Most encounters are a blend of a few stealth kills, and then getting spotted, and then everything going to hell as you scramble around trying not to die. Swinging in on a rope and clobbering a guy with a leaping punch is well and good, but suddenly you’re in the middle of five other enemies getting riddled with bullets. But in terms of the kind of high-flying “cinematic” combat you’ve seen in the trailers, it doesn’t quite play out that way in practice most of the time. Shooting feels chaotic and loose in a mostly good way, and there are some fun combat “puzzles” to be solved, trying to take down loads of enemies in creative ways. It’s the same as all the previous Uncharted games with only minor tweaks. Obviously, none of what I’ve discussed so far has anything at all to do with gameplay, and that’s where the game falters a bit. If they ever get around to making that Uncharted movie, this is certainly the best storyline of the bunch. This is the first time I remember being truly impressed by the telling of a “legend” in a game like this, be it Uncharted or Tomb Raider, and I'd almost put the concept up there with Raiders or Last Crusade, truthfully. Without going into too much detail, this is one of the most compelling “lost fortune” type stories I’ve seen, and the rabbit hole of the story of Avery’s treasure keeps going deeper and deeper when you think it’s going to be a relatively straightforward arc. The other success of the story is the tale of the pirate treasure itself. These are all great characters, and once again, they work really well together. Thankfully, it’s made explicit eventually that Nate was just being an ass, and as Elena rejoins the cast, the mending of her and Nathan’s relationship is well-written and endearing. I was not wild about how Nathan treats Elena initially, namely by lying to her about this new treasure hunt for reasons he’s never able to effectively articulate. I like that Sam isn’t a stereotype of a ne’er-do-well older brother, and though he has his secrets, almost everything he does is for the love of his family. Their bond feels real, and changes in believable and logical ways as the events of the game unfold. Nathan’s relationship with his brother Sam, despite being someone we’ve heard almost nothing about previous to this, is the centerpiece of the game, and one of its strongest aspects. There are two ways the story works really well in Uncharted 4, the first being through the characters' relationships with one another. Uncharted has always had colorful characters and a solid script, but now that we’ve gone into full-on performance-capture mode, the characters are more alive than ever, and I think it’s helped create a more compelling story than what we’ve seen before. This new age of animation also helps out with storytelling as well. It may be old hat to say an Uncharted game is good looking at this point, but honestly, it’s its best feature. At one point, I even just sat and stared at a bunch of stacked folding tables in a dimly lit basement, because that’s how well they were rendered. Yes, there are the obvious landscapes like towering mountains or lush islands surrounded by crystal clear water, but the man-made structures, from Italian mansions to lost pirate cities, are what really catch the eye. But every single area in this game is worth just sitting and looking at. It’s strange, I enjoyed taking in these sweeping vistas and fiddling with camera mode more than I did actually playing the game, much of the time, which might be one of its faults. Only rarely do I ever come across a game where I just want to sit and stare, but Uncharted has produced that feeling yet again with A Thief’s End. I have not seen a better looking game on consoles. Given that great-looking games are dropping left and right on PS4 these days, I wasn’t expecting it to have quite that same level of impact today with Uncharted 4, but I was wrong. Uncharted has a reputation of pushing the graphical envelope on PlayStation with every new installment, and certainly did so in all three of its entries on PlayStation 3.
0 kommentar(er)
