UNCHARTED 1, 2, AND 3 SPOILERS ARE FAIR GAME IN THIS REVIEW: My personal advice if you have’t touched the Uncharted series, you can just start with 1 and go through all of them. However, if you are pressed for time, then 1 and 3 are pretty skip-able. I would recommend 2 for sure, and 4 as well as you will find out. I didn't finish 1 but I beat 2 and 3. I loved Uncharted 2, it was a 5/5 game as well. Uncharted 3 was good, but not amazing and decent 4/5. I played Uncharted 1 a long time ago, and don't really remember much of it to comment.
When Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End was announced at E3 2014 as the “one last thing”, I kind of rolled my eyes and was disappointed. I didn’t want to see another Uncharted game. Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception was good, but kind of stale and forced. It felt more like an Uncharted 2.5 to me, and I was totally down for more of that when it came out, but after that, I was not down for a Uncharted 2.75. Uncharted 4 is not Uncharted 2.75, it makes leaps and bounds of improvements on every aspect. The story takes a deeper, dark, and more intense tone influenced by Neil Druckman’s work on The Last of Us. The gameplay makes subtle improvements to the combat by adding new features and sticking with what worked. The graphics are what you’d expect from Naughty Dog on a next generation game. I really tried to nit pick this game, but it is great in every way.
The story is one of the main attraction for the Uncharted series. I was a fan of the last few Uncharted stories, I felt they were well written and interesting enough that I wanted to see where it ended. I felt close to the characters in and cared enough about each of their tales on adventuring. In Uncharted 4, the story’s main plot is that Nathan’s long lost brother, Samuel Drake, comes back, and needs to hunt for a treasure with Nathan in a dire situation. This, being a treasure Nathan and Sam have had their eyes on for a long time, the Captain Avery treasure. Introducing a character like Nathan’s brother, seems hard to do but Naughty Dog totally nails it. Interlacing a lot of back story as to why Sam just comes up now, and incorporates a lot of their childhood story in the mix as well. It works, it makes sense, and Sam turns out to be a favorite character. Troy Baker and Nolan North really work well with each other, and the banter between Nathan and Sam is great. Some other minor/evil new characters appear as well. We have Rafe, who is a guy Sam and Nathan worked with long ago finding treasures. He isn’t as talented as the Drake brothers, kind of buying his way to finding a treasure with them early on (before the events of Uncharted 4). Fast forward to the present, and now Rafe is competing with Sam and Nathan for the Avery treasure again. He however, has help from a military contracting company head, Nadine, who of course is paying for all the goons that you have to kill.
These minor new evil characters, Nadine and Rafe, are the best villains the series has to offer. Past Uncharted games, it has just been weird stereotypical villains. Rafe is really well designed, a true asshole you’d fine in your everyday life. Where as the past villains were on the mythical level of like Cruella Deville and were one step away from being a Disney movie villain, just minus an evil laugh. Rafe is just a rich asshole who has the same motives as Nathan and Sam. Nadine is not really evil like Rafe, she kind of just is greedy and doing a job for Rafe. Nadine and Rafe throughout the story don’t really get along, the game provides a lot more context into the villains story rather than “these are evil people who just fuck shit up”. They have better motives than enemies in the past, and overall just really well designed and written.
Main plot itself is much deeper and mature than the past games. There is a lot more said and shown about Nathan and his life, his feelings, and how he really isn’t all that perfect. In some ways, Nathan is somewhat of a jerk throughout the story. They elaborate more onto Nathan’s life beyond just hunting and looting treasure, and it really works. The intro scene to this game builds just more depth to Nathan in general, and it works out well for the whole story. I’m not sure if the last few paragraphs have done the trick, but I can’t express how much the story in Uncharted 4 has improved. It makes leaps and bounds past the just an Indiana Jones type story, and becomes something deep and emotional that is enticing to say the least.
Worth mentioning, but kind of expected, the graphics are great. Something expected from a studio like Naughty Dog. The nail biting intense scenes, similar to the train scene in Uncharted 2, exist in Uncharted 4. There are many minor details that go a long visually in this game, but more or less it just is something kind of expected. It is half of what made Uncharted 2 so great to many people, for just how amazing it looked. No need to really go more in depth here, I’d be beating a dead horse with this if I did, you know what to expect.
Gameplay wise, we can start with the shooting. There is a lot less shooting in Uncharted 4 compared to previous entries, and when you do you have the option to stealth through enemy encounters more. The stealth controls have been improved because of the more available options to stealth. You now can tag enemies with an arrow to watch where they walk, to get a feel for when enemies are coming back and where they are. In addition, enemies now have a better system with diamonds above their heads to show if they've spotted you or not. White slowly filling up means they can see you, when the white fills up it turns to yellow that they see and are investigating you, and finally orange is they are attacking you and have alerted all other enemies. Besides those two new additions, the stealth is more or less the same. Shooting itself, like I said a lot less of it, but still more or less the same. The HUD and such has been redesigned, but besides that all the same. Same types of enemies as well, regular goons, sniper goons, and armored goons. Uncharted 4 also introduces vehicles to the series, specifically you drive a Jeep like vehicle and a boat. Both of which will be used for various puzzle sequences and chase sequences (intense chase sequences at that).
Uncharted is especially know for the crazy chase scenes along with the exploring and climbing scenes. Uncharted 4 has no shortage of these, with scenes that will take your breath away as with previous Uncharted games. I felt the climbing was more or less the same as the past games. You see ledges that stand out, for which you can hop on and climb. I must say though, they don't stand out nearly as well as they did in past games, making it a more challenging task to find the correct path. Two main additions have been added to the climbing, the grappling hook and the spike. The grappling hook allows you to throw a rope or grapple onto a marked ledge, and swing from ledge to ledge. The grapple is also used with various puzzles and other game play moments, such as pulling your vehicle out of mud. The spike is found much later in the game, but is used to rock climb more and reach farther to reach ledges. Both new exploring items are great additions to the game.
I did however find quite a few minor flaws within the game, that really break the immersion and remind you this is still a video game. The grapple I mention earlier can only be accessed via clearly marked and similar wooden pieces with rope hanging on them. You can't like, clip it to a window sill or anything and climb, has to be the wooden rope markers (or occasionally the car). These wooden rope hanging things also look pretty out of place and modern, given the ancient depths you explore. There also are these random carts with wheels that appear a lot, the purpose being to give you a boost some where. It is extremely unrealistic to see the same cart with wheels over and over in multiple different ancient ruins, along with a modern place you explore. I get using the same item designs for indicating "this is a grappling item" or "this is a boosting item" is good game design, but its poor immersion and could have been represented some other way.
Like said before, I tried to take a critical look to find major flaws in this game, but there are none. It’s a great game from top to bottom, with improvements all around. The more mature and intense story really goes a long way with the series, to be one of the best stories in a video game I’ve seen. Anything else the past games had, were left in, because why fix a good thing? That being said, I am done with Nathan Drake. I was kind of done with him before this, but Naughty Dog managed to reel me back in with my interest. In some ways, it kind of convinced me that maybe Naughty Dog is capable of doing something new with Crash or Jak. This is an amazing game, the best Uncharted game in the series, and a great way to end a series.
