on tricycles, the homeless, skateboarders, burglars, street artists, brawling inmates, kids with remote control cars, fat angry looking dad types in wife-beaters, the freaking Unabomber, even the Grim Reaper himself: they all want to kill you. So the sidewalk isn't safe, think you can just drive on the road instead? Think again. Cars come flying down the street with no regard for human life whatsoever. Even the pets and animals of the neighborhood want to bring you down. Terriers, cats, poodles, giant swarms of bees. They all want your blood.

Therein lies most of the charm of the game, seeing what crazy shit this neighborhood is going to throw at you. The place feels like a war zone most of the time. You are constantly swerving around, going back and forth, trying to avoid all these obstacles. You can even smack most of these things with your newspaper and stop them dead in their tracks. It is a very satisfying feeling.

As mentioned earlier, the game progressively gets harder each day of the week. Monday is the easiest and has the least amount of obstacles. By the time you get to Sunday you are going to feel like you have been through WWII. Each day's route ends with a little obstacle course you have to navigate to earn extra points. At the end of the obstacle course, a cheering crowd awaits you. WTF, first they want to kill you, now they want to cheer you on? It is funny how I never questioned this as a kid.

Make it through all 7 days with at least one subscriber remaining and you beat the game. There are 3 different routes to take, each with 7 days. Each route takes about 10 to 15 minutes to complete. So this is not a long game. Not only is it short, there is not much replay value. The only reason you keep playing Paperboy is because it is so damn challenging. It took me many, many attempts just to beat Easy St. The other 2 routes, forget about it. I am lucky to make it to Thursday. But I actually found Hard Way to be easier than Middle Rd for some odd reason.

I don't think I made it quite clear enough in my last paragraph how hard the game is. It is FREAKING INSANE. The game throws so much at you, it is nearly impossible to dodge everything. It is impossible actually. And the game puts you in a lot of lose/lose situations where no matter which way you go you are destined to be taken down. Not only that, but the game's collision detection is wonky too. It happened many times in this game where I would give an obstacle a wide berth but it still would somehow manage to take me out. Like, I wasn't even near that fire hydrant. I was driving down the middle of the sidewalk. How the crap did it hit me? This happens quite a lot.

Plus, the game's controls aren't very responsive either. It handles... fine. But if you are trying to make a sharp turn or move swiftly to avoid something, you will go too far in that direction and hit something else. It doesn't control crisply or fluidly enough. It is very jerky and mechanical. This would be acceptable to me if the game wasn't so challenging and didn't require such precise movements. It is quite frustrating to be honest with you.

That sums up my time with the game: frustrating. With a lot of these classic retro reviews that I write, I often allow nostalgia to get in the way. Not this time. I appreciate Paperboy's relevance to the video game world. It is a clever game. At times, it can be a fun game. But for the most part it is not. It just made me want to chuck my controller through the wall. I honestly find the NES translation, although it is not as faithful to the arcade version as this one is, to be the better game. This one just pissed me off most of the time. It looks old, it sounds old, it doesn't control well, it is short, and it is frustratingly difficult. Not just difficult. If it was simply a hard game I could handle that. But it is flat out unfair and that I do not approve of.

So this won't get a good rating from me. I don't want to give it a bad one either, because damn it, it is still Paperboy. There is still a part of me that is going to forgive some of this game's shortcomings no matter how many there are. But it does not get my glowing recommendation. Before I go, kudos again to my cousin Ryan for loaning me a box his Genesis games to play and review. This was yet another one of his games. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate it!

Overall:

C-

Video Game Review #117: Wave Race 64

Wave Race 64

Nintendo 64

I was 14 years old when Wave Race 64 hit the shelves. I wasn't big on racing games back then, but when my step brother rented this game from Blockbuster it looked way too cool for me to not check out. For its time, the graphics were out of this world. Water had always looked horrible in video games. Wave Race was, for me, the first game to truly get it right. That in itself was enough to really grab my attention.

We played this game off and on the whole weekend he had it. I was never very good at it (again, racing games were not my thing back then), but we had a ton of fun, both with the game's single player mode and its split screen competitive mode. When I found a used copy of Wave Race 64 for under 5 bucks about 10 years later, I decided to relive some old memories and pick it up.

I popped in Wave Race a couple of times after that, but I never really gave it much of a chance. I didn't have anyone to play it with, and the game was painfully short. Mainly it festered on my old game shelf, underplayed and for the most part unloved. Until 2018!

My last 2 reviews have been PlayStation 4 games. I wanted to mix things up and play something short for a system I hadn't hooked up in a long time. In fact, my last review for Nintendo 64 was The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask back in March of 2017. Looking at my list of Nintendo 64 games, Wave Race 64 seemed a likely candidate.

I hooked up my N64 console, threw in the game, and off I went. My first impression was that the game still looks decent for its age. Keep in mind, it is no Uncharted 4. Obviously. But it has bright colors, beautifully designed stages, and of course amazing water effects. The racers themselves are nothing to write home about. And of course when you look closer at a lot of things like the game's textures you are going to see a lot of flaws. This is a Nintendo 64 game after all.

But for its time the game was revolutionary. As I mentioned, water effects in games were almost always terrible. They were either a pixelated mess, a straight line of blue, or cartoonishly exaggerated. You pretty much never saw realistic looking water in video games. Wave Race broke the mold. Not only is the game's water very realistic looking, it acts realistic too. You are racing on the ocean in jet skis. You are going to see unpredictable wave patterns. Some big, some small. You are going to see the surface of the water get choppy when there are other racers around. You see the trails the other racers leave when they zoom by you.

Expect to see a lot of fun little touches too. Dolphins jumping in the water. Whales in the distance. There is a level set on a lake that starts out shrouded in fog, but clears up by the 3rd lap of the race. There is a course set inside a city that has a lot of fun lighting effects. In one of the stages, the tide rises as you play, giving you access to ramps that had previously been elevated too high above the water. You can tell a lot of TLC went into making the game clever and fun to look at.

Not only is it fun to look at, it is fun to play too. The physics of the game are exceptional. You hit a string of big waves, it makes your jet ski harder to control. You want to nose down and kind of knife through the waves. If you pull up or just plow forward the waves will take you and you can end up losing control and getting thrown off course.

This took me a while for me to get used to, but controlling the jet ski around turns is very realistic too. There are no brakes in this game. You want to slow down, you just let off the gas. You can't just simply hold left or right when going around a turn either. Not only is pointing the jet ski left or right important in controlling its direction, the body movements of its driver are as well. Your analog controller controls the motions of the driver on the jet ski. You see a sharp turn, you have to pull back on the analog stick to make the driver lean back and then turn the direction you want to go. Doesn't hurt to let off the gas a little bit too. You will see the racer on the screen mimic what you are doing with the controller with his or her body. Try to turn too sharply and you will go flying off the jet ski. Mastering this technique is essential to doing well in the game. It happened too many times where I was simply holding to one side without pulling back or slowing down and my jet ski wasn't responding as I thought it should. I was still racing well enough to finish first on all the courses for the game's easiest difficulty level, but I was not succeeding on the more challenging ones. Discovering this was very satisfying and rewarding for me.

Music for the game is not too memorable. I like the opening theme and I enjoy the little jingle during the introduction for each race course. But nothing here really stands out to me. There is an announcer that shouts out comments every once in a great while, but I kinda tuned him out. All in all, it has a bit of a cheesy feel like an 80's arcade game with its music. I am not complaining though. In a way it is charming.

Overall that is sort of how the game comes across to me. A fast paced, high octane arcade game. The game is very short and there is not a whole lot of replay value to be found here. There are 3 difficulty levels, and a maximum of 8 courses to discover. You can unlock and see them all in one play through. There are things like Time Trial and a few other methods available, but I didn't bother with those. As mentioned, there is a 2 player mode as well. Sucks that it does not take advantage of the N64's 4 player capability, but I suppose things would have been hard to see split off into 4 little windows on 1990's TV sets. And it is not like I have 3 other people to play with anyway.

When I first started up Wave Race last night, the game didn't impress me too much and I thought I'd be over and done with it in an hour and give it something like a C rating. But the more I played it, the more it impressed me. Not only with its physics but its difficulty level as well. Expert mode is very challenging (equivalent to 150 CCs on Mario Kart) and I just kept grinding and grinding to get through it. This is a very fun game, and not as shallow (pardon the obvious pun) as I initially thought. It is not a classic like Mario Kart, and I still am not that big on racing so it won't go down as an all time N64 great in my books. But it is a fun game and I am glad I own it. It brings some fun memories with it as well.

Overall:

B

If you liked this review, you should check out my reviews for:

Super Mario Kart

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Apparently I need to play more racing or water based games!

Video Game Review #116: Batman: The Telltale Series

Batman: The Telltale Series

PlayStation 4

For the most part I have been a big fan of Telltale Games over the years. The Walking Dead is one of my favorite game series of all time (I still gotta play Season 3!). Game of Thrones was good. Jurassic Park was good. No, I didn't much care for Back to the Future or The Wolf Among us, but I was willing to forgive those as simple missteps.

Over a year ago when I first heard that Telltale was making a Batman game, my interest was immediately piqued. I like Telltale Games. I like Batman. It seemed like a match that would be perfect for me. Unfortunately for whatever reason I completely forgot about the game. But it turned out that my timing for getting a PS4 would be absolutely perfect. I got a PS4 for Christmas at the end of 2017. PlayStation Plus was offering this game as one of their freebies for the month of January 2018. As soon as I noticed it I was like "hey that game!!" It was like it was meant to be. As soon as I was able to download this game, I did so. I dived right in and I never looked back.

I don't know about most people, but I play Telltale video games for their story lines. If you play them for exploration purposes or for gripping action sequences you are going to be sorely let down. So I came in knowing what to expect here. A lot of talking, a lot of conversation choices, a lot of story line, a whole lot of watching. And I was okay with that. The first chapter of this game does have a lot of action scenes, but your interactivity during these scenes is somewhat limited. Press up when they tell you to press up. Circle when you are prompted to press circle. Down when they tell you to press down. So on and so forth. Some people may come in expecting you to be able to fully take control of Batman during a fight, ala Arkham Asylum, but that is not the case here. I knew this coming in, so that didn't bug me at all.

Don't expect this mechanic to change as you play the game either. All action sequences play out pretty much the exact same way. My only complaint would be that these sequences are a little too easy. If it tells you to hit square and you accidentally hit circle, there are no repercussions at all. As long as the icon is still on the screen you can hit square and it will still count as a successful move. They give you plenty of time to react too when you are prompted to press a button. In fact, during my play through of this game and all five of its chapters, I only died once. And that was pretty much because I fell asleep at the wheel and wasn't expecting to have to hit a prompt when one popped up on the screen.

Aside from action sequences, you also take control of Batman during investigation scenes. You come to the scene of a crime. You walk around and look at all the clues. You can then link one clue to another to piece together exactly what happened. These investigations are not difficult at all, but they are fun to play through.

Occasionally you will find yourself in the Batcave where you must manipulate the computers to help you in your investigations. Again, all easy stuff to do. You point your cursor at the prompts and the game basically holds your hand through everything. In case I haven't already made myself clear, the game is very very easy. But that isn't the point of the game. The point of the game is to tell you a good Batman story. Which this game does!

I will lay out the basics without spoiling too much. The game focuses on Batman during his early years. The police don't trust him. Gordon is not commissioner yet. Harvey Dent is an ambitious DA who is running for mayor of Gotham. Many established Batman villains are nowhere to be seen yet. Batman must battle an anarchist group that calls itself the Children of Arkham. They are lead by a mysterious leader who is looking to terrorize the city with a special drug that makes people act out on their deepest and darkest impulses. At the same time, Bruce Wayne has come under fire when it is leaked that his parents were dirty criminals who gained their fortunes through shady business dealings with Carmine Falcone. Not only this, but they gained power by abusing and torturing people under the guise of medical research at Arkham Asylum.

So the game is really a struggle on two fronts. Batman, who is dealing with vicious criminals. And Bruce Wayne, looking to clear his name, defend his company, and detach himself from the criminal dealings of his parents. The story takes a lot of really dark twists and turns. Batman movies are for the most part pretty dark in tone, but this game was dire the likes of which I haven't seen before in a Batman story. You really sympathize with Bruce Wayne, who you know is a good guy. It almost feels like YOU personally are under attack when Bruce starts getting thrown under the bus. You also get back stabbed by friends and people that you thought you could trust over the course of the game. That only adds to the feeling of dire helplessness that amasses as you play.

As the game goes on, several famous Batman villains make their way into the story. Catwoman appears early on. The Penguin and the Joker make appearances. We all know what happens to Harvey Dent. The only villain I wasn't too happy with was the Penguin. He doesn't look or act like the Penguin that I know. He is not short or fat. He doesn't have flippers. He occasionally wears a stupid Penguin mask that I have never seen in any representation of the Penguin before (that includes the original series, the Animated Series, Batman Returns, etc). He also has a weird Scottish or British accent that almost sounds a bit like David Tennant's voice. This is really odd considering he is supposed to have grown up in Gotham as a close friend of Bruce Wayne. I wasn't a fan. The Joker only plays a minor role in the game, but I am okay with that because it sets him up as a future baddie in upcoming Telltale Batman games.

So the story line I thought was pretty good. It is dark, it keeps you involved. There are lots of twists and turns. The content is very mature too. Expect to see lots of gruesome violence. People get blown away. There is blood. Someone gets their eyes gouged out of their head. Depending on the choices you make, their is even a sex scene in the game.

And that brings me to the game's choices. Now, keep in mind I have only played through this game once. A complaint I have for previous Telltale games is that the choices you make don't actually make that much of an impact on the overall story line of the game. That is different here. I think. Again, I didn't play through the game twice and make different choices the second time around. I probably will some day. But from my general observation and from what I have read about the game, your choices do player a bigger role here.

Some samples of choices: give your evidence to Vicki Vale to run through the press to clear Bruce Wayne's name or give the evidence to the police and Lieutenant Gordon. Confront Two-Face as a friend (Bruce) or as an enemy (Batman). Beat the crap out of the Penguin after he tries to take over Wayne Enterprises or graciously accept defeat. Take off your mask to appease the end villain so she doesn't kill her hostage or attack head on. I made my specific choices in these instances, but I can't imagine the story line isn't altered by making a different choice. I want to go back and play again and see what happens when I do things differently, but at the same time I want what happened to be MY version of the events in the game. Maybe after a few years when it is clear that the series is over I can go back and do the whole thing differently again.

All in all I had a really fun time with the game. Good story, good characters. A lot of really tough decisions. The game also made me care not only about Batman but about Bruce Wayne himself. In fact I could argue that the segments where you play as Wayne are more intriguing than the ones where you play as Batman.

Do I have any complaints here? Yeah. The game isn't perfect. Like a lot of past Telltale titles, the game is a bit glitchy. Things freeze up here and there. The game lags. Backgrounds disappear completely. Characters stutter and it seems like entire conversation bits are skipped on occasion. These were problems that plagued Telltale titles back on the PS3. A Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones were two big offenders in particular. You would think these things would be fixed on the PS4.

I like the game's graphical look, but this game could just as easily have been done on last generation's consoles and no one would have known any better. Voice acting is decent for the most part, but as I mentioned earlier the Penguin sucked. I also thought that the Joker could have been done better too. Why not bring Mark Hamill in for the role? I thought Troy Baker did well as the Joker in other Batman games. Sure, he is playing Bruce Wayne in this game so it would have been a little weird with him as Batman and the Joker. But it would have certainly been better than going with whoever they picked to do the Joker's voice. I was a little underwhelmed by that character as well.

I also feel as if there were some loose ends with the game's story that never got tied up. I am for the most part okay with this though as it is obvious that there will be sequels where these things will probably be addressed. In fact, upon further research, there is already a sequel out there (although all of its chapters haven't been released yet).

Is this game worth it? Well it was free, so absolutely! I definitely wouldn't have doled out ten or fifteen bucks for each chapter of the game though. I am one of those people that waits for the whole thing to hit the shelves and then I buy the discounted bundle. But overall I thought the game was really, really good. If you are one of those people who don't care about story line and are just looking for action sequences where you beat people up, this game won't be for you. Otherwise if you are like me and you love a good Batman story, you need to check this out. Especially if you are a fan of past Telltale games and know what to expect. This was fun and I can't wait to play its sequels and see where the series takes us.

PS: I know this is silly, but the game is an easy Platinum too.

Overall:

A-

If you liked this blog entry, please check out the following reviews:

Batman: Arkham Asylum

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead Season Two

The Walking Dead: Michonne

The Wolf Among Us

Video Game Review #115: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

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