Right, well time for a game review for a change on this blog since I've done a bunch of movie/TV stuff and the game in question is one I have already reviewed, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. However, the difference this time is I will be looking at the remastered version for the PS5, which was released very recently and I've just finished it playing it, so I figured it was a good time to relook at this game.
So, with that said let's see how the PS5 remastered edition fairs...
Meant to also say that most of this review will be based on my original however for the PS4 but I will expand on it as usual.
And now for the warning...
PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!
STORY
So, as for the story it sees its main
character, Nathan "Nate" Drake (voiced by Nolan North) who formerly
lived the dangerous life of a treasure hunter, but is now married and
settled down with his wife, Elena (voiced by Emily Rose). Nate now does
deep salvage work for a company in New Orleans but he still misses the
life of adventure.
One night however Nate is visited by his older brother, Sam (voiced by
Troy Baker) who during a flashback sequence we were left to believe that
Sam was killed during an escape attempt from a jail they sneaked into in
Panama. Sam explains that he actually was survived and was patched up
by the prison doctor and he ended serving a life sentence but got broken
with help from a fellow prisoner, a drug lord named Hector Alcazar
(voiced by Robin Atkin Downes).
However during a flashback sequence
after their escape Alcazar becomes angry when Sam appears to have
mislead him to know the whereabouts of a legendary pirate's treasure,
Captain Henry Avery, so Alcazar gives Sam three months to find it or he
will kill him. Nate on hearing this is at first reluctant to help but
realises he little choice and calls up Elena and as a cover tells her he
has heard word about a deep salvage job out in Malaysia and he is going
ahead with it, while instead he embarks on his journey with Sam to
locate the treasure.
So from here Nate and Sam recruit the help of Victor "Sully" Sullivan
(Richard McGonagle) to help them out in their quest. However along the
way the three men are confronted by a rival treasure hunter, and the
game's main antagonist, Rafe Adler (Warren Kole) who is accompanied by
Nadine Ross (voiced by Laura Bailey) who Rafe has recruited Nadine's
PMC, Shoreline to help them find the treasure. And what follows is a
long and very dangerous journey as Nate and Sam try to race against time
to get to the treasure before Rafe and Nadine can....
THOUGHTS
There is a little doubt that Uncharted 4 is an excellent adventure game
that is almost every inch as good as the highly acclaimed Uncharted 2:
Drake's Fortunate, which is has often been lauded as one of the greatest
games of all time and this isn't too far off. And what is key
to the game's success next to its gameplay and action is also its
engrossing story which really pulls you in, which is something Naughty Dog (the developer of the game) excel at creating a gripping story line to follow.
But also what works so well in Uncharted 4 is the characters,
particularly the four leads of Nate, Sam, Sully and Elena as they are
all very engaging and likeable characters. And I also think its fair to
say that the new gritty Tomb Raider games borrowed heavily from the
visuals and action of the Uncharted series the only difference is the Uncharted the characters are forever bantering back
and forth with witty dialogue, helping to keep the game light-hearted by comparison (although Shadow of the Tomb Raider remains one of my favourite games of the last decade!).
GAMEPLAY
As for gameplay I've split it into sub sections below as usual with my gaming posts.
MOVEMENT
Movement wise well its pretty similar to what went
before in the previous games as the main playable character, Nate can do
all sorts of moves and is an adept climber as he can jump, sprint,
swim, climb, scale ledges and swing on a rope via the use of a
grapple hook. This time however, Nate can also use a piton, so he can traverse rocky terrain that requires extra grip, so that he can reach ledges etc.
WEAPONS AND COMBAT
Nate also has access to an array weapons that include
pistols, assault rifles, shotguns and grenades but he can also perform
melee attacks on his enemies and take the guns of his fallen foes,
although Nate can only hold two guns at a time. Nate can also perform
stealth attacks on his enemies and the game features moments where he
can hide in tall grass to prevent himself from being seen to sneak up and literally break their necks. Nice, Nate!
QUICK TIME EVENTS
As for others aspects of the gameplay it deploys the use of quicktime
events, where you player needs to press a button to make an action to
either avoid say falling debris or an explosion and there are sequences
where Nate must run away from armoured vehicles or indeed actual
explosions that required fast movement. The game makes use of the
quicktime events also later on towards the game's climax during a combat
scene but I won't say anymore than that but its pretty much a familiar
thing in itself so if you have played Uncharted before then you will
know to expect it.
VEHICLES
Nate can also drive cars in the game or he can take during certain action scenes, jump between cars and take control of them. And another feature relating to the cars in the game are the use of a winch which is attached to a car that Nate uses during the later levels which he uses to tie around solid objects (e.g a tree) to pull the car up difficult terrain or even use it to activate other equipment.
PUZZLES
Puzzles also play a key part in the game as there are several puzzles to be solved throughout the game as Nate and Sam often need to work together to figured specific puzzles to help them progress through areas. The puzzles can also be quite tricky to suss out and I for one suck at doing puzzles, so you can imagine I was straight onto Youtube to figure them out!
GRAPHICS
As for the game's graphics, well since we are talking about the PS5 version, the game has been remastered and now support three modes, 1440p at 60fps, which is a performance mode, 4K at 30fps, which is a fidelity mode and lastly 1080p at 120fps, which is a high refresh rate mode. And its safe to say the game looks even better than it did before as the graphics are even more detailed than before and with the higher frame rate it makes playing the game that bit more enjoyable.
As for the character models and the environments they also look superb and that models for Nate and co have aged very well given the game is now six years old, it has held up visually remarkably well. So, overall the remaster has made a handsome looking game even better and regardless of what mode you choose to play, you are sure to enjoy the visuals and the PS5 remaster is a worthy upgrade.
VOICE ACTING
As for the voice acting it is top notch and all the cast give
great performances throughout and they are given some great, witty
dialogue to deliver.
I won't go into too much detail on this but I will quickly mention some of the main voice actors, starting with Nolan North who
reprises his role as Nate and he does a great job once again and he
plays the part with a great deal of humour, warmth and geniality.
North
also gets some great lines of dialogue that include a scene where Nate
is at home with Elena and Elena challenges Nate to a game of Crash
Bandicoot on her PS1 (yep shameless product placement Sony, or rather
Naughty Dog (the company behind both Uncharted and Crash). And in the
scene as Nate loses the game he says to her "So, why do you keep playing
this?" and Elena says "Cos I'm great at it!" and Nate says to her "I
don't know why people get into video games!".
Then there is Troy Baker who is great as Nate's older brother,
Sam, who turns up out of nowhere and they end up going on the treasure
hunt together. Baker is also a very versatile voice actor in the gaming
industry so its good to see him get a really good part here as Sam must
easily be one of his best voice performances. And Baker does a great job at projecting Sam's mischievous but also charming and likeable nature as a guy who is in over his head in his search for Avery's treasure.
Baker also has some great lines in the game as Sam, such as the moment where Sam turns up out the blue 15 years later after Nate presumed he was dead and with his back turned to Nate, Nate asks "Can I help you?" and Sam says "Yeah, I'm looking for my little brother!".
Richard McGonagle is also great as Sully, Nate's mentor, who is a wizened and wise-cracking veteran who helps out Nate and Sam. McGonagle also provides plenty of charm and humour to the proceedings and and gets some fun dialogue too. And my favourite line comes when Nate and Sam steal a cross at an auction and they are about to knock out the power as Rafe and Sully bid on the cross and Sully says in his earpiece to Nate "OK. Let's ruin this asshole's night!".
Emily Rose also does a fine job as Elena, Nate's wife who is unaware that Nate is off on a treasure hunt but (SPOILER!!) she does find out about later on.
And Rose also has some good moments and plays her character with a relaxed charm and even though she has her differences with Nate during the game, she also ultimately helps him out. She also has some good dialogue, especially in the moment where she tracks down Nate and finds out he has been lying to her about his whereabouts and as Nate finds her in his motel room, she says "How is the Malaysia job going, Nate? Appears you are a hair off course!". So as they argue, Nate tries to brush off his excitement to find the treasure "I don't even care about the stupid treasure!" and Elena says "You should have seen yourself when you walked in here. If you're done lying to me then you should stop lying to yourself!".
Warren Kole also
gives a very good performance as the main villain and rival treasure
hunter, Rafe, who is after Avery's treasure also. Rafe is portrayed as self-centered narcissist, who will do anything he can to try and secure the treasure even if he is already incredibly wealthy! Although for Rafe it is all about the glory of the hunt I guess itself.
And lastly Laura Bailey does
a fine job as the secondary villain in the game, Nadine Ross, although
there was some controversy over her casting as she is voicing a South
African character but Bailey herself is a white actress and some groups
felt it was a racial misrepresentation. She also nails the South African accent very well, which has to be one of the most difficult accents to master for any actor!
MUSIC
As for the game's music score, it is by film and video game composer, Henry Jackman and
its a very good score indeed and it perfectly fits the tone of the game
as it has plenty of tracks that convey the game's sense of adventure
and excitement. Jackman replaced the original composer of the series,
Greg Edmonson and in doing so he's done an excellent job with the game
and its probably even a soundtrack you can listen to independent of the
game itself.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
As for the game's flaws... well Uncharted 4 is so good it doesn't have
anything major worth moaning about but it still does have one or two
quirky niggles.
And for starters I thought one of the few things wrong the game was its
cover system during combat scenes, where Nate tries to duck for cover
behind a wall or under a post or a bolder etc, and sometimes Nate ends
up not being able to duck properly and he still takes gunfire. This is
also a problem when the enemies often come at Nate from all sides so
when he tries to take cover he still get's caught in the crossfire so
the cover system is certainly less effective than it was before. This is also a problem when Nate dives underwater, as it can be hard to get him to dive under consistently when trying to avoid gunfire and one time, I ended up dying anyway!
Another issue I had with the game was to do with the inconsistency of
its use of in-game physics relating to Nate's ability to drop from
certain big distances without dying yet at other moments Nate can appear
to be less high up on a platform but when he drops off he will
instantly be killed! So in these moments you think that's where the
creators of the game had a big lapse in their logic of keeping the
game's system all in check and consistent but instead we get moments we
Nate surely in reality wouldn't actually even die from dropping from a
fairly small height but in the game he doesn't even take any damage from
dropping from greater heights!
I also felt the game's lack of silenced weapons was a bit of a pain because it would have made taking down the endless amount of Shoreline soldiers a lot easier rather than having to noisily engage them in a gunfight. Instead however all the weapons are not silenced and if you want to start a gunfight then you just have to do it the noisy way!
Further to this point, I felt that it was a bit excessive for Nate to always stealth kill enemies when sneaking up on them and I think it would have been better if they gave you the option for non-lethal takedowns, which is something I often prefer in games (if a given choice). I mean Nate could easily just do a choke hold or simply just knock them out rather than snapperate their necks! ;-) Also further to the point of snapping necks, Nate somehow manages to snap enemies necks as if he were snapping a twig but in reality it is apparently really hard to kill someone by breaking their neck, so this is just a typical Hollywood/Video game trope.
I also felt that even though the game's action is largely very well done, the nature of it can be very repetitive given the narrative of the story as Nate and Sam turn up a new location and pretty soon they have to fight Shoreline. Then they go to the next location, they fight Shorline, and then the next location, they fight Shoreline again! And half the levels are so (or maybe more!) are just the same format action wise.
And lastly even though the game's story is very entertaining and
engrossing I did feel that some of the flashback scenes did drag the
pace of the game down a little bit, especially the chapters where it
flashes back to when Nate and Sam were kids. I mean these sections are OK in themselves and do give a bit of important background to their characters (particularly how they got their surname as Drake) but they do pale in comparison to the rest of the game.
Anyway that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So, to sum up Uncharted 4 is still an excellent, highly entertaining action game after six years and the PS5 remastered edition really does help improve the game's experience with higher resolution and frame rates of the game's already very impressive visuals not to mention the gameplay and action pretty solid. Not only that the game also has a very
engaging story and its characters are really likeable and relatable and
that has always been the appeal of the Uncharted series, its not just
about the action its also about the story and for me that is what makes a
great game.
So, for me the remastered edition is definitely worth a look if you own a PS5 and if you already own the PS4 game then its a modest price to pay (£10) to upgrade it to experience the enhanced version although it would have been nice if Sony provided a free upgrade instead but I guess we can't have it all! Either way this is still a highly entertaining game and well worth checking out.
And with that I will rate Uncharted 4: A Thief's End...
9 out of 10
So, that's it for now and I will be back at some point with yet another post.
Till then its bye the now!
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