Holy crap! OK if you have a PS4 but not Uncharted 4, then you are doing yourself a massive disservice.
To kind of give this review some organization, I'll review it on several points, visuals, the technical aspects, gameplay, and plot.
From the visual side, the game is beautiful. I don't even know how much time I've spent playing around with the camera mode taking scenery picture style screen shots. But even the most beautiful of virtual landscapes can be completely ruined by choppy frame rate and texture tearing, and other graphical glitches, like an award winning lawn after the neighbor's 200lbs St.Bernard came and took a dump on it. Fortunately, graphical glitches aren't a problem that Uncharted 4 has. The game runs consistently smooth and I witnessed no graphical tearing or stretching. In fact the graphics are almost too nice. In previous Uncharteds the handholds in the climbing segments were pretty obvious, they always slightly stood out in a strange unnatural kind of way. Think the items standing out in Resident Evil or Onimusha's prerendered backgrounds. Here in 4, they look so much like a natural part of the terrain that sometimes it'll take you a moment to realize that there is a handhold there for climbing. Just about everything in the game has a photo-realistic look to it, unless you get the camera super close to a piece of foliage, then it just starts to look like green paste. But the only time you'll experience that is when you are playing around with the camera mode. What also stands out the most is how great the water effects look, especially the waterfalls.
The character modeling certainly lives up to the game's scenery. As with other Uncharted games, you can watch Nate's clothes dry. Nate will also get dirtier if you have him running though mud. I had someone walk by during a cut scene between Nate and Nadine and they literally thought I was watching TV, not playing a game. Even with the weapons, they are modeled accurately to their real world counterparts. The AK-47 has the charging handle in the correct position and even has the side scope mount on the left side. The Mini-30 also is also modeled accurately to Ruger's Ranch Rifle.
I literally have nothing to complain about when it comes to the game's visuals. Perfect score here in that regard.
Spooky...
Playing though as the normal end user would (instead of playing it in a manner trying to "break the game" as I once did in a previous life), I hardly encountered any glitches. Certainly nothing that would be considered a non-progression (you get stuck and have to restart) though, I did get the rare occasional crash that kicked me back to the PS4's main menu. Fortunately the game is very liberal with the checkpoints and I never got kicked back very far in the game. For the most part there really isn't any techical flaws in terms of bugs and what not that I would say hold the game back.
If I didn't know any better I think this was a photo taken at Versailles. Yes I have been to Versailles...
In terms of gameplay, I found the game to be generally closer Uncharted 2. Gone is the ability to throw back grenades. and melee combat has been simplified to just the use of the Square button rather than Square and Triangle combos. This would be where I'd have something to complain about. In addition to removing the ability to throw back grenades, the enemy AI also likes to flank you and is also very grenade happy. Expect someone to flush you from cover with a grenade and have 3 of their buddies all gang up on you as you break cover. I've had more than a few cheap deaths in that regard. I can live with the simplified melee since for the most part in the franchise it was more like an after thought, but I did distinctively find combat to be more frustrating because of this. The ability to throw back grenades should have been retained if they're going to make the enemies more grenade happy.
On the other hand, I did find the shotgun to be much more useful given that it appears to have more range this time around. Certainly not as long as a rifle, but now you can actually kill someone with one blast at more than 5 feet away. I'll be referring to the guns by their real world names, basically because I can't remember all their fictional names. In previous Uncharteds, especially the first one, other than the Pistole, the shotguns were basically nothing more than a till-something-better-comes-along gun. The arsenal has also had a little bit of a overhaul and is a bit more varied. Where as in previous games, you had a 3 shot burst rifle with a scope to bridge the assault rifles like the AK-47 and the sniper rifles like the Dragunov. Now in U4 we have, what appears to be the Israeli Galil with a low power zoom scope and full auto. Though the U2 FAL also makes a return and is largely unchanged. Gone is the scoped revolver from U2 and U3, just as well since that gun was as broken and over powered as the original Halo pistol. In it's place is a scoped Ruger Mini-30. The Mini-30 has low recoil giving it a high rate of semi-auto fire, a mid level scope and high power second only to the sniper rifles. It's also much more common than the scoped revolver in the prior games. For the most part the pistol arsenal has remained largely the same, the Beretta M-93 returns, as does the Pistole. While gone, there is still a .44 magnum revolver, in this case it appears to be a Chiappa Rhino.
Other additions come in the form of tagging enemies the same manner as Metal Gear Solid 5, a tag is placed on a target. Another is useful stealth mechanic where you are able to hide in tall grass and thick foliage. I didn't use the tag all that much, but I did use the stealth mechanic often and tried to take out as many as I could before the alarm got raise and the shooting started. Though the stealth mechanic isn't really a must, you can always just go in loud.
Personally, I think the combat was better in Uncharted 3. It felt more balanced and I had less cheap deaths. Additionally, I would say that Uncharted 3 had better level designs for the combat zones. The level designs in Uncharted 4 are set up to be very easy for the player to be flanked. The other issue I have with combat, is that unlike the prior games, in 4, you almost always have another character with you, be it Sam, Sully, or Elena, but you can't issue orders to them. A partner command mechanic could have been implemented though the Dual Shock 4's touch pad. Swipe left = Cover me!, Swipe right = Hold position here!, Swipe up = Attack my tag!, Swipe down = Autonomous action.
Combat wasn't the only changes they made to gameplay. Uncharted 4 sees three new things added. First and the biggest is the grappling hook. Other than using it to get place to place and advance game play it can also be used to flank enemies and move quickly around the battlefield. The places where you can hook on to are pretty obvious (you'll see a post or a pole sticking out somewhere) and the grappling hook icon appears, taking out the guess work of where you can and can't hook on to. While it can be used as a bludgeoning weapon in multiplayer, it's not usable as a weapon in singleplayer. Personally I think this is a missed opportunity to use the hook in a manner like Scorpion and used to pull an enemy towards you for a melee beat down. While a new addition it the hook was so seemlessly integrated in that it feels like it was always there.
The second addition is a terrain addition, now there are slopes that Nate can slide down on. There are segments, you'll be sliding down and have to jump at the end onto a cliff or end up falling into an abyss. There isn't so much to say about this, there aren't really any set pieces where you're sliding into people as a way to attack them. Like the hook, the way it was integrated was done so well it feels like the mechanic was always there.
Lastly there are now vehicles, mainly jeeps. The controls for th vehicles are very responsive and for the most part you only use them to really get from Point A to Point B. It does allow for much larger environments to explore though, given that you can now move faster and cover more ground. It adds to the exploration element and looking for Treasure pick-ups. Again, like the other two, it doesn't feel forced on you. A few sequences have the player using the winch on the jeep to "climb" and to pull down obstacles, so even the driving gets a bit of the Uncharted treatment.
To wrap up singleplayer I'll go into replayablity. The singleplayer has decent replayability. There's lots of unlockables in the form of weapons, rendering modes (like cell shaded, or 8-bit modes) as well as gameplay modifiers such as no gravity, infinite ammo and what I think was a brilliant idea, mirror mode. Playing though mirror mode almost feels like playing the story with new maps. While everything looks familiar everthing is also reversed and it does throw you off and make you feel like you're in a new map at times.
That water looks clean enough to drink, probably safer than Flint water.
Now on to multiplayer. I have played too much of the multiplayer, mainly spent my time on the challenges. The biggest disappointment, hands down is the lack of the story based co-op. Uncharted 2 and 3 featured these kind of mini multiplayer co-op campaigns, that were A LOT of fun. These are now gone. But on the other hand, the trial missions serve like a tutorial for multiplayer. So players have a way to ease into multiplayer and get used to the experience. But it isn't just a straight tutorial, it also has a little bit of a bot feature as the maps are also filled with active enemies, it isn't just scripted trial events.
As with other multiplayer games, you're able to change you skin/character and set up prearraigned weapon loadouts.
Overall this was a very fun game to play. While I do have some complaints with the combat, it is still a very enjoyable experience. Definitely an A+ experience but not an S rank.
If I were to rank the games based on game play I would rank them as such, from best to least (though even "least" in the Uncharted series is a damn good game): Uncharted 3, 4, 2, 1.
If you have a PS4, go buy this game!
Now on to the plot. If you don't want any spoilers this is the part where to stop reading.
The biggest thing that stuck out with the plot was the focus on two people rather than on just Nate. In this regard you could tell that Uncharted 4 was written by a different writer from the previous games. While U4 was in development word got out that the writer of the previous games, had left Naughty Dog and the fear was that the plot wouldn't be up to snuff. Well the writer behind The Last of Us, took up the job, and the story definitely holds up to the previous games.
Though in terms of plot there were a few things that did disappoint me. While Chole and Charlie were mentioned, I was hoping they would make an appearance, even a minor one. Though they do have renders and voice files in multiplayer, so seeing them appear in DLC is a possibility. In previous games, there was something supernatural, or just wrong, about the treasure at the end. Golden Abyss on Vita, had radioactive gold that poisoned the previous owners. Uncharted 1 had the cursed El Dorado coffin that when opened released this black mist that turned people into these violent mutants. Uncharted 2 had the Tree Of Life with high explosive sap that when consumed gave a person superhuman healing abilities but also seemed to mutate it's eaters into savages. Lastly Uncharted 3 had the lost city in the desert with a tainted water supply that made people have bad acid trips. Here in 4 there wasn't anything supernatural or just out of the ordinary that brought the previous holders down, it was just simple greed. That was a bit disappointing in my opinion.
The other point of disappointment in the plot was that towards the end it did not become a three way race between Nate, Rayf/Nadine and the Alcazar. There was a lot of potential for a BIG threeway blow out with some really epic set pieces with Alcazar's cartel and Nadine's private army blowing each other up left and right, with Nate and Co. caught in the middle. Instead they wrote it off as Alcazar's involvement being a fabrication. BULLSHIT! I say to that.
The other big disappointment was how Nadine was handled at the end. She literally just walks away. You have two encounters with her where she's completely unstoppable (unarmed) anyone who's played their share of games knows these scripted encounters are the build up to the big epic boss fight towards the end. But no, she literally says it isn't worth it and exits stage left. No boss fight no nothing. Completely anti-climactic. What I would have liked to see instead is her and her army in a losing battle with Alcazar's cartel after Rayf's been killed, and Nate and Sam helping her get rid of Alcazar to make her owe them one and to rid themselves of the drug lord. Or have Nadine as a boss character in a shoot out in the ruined colony, where just about every weapon in the game is avaiable and the player can fight in any style they want.
Lastly I can't talk about the plot without talking about Sam. Sam isn't just a tacked on character, but an integral part of the plot. Uncharted 4 is every bit Sam's story as it is Nate's final adventure. The flash back sequences go back further than Uncharted 3's to establish an origin story of how the boys got their name. Their mother was a famed historian who was the originator of the theory that Sir Francis Drake faked his death and had heirs, as well as being in the process of tracking down the pirate treasure that everyone was after before she died. The whole treasure hunter lifestyle and the adoption of the Drake surname was a sort of way to carry on their mom's work. While Sam undoubtedly played a big part in Nate's life before being thought for dead the writer still paid respect to the previous games and did not replace Sully with him, Sully continues to play the surrogate father to Nate.
The way Sam was introduced into the universe was done very smoothly, he didn't feel just shoe horned in like how a new character would feel in some established TV shows. There's some talk of Sony having another studio do an Uncharted 5 without Nate. At first I was skeptical of that idea, but Sam is likeable enough and the main story of 4 ends with Sam basically asking Sully if he can get him set up with work. I can see an Uncharted 5 featuring Sam, maybe even working with Chloe and Charlie. If Horizon Zero Dawn by that other Sony 1st party dev Guerilla (known for Killzone) turns out awesome, I wouldn't mind letting them have a shot at Uncharted.
Now for the actual ending. The ending was a beautiful send off to Nathan Drake. We're introduced to Cassie Drake, Nate and Elena's 15(?) daughter. Turns out Nate gets into archalology and makes a name for himself, but he keeps Cassie in the dark about the events of the prior games, till she gets into a wardrobe where stuff from the prior games, like Spanish coin and tree of life sap samples are kept, and Nate and Elena decide to tell her about their past adventures. This was the perfect way to wrap up Nate's story.
Overall the plot was good, but I didn't think it was as strong as Uncharted 3's. Uncharted 3 just had a more polished story. It didn't drop the ball anywhere the way Uncharted 4 dropped the ball with Nadine. U3 also was stronger in the way it showed Nate and Sully's relationship, vs the way Nate and Sam's relations were shown in U4.
If I give Uncharted 3 a 10 then I'd give Uncharted 4 an 8.5. I would have given the plot an 8, but I gave it that .5 with the way it treated Nate at the end. Nadine was under utilized and I can see several missed opportunities. The plot was great, but it could have definitely be been better.
Now if I were to rate Uncharted 4 as a total package, then I would rate the overall package a 9.While I think Uncharted 3 is an overall better game that I would score a 10, but that doesn't by any means take away from U4. U4 is still an awesome game, it's still worth getting, and it needs to be in every PS4 owner's game library.
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