Uncharted 4 – Our Review

Uncharted 4 is a hard game to review.  On one hand, developers Naughty Dog have delivered a fitting end to one of the best platform exclusives Sony has had over the last decade, however its execution feels like a step back from depth and maturity of The Last of Us.  Still nearly every Uncharted games stands tall amongst most other games we’ve played so to critique it too much feels like we’re being unfair to how good this franchise has been.  Still, as the dust settles on our adventure over the last 20 or so hours, the population of a small country laid waste by our freakish talent to murder, and no more pirate booty left to pillage in the world, we feel uneasy about Uncharted 4.  Here’s our review.

So Sam doesn’t exactly betray Nathan as we predicted, but he’s not being completely upfront

Uncharted 4 takes a page from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade by telling a story that bookends its protagonist’s life by injecting a missing family member to drive the story and resolve a lifelong obsession for its lead characters.  Nathan has been living an innocuous life as a deep-sea salvager by day and experiencing the average home life of most married couples with his longtime romantic lead, Elena.  They eat meals in front of the TV, play video games together, and generally don’t communicate all that well.  One day Nathan’s long lost brother, Sam, literally walks into his door, tells him an insane story for his absence that’s just compelling enough to intrigue Nathan, and off they go chasing the treasure that got away.

This entry in the series doesn’t deviate too much from existing staples. You’ll platform in exotic locals, gunfight with countless enemies, and solve rudimentary puzzles that do more to break up the action than task the brain. Naughty Dog’s penchant for witty dialogue is back and some of the cutscenes and facial animations are so good they somehow seem to be on the other side of the uncanny valley. A few of the late game gunfights seemed to be more trial and error than pure skill and one sequence in the middle involving exploding skeletons really tested my patience but favorable checkpoints and fast loading keeps you moving briskly through the game.

The highlight of the game for us was a caravan sequence that briefly reminded us of Mad Max: Fury Road and the jeep chase in Raiders of the Los Ark

Now if you allow us to nitpick a bit, this game doesn’t hit the high marks that Uncharted 2 did perhaps due in part to the novelty of that experience at the time (and the absolutely fantastic opening with the train). We spent most of the first half of the game desperate for a major action set piece on a cruise ship or cargo plane but the game almost seems more reserved than that. There’s a brief stint in a clock tower that’s over way too quickly and an absolutely fantastic action scene involving a caravan that’s chasing your brother, but otherwise the game’s mostly about climbing and shooting. And, man, there’s so much damn climbing. Naughty Dog includes a mode after you beat the game to replay certain “Encounters”  (aka action scenes). Playing through those in a matter of minutes compared to the 20+ hours it took to reach the end made me realize how much time I spent scrambling up walls or around ledges instead of compelling seqeunces. Perhaps to give more room for the story to resonate on its own, Naughty Dog seems to be pulling its punches for this last entry.

Again, that’s not to say it’s a bad game. We were eager to catch every moment of the experience and rushed through it over the course of a long weekend. The ending epilogue hits the right marks, the story reveals are delivered well, and the gameplay mix of shooting, platforming, and puzzle solving still works. But none of it feels that special.

Uncharted 4 feels like a good end to the franchise, not a great game on its own merits, at least compared to what Naughty Dog can do.

NaughtyDog should provide background services for other games for a premium – they are ridiculously beautiful in this game

One of the first levels of the game sees Nathan wandering through his attic in his home finding trinkets and journals referencing the past games. The level is meant to juxtapose what Nathan has done against his current domesticated life, but ultimately serves fan service to those who have made it through the other games. Uncharted 4 stands proudly on the shoulders of the past 3 really good games but doesn’t do much to stand apart from them.

What works well

It’s worth mentioning the game looks unbelievably good. From the skyboxes that surround every map, the insane details placed on far off places in the background you’ll never visit, to even the motion capture on the actors that is better than most anything we’ve seen. When the action picks up in later levels and even some of the more subtle character building levels impress.

What doesn’t work

Naughty Dog loses the restraint they had in The Last of Us so you’ll kill so many, many people and climbing as a whole wears out it’s welcome way too early. Sadly, the game feels almost too long which is not something we’ve felt with a past Uncharted game.

Overall – Worth a buy

It’s not the epic game Uncharted 2 was for its time but it’s still a tremendous finale to a fantastic franchise. Yes, it’s long winded, climbing goes on way too long, and Nathan gets a bit too much joy from killing 500+ bad guys, but not many games go out on top.  And for that reason, we’d wholeheartedly recommend seeing the end of Nathan’s adventures.