Great rumination as always! I admire that Uncharted 4's story managed to be very grounded and expressing its core themes through using the classic Uncharted formula of treasure hunting and the supernatural third act twist. Though in 4 what made people monsters weren't a virus or a halucinagen, it was greed. To me it was clear that the only reason the Drake brother's managed to make it off Avery's ship alive was that they valued family more than the treasure and thus were willing to sacrifice the treasure.
The voice actor for the villain Lazarević; was the same one who portrayed Cutter. His name is Graham McTavish and he also played Dwalin in The Hobbit Trilogy.
First video I've seen of yours and I loved it. I love the Uncharted series and hearing your thoughts on it were awesome and has even opened my eyes on some things I didn't catch especially in Uncharted 4 which gave me another level of appreciation. Definetly subscribing.
Joey Quezada Lorerunner is my favorite channel on UA-cam. It's completely unique in that it's a high level literary analysis of games. This exists for books, and film, but I have not seen these kind of discussions for video games. Due to the lengthy format and high level analysis that Lorerunner does, the potential audience is sadly small, because it's limited to people who both play video games, and probably have an above average IQ and a deep curiosity.
>First video I've seen of yours and I loved it. be prepared to binge watch his ruminations. he has great and original insight into everything there is. welcome to the channel.
Welcome to our little group of Lorerunners, that's why most of us follow him, he's very intelligent, and these reviews give us the depth that most reviewers fail to achieve.
Your ruminations help me get though my day. Whether it's a series i love like this or games ive played once or even never. I listen to your ruminations while i push carts at walmart and you make my day go by faster so thank you. I hope i can become financially sound enough to contribute to your patreon.
This was a great series but I am glad to see that Amy Hennig is no longer working on it(and the new Star Wars title she was working on). Hopefully now she can continue with the Legacy of Kain series, I know Square owns it now but that is such an amazing series that was never finished.
I always wondered how it was that the bad guys always knew the exact nature of the long forgotten treasures. Navarro Knew about the supermutant virus, Lazarovitch knew about the regenerative properties of the sap from the tree of life, and Marlowe/Talbot knew about the hallucinogenic brass vessel. The heroes never know exactly what they are chasing despite being the best at following the clues but the bad guys, despite being terrible at working out what to do, always know the exact end goal.
So I already dropped into a stream to mention this to you but I'll add it here in a little more detail. If you don't already know - Troy Baker and Nolan North have a channel called Retro Replay where they sit down to try out classic games and chat, they've just finished Having Nolan play all the way through Uncharted 1 for the first time. They occasionally bring on random guests too, for the last episode they had Amy Hennig in to talk about the making of it. One tidbit she gave was about information that could not naturally fit into the game so had to be left out. The idea was that the golden Idol was _not_ some random cursed treasure worshiped by the Mayinkatecs of the setting, stolen by the Spanish. Instead it was a deliberate trap for the Spanish b the Peruvians. A massive golden idol to draw them in but with a booby trap inside which when opened up back in Spain would devastate Europe and bring an end to their conquering armies. Luckily for us it was first taken to an isolated colony and there it stayed until Navaro went looking for it. You raised the question of where the Peruvians could have gotten a hold of such a weapon but it does not really change anything from the finished version of the game. They either had some kind of supernatural power to tap into or they just simply 'had one on hand'. I mentioned on my first comment to this video how odd it is that the villains always seem to know exactly what the treasures of these games do despite being so terrible at following the clues to their locations. It seems in this case it was justified as Navarro simply heard of the treasure of El Dorado from a different angle, a local myth about a terrible weapon that was supposed to destroy their enemies.
There was an online animated short movie from Naughty Dog right before Among Thieves was released. It's called The Eye of Indra and it's an earlier adventure before the first game and Eddie is in it along with his sister Rika. Worth a watch for sure
Another great rumination, I myself only finished the fourth game not long back and it was my favorite too. I do love how Sam comes across like how Nath does in the first couple of games. Seeing Nath even after learning the truth, still have an understanding of why his brother wants to see it to the end I thought was a really well done.
played all 4 as well, Never owned a ps3, just my ps4. I was waiting for them to release the collection on ps4 then I picked it up, liked it very much and also got 4. the last game is by far my favourite, both gameplay wise and story wise.
"I am after all really bad at Crash Bandicoot." Find that line a little bit funny having been I believe the largest funder of the NST Premier Run. And I always enjoy when I play a game/watch a movie on my own and then find your Ruminations of it that I didn't know you did.
Awesome video! I was so happy when I saw this in my sub box! I love the Uncharted games. Back when I first got a PS3 the first two games were out and the third was on it's way. I didn't know really anything about them and I picked the first game up on a whim. It was really cheap so I grabbed it. I played it and I wasn't "blown away." I thought it was alright I liked the characters. But I wasn't hooked or super excited about it. However the second game was also really, really cheap and I figured why not? I put that game in at like 9 or 10pm. And I played it all night long just smiling and laughing at how over the top and crazy it was. It was an absolute BLAST. The entire train sequence alone was worth the price of admission. With the second game I was so taken back because I started it expecting a basically the first game again. The second game was just so much more fun. I felt like Indiana Jones. Uncharted 2 just makes me happy. It's just a wild rollercoaster of awesome light-hearted popcorn fun. Uncharted 3... That one's weird... Because I haven't played past the pirate ship yard since it first came out. I remember everything up to and including the shipyard very clearly. But after that... It's very hazy. I don't know what it is about three but I can't bring myself to replay it. And I don't remember it very well. It felt more disjointed to me. It seemed like the game was constructed for the big action sequences rather than the action sequences being made to serve the game and story. I wanna replay it because it's been years and I'd like to reevaluate it. Uncharted 4 I agree it's much more grounded. It has one or two big moments but not nearly as often. I'm close to agreeing with you that it's the best in the series. But I love the second one so much... I'll say they're at the very least tied. I love them both for different reasons. Uncharted 2 is just fun. Uncharted 4 is a cool character study. Uncharted 4 is interesting because it made me feel incredibly guilty. I hated that Nate lied to Elena and I felt horrible about it. It was stressing me out! But at the same time that I was feeling horrible about his lies. I was thrilled and having a great time being cought up in the adventure. So uncharted 4 made me feel all of the same emotions along with Drake. I felt guilty I was afraid of the consequences but I was also enjoying myself. And then feeling bad again for having so much fun... Anyway i seem to have written a really long comment (again) and I'm sorry for rambling I enjoyed your rumination. You are the best!
Hey arch, did you notice that uncharted 1-3 is the exact same story with just the names and places changed beat for beat? Ex: uncharted 1 1. Drake starts out single 2. Meets up with elena halfway through 3. Finds the thing hes looking for 4. Destroys the thing hes looking for 5. Rides off hand in hand with elena. Rinse repeat for 2 and 3. Thoughts?
I also agree that Drake had more chemistry with Chloe than Elena. They just click with each other more and I found myself enjoying their scenes together more so than with Drake and Elena.
Oh boy, The Uncharted games. The one franchise I'm interested in to play that I'll never play because I didn't have a console back then and now I don't have time to get invested. Now the only games I've watched was the 2nd and 3rd game and out of two of them, I liked 2nd the best. Probably because of Chloe mainly (has to do something with her being played by Claudia Black), but the game, in general, had a wonderful pace to it. And I agree, the chemistry between Chloe and Nathan felt more natural to me as well. Like there was no emotional obstacles between their dialog and them just being pals in a sense. As for Nathan. Maybe the way you try to describe Nathan is just him being "stubborn" or him being a "bullhead"? Seems like so from how you are describing that. But not to the full extent of those words either, because there is some naive side to him as well. Hmm... something to think about. Good rumination, I liked it. A bit surprised it wasn't that long since it is 4 games after all, but if there is not much you can talk about then what can you do, right? (talk about it)
Blessings upon Shurue for requesting this! I personally love all the games, even though I thought the fourth one dragged on for way too long imo (might be because I can't invest as much time in the games like I used to). Still, great games!
i actually liked the fact that the sap in 2 was flammable/explosive, any substance that can regen damaged tissue in such a short time must be packing an ungodly amount of energy. also, the epilogue in U4 was the highest emotional point to me. Sam sneakily giving the coins almost caught me tearing up, to use your poker metaphore, Sam... *cheated* to make his brother win at the poker table.
excellent rumination as always, for my personal experience i was a huge fan of crash bendicoot and jak and dexter all games, so i got uncharted the day it came out, and i was hooked from day one. Between that and my love for pop culture adventure heroes like indiana jones the hook was deep, so I agree that as the series progressed everything got better, the cinematics , the voices, the story but the first game was my personal first where all these things were at that lvls so i am a bit biased. I also think that not playing them back to back is why i find this, i think if i had played the series like you i think i wouldn't have much to say about the first game either. The chemistry thing i agreed, originally i even wanted nate to end with chole more when i played the second game, but now i enjoy the whole romantic relationships plot from 1-4 even more, i see elena and nate are opposites and chloe and nate are similar, like you very well pointed out nate chooses to be the same as chloe but have different approach that ends up linking him more to elena, As a whole what i would most like to comment is that the reason i love these games is, as mentioned before of my love of pop culture i have imagined many version of charaters like indiana jones and luke skywalker, and this is as something pulled straight from my imagination, it was so me i almost automatically enjoyed it, in the beginning i would comment on these games separately, but now that we have progressed so much in the life of Nathan Drake i cant but see the all together as a continuous line, the tumultuous and unhinged life nathan and then go for the top moments in his life, his biggest finds and major setbacks, it all felt like one long really satisfying adventure. Hugs and love from Zenkodac
***SPOILERS*** Here’s how good the graphics are in Uncharted 4. In the epilogue when the camera panned from Crash to the shot of Cassie and Vicky on the bed, I was confused because I legitimately thought that it was a shot of a real person. The mocap was SO DAMN GOOD that I had to close my eyes for a few seconds and then refocus for it to register in my mind that I was still looking at animation. I’m blown away.
Hey Lorerunner, every time I watch a video of yours I always wonder where the background is from? Looks like either Oblivion or Skyrim, but maybe modded? The weather effects are always so cool and soothing! So what is it actually? Very curious here! ^^
In this particular case it would be the area of Kaer Morhen in Witcher 3. I use some stuff from Skyrim, some from Oblivion, and some from Witcher 3. I'm kind of hopeful to get some other backgrounds in the future too.
I have been watching your ruminations since 2012. I kinda feel kinda stupid for asking this but why do people call you Arch? And what does your channel logo mean?
Lore, is you villain system covering everything? Where would you put something like Skynet? or Astrals from ff15? They aren't sympathetic, they aren't sadistic monsters, not slimy or petty. Am I missing something here?
"I really don't have much to talk about"
Talks for an hour and a half.
*not complaining :D
Great rumination as always! I admire that Uncharted 4's story managed to be very grounded and expressing its core themes through using the classic Uncharted formula of treasure hunting and the supernatural third act twist. Though in 4 what made people monsters weren't a virus or a halucinagen, it was greed. To me it was clear that the only reason the Drake brother's managed to make it off Avery's ship alive was that they valued family more than the treasure and thus were willing to sacrifice the treasure.
The voice actor for the villain Lazarević; was the same one who portrayed Cutter. His name is Graham McTavish and he also played Dwalin in The Hobbit Trilogy.
First video I've seen of yours and I loved it. I love the Uncharted series and hearing your thoughts on it were awesome and has even opened my eyes on some things I didn't catch especially in Uncharted 4 which gave me another level of appreciation. Definetly subscribing.
Joey Quezada Lorerunner is my favorite channel on UA-cam. It's completely unique in that it's a high level literary analysis of games. This exists for books, and film, but I have not seen these kind of discussions for video games. Due to the lengthy format and high level analysis that Lorerunner does, the potential audience is sadly small, because it's limited to people who both play video games, and probably have an above average IQ and a deep curiosity.
>First video I've seen of yours and I loved it.
be prepared to binge watch his ruminations. he has great and original insight into everything there is. welcome to the channel.
Welcome to our little group of Lorerunners, that's why most of us follow him, he's very intelligent, and these reviews give us the depth that most reviewers fail to achieve.
Welcome!
Nieche of the niech, but so glad it exists. Welcome on board.
Your ruminations help me get though my day. Whether it's a series i love like this or games ive played once or even never. I listen to your ruminations while i push carts at walmart and you make my day go by faster so thank you. I hope i can become financially sound enough to contribute to your patreon.
Hate to be that guy, but naughty dog...they are amazing, and if you like this, you'll like "The Forbidden Last of Us".
This was a great series but I am glad to see that Amy Hennig is no longer working on it(and the new Star Wars title she was working on). Hopefully now she can continue with the Legacy of Kain series, I know Square owns it now but that is such an amazing series that was never finished.
Loved when Cutter asked Sully about the rabbits after the fight with Nate.
I always wondered how it was that the bad guys always knew the exact nature of the long forgotten treasures. Navarro Knew about the supermutant virus, Lazarovitch knew about the regenerative properties of the sap from the tree of life, and Marlowe/Talbot knew about the hallucinogenic brass vessel. The heroes never know exactly what they are chasing despite being the best at following the clues but the bad guys, despite being terrible at working out what to do, always know the exact end goal.
I love the uncharted games
So I already dropped into a stream to mention this to you but I'll add it here in a little more detail. If you don't already know - Troy Baker and Nolan North have a channel called Retro Replay where they sit down to try out classic games and chat, they've just finished Having Nolan play all the way through Uncharted 1 for the first time. They occasionally bring on random guests too, for the last episode they had Amy Hennig in to talk about the making of it. One tidbit she gave was about information that could not naturally fit into the game so had to be left out.
The idea was that the golden Idol was _not_ some random cursed treasure worshiped by the Mayinkatecs of the setting, stolen by the Spanish. Instead it was a deliberate trap for the Spanish b the Peruvians. A massive golden idol to draw them in but with a booby trap inside which when opened up back in Spain would devastate Europe and bring an end to their conquering armies. Luckily for us it was first taken to an isolated colony and there it stayed until Navaro went looking for it.
You raised the question of where the Peruvians could have gotten a hold of such a weapon but it does not really change anything from the finished version of the game. They either had some kind of supernatural power to tap into or they just simply 'had one on hand'.
I mentioned on my first comment to this video how odd it is that the villains always seem to know exactly what the treasures of these games do despite being so terrible at following the clues to their locations. It seems in this case it was justified as Navarro simply heard of the treasure of El Dorado from a different angle, a local myth about a terrible weapon that was supposed to destroy their enemies.
There was an online animated short movie from Naughty Dog right before Among Thieves was released. It's called The Eye of Indra and it's an earlier adventure before the first game and Eddie is in it along with his sister Rika. Worth a watch for sure
I have never been so excited for a video since ever.
Another great rumination, I myself only finished the fourth game not long back and it was my favorite too. I do love how Sam comes across like how Nath does in the first couple of games. Seeing Nath even after learning the truth, still have an understanding of why his brother wants to see it to the end I thought was a really well done.
I love your passion for games man. And how your criticism respects them as genuine works of art.
played all 4 as well, Never owned a ps3, just my ps4. I was waiting for them to release the collection on ps4 then I picked it up, liked it very much and also got 4. the last game is by far my favourite, both gameplay wise and story wise.
You’d be surprised how many games Nolan North is in. He’s a man of a thousand voices
"I am after all really bad at Crash Bandicoot."
Find that line a little bit funny having been I believe the largest funder of the NST Premier Run. And I always enjoy when I play a game/watch a movie on my own and then find your Ruminations of it that I didn't know you did.
Hell yes, looking forward to this rumination, I always lay down the Uncharted series as a prime example of why video games as a medium exists.
Nicely done rumination. Im glad Lore really liked the Uncharted Games as they are a personal favorite.
i like 3 the most.
this is such a good rumination. I wish I had the same clarity of thought in analyzing stories and character motivations that you do.
Awesome video! I was so happy when I saw this in my sub box! I love the Uncharted games. Back when I first got a PS3 the first two games were out and the third was on it's way.
I didn't know really anything about them and I picked the first game up on a whim. It was really cheap so I grabbed it. I played it and I wasn't "blown away." I thought it was alright I liked the characters. But I wasn't hooked or super excited about it.
However the second game was also really, really cheap and I figured why not? I put that game in at like 9 or 10pm. And I played it all night long just smiling and laughing at how over the top and crazy it was. It was an absolute BLAST. The entire train sequence alone was worth the price of admission.
With the second game I was so taken back because I started it expecting a basically the first game again. The second game was just so much more fun. I felt like Indiana Jones. Uncharted 2 just makes me happy. It's just a wild rollercoaster of awesome light-hearted popcorn fun.
Uncharted 3... That one's weird... Because I haven't played past the pirate ship yard since it first came out. I remember everything up to and including the shipyard very clearly. But after that... It's very hazy.
I don't know what it is about three but I can't bring myself to replay it. And I don't remember it very well. It felt more disjointed to me. It seemed like the game was constructed for the big action sequences rather than the action sequences being made to serve the game and story. I wanna replay it because it's been years and I'd like to reevaluate it.
Uncharted 4 I agree it's much more grounded. It has one or two big moments but not nearly as often. I'm close to agreeing with you that it's the best in the series. But I love the second one so much... I'll say they're at the very least tied. I love them both for different reasons. Uncharted 2 is just fun.
Uncharted 4 is a cool character study. Uncharted 4 is interesting because it made me feel incredibly guilty. I hated that Nate lied to Elena and I felt horrible about it. It was stressing me out! But at the same time that I was feeling horrible about his lies. I was thrilled and having a great time being cought up in the adventure. So uncharted 4 made me feel all of the same emotions along with Drake. I felt guilty I was afraid of the consequences but I was also enjoying myself. And then feeling bad again for having so much fun...
Anyway i seem to have written a really long comment (again) and I'm sorry for rambling I enjoyed your rumination. You are the best!
Hey arch, did you notice that uncharted 1-3 is the exact same story with just the names and places changed beat for beat?
Ex: uncharted 1
1. Drake starts out single
2. Meets up with elena halfway through
3. Finds the thing hes looking for
4. Destroys the thing hes looking for
5. Rides off hand in hand with elena.
Rinse repeat for 2 and 3.
Thoughts?
Drakengard 3 has some of the best in-game banter I’ve seen in a game
I also agree that Drake had more chemistry with Chloe than Elena. They just click with each other more and I found myself enjoying their scenes together more so than with Drake and Elena.
Oh boy, The Uncharted games. The one franchise I'm interested in to play that I'll never play because I didn't have a console back then and now I don't have time to get invested. Now the only games I've watched was the 2nd and 3rd game and out of two of them, I liked 2nd the best. Probably because of Chloe mainly (has to do something with her being played by Claudia Black), but the game, in general, had a wonderful pace to it. And I agree, the chemistry between Chloe and Nathan felt more natural to me as well. Like there was no emotional obstacles between their dialog and them just being pals in a sense.
As for Nathan. Maybe the way you try to describe Nathan is just him being "stubborn" or him being a "bullhead"? Seems like so from how you are describing that. But not to the full extent of those words either, because there is some naive side to him as well. Hmm... something to think about.
Good rumination, I liked it. A bit surprised it wasn't that long since it is 4 games after all, but if there is not much you can talk about then what can you do, right? (talk about it)
Just emulate m'dude.
Blessings upon Shurue for requesting this! I personally love all the games, even though I thought the fourth one dragged on for way too long imo (might be because I can't invest as much time in the games like I used to). Still, great games!
Doing the whole series at once is genius.
Never thought to compare Sam to Dandelion before......yeah I caught that.
i actually liked the fact that the sap in 2 was flammable/explosive, any substance that can regen damaged tissue in such a short time must be packing an ungodly amount of energy.
also, the epilogue in U4 was the highest emotional point to me. Sam sneakily giving the coins almost caught me tearing up, to use your poker metaphore, Sam... *cheated* to make his brother win at the poker table.
excellent rumination as always, for my personal experience i was a huge fan of crash bendicoot and jak and dexter all games, so i got uncharted the day it came out, and i was hooked from day one. Between that and my love for pop culture adventure heroes like indiana jones the hook was deep, so I agree that as the series progressed everything got better, the cinematics , the voices, the story but the first game was my personal first where all these things were at that lvls so i am a bit biased. I also think that not playing them back to back is why i find this, i think if i had played the series like you i think i wouldn't have much to say about the first game either.
The chemistry thing i agreed, originally i even wanted nate to end with chole more when i played the second game, but now i enjoy the whole romantic relationships plot from 1-4 even more, i see elena and nate are opposites and chloe and nate are similar, like you very well pointed out nate chooses to be the same as chloe but have different approach that ends up linking him more to elena,
As a whole what i would most like to comment is that the reason i love these games is, as mentioned before of my love of pop culture i have imagined many version of charaters like indiana jones and luke skywalker, and this is as something pulled straight from my imagination, it was so me i almost automatically enjoyed it, in the beginning i would comment on these games separately, but now that we have progressed so much in the life of Nathan Drake i cant but see the all together as a continuous line, the tumultuous and unhinged life nathan and then go for the top moments in his life, his biggest finds and major setbacks, it all felt like one long really satisfying adventure.
Hugs and love from Zenkodac
thank god for more LORERUNNER!
Nice suit,man
fun fact for lore: cutter's VA was the one who voiced Lazarevic :p
Lorerunner, listen to animated Deadpool if you want to hear Nolan North play another character.
Dude, i wish i had a friend who gave me presents as good as Pax gives you!
Afaik the faces (unlike the gestures) in Uncharted 1-3 are hand-animated. Maybe 4 uses actually mo-cap?
That's what I was saying. Drake should of been with Cole. The chemistry is there
***SPOILERS***
Here’s how good the graphics are in Uncharted 4. In the epilogue when the camera panned from Crash to the shot of Cassie and Vicky on the bed, I was confused because I legitimately thought that it was a shot of a real person. The mocap was SO DAMN GOOD that I had to close my eyes for a few seconds and then refocus for it to register in my mind that I was still looking at animation. I’m blown away.
How the hell did I miss this one last year???
First 3 games are on my backlog, when you say they’re short games, is that 10 hrs or are they still 20+ ?
Hey Lorerunner, every time I watch a video of yours I always wonder where the background is from? Looks like either Oblivion or Skyrim, but maybe modded? The weather effects are always so cool and soothing! So what is it actually? Very curious here! ^^
In this particular case it would be the area of Kaer Morhen in Witcher 3. I use some stuff from Skyrim, some from Oblivion, and some from Witcher 3. I'm kind of hopeful to get some other backgrounds in the future too.
Cool Arch, thanks for your response! Keep up the good videos.
I have been watching your ruminations since 2012. I kinda feel kinda stupid for asking this but why do people call you Arch? And what does your channel logo mean?
Nice background, but I'm sorry, that imperial sign is quite terrible. Maybe I could help you with that
Lore, is you villain system covering everything? Where would you put something like Skynet? or Astrals from ff15? They aren't sympathetic, they aren't sadistic monsters, not slimy or petty. Am I missing something here?
Force of nature? Blue and orange morality?
Would you be interested in doing a analysis on the Jurassic park trilogy,you don't have to do Jurassic world,let me know what you think
Last of us next please it’s amazing dark and depressing but amazing
why wasnt this streamed GAHHHHHH
because how cinematic it is, lore could get into copyright issues xD hah
What's a type 3 villain?
lorerunner.com/loreiums
Could you do the last of us?
Is not debatable... You need to play The Last Of Us...
Rumination on divinity original sins pls :D
Vossler FFXII come on lore D: haha
First?