Gadgetory

uncharted for the final game in Naughty Dog's fantastic adventure franchise finally released for the ps4 after numerous pushbacks and thankfully it's one of those games that made the weight worth it now to be honest the Uncharted franchise is one that I've always had a bit of mixed feelings about on the one hand I've enjoyed the stories they tell they have some of the best in-game camerawork of any game series ever and they do an excellent job of capturing the feel of pulpy adventure they're trying to recapture from films like Indiana Jones on the other hand I've always felt that the actual gameplay aspect of the games was a bit lacking gunplay has always been very loose feeling stealth was never that effective and while the platforming is very pretty the vast majority of it in past games boiled down to a very pretty but handheld hallway and I gotta say uncharted 4 has done an excellent job of relieving a lot of those frustrations and has been a big upgrade in pretty much every major category now obviously being the first game in the series to be on ps4 thief's end is a noticeable graphical upgrade over the past games the distant backgrounds the ruins you'll explore character facial movements all of it is excellently detailed and it helps that not only is the graphical quality good but the game set design in general is fantastic with the story encompassing various countries and Forgotten ruins each with their own strong aesthetic look and feel helping to keep the players sense of adventure piqued now of course visuals alone do not make a great game but thankfully uncharted 4 continues to excel the things that made the previous game so great in particular the writing the overall story of thief's end is okay it accomplishes the main objective of being a fun adventure with some dramatic moments but what really carries the whole thing is character banter and dialogue Naughty Dog continues to prove their mastery over realistic feeling conversations that draw in players making characters feel like real people rather than just forced movie cliches despite the ridiculous situations they find themselves in the Ascend also features the addition of a few occasional dialogue option moments though they have little to no impact and are overall pretty rare feeling as though this was a feature they originally meant to expand on more and simply left unfinished it doesn't detract from the game at all but they do feel oddly out of place considering how little they pop up now as I said earlier a lot of my gripe with the older games mostly come from the mediocre gameplay not that it was bad just not particularly great and while four still has its weak points overall it's a major upgrade over what we last saw in three platforming has gotten a lot better while a lot of it is still very linear more parts of the game embraced multiple pathways and options making locales feel a lot more realistic and immersive though of course there's still tons of conveniently falling pillars or random boxes on wheels but hey that adds to the game's fun tone gunplay itself is still kinda weak and is definitely one of the game's lesser aspects but the cover controls are on point and the option of an auto aim mode basically turns Nate into a god of death if you'd rather get through the action as fast as possible and focus on the story and exploration bits it also helps that this time around all of drake's and PC allies are way smarter actually contributing to combat taking down enemies providing cover fire and can help save Drake from grappling enemies stealth elements also make their return and overall are a lot more viable than before past games it was kind of silly easy to awkwardly get caught turning every encounter into a shootout but fours level design and tightened up controls make it a lot more possible to take down whole groups of enemies without getting caught for is also the first game in the franchise to feature fully controllable vehicle segments the driving controls aren't the tightest but compared to other games that tack on vehicles it gets the job done without being a massive pain and despite the fact the game manages to have one of my favorite car chases I've ever played in a video game now all of this put together makes your first playthrough of uncharted 4 one of if not the best experiences in the franchise but what makes this even better is the postgame content for brings back the postgame bonuses we had in - that were sorely missed in three rewarding players who took their time exploring and collecting the game's various treasures by letting them unlock various cheats and gameplay mods these range from purely useful powers like summoning a gun you'd like to have or having infinite ammo - stranger or just plain fun abilities like adding bullet time to the game turning down gravity or throwing a filter over the whole game that makes everything cel-shaded 8-bit or have it look like a rainbow vomited everywhere while of course you could still do a second playthrough just for the sake of tackling a higher difficulty all these goodies make playing through the game more than a lot more appealing oh yeah and there's also a multiplayer mode that is way more fun than I ever would have expected it to be it's not exactly Pro competitive type stuff but it's a fun much more laid-back feeling multiplayer experience giving players powers like summoning and PC allies or even using mystical powers like any multiplayer mode added onto a game that people mostly grab for single-player the online community will probably be dead within four or five months but if you grab the game before that happens it's definitely worth killing some time on overall uncharted form makes for a fantastic conclusion of the franchise definitely a better one than three was and as easily one of the best games that is exclusive to the ps4 right now if you enjoy the past games then you'll love this one and if you had a lukewarm response to the older ones this one just might change your mind