2016 Biggest Disappointment (In Gaming): Uncharted 4

Image copyright Sony and Naughty Dog

Uncharted 4 gets to be the biggest gaming disappointment, and disaster, of the year, because not only was it the worst game I played that came out this year, it also ruined one of my favorite game series from the last generation.  Not because it ended the series, or because it did anything particularly bad, but because it showed me that Naughty Dog just doesn’t care that much about making video games, and are more interested in making B-grade knock offs of B-movies.

I’m one of the six people in the world that didn’t really like the Last of Us that much.  Sure, Summer was a great start, and Winter would have made a nice second act, but the whole game felt like the team was more interested in making a movie, a movie that wasn’t particularly good, than making a functional game.  At the same time, the Last of Us at least had a game that was worth playing in there.  Sure, it was a pretty mid-tier stealth game with some half-assed survival mechanics bolted on, but that actually kind of made the game worth playing through and enjoyable to experience, even if I didn’t like it.  Uncharted 4 doesn’t even have that.  Everything that’s playable is just the same as it’s been since the second game.  No improvements, not alterations, no real push to the genre to bring it forward.

In my review, I mentioned it did manage to blend platforming in combat in a way that the series has tried, and failed, to do since the original, and it does do that.  It’s the one shining thing in the game, the perfect blend of the game’s cover based shooting and platforming, which would be great, if the game actually made a point of using it more than a handful of times.  Most combat is like it’s always been, with Nate outnumbered by way too many, and the best strategy is to hide behind cover, line up a head shot, and then move when they’re not shooting and trying to flank.  There are a few set pieces where the player can use the new improvements to combat, but it’s only a handful of them, giving a glimpse of what might have been if they had the time to actually make something out of the game.

See, one of Uncharted’s biggest failings is that it’s all about going from set piece to set piece, and honestly, set pieces are fine, as long as there is something to it.  Doom had a similar issue, but Doom also managed to kick ass and be a lot of fun, so it’s more of a minor issue than it is here.  When this game is on, it feels like it’s scripted, and then I die because I did something “off script.”  All of the big set pieces seem to only work when I follow the correct route and do things the right way.  It’s not that this is actually the case, the multi-tiered combat zones actually give the player a lot of freedom, but the game feel and enemy placement does a lot to punish the player for experimenting.  So while it does give a lot of chances for the player to stretch out their problem solving skills, it also packs in so many enemies and Nate still has the hit points of a wet piece of tissue paper, so it becomes in practice, an exercise in frustration.

Other than combat, though, everything is just a straight line.  All of the Uncharted games have been linear and have basically told the player where to go, but there is something particularly egregious about this entry, and it’s hard to pin down as to why.  Part of it, that I imagine, is because of the huge, sprawling landscapes that look like they’re open to the player, but are just background, or the obviously fake “open sections” where Nate and his worthless brother are parked and have to solve a puzzle.  There’s generally a pretty big place to wander around in, but mostly it’s to obfuscate the answer to the puzzle rather to actually allow the player to explore.

Finally, the story is probably the worst in the series.  The lack of magical elements, strangely, is one of the few saving graces, but the whole story is “Nate’s past comes back to haunt him,” which would be great if that wasn’t already the plot to 2, and second, if these characters, who are apparently so important to Nate, were ever mentioned before.  2 utilizes flashbacks, and the fact its the second in the series, thus still able to establish new stuff for the world and its characters, in order to make the past seem threatening.  Here, we have an established game world and suddenly we have Nate’s brother, never mentioned, and the psychopath who nearly got them killed, never mentioned, all coming back to complicate his life because he’s unhappy in retirement.  At least the ending manages to work out.  Sort of.

Maybe I’m the one person in the world who thinks this, but I hated Uncharted 4, nearly every bit of it.  At least it’s the end.  No reason to play the same game for the fifth (or sixth time, I never played the Vita game), after all.