172. Uncharted 4 (Naughty Dog, Playstation 4, 2016)

Whew, I just moved so I haven't been blogging for a bit, but I just finished Uncharted 4, and, well, it sure is another Uncharted. I played the first 2 Uncharted games at or around their release. As a PS3 early adopter, I was hungry for a good exclusive game to justify my five hundred ninety nine US dollar purchase, and Uncharted was the promised game everyone was salivating for. Even at the time it wasn't amazing, and it was easily made obsolete by its sequel, but I think that every Uncharted has been better than the one before it. 

So that makes Uncharted 4 the best Uncharted (I'm not counting The Lost Legacy as I have yet to play that, but it's probably even better), though I would say it's a marginal victory. It's a bit longer than the previous games in the series, though it never feels too slow during its 15 hour playtime. Much to my delight, the emphasis on waves of gunfights have actually been toned down and there is more focus on platforming and stealth. The stealth actually manages to be fun, though this shouldn't come as a huge surprise, as the game shares directors with The Last of Us.

Another weirdly specific focus of the game is rope physics. I didn't know this until recently, but apparently having a 3D game with a character who can use a rope was previously considered impossible, so I guess the people at Naughty Dog were so proud of their achievement they based a whole system in the game off of it. It is pretty fun swinging around but it doesn't feel like a huge new feature to a newcomer.

One more new thing that I appreciated more than ropes were a couple huge open areas that you could drive a vehicle through. The car handling was great (controlling a car is just more fun than controlling a human) and the vehicle exploration was punctuated nicely by small enemy encounters / platforming bits scattered around. This was the only section of the game that really felt like an evolution of Uncharted and not just more of the same.

You also always have at least one buddy character around who provides banter but doesn’t get in the way of the action, which makes the experience slightly more engaging. At the end of the day, Uncharted 4 is another Uncharted game: top tier presentation for a pretty throwaway story and breezy gameplay mechanics. I’ve never loved the Uncharted series, but they’re just so easy to play through and take in, I can’t help but look forward to each new entry.

4/5, The best Uncharted game, if only marginally