Brief:
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is one of the best games I have ever played. Is it the best of the lot? I think so. Is it better than The Last of Us? I think not. But Uncharted 4 pulls off something so big and essential that these little comparisons and questions are left irrelevant. You’ll be yearning for more when you’re done with this experience. Developer Naughty Dog has done it again and has once again conquered and proved its rightful title as the best developer in the industry. This is a must play and definitely one of the games to beat in 2016. It is not just a game. It’s an experience.
Uncharted 4 is beautiful and by far the best looking game I have played to boot. Not even games like Dying Light or the new Tomb Raider – which punish your PC when played on Ultra – can come close to how gorgeous this looks. This game is straight up alluring. The in-game environments, textures, lighting, character models and especially the late game rain effects are so true to life that while I was playing at home, my parents kept confusing it with some high-definition action movie. The game is so good looking that Naughty Dog shows-off their talents and the game’s beauty by including an in-built timer saying ‘time spent standing still and looking at the scenery.’
Main:
Platform: PlayStation 4
Developed by: Naughty Dog
Release date: May 10, 2016
It’s universally accepted that if you cry at the denouement of an experience, it’s either exceptionally fine or exceedingly deficient. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End brought tears to my eyes, but it is definitely much more than just fine. Playing it for the first time gives you the same feeling that you had when you first saw Yuvraj Singh hitting those six 6’s against England, it makes you realise how much Nathan Drake has grown and how far developer Naughty Dog has come. It gives you that sense of pride and allegiance towards Naughty Dog that you almost get emotional (a lot, in my case). Uncharted 4 is so good, that it is not just a game, it is art. Just like The Last of Us, it is an example of what video games can be and how much the medium has grown.
Uncharted 4 is beautiful and by far the best looking game I have played to boot. Not even games like Dying Light or the new Tomb Raider – which punish your PC when played on Ultra – can come close to how gorgeous this looks. This game is straight up alluring. The in-game environments, textures, lighting, character models and especially the late game rain effects are so true to life that while I was playing at home, my parents kept confusing it with some high-definition action movie. The game is so good looking that Naughty Dog shows-off their talents and the game’s beauty by including an in-built timer saying ‘time spent standing still and looking at the scenery.’ The attention to detail is immaculate. If you haven’t played the previous Uncharted games then I recommend that you go and do so because of two reasons: firstly, the previous games themselves are must plays and will surely give you an amazing experience, and secondly (definitely the more important reason), Uncharted 4 gives so many nods to the previous titles that it is hard not to marvel and love Naughty Dog even more. Trust me, you would be a fool to play this without having played the preceding ones. It rewards the player with a sense of homecoming and trust with all its little and BIG Easter eggs. This feels like a Naughty Dog game and that is a great thing.
The game plays like an Uncharted game and is very much an Uncharted game, but I can’t emphasise enough that The Last of Us is all over this game that at some instances it doesn’t feel like an Uncharted game. We see this in the form of new types of collectables like notes and journal entries, which tell little stories of their own very much like The Last of Us did. This new form of environmental storytelling mechanic fleshes out the world and gives us a greater incentive to explore every little of its nooks and crannies. The new optional dialogue mechanic taken straight from The Last of Us helps flesh out the beloved characters of the franchise like Elena and Sully even more but also helps in the character building of the newer characters like Nate’s older brother Sam and the excellent villains (I’ll not name them to prevent spoilers). While all these new mechanics help make it a better experience, there are a few new gameplay elements like stealth (which has been seen before in Uncharted 2 but is much better this time and is almost identical to that in The Last of Us), tagging enemies, rope traversal, sliding mechanics and driving which in my opinion are extremely solid and functional but they don’t blow them out of the park. The shooting mechanics, melee and traversal feel extremely good and satisfying and are definitely a step above the previous games where these felt a bit empty. One aspect of the game that stands out is the new buddy system. It helps make the combat more fun and exhilarating and helps one take a more dynamic and fluid approach to their play style.
The game is excellent in it’s pacing and it ramps extremely well. It starts off slow with some hard hitting emotional beats and then ramps just at the right pace to make you feel engaged and involved in every moment with amazing looking cut-scenes and outstanding performances from the experienced cast. The moment-to-moment gameplay is so good that it feels exactly like an action movie. The story of Uncharted 4 is excellent and in my opinion, the best of the lot. It is a lot more grounded and real. This is definitely a more mature and “grown-up” Uncharted. Unfortunately, saying more about the story takes it into “spoiler-territory” and trust me you DO NOT want it spoiled for you.
It is also notable to say that this is a lot longer than the previous games that took about 8-10 hours whereas I clocked in at around 18 hours on Hard. This is a considerably longer playtime than the previous titles, but trust me, it does not take away from the experience. These 18 hours are some of the most memorable I’ve ever spent with a game.
Score: 9.8/10
Reviewed by: Siddharth Maharishi
http://domainsquareplus.blogspot.in/2016/05/uncharted-4-thiefs-end-review.html