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Uncharted 4 spoiler free early copy impressions

TR trilogy from 6th/7th gen already was miles ahead of Uncharted in terms of puzzles.

Never really bothered me in Uncharted, but honestly they weren't really puzzles.

At best it was like a game of "match 2 things together" over and over lol. Decent diversions to change it up though.
I'm hearing originaly they were going to call this The Last of Uncharted.
That's just terrible fam. Come on son.
The Last of Us Zero : Before Civilisation's End
Much better.

8.8/10
 
Why the fuck is this puzzle I'm at so hard?? The fuck is this shit?? This isn't Uncharted. The guy with me is just being a wise ass trying to lighten the mood up. FFS shut up.
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
So how the hell is everyone getting copies so early? Seriously, games are never released early at any of the stores near where I live and it saddens me greatly.
 
So how the hell is everyone getting copies so early? Seriously, games are never released early at any of the stores near where I live and it saddens me greatly.

They're around if you look hard enough, I always thought it was the same way where I lived, but my friend got Uncharted 3 a week and a half early at a place that I now frequent when I can't wait for a game.
 
Speaking of puzzles...I hope 4 doesn't have your a.i. buddies constantly try to give you hints on solving them, even with hints turned off. That was incredibly annoying in 3(I forgot if it was that bad in the other 2)
 

Foxxsoxx

Member
They're around if you look hard enough, I always thought it was the same way where I lived, but my friend got Uncharted 3 a week and a half early at a place that I now frequent when I can't wait for a game.

Yeah I've been to quite a few stores just hoping to find it these past couple of days and of course theres nothing ever there. I think the last game I ever saw released early was Killzone 2... ):

This question was asked too late. In 24 hours it won't matter anymore lol.

Less of a question and more of frustration lol.
 
Speaking of puzzles...I hope 4 doesn't have your a.i. buddies constantly try to give you hints on solving them, even with hints turned off. That was incredibly annoying in 3(I forgot if it was that bad in the other 2)
They do, but only if you find yourself walking around without a clue for like a minute or 2.
 
Most if not all of your bullets are hitting the wooden flooring he's leaning down from.

It's a third person shooter, so your reticule isn't centered with the hitscans origin, therefore your character can't see something you can (your perspective is different to drakes) then he can't hit it, and it would be broken if it didn't work that way.



Sure it hurts the product if your measuring it solely as an 'action game' or 'third person shooter', but if we step outside that arbitrary framework it's a better game overall, a game that has more variety, tells a better story, features better hit detection, better AI, better level design. It's a better 'action adventure' game, if you need the labels.

It's true that things like the puzzles do not have a win / lose condition, and the platforming mostly too, but I don't think everyone needs the difficulty to enjoy those components of the game. If the puzzle were super challenging, they would be frustrating, progression stoppers for many, as they stand however, they're challenging enough to at least make you pause and think a little, but at the same time easy enough to keep the games pacing moving fluidly.

I think your opinion is fine, you want more gunplay and that's fair enough, but I don't think the game is objectively worse without it. It's just a personal preference thing and I doubt many people are going to see it as 'hurting the product'. It almost seems as though you've gone into the experience with too many ideas of how you wanted it to play out, and obviously you're a little disappointed when it doesn't match, for better or worse.

See I don't think it has more variety or better level design. U2s encounters I feel are far more creative and leads to more variety. The train segment alone encapsulates every uncharted gameplay idea into one concentrated perfect 30 minute segment and that's just one setpiece.

The whole don't frustrate people mentality is so wrong to me. The more game designers go in with the don't frustrate mentality the less interesting the games will become. There are so many cool ways all the mechanics this game has could have been used, you have a rope, you can tie stuff, use vehicles. Imagine an actual puzzle room where you enter and it has multiple stages to the puzzle, not just A to B to C. Where you have to look around, think a little. Something kind of like the TR optional tombs. That could be downtime, quality downtime.

I go into every game with an open mind and I let the game wow me but I of course have preferences. In this game they way I saw it was simple; what's the best part of game, the gunplay and action by far. What's not so great, everything else. So if I was making this game I would focus on what my game does great rather than the other stuff.

Again I am talking about issues on a fantastic game. Overall this game is better than most, the reasons I don't put it up there as one of my top top action games is because of the reasons I outlined above.
 
which one? all puzzles were manageable to me.

I was just going with the joke where dude said "this isn't Uncharted."
Though teh puzzle in chapter
11 where you had to match those sigils with the stars was annoying at first.

I had a great idea, I'm gonna use some of these screens as my PC background. The graphics just keep on improving. The area I'm in now is SOOOOO Drake's Fortune.
 

The Lamp

Member
Speaking of puzzles...I hope 4 doesn't have your a.i. buddies constantly try to give you hints on solving them, even with hints turned off. That was incredibly annoying in 3(I forgot if it was that bad in the other 2)

The AI here spoils all the puzzles for you if you don't solve them pretty quickly. It's awful. I don't know how to shut them up.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
The AI here spoils all the puzzles for you if you don't solve them pretty quickly. It's awful. I don't know how to shut them up.
Wow. They do that?

That was one of the things in my playthrough they never did, which is one of the criticisms I had in the past games.

Maybe that is a difficulty modifier that changes the speed until they help? Seriously, I didn't get help on a single puzzle in this game vs. every puzzle in Uncharted 3. :p
 

The Lamp

Member
See I don't think it has more variety or better level design. U2s encounters I feel are far more creative and leads to more variety. The train segment alone encapsulates every uncharted gameplay idea into one concentrated perfect 30 minute segment and that's just one setpiece.

The whole don't frustrate people mentality is so wrong to me. The more game designers go in with the don't frustrate mentality the less interesting the games will become. There are so many cool ways all the mechanics this game has could have been used, you have a rope, you can tie stuff, use vehicles. Imagine an actual puzzle room where you enter and it has multiple stages to the puzzle, not just A to B to C. Where you have to look around, think a little. Something kind of like the TR optional tombs. That could be downtime, quality downtime.

I go into every game with an open mind and I let the game wow me but I of course have preferences. In this game they way I saw it was simple; what's the best part of game, the gunplay and action by far. What's not so great, everything else. So if I was making this game I would focus on what my game does great rather than the other stuff.

Again I am talking about issues on a fantastic game. Overall this game is better than most, the reasons I don't put it up there as one of my top top action games is because of the reasons I outlined above.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. As vertical as the encounters are, I feel like many of them weren't as interesting as in UC2, and I had the same questions as you about why they didn't increase the combat encounters when the combat is SO GOOD this time around.

Wow. They do that?

That was one of the things in my playthrough they never did, which is one of the criticisms I had in the past games.

Maybe that is a difficulty modifier that changes the speed until they help? Seriously, I didn't get help on a single puzzle in this game vs. every puzzle in Uncharted 3. :p

Possibly. I was on moderate and I felt like they wouldn't shut up lol.
 
I'm gonna have to disagree with this "it doesn't have many creative encounters like UC2" points. The Madagascar encounter alone is much more creative and fun to play than any combat arena in UC2. I'm not understanding the sudden UC2 praise. My favorite combat zones in UC2 are Nepal, Monastery, and that area near the end with the brutes and stuff.


The train level is so overrated. The convoy chase in UC4's madagascar scene is much better gameplay wise. The gameplay and ability to lose enemy sights make it infinitely better.

Those areas don't hold a candle to anything I've played in UC4 so far. There were far better ways to play and whatnot. I'm just not seeing what was so great about UC2's combat arenas to call them creative when it boiled down to the same scripted end all the time.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
The E3 level when played... Holy shit totally different xD
I didn't watch pre-release footage past the first unveil and I watched the E3 2015 thing after finishing the game and I took a different route. It's not super different but there is some variance.

I'm gonna have to disagree with this "it doesn't have many creative encounters like UC2" points. The madagascar encounter alone is much more creative and fun to play than any combat arena in UC2. I'm not understand the sudden UC2 praise.
To me the best part of Uncharted 3 was the boat graveyard and I feel that's the design they went with here in many cases. To my great satisfaction.
 

The Lamp

Member
I'm gonna have to disagree with this "it doesn't have many creative encounters like UC2" points. The Madagascar encounter alone is much more creative and fun to play than any combat arena in UC2. I'm not understanding the sudden UC2 praise. My favorite combat zones in UC2 are Nepal, Monastery, and that area near the end with the brutes and stuff.


The train level is so overrated. The convoy chase in UC4's madagascar scene is much better gameplay wise. The gameplay and ability to lose enemy sights make it infinitely better.

Those areas don't hold a candle to anything I've played in UC4 so far. There were far better ways to play and whatnot. I'm just not seeing what was so great about UC2's combat arenas to call them creative when it boiled down to the same scripted end all the time.

I may get flak for this but I think Madagascar is mostly boring and overrated. You drive your jeep around aimlessly for 70% of the level, winch it up a couple of times, and then stumble into enemy locations that take just a couple of minutes to clear out and then you're driving around again. I never found it particularly creative or fun. Very little platforming or combat. It was actually my least favorite area outside of the beautiful visuals. It finally gets exciting as it approaches the end, but this is just my weird opinion I guess.
 
yeah completely disagree about the creativeness of the encounters.

I feel like all the areas in this are so well designed and the combat itself actively encourages you to make full use of your entire environment and arsenal.

In UC2 i felt completely content with picking a corner and just doing pop n shot. maybe rolling away form the occasional grenade. maybe I'd hang from a ledge and shoot some dudes but eh

in UC4 I'm constantly on the move. climbing, rope swinging because the areas are so well designed so I have many options on taking a set of bad guys out.

-Cover is always crumbling so I'm always trying to find better cover

-enemies are aggressive in trying to flank me so even if I do find solid cover I'm traversing so I can get better position.

It's just another level tbh. I think that PSX demo area is better than ANY encounter in UC2. That train level is so overrated I find myself rolling my eyes when dude's try to pinpoint that as some pinnacle of video game design. it was cool, and that was the extent of that. I think the boat graveyard was the best combat arena in the series pre UC4.
 
I'm gonna have to disagree with this "it doesn't have many creative encounters like UC2" points. The madagascar encounter alone is much more creative and fun to play than any combat arena in UC2. I'm not understanding the sudden UC2 praise. My favorite combat zones in UC2 are Nepal, Monastery, and that area near the end with the brutes and stuff.

Those areas don't hold a candle to anything I've played in UC4 so far. There were far better ways to play and whatnot. I'm just not seeing what was so great about UC2's combat arenas to call them creative when it boiled down to the same scripted end all the time.

Sudden? Uncharted 2 has been considered a masterpiece since it came out. It's one of the greatest games ever made. If anything it's the opposite, when did all this U2 isn't that great stuff come from.

The majority of U4s encounters are extremely well designed locations with a group of guards on patrol. You get to approach them any way you want and create your own moment. Some encounters mix up the kinds of enemies and so on. And that's great, I love this too but I personally like it more when the game creates a moment for you.

There is a segment late in the game
the elevator segment which is one of the best encounters in the game because it puts you into a new kind of situation, one with moving parts.
Those kinds of moments are my favorites and U2 is filled with moments like that.
 
Sudden? Uncharted 2 has been considered a masterpiece since it came out. It's one of the greatest games ever made. If anything it's the opposite, when did all this U2 isn't that great stuff come from.

The majority of U4s encounters are extremely well designed locations with a group of guards on patrol. You get to approach them any way you want and create your own moment. Some encounters mix up the kinds of enemies and so on. And that's great, I love this too but I personally like it more when the game creates a moment for you.

There is a segment late in the game
the elevator segment which is one of the best encounters in the game because it puts you into a new kind of situation, one with moving parts.
Those kinds of moments are my favorites and U2 is filled with moments like that.

I mean sudden as in one minute UC4 had the best combat encounters and then like a few days later UC2 is being brought up as some masterpiece in sandbox combat which I feel is completely untrue. Even the "bigger" areas in UC2 are mostly simplistic and not much can actually occur other than some simple shooting and or grenade toss. UC4 I've found had much better combat segments. The moments in UC2 that "create" things for you usually play out exactly the same every time.
 
I may get flak for this but I think Madagascar is mostly boring and overrated. You drive your jeep around aimlessly for 70% of the level, winch it up a couple of times, and then stumble into enemy locations that take just a couple of minutes to clear out and then you're driving around again. I never found it particularly creative or fun. Very little platforming or combat. It was actually my least favorite area outside of the beautiful visuals. It finally gets exciting as it approaches the end, but this is just my weird opinion I guess.

Nah that's cool it's your opinion. I loved Madagascar. i thought it'd be boring but I loved driving around, stopping to take pics, messing around with the jeep and finding things. I loved the little things I found when exploring like the winch situations which were cool like the one where
you go down the well and attach it around the beam
 
Speaking of puzzles...I hope 4 doesn't have your a.i. buddies constantly try to give you hints on solving them, even with hints turned off. That was incredibly annoying in 3(I forgot if it was that bad in the other 2)
The puzzles are pretty easy. I dont thinks somebody needs help...
 
This is a little OT but I didn't know where else to ask. I preordered digitally and got a pre order bonus code/voucher for the uncharted lottery. You can win a trip around the world but have to be a legal resident of the US/Puerto Rico/Canada. Since I am not I'd like to give mine away. PN me if interested and I'll forward you the mail. First come first serve.
 
Man I just love this area. I'm in Chapter
12 and the open sea, the littlle islands are so beautiful. This area reminds me so much of Drake's Fortune.
 
I'm gonna have to disagree with this "it doesn't have many creative encounters like UC2" points. The Madagascar encounter alone is much more creative and fun to play than any combat arena in UC2. I'm not understanding the sudden UC2 praise. My favorite combat zones in UC2 are Nepal, Monastery, and that area near the end with the brutes and stuff.


The train level is so overrated. The convoy chase in UC4's madagascar scene is much better gameplay wise. The gameplay and ability to lose enemy sights make it infinitely better.

Those areas don't hold a candle to anything I've played in UC4 so far. There were far better ways to play and whatnot. I'm just not seeing what was so great about UC2's combat arenas to call them creative when it boiled down to the same scripted end all the time.

Let's break down the convoy and the train. What exactly can you do during convoy, you drive which is great to have control so that part is cool, it's heavily scripted so you have the illusion of freedom. SPOILERS AHEAD if you didn't see the e3 segment
Then comes the drag by the rope which is super awesome but all you are doing is shooting things while you slowly move up. Once on the cars you are in a limited box just shooting things around you. You can then start jumping from vehicle to vehicle which is awesome and shoot other vehicles. Still your movement is limited there isn't much going on outside hopping around and shooting guys.
Convoy in U2 did practically the same thing just no where near as visually stunning.

You compare that to the train which starts with a potential stealth segment which allows you to move freely around the train and engage enemies as you wish. That transitions into fire fights with big brutes again with freedom of movement. Then a helicopter shows up and you need to fire rockets at it and eventually hop onto a turret to take it down. Then you are on the roof and sides of the train avoiding obstacles. Then you meet a whole different set of enemies and end with a boss battle. The level of variety in that one segment is incredible. It has gunplay, stealth, platforming, turret action, bosses. I don't think it's comparable.
 
I mean sudden as in one minute UC4 had the best combat encounters and then like a few days later UC2 is being brought up as some masterpiece in sandbox combat which I feel is completely untrue. Even the "bigger" areas in UC2 are mostly simplistic and not much can actually occur other than some simple shooting and or grenade toss. UC4 I've found had much better combat segments. The moments in UC2 that "create" things for you usually play out exactly the same every time.

Oh no not sandbox design, U4 destroys U2 in sandbox design. U4 combat areas are amazing. I was just messing with encounter select, I can spend an hour in one spot.

It's the way the situations constantly change in U2. You go from a sandbox encounter to say battling in a hallway, then the building is coming down while you are fighting in it, then a helicopter is chasing you, then you are stuck on a sign while fighting guys, then you get chased by a truck, and so on. It's a constant stream of new things popping up. U4 has those in spurts but not like how U2 did it.
 
I'm adoring the pace and more grounded approach to the whole thing so far. It really makes you feel more immersed and invested in everything around you more so than it ever did. The breathing, living world aspect to it is more apparent this time around.
 
Oh no not sandbox design, U4 destroys U2 in sandbox design. U4 combat areas are amazing. I was just messing with encounter select, I can spend an hour in one spot.

It's the way the situations constantly change in U2. You go from a sandbox encounter to say battling in a hallway, then the building is coming down while you are fighting in it, then a helicopter is chasing you, then you are stuck on a sign while fighting guys, then you get chased by a truck, and so on. It's a constant stream of new things popping up. U4 has those in spurts but not like how U2 did it.

Oh ok I get what you mean.
 

thenexus6

Member
Speaking of puzzles, is it just me or are they incredibly easy compared to other games?

I haven't got stuck on a single one yet unlike some in the other games.
 
Speaking of puzzles, is it just me or are they incredibly easy compared to other games?

I haven't got stuck on a single one yet unlike some in the other games.
The puzzles in previous Uncharted games weren't really THAT tough either.

I think there was only the one puzzle in the game which took me a while, like 4-5 minutes to figure out otherwise it was fairly straightforward and more trial-and-error than anything else.
 

Xater

Member
Finished the game yesterday and it's definitely the best in the series. The combat has never been better. It feels very snappy and it is super dynamic. Looking at my stats I have spend very little time in cover because I was always on the move. The very well designed combat arenas also benefit this. They just give you so many opportunities to flank guys or avoid them altogether.

The story felt way more natural than in all the other games and I even geared up a little by the end. All the interactions between Nate and Elena are also just wonderful. Some great writing there.

For me there are really only two negative things. The game takes too long to get going. The first act needed some pacing correction. I also think the villain is pretty bland. Our main villain in UC2 was kind of a cartoon, but he is probably the one that worked best in the entire series.
 
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