What's interesting is in the manual, it's stated that when Drake gets hit by bullets he isn't taking damage, but that his "luck is running out", meaning that the bullets are missing him but the last fatal shot is the one that gets him. It's an interesting compromise to try to marry the the more grounded presentation with the traditional third person shooter gameplay.
Your ability to call attention to small details and atmosphere can't be understated. I usually get annoyed when characters talk non-stop to themselves in games but I forgot how genuinely endearing it is to see Nate react to granades and things like that. Never stop gaming, gamer.
What makes it work is that Drake rarely ever just talks to himself for no reason, he's either in a conversation or he is reacting to things that the player would also be reacting to, danger, beautiful vistas, unusual sights, upcoming enemies, etc. He basically just verbalizes what you were probably thinking anyway.
I played the second soon after it came out before i touched the first. I played the first in 2021ish and loved it for wwhat it was! Its funny that you dont really NEED the first to entirely understand the 2nd 💀
Yeah returning to the 1st one isn't hard because it's bad or anything but my god is it boring compared to the sequels. I'll generally get about halfway through before calling it quits and moving on.
@SomniaCE It's not "boring" at all. It just has less spectacle. I find the story to be way more intimate and engaging. It's about his family essentislly and that is more personal than some random mythical location you discover (usually minutes after the bad guys did).
Going from 2 > 3 > 1 was weird for me but I still appreciated how this game managed to make exploring only one island entertaining even though it's sequels went all over the world in terms of locations.
For me it goes 2, 4, 1 and then 3 in terms of enjoyment. 1 and 3 were 8/10, 2 was 10/10 and 4 9/10. Overall franchise was a 10 in terms of the storyline and characters.
I really appreciate your dedication to showcasing original hardware. It’s increasingly rare to see and actually takes me back to the years when endless screen-tearing was the default. Context is important!
True. If the game had performance issues and whether or not they got fixed on beefier hardware has to be acknowledged. Smoother frame rate makes a game feel more polished by default.
I'll always have a soft spot for these games. They're pure videogame comfort food for me. Clever writing, fun cutscenes, cool characters and stories, good pacing with setpieces and puzzles and solid gameplay overall. They're just cool games! And they really are more than the sum of their individual parts. That's why I think Uncharted is one of the few "AAA, cinematic" game series done right. And yeah Uncharted 2 really smooths out the jank with the dodge and cover system, and the aiming is much better too. But I still like U1 for the story and setting. It really did something unique and those scarier parts really freaked me out as a kid.
I think the best call back is the forced perspective shots the series uses where you are running towards the camera like Crash and a few points in Jack. The game does it a few times and it's always a fun switch up.
My first PS3 game, when I got my PS3 back then. It still looks very amazing, and aged really well too. The PS3 exclusives, still looks amazing today. These are the guys who made The Last Of Us, on this console.
Great review, very fair. NakeyJakey summarizes the ludonarrative dissoance issue as a "if you don't mention it, we won't either'" scenario, which I agree with. The Uncharted games have a charming, immersive quality from the first game, that makes their contradictions and weaknesses easy to ignore or live with. Those weaknesses become more apparent when there are a million developers trying to do the same thing, but they don't lose that likeability that's not as easy to replicate.
Frankly, I don’t think the morality of the deaths are an issue given that everyone Drake kills attacks him first. Self defense doesn’t suddenly become invalid if you defend yourself against 10 people or even 100 rather than just 1. The only ludicrous aspect is the scale, since Nathan Drake being able to defeat entire battalions of bad guys by himself would make him the most skilled super soldier on the planet. But then again, that is a common thing with many video games. There’s a reason Ramirez from OG MW2 is a meme.
@@gameragodzilla2 issues with that. 1) Even if they’re attacking him first, Drake should be incredibly disturbed by it. 2) After feeling this disturbance, Drake should be questioning whether treasure hunting is worth having to continue manslaughtering hundreds of people.
@@mick9707 Not really if, again, they’re always the ones attacking him first. If someone’s trying to kill me, I’d have no moral qualms killing him. But if I’m somehow able to kill 1000 dudes, then I’d be a god of war, not just a plucky treasure hunter.
@@gameragodzilla no. If you were just out treasure hunting, and started killing loads of people who attacked you; if you weren’t disturbed as fuck after that then you’re a psychopath. Choosing to continue hunting for treasure after continually running into people trying to kill you and then killing them is psychopathic behaviour.
@@mick9707 I’d be disturbed that there were that many people attacking me, but I wouldn’t have any moral qualms defending myself. Again, self defense doesn’t vanish as a concept because of what you’re doing or how often you do it.
I'm not sure how much I buy it, but the developers have said that Nathan isn't actually taking damage when he's being shot at. The greying of the screen apparently signals that his "luck" is running out. Might be a cop out, but it's worth pointing out re: the points made about him taking a full clip to the face.
I feel like if that were really the case, they would have gone out of their way to convey it better considering this is Naughty Dog we're talking about
If people want an explanation outside of "it's a game" they'll have to come up with a bullshit excuse. I don't get why people expect real world logic in a game, no one asked questions when picking up a health pack healed you in old games, we just accepted it.
Indiana Jones didn't slaughter like Nathan Drake though... two completely different things there. and in those movies most the bad guys die due to extreme environment/self-defense situations. He isn't mowing through them with AK's.
@@hauntedheathen2732It's self defense in Nate's case as well, except arguably Uncharted 4. The treasures in these games turn out to be some supernatural threat most of the time that can destroy the world.
I feel like if you totalled up every single person Indiana Jones kills in every piece of media depicted of him it wouldn't tally up to half of Drake's death count in this 1 game.
@@SomniaCE Probably even less than that, and not only so but they are literally Nazi's for at least two movies. But also I guess it's not fair to compare films to games either. The games gotta fill a dozen hours with something (shooting) whereas Indy can not only do a lot more stuff with it being a movie, but said stuff is only within 2 hours. Drake just has the odds stacked against him every time when bringing this stuff up.
@@Hshm27 actually, I might have been misremembering... The only one I could find, David J. Witters, who worked on both uncharted and spirits within, had such a minor credit in FF that I can't even find him in the credits.
Spirits Within is a fine movie. They were expecting Disney/Pixar levels of revenue at the time, and Final Fantasy just didn't have that brand recognition, especially in the early 00's.
Uncharted is a funny series because every so often, I look back at them and sneer for being one of the forerunners of the gritty, cinematic walky-talky genre with limited gameplay depth that led to modern God of War and Last of Us; but then I go back and play the games and they just click. None of them are particularly deep action games, 4 comes the closest and even then isn't an absolute gameplay marvel, but something about the dialogue, the set pieces, the locales, the music, it all comes together to make the Uncharted series so much more than the sum of its parts. Also, something I've always noticed is, despite the realistic art style, characters in Uncharted 1 still kind of animate and emote like Jak and Daxter characters. It adds a certain surreal charm to this entry specifically.
@@conor6436 Would definitely call 'em more so Third Person Shooters with occational horror elements. Can't say I'd have ever gotten the notion horror would have been the series' main focus and as someone who did a no guns run on my first and only playthrough of the second game on Survivor difficulty, don't know about the survival part either.
14:16 It's telling of the design ethos of modern AAA games that they kept QTEs on board, probably thinking they "fixed them "because gamer complaints about QTEs had gone down. They'd become relatively unobtrusive, and that sounds great to a company that wants to make the most sandpapered, generically accessible product ever.
thank goodness brit mentioned the jet ski being like that crash bandicoot level cause that's what it felt like to me. also i liked those chapters for that reason but everyone else seems to hate it.
Am I the only one who never cared about the whole "oh they shot a bunch of pirates so why are they so witty?" thing? Uncharted never seemed super serious to me like a particular sibling fps game did that flip flopped tone at breakneck speeds.
Its incredibly refreshing to hear someone not snarkily dismiss the criticism of juxtaposing murder sprees in gameplay with the actual tone of this game. Props for once again using the original game and hardware for as painful as that likely was. Really appreciate the last bit of the video too and the Uncharted 4 love. Some seem to really have it out for that game for some reason
@@PauLtus_B well, Max Payne is an example of a game where the guns do realistic damage to the player, like the player can instantly die if they're faced with a shotgun or if they get headshotted. In many ways, Uncharted is a step back compared to that series, because Max Payne went to great lengths to justify its presentation and mechanics (as well as having more fleshed out mechanics), whereas here they just take most of it for granted and handwave it as videogames.
As a fan of the original Uncharted, I really dislike 3 and 4. The story beats are a bit to repetitive, Elena is way too forgiving of Drake lying to her so many times, and the transition from 3 telling Drake's backstory to 4 telling another backstory involving a brother that he's never, ever mentioned to Elena even once? It might be a good game mechanically and graphically, but the story rubs me all kinds of wrong.
I like 4 well enough but the premise of the brother is some insane shit ill give you that. Liked him more in the Chloe stand alone thing. Even though that has the weirdness of taking an austrailian character and suddenly deciding theyre Indian. What other insane continuity messes will the next Uncharted have?
You're a legend man, I can't even comprehend the level of hard work and commitment you put into these videos, and to have them coming out so frequently lately, you just inspire me
I played the 4 main games for the first time last year and tbh the first one didn’t feel that bad, I would probably say it’s my favorite. Granted, I played the ps4 remasters, and even tho the next games certainly improved a lot of things, I feel the core of what makes Uncharted so great is already there - plus the risk they took in that new franchise. I didn’t even know the first one was so frowned upon until later on.
Agreed! Focusing on one island and the mystery of its past was very interesting to me. Lost Legacy probably comes closest in that regard though there's less of a focus on what happened to the inhabitants beforehand compared to 1. Also gotta love Eddy Raja 😂
I like uncharted 1, some people think the setting is kinda boring but i like it, it gives it a sense of progression and adventure, uc 3 and uc2 teleported you to the levels cod style, uc1 actually has you traverse the island until the end of the game
The Uncharted franchise saved story-focused single player games in the west, imo. Even if you could argue that it's mostly Sony themselves who got the message that that is a worthwhile niche to fill and sell consoles with. I still love Uncharted 1 and play it at least once a year. There are two points in your review I kinda want to answer back to. And yes, the blame is mostly on the game for poorly explaining these mechanics. But you need to pay more attention to the blind-shooting mechanic, even before the zombie part in late-game. You said in your review that the game is lacking mechanics, but that's simply because you were looking in the wrong area. (Again, game's lack of communication fault) There is the so-called iron-fist mechanic, which returns in all Uncharted games. It's a high-risk/high-reward mechanic where when you run towards an enemy to execute a melee attack, if you blind-fire towards him during that run, your melee attack will be a quick one-hit kill, often giving your that enemy's weapon if the situation allows that. So instead of covering on the ground searching for ammo there, the game encourages you to do these high-risk moves. Later in Uncharted 3, they add the grenade-back-throwing thing, which the game clearly communicates and is more on the side of cover-mechanics. But sadly they threw it out of the window again, probably because it was a bit over-powered, made the game much easier and was not the direction, they wanted for these games. Another great use for blind-fire is during the upstream vehicle section of the game. That level is frustratingly hard and feels super bad if you aim at the barrles while floating backwards to hit them. But if you just use blind-fire you will notice that you not only can keep accellerating while shooting, but Elena also always hits. The level becomes comically easy if you know this, you can simply keep pressing R1 during the whole level and she will destroy all barrels far away in front of you and the whole section is just navigating through an empy river.
I found this game to be similar to Assassin's Creed 1. More of a tech demo than an actual game. Very repetitive, very short, but outlines things to come later.
@@aNerdNamedJamesye, people don't seem to remember that AC1 was going for something very different from it's heavily streamlined sequels, they basically scraped every element that got criticized in AC1 instead of improving them which lead to AC2 being very different
Completed it last year and I'm surprisingly more harsh than you. Jet skiing section was not even the biggest problem. Encounters grew bland really quickly (clearly their first time making such game). I dreaded going to new area because of chore of a combat. The supernatural twist was only a slight improvement. Amazing VA, banter and world design saved this game.
Great review. I haven't replayed these games in a long time, and this reminded me of a couple of small details I appreciate about the first game over its sequels. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I seem to remember the first game did not pad out the length with long walking sections that could have been cutscene instead. The only time I seem to remember that is in the beginning of the game, when Nate and Sully ditch Elena, after that I seem to remember it always had a platforming, puzzling or combat section. I like the death music from Drake's Fortune the most out of the 5 games(I haven't played the Vita one), and I can't explain why combat feels more satisfying in the first game for me. I can't remember if it's the controller that rumbles more, if there's just a louder sound effect, but each punch and kick feels more impactful than it does in the rest of the series, the worst Melee combat has to be in Drake's Deception where most of it(if not all of it) is QTE.
My first game on the ps3 and a showcase until uc 2 came and blew everything away. Still the best uncharted . The train and truck chase levels have not been beaten by any other game - in rare cases just improved upon. I still remember beating the truck chase without dying on my first attempt. The game had sucked me in, jumping truck to truck whilst unwittingly i got out of my chair and was standing throughout. It was like in that moment i was living Drake’s desperation to survive. Few games have managed to get me get out of my chair like that and uc2 is one. To talk bout uc 1 and throw shade at uc2 for lack of foliage has got to be the lowest blow this dude has ever performed.
Great review. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune shows its age and it's quite obvious it was Naughty Dog's first attempt at this sort of game. What I think the game does very well - better than even its sequels - is the atmosphere. Exploring the island and slowly uncovering a mystery was nice. Since it was a new IP and character backgrounds were not fully sketched out, Drake and co. all feel like rookies. They all still have a sense of wonder when they find something new. The bunker level was a good twist, and none of the sequels did the supernatural twist as well as Drake's Fortune.
this was a transition era ... i was starting to get used to the patterns in games and i couldnt wait for the next gen to come the impressive visuals and immerive interactive elements and interconnectivty ..for once my vision of how future games should be was closer to reality than ever i was already fanatsizing about games of all genres making the world more interactibale and giving player agency over what happens in the game.. sadly it was a gimpse of a future we never got because big companies with the budget who can pull this off stopped investing in niche genres that appeal to a small audience.. the innovation and risk taking stopped instead we got cutscenes simulators with good graphics and worse and less varied game mechanics in fact from around 2010 the better the graphics got the more dumbed down game mechanics got. the graphics and cutscenes became a mere tool for merketing while the gameplay never tried to improve to match this level of details ... but now i have accepted that mechincal complexity and visual quality are uncompatible espicially on a big scale .. even now the only immersive experience that you can get is in indie game with simple old school visuals .. this is why i say the ps2 era was peak for the game industry because after progress was only surface level
It’s funny when you mentioned the gameplay and story being at odds. I always felt like the uncharted games were the first of their kind and the last of their kind. It was embracing the direction of more cinematic story driven action, adventure games while still hanging on to old-fashioned popular gameplay. The series would keep evolving until the gameplay element went completely shallow in uncharted 4. Some love the game but I felt it was very much lacking in action. I also like the story and the setting more in uncharted 1 than 2. Uncharted 3 also has the most variety in gameplay by far, I know a lot of people give the story crap but as an action game, I think it’s kind of underrated.
Exactly We had so good cinematic games with actual good gameplay, as in "videoGAME". Now we just have cinematic "games", more like experiences. Just like the Transition with the new God of War Mov...i mean Games. Imagine you had multiple sequences in Uncharted 1 or 2 where something happened on screen while you, as a gAmEr, just push and hold "up" on the D-Pad for minutes.
@@tydendurler9574 I really don't think the change between new GoW and old GoW was that different. I guess the new GoW does have more of these just press up segments (boar and getting to the top of the mountain). But I still think both are fairly cinematic while still having plenty of gameplay.
@@rouge939 yeah, I pretty much did, sorry. At least there was action throughout the whole game. Four had these overly long sliding, walking and driving sections with basically no obstacles I just felt it was really lacking in action. I think they were going for more of a drama approach or something. Personally, I think 3 had the best gameplay. It just had the most rushed story.
@@deleteTF the cinematic feel with the OG Trilogy comes from the glorious, mostly fixed (but moving) camera perspectives. But the gameplay was 100% pure videogame, all the time. (just compare a humping-QTE-minigame to "hold up") The new ones instead have cinematic-gameplay all the time, for the sake of actual good gameplay (not saying GoW2018 is bad per se). The perspective alone destroys so much just for the sake of being a movie without cuts from start to finish. "Under the majo" has some very good videos regarding this.
Great Vid mate. never had a ps3 back in the day but got a used one and found myself playing a few older titles. its been a cool window into gaming histories past.
I got this with the remaining games (up to PS4) as a bundle with my PS4 a decade ago. LOVES THIS SERIES. 1 was amazing - especially the insane twist end game that sent me into shock. #2 was insanely cinematic, the best one. #3 was amazing but fell short of my expectations. Did not play #4.
This videos great but the mirrors edge comparison for the platforming is somewhat flawed because that game wants you moving at a frantic pace and uncharted gives you time to figure it out
Feel like GoW1 is still way more of a big deal for popularizing TP Cover shooter just because of what a huge huge deal it was & the turnaround time on game development. I appreciate your theory though from a creative's standpoint on it.
The thing that aged the worst is definitly the lighting. It looks so awkward. Uncharted 2 is just as big a step up as jak 2 polygon increase compared to jak 1
I know there's a lot of criticism against the action and body count but honestly if they took that away the game would just be a hair away from being Until Dawn in terms of gameplay it feels like. It's odd since Indiana Jones never gets the realism questions (well from what I saw) where he's having is face punched so much it's incredible he has bones in his head and not a fine powder. He falls from planes, punches nazis, nearly gets crushed several times, becomes a slave via mind control, brutally murders tons of badmen in cold blood. Doesn't shoot a group of nazis with a rocket launcher because he'd be able to see the ark. Uncharted is basically that, just more badmen are getting shot because it's a 10+ hour game and not a 2 hour movie. I never found Uncharted to be remotely trying to be realistic given how fantastical a lot of it is, especially when you get to the end and the not-zombies show up and there's a sub that's laying on land after a jungle excursion, Sully survives a bullet because of the thinnest, smallest book that fits in a breast pocket of a modern shirt, all the insane climbing where- no matter how strong your hands are, Drake SOMEHOW catches a ledge and doesn't snap all his fingers? Or dislodge that ancient brick that just took his full weight from a huge fall? It's pure fantasy.
Supposedly the "taking damage and recovering health" in Uncharted is not Drake being shot but the bullets nearly missing and his "luck running out", by taking cover his "luck" resets.
I've always considered that more of a last minute excuse, but it's fine. Obviously the dude isn't shot within the games canon (unless in a cutscene) but for some reason people get hung up on that.
@@Darek_B52 at no point does the game show Drake flinching from being shot or blood spurts until he dies. Fragmentation from grenades is also a probabilistic thing, a grenade shoots out fragments that might miss entirely. So it's less a matter of impossibility of regenerating health but improbability of dodging bullets. Though I did read a statistic that in WW2 an average of 10'000 rounds of ammunition were fired in combat for each individual wound from a firearm.
I always like the viewpoint you have of analyzing what a game is and what it (tries) to go for on it's own merits I think the nature of the greater gaming landscape before and after a notable title (such as this one) releases is intrinsically tied to a review of said game Namely, if you don't like the era of cover shooters, or what games like Uncharted did to the "action adventure" genre, it would no doubt color your retrospective on Uncharted 1 or 2 or etc It shows the value in allowing a game to sit and simmer for a while (16 years in this case), to be able to have that breathing room necessary to commend and critique. We ourselves grow older, and with it we (hopefully) become less hotheaded and passionate, and I believe that helps us to be more fair individuals --I'll stop myself from writing an essay in the comments and just close with a "this was a good video that made me think, thank you"
One thing I've always liked about Uncharted 1's gun combat is that enemies would sometimes even react to bullets that go near past them. So blind firing is actually useful when you shoot a couple rounds in the direction of a pirate who would flinch and get "stunned" for a short time while you're getting up close and personal.
I'm a huge uncharted fan and the first Uncharted still holds a place in my heart, yeah it has it's flaws, even more today compared to when the game was released, but it has so much charm, the artstyle is unique and the gameplay is still fun. If you never played it, you should definetelly give it a shot.
Yeah I agree absolutely loved this game. But the shooting got very frustrating very fast. Only thing that stops me going back. So I play it on easy just to do the story. 😅
I'll still be fairly critical of games regardless of their quirky level AND blame Uncharted for popularizing a ton of design elements in games that I can't stand.
I really like Uncharted as a series. It's not a top 10 series or anything, but I liked all the games and loved the characters. Even seeing gameplay of Uncharted 1 here, despite being "flawed", I like seeing it be a bit more rough and "gamey" compared to modern Naughty Dog stuff and similar games. Gets my seal of approval though. Hopefully Naughty Dog never touches the series again because I don't trust them anymore. I really need to go back and play the Jak games though. I had a weird pattern with Naughty Dog and Insomniac games where on PS1 I played all the Crash games, but no Spyro (aside from what was included as demos in Crash), and then on PS2 I played all the Ratchet & Clank games and no Jak. I don't even know if there was a particular reason for this; just random. I'm sure I would've liked Jak at the time. PS3 I played both the Ratchet & Clank games and Uncharted, but not Resistance. I feel like you never really see people talk about those games.
i have a soft spot for the first two games, and whilst 3 and 4 have their issues to me theyre also pretty undeniably more mechanically complex and enjoyable on a gameplay perspective. imo if uncharted 2 had the gameplay and controls of 4 you would have the best in the class game in the series. the 1st game in particular feels almost somewhat stitched together with how many environments it reuses and the general lack of variety on display, as well as the overall length being pretty compact. i do think that works to the games favor though, it doesnt overstay its welcome even if the combat does get samey. as someone who has beat at least one of these games on crushing, frankly theyre arguably best enjoyed on easier difficulties where you can much more freely go full "indiana jones" to your hearts content, and play every situation as a mad run and gun affair trying to look as cool as possible as opposed to just surviving by the skin of your teeth stuck behind cover for every firefight. playing these games on their hardest difficulty where two bullets will kill you feels almost antithetical to the actual design ethos of the game. nobody watches a pulpy action movie to see the protagonist realistically cower behind cover for the majority of every fight scene and i think the same notion should carry into games like uncharted. 4 did a great job naturally encouraging more dynamic fights in its encounter design, but the actual number of combat sequences are relatively low in spite of them being much more engaging on average, and i think the overall pacing is arguably the worst in the whole series. i really enjoyed playing the lost legacy and getting those combat sequences back to back in a much more compacted manner, made the whole thing flow a lot smoother.
After playing 4 I wanted to try to revisit the collection. Starting with the 1st one, I honestly don’t ever think I played past ch 4. Yes it looked great on PS3, but I just found the game boring. Now replaying it, have managed to get further but noticed just because its better visuals, does not equal a better game. Its wash, rinse, repeat formula is very boring. The jumping sections are unforgiving at times, and the camera angels, and lighting are terrible at times. It seems they really polished the graphics, but not the game mechanics. You can’t throw grenades back, cant zoom into enemies, sometimes it’s like “where are they”? I also feel the game looks more cartoonish now in the remaster. 2 & 3 are amazing, so I’m not sure why they didn’t bring those mechanics into the 1st one. Theres rumors of a remake, which I feel the 1st one needs the most.
Actually just finished the first game and yeeted it across the room. If this game didn't come out as one of the first PS3 games I don't think it would've seen such good reviews as it did. This game just adds to prime examples of why exclusives (from consumer point of view) should never been a thing and should've had a PC port. Like inFamous if this had a PC port this would be a 8-9/10 and most of the gameplay issues would be gone might be even fun on hardest difficulty. The only positive thing about this game was the infected section, it was creepy, grim and fun.
This makes me wish you would do a video on the "Legacy of Kain" series. The writer of uncharted was the same as LoK's writer, Amy Hennig, and as natural as the writing is uncharted is it feels like a step down from her previous work on the Kain games the same way you once said in your review of the Jak trilogy how naughty dog going from the unique and creative world of jak to real people shooting and taking cover felt like a step backwards. Legacy of Kain had an unbelievably great story with a complex world and characters that kept you guessing where they all would go next with the cosmic game of chess most of them were playing, the tone of the story and gameplay didn't clash like uncharted since the main characters were morally gray (At best in Kain's case) and it actually implemented time travel in a reasonable, albeit still complicated way. The dialogue was flowery and shakesperian without being exagerated into something incomprehensible like most purple prose dialogue tend to be and the conversations beteween characters was engaging thanks to it and the voice acting. (One of the actors being Tony Jay, Judge Frollo from disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame) Trying to get into the LoK series is a major challange though because you have to play the games in order to understand the plot (Except the second game) but finding out the correct order is a bit dificult when the order is; 1- Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain 2- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 3- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 4- Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2 5- Legacy of Kain: Defiance Even if you get through that hurdle though there is the fact that the first game is one of the most unapealing i've ever seen, both graphically and gameplay wise. The 3D cutscenes look terrible, the 2D sprites look decent but they almost never animate to make in-game scenes more engaging and watching the game is boring as sin because nobody wants to see a top down game where the main character WALKS everywhere slowly. The game having audio quality that makes understanding what the characters are saying dificult and having no subtitles makes it even worse. Wether or not playing it is even worth it is a question in and of itself (If you can even find it anywhere), what with the many long loading times. But if you can get past that, it's worth it though and the fanbase is one of the most dedicated and loyal i've seen as a result. Exploring and analysing the story is a ton of fun and even the second game, which has less world building and twists than the others has all of it's cut content that makes you wonder what the rest of the series could have been if the game had been completed like intended (Same with wondering what the series would have been if Sillicon Knights kept the ip instead of Crystal Dynamics taking it over for themselves). Uncharted does have some merits, But going from Legacy of Kain to Uncharted feels like a big downgrade and makes me worried that Amy Hennig may never get the recognition she deserves for that series or have a chance to work on something on the same level but with wider public aproval.
I remember trying Uncharted because I liked Uncharted 2 and I was surprised to find that Uncharted has bullet sponges that are even more bullet spongy. Couldn't play to the end, just so scuffed. And it's kind of boring.
Great video as always. Noticed you mentioned Gears in the video. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it sometime. Been playing through the series for the first time recently.
Ok, I have to make this comment regardless of the rest of the review, because GOD is this something that ticks me off. No, enemies hurting you is not weird at all. Doesn't feel tonally deaf or anything. You can. LITERALLY see in the Uncharted games how the bullets that "hit you" actually just graze you, it's a choice that was made from the very first game. When you die, is the first and only time you actually get hit by a bullet. The health system really is a "how far can you push your luck without a shot actually hitting you" type of thing, which is not only perfect for the character, but also does put to shame literally every other shooter out there, where you DO get pierced by countless bullets throughout your playthrough, with no consequence at all. It's a detail that deserves to be acknowledged as one of the series' best things It baffles me how grown adults miss that every time, point it out as a flaw, when it isn't, because it doesn't fucking happen, I figured that out as a kid in mere minutes
Okay first off...you're half right. I'd just say it's a gameplay thing and obviously generic pirate number 12 didn't shoot Drake in the canon of the story. That is just something to accept. 2nd other games have handled player damage and death in ways that check out. Halo with it's shield, Prince of Persia with it's rewind (and 2008's never die), and Assassins Creed has synchronization (or at least it did) where every hit/civvie killed is a point off synchronization because your ancestor wasn't hit there and didn't kill civvies. Also I'm pretty sure Brothers In Arms (hill 30 and earned in blood) as well as Shellshock Nam 67 used a danger meter. Syphon filter also had one but in a different sense as it just measured how accurate enemies would be and chances of a headshot on the player.
Uncharted was the game often imitated and rarely replicated. Naughty Dog knew how to balance things out even if the first outing was uneven at parts due to them getting their footing. On paper it’s the original sin of all PS3 era gaming tropes but it handles them so much better and finer than many of its followers, and the improvements each sequel brought after only further showed that Naughty Dog were top of the game then.
I don't remember people talking about the disconnect between gameplay and story until the tomb raider reboot. Did anyone talk about that in 2007? I genuinely don't remember.
Its not a big deal but something i dont like is how as your dying, all the color leaves the game and you cant see the enemies. An idea I had is that as drake takes damage, he has a white hankerchief or bandana that gets more red and fills up. The game can stay clear and you can still see the enemies as you take damage.
Glad this franchise ended (kinda) on such a high note with uncharted 4 Despite the rigid structure of the ps3 titles they’ve definitely still got a ton of charm, and it’s good to see how much the combat has evolved from then to now with the last of us part ii which of course has the addition of prone that you’ve suggested here 6:11
@@aNerdNamedJames It would've been less serious than what we had. The ending was great but the story and characters felt different than the other Uncharted entries.
4 is a perfect way to end a series. The games stories were always fun and charming but 4 really ties it all together with an emotional bow. It's also a really damn fun game
@@Englebert3rd It's on record that Amy hennig's version was much darker lol wtf are you on about. The original trailer is still up and has a much more serious tone than any other game in the series, even the finished Uncharted 4.
From what I’ve seen of these games (I haven’t played them, cause I don’t own a Sony console), the dialogs remind me less of the real life and more of Hollywood.
I've always been of the opinion that as video games get more realistic, they should also get even more shamelessly and arbitrarily gamified, because video games are the superior artform and cohesion is for cowards! Giant floaty spinny weapons with 4k textures, bosses with million-polygon count models damage flashing like strobe lights at the rave, power-ups that glow with the bloom of a thousand technicolor suns! Jokes aside, I always felt that, when the question came up, ludonarrative dissonance always comes down to the same two things in any medium: themes and tone. If your themes aren't touching on it, and your tone isn't knocked off-key by it, then it's incidental. Uncharted is pulp action fantasy all the way, so of course bad guys get iced like a broken Slurpee machine. If it's not making a big deal about killing goons, then why should we?
I honestly adore this game. Even the jet ski sections. I honestly think it’s perfect. Maybe that makes me insane. It really is one of those games that while playing it, I’ll be actively admiring it for its many great qualities.
Can you review 2 and 3? Just to have a full review of the mainline series. I know you did the flaws in 3 video but I think it would be cool to revisit that game as well.
I usually just recommend folks play this on Easy Mode so that they can get through it quicker (the enemies are bullet sponges so combat can be slow at times), because its Easy Mode isn't bad, and so they can get to 2 quicker. That being said, I appreciate your ability to make me remember why I was so blown away by this when that demo dropped fall 2007, and what made me replay it over and over to get all of the skill points (and then the trophies when the trophies came later; Uncharted 1 is one of 4 games I platinum'd).
On normal I wouldn't call them bullet sponges. I mean the shotgun reliably one or two shots and headshots aren't difficult especially on the monster enemies (who charge head first)
Thank you for talking about wise-cracking versus pirate murder without mentioning ludonarrative dissonance, a thing that has never applied to the Uncharted series and it pains me every time someone suggests that it does.
It gets me how critics say this game doesn't hold up. I was really late getting a ps3 so I only got to play this just a few years ago. Despite the jank controls, I could tell Uncharted was a game changer. First-time players offer an interesting viewpoint.
I loved playing 1 for the first time over 10 years after playing the 2nd. I saw the age when I played it but that just made me appreciate the leaps Naughty Dog made even more!
0:14 nice bait bro, this 'banter' sounds like a marvel movie, and this 3:56 isn't "panic" at all, it's snarky sounding slightly annoyed "oh boi" like a borderlands character, it's seriously bad and not believable at all
What's interesting is in the manual, it's stated that when Drake gets hit by bullets he isn't taking damage, but that his "luck is running out", meaning that the bullets are missing him but the last fatal shot is the one that gets him. It's an interesting compromise to try to marry the the more grounded presentation with the traditional third person shooter gameplay.
Amusing but it sounds like something the manual writer made up himself. Since you still see blood patterns on-screen and stuff.
@@ThePreciseClimber Grazing maybe?
@@ThePreciseClimberI don't think that was blood
I always liked this concept, it really fits the sort of game Uncharted is
@@ThePreciseClimberIt’s grazing the devs said that in an article
I love that I never know which game you’re gonna talk about next.
What a good game with no jet skis whatsoever.
Yes, jet skis that also totally didn’t make me actively want to rip out my hair at 13 playing this for the first time
OH WAIT
🤣🤣🤣
Dundun-dudu-duduh
it was never that bad imo
Your ability to call attention to small details and atmosphere can't be understated. I usually get annoyed when characters talk non-stop to themselves in games but I forgot how genuinely endearing it is to see Nate react to granades and things like that. Never stop gaming, gamer.
What makes it work is that Drake rarely ever just talks to himself for no reason, he's either in a conversation or he is reacting to things that the player would also be reacting to, danger, beautiful vistas, unusual sights, upcoming enemies, etc. He basically just verbalizes what you were probably thinking anyway.
Uncharted is one of those franchises where the second game is so good that people forget the first game even exists.
I played the second soon after it came out before i touched the first. I played the first in 2021ish and loved it for wwhat it was! Its funny that you dont really NEED the first to entirely understand the 2nd 💀
Yeah returning to the 1st one isn't hard because it's bad or anything but my god is it boring compared to the sequels. I'll generally get about halfway through before calling it quits and moving on.
Reminds me of Street Fighter
just like DMC…
…wait…
@SomniaCE It's not "boring" at all. It just has less spectacle. I find the story to be way more intimate and engaging. It's about his family essentislly and that is more personal than some random mythical location you discover (usually minutes after the bad guys did).
Going from 2 > 3 > 1 was weird for me but I still appreciated how this game managed to make exploring only one island entertaining even though it's sequels went all over the world in terms of locations.
For me it goes 2, 4, 1 and then 3 in terms of enjoyment. 1 and 3 were 8/10, 2 was 10/10 and 4 9/10. Overall franchise was a 10 in terms of the storyline and characters.
Only Brit can review old games and leave me wanting more.
Doughnut Drake is the greatest unlockable in video game history.
I really appreciate your dedication to showcasing original hardware. It’s increasingly rare to see and actually takes me back to the years when endless screen-tearing was the default. Context is important!
True. If the game had performance issues and whether or not they got fixed on beefier hardware has to be acknowledged.
Smoother frame rate makes a game feel more polished by default.
Gotta take in that 7th gen crust!
I'll always have a soft spot for these games. They're pure videogame comfort food for me.
Clever writing, fun cutscenes, cool characters and stories, good pacing with setpieces and puzzles and solid gameplay overall. They're just cool games! And they really are more than the sum of their individual parts.
That's why I think Uncharted is one of the few "AAA, cinematic" game series done right.
And yeah Uncharted 2 really smooths out the jank with the dodge and cover system, and the aiming is much better too. But I still like U1 for the story and setting. It really did something unique and those scarier parts really freaked me out as a kid.
The jet ski sequences where Drake drives and Elena shoots definitely feel like a subtle callback to how Jak would drive while Daxter shoots.
I think the best call back is the forced perspective shots the series uses where you are running towards the camera like Crash and a few points in Jack. The game does it a few times and it's always a fun switch up.
it feels like some sort of crash bandicoot level, random explosive barrels in an upstream, in fact i think that's an actual crash level lmao
My first PS3 game, when I got my PS3 back then. It still looks very amazing, and aged really well too. The PS3 exclusives, still looks amazing today. These are the guys who made The Last Of Us, on this console.
Great review, very fair. NakeyJakey summarizes the ludonarrative dissoance issue as a "if you don't mention it, we won't either'" scenario, which I agree with. The Uncharted games have a charming, immersive quality from the first game, that makes their contradictions and weaknesses easy to ignore or live with. Those weaknesses become more apparent when there are a million developers trying to do the same thing, but they don't lose that likeability that's not as easy to replicate.
Frankly, I don’t think the morality of the deaths are an issue given that everyone Drake kills attacks him first. Self defense doesn’t suddenly become invalid if you defend yourself against 10 people or even 100 rather than just 1.
The only ludicrous aspect is the scale, since Nathan Drake being able to defeat entire battalions of bad guys by himself would make him the most skilled super soldier on the planet. But then again, that is a common thing with many video games. There’s a reason Ramirez from OG MW2 is a meme.
@@gameragodzilla2 issues with that.
1) Even if they’re attacking him first, Drake should be incredibly disturbed by it.
2) After feeling this disturbance, Drake should be questioning whether treasure hunting is worth having to continue manslaughtering hundreds of people.
@@mick9707 Not really if, again, they’re always the ones attacking him first. If someone’s trying to kill me, I’d have no moral qualms killing him. But if I’m somehow able to kill 1000 dudes, then I’d be a god of war, not just a plucky treasure hunter.
@@gameragodzilla no. If you were just out treasure hunting, and started killing loads of people who attacked you; if you weren’t disturbed as fuck after that then you’re a psychopath.
Choosing to continue hunting for treasure after continually running into people trying to kill you and then killing them is psychopathic behaviour.
@@mick9707 I’d be disturbed that there were that many people attacking me, but I wouldn’t have any moral qualms defending myself. Again, self defense doesn’t vanish as a concept because of what you’re doing or how often you do it.
I'm not sure how much I buy it, but the developers have said that Nathan isn't actually taking damage when he's being shot at. The greying of the screen apparently signals that his "luck" is running out. Might be a cop out, but it's worth pointing out re: the points made about him taking a full clip to the face.
He audibly grunts in pain though when getting shot at.
Definitely a cop out and a lame explanation
All in the name of justifying realism that has no place in games like these in the first place
@@Kingdom850 Maybe the bullet doesn't quite hit or he gets spooked from the bullet passing close to him
I feel like if that were really the case, they would have gone out of their way to convey it better considering this is Naughty Dog we're talking about
If people want an explanation outside of "it's a game" they'll have to come up with a bullshit excuse.
I don't get why people expect real world logic in a game, no one asked questions when picking up a health pack healed you in old games, we just accepted it.
I really liked the blooper at the end, it was a nice way to finish off the video
The uncanniness is overstated here. I didn't think twice about drake killing so many people, like I didn't think twice about Indiana Jones.
And yet, they made a point to address it in the sequel cuz so many articles talked about it.
Indiana Jones didn't slaughter like Nathan Drake though... two completely different things there.
and in those movies most the bad guys die due to extreme environment/self-defense situations. He isn't mowing through them with AK's.
@@hauntedheathen2732It's self defense in Nate's case as well, except arguably Uncharted 4. The treasures in these games turn out to be some supernatural threat most of the time that can destroy the world.
I feel like if you totalled up every single person Indiana Jones kills in every piece of media depicted of him it wouldn't tally up to half of Drake's death count in this 1 game.
@@SomniaCE Probably even less than that, and not only so but they are literally Nazi's for at least two movies. But also I guess it's not fair to compare films to games either. The games gotta fill a dozen hours with something (shooting) whereas Indy can not only do a lot more stuff with it being a movie, but said stuff is only within 2 hours. Drake just has the odds stacked against him every time when bringing this stuff up.
I like how the graphics is near comparable from CGI Final Fantasy Spirits Within to in game graphics of Uncharted in a span of 6 years.
Nice take
Recommend that movie these days especially.
Great in HD and topic nowadays more important than ever.
Uncharted had the same lighting artist as the FF movie!
@@duartedavid4275Damn I did not know that!
@@Hshm27 actually, I might have been misremembering... The only one I could find, David J. Witters, who worked on both uncharted and spirits within, had such a minor credit in FF that I can't even find him in the credits.
Spirits Within is a fine movie. They were expecting Disney/Pixar levels of revenue at the time, and Final Fantasy just didn't have that brand recognition, especially in the early 00's.
Uncharted is a funny series because every so often, I look back at them and sneer for being one of the forerunners of the gritty, cinematic walky-talky genre with limited gameplay depth that led to modern God of War and Last of Us; but then I go back and play the games and they just click. None of them are particularly deep action games, 4 comes the closest and even then isn't an absolute gameplay marvel, but something about the dialogue, the set pieces, the locales, the music, it all comes together to make the Uncharted series so much more than the sum of its parts.
Also, something I've always noticed is, despite the realistic art style, characters in Uncharted 1 still kind of animate and emote like Jak and Daxter characters. It adds a certain surreal charm to this entry specifically.
Kind of dawns on me on how modern Naughty Dog has ONLY been making third person shooters and nothing else for over a decade.
And only three years off being two decades.
The Last of Us isn’t a Third Person Shooter. It’s a survival horror game that uses a third person perspective and occasional gun combat.
It's about time they released Uncharted Kart. Especially after how ridiculously polished their driving segments have become.
@@conor6436occasionall... shooter combat perhaps... in a third person perspective..?
@@conor6436 Would definitely call 'em more so Third Person Shooters with occational horror elements. Can't say I'd have ever gotten the notion horror would have been the series' main focus and as someone who did a no guns run on my first and only playthrough of the second game on Survivor difficulty, don't know about the survival part either.
14:16
It's telling of the design ethos of modern AAA games that they kept QTEs on board, probably thinking they "fixed them "because gamer complaints about QTEs had gone down.
They'd become relatively unobtrusive, and that sounds great to a company that wants to make the most sandpapered, generically accessible product ever.
thank goodness brit mentioned the jet ski being like that crash bandicoot level cause that's what it felt like to me. also i liked those chapters for that reason but everyone else seems to hate it.
Damn, just days away from an accidental crossover
Am I the only one who never cared about the whole "oh they shot a bunch of pirates so why are they so witty?" thing?
Uncharted never seemed super serious to me like a particular sibling fps game did that flip flopped tone at breakneck speeds.
Its incredibly refreshing to hear someone not snarkily dismiss the criticism of juxtaposing murder sprees in gameplay with the actual tone of this game. Props for once again using the original game and hardware for as painful as that likely was.
Really appreciate the last bit of the video too and the Uncharted 4 love. Some seem to really have it out for that game for some reason
Yep
I would actually love to see a game like this where killing dozens of people isn't much of a goal, and neither would you be able to tank bullets much.
@@PauLtus_B well, Max Payne is an example of a game where the guns do realistic damage to the player, like the player can instantly die if they're faced with a shotgun or if they get headshotted. In many ways, Uncharted is a step back compared to that series, because Max Payne went to great lengths to justify its presentation and mechanics (as well as having more fleshed out mechanics), whereas here they just take most of it for granted and handwave it as videogames.
As a fan of the original Uncharted, I really dislike 3 and 4. The story beats are a bit to repetitive, Elena is way too forgiving of Drake lying to her so many times, and the transition from 3 telling Drake's backstory to 4 telling another backstory involving a brother that he's never, ever mentioned to Elena even once? It might be a good game mechanically and graphically, but the story rubs me all kinds of wrong.
I like 4 well enough but the premise of the brother is some insane shit ill give you that. Liked him more in the Chloe stand alone thing. Even though that has the weirdness of taking an austrailian character and suddenly deciding theyre Indian. What other insane continuity messes will the next Uncharted have?
I laughed at the part where you point out that Drake becomes panicked when a grenade comes his way and you cut to him casually saying “oh boy”
Ball of steel
You're a legend man, I can't even comprehend the level of hard work and commitment you put into these videos, and to have them coming out so frequently lately, you just inspire me
I appreciate that you don't put cringe arrows or faces into thumbnails of your videos. And that you also make amazing videos !
Franchise Drake, great guy
I played the 4 main games for the first time last year and tbh the first one didn’t feel that bad, I would probably say it’s my favorite. Granted, I played the ps4 remasters, and even tho the next games certainly improved a lot of things, I feel the core of what makes Uncharted so great is already there - plus the risk they took in that new franchise. I didn’t even know the first one was so frowned upon until later on.
Agreed! Focusing on one island and the mystery of its past was very interesting to me. Lost Legacy probably comes closest in that regard though there's less of a focus on what happened to the inhabitants beforehand compared to 1. Also gotta love Eddy Raja 😂
I like uncharted 1, some people think the setting is kinda boring but i like it, it gives it a sense of progression and adventure, uc 3 and uc2 teleported you to the levels cod style, uc1 actually has you traverse the island until the end of the game
Its insane how far Naughty Dog has fallen
What? In terms of gameplay, TLOU2 is one of the best stealth action games of all time
@@mashymyre Tell me youve never played stealth games without telling me
@@mashymyre Aragami, Splinter Cell, Hitman BLOOD MONEY, MGS 3 and more are all superior stealth games. what are you on about?
The British video game man has uploaded again!!!
The Uncharted franchise saved story-focused single player games in the west, imo. Even if you could argue that it's mostly Sony themselves who got the message that that is a worthwhile niche to fill and sell consoles with. I still love Uncharted 1 and play it at least once a year.
There are two points in your review I kinda want to answer back to. And yes, the blame is mostly on the game for poorly explaining these mechanics. But you need to pay more attention to the blind-shooting mechanic, even before the zombie part in late-game. You said in your review that the game is lacking mechanics, but that's simply because you were looking in the wrong area. (Again, game's lack of communication fault) There is the so-called iron-fist mechanic, which returns in all Uncharted games. It's a high-risk/high-reward mechanic where when you run towards an enemy to execute a melee attack, if you blind-fire towards him during that run, your melee attack will be a quick one-hit kill, often giving your that enemy's weapon if the situation allows that. So instead of covering on the ground searching for ammo there, the game encourages you to do these high-risk moves.
Later in Uncharted 3, they add the grenade-back-throwing thing, which the game clearly communicates and is more on the side of cover-mechanics. But sadly they threw it out of the window again, probably because it was a bit over-powered, made the game much easier and was not the direction, they wanted for these games.
Another great use for blind-fire is during the upstream vehicle section of the game. That level is frustratingly hard and feels super bad if you aim at the barrles while floating backwards to hit them. But if you just use blind-fire you will notice that you not only can keep accellerating while shooting, but Elena also always hits. The level becomes comically easy if you know this, you can simply keep pressing R1 during the whole level and she will destroy all barrels far away in front of you and the whole section is just navigating through an empy river.
I found this game to be similar to Assassin's Creed 1. More of a tech demo than an actual game. Very repetitive, very short, but outlines things to come later.
Not exactly a long running franchise, but Zone of the Enders is like this as well. The second game feels like a reboot.
Except that AC1 arguably had more actual stealth than the series would ever have again for a long time.
@@mariokarter13 Vanquish kinda has that proof of concept-feel to it as well. That one just never got a sequel, that would have fleshed things out.
@@aNerdNamedJamesye, people don't seem to remember that AC1 was going for something very different from it's heavily streamlined sequels, they basically scraped every element that got criticized in AC1 instead of improving them which lead to AC2 being very different
Completed it last year and I'm surprisingly more harsh than you.
Jet skiing section was not even the biggest problem. Encounters grew bland really quickly (clearly their first time making such game). I dreaded going to new area because of chore of a combat. The supernatural twist was only a slight improvement.
Amazing VA, banter and world design saved this game.
I luv ur vids❤️🔥Hope u'll make a Syphon Filter vid too💚
Great review. I haven't replayed these games in a long time, and this reminded me of a couple of small details I appreciate about the first game over its sequels.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I seem to remember the first game did not pad out the length with long walking sections that could have been cutscene instead. The only time I seem to remember that is in the beginning of the game, when Nate and Sully ditch Elena, after that I seem to remember it always had a platforming, puzzling or combat section.
I like the death music from Drake's Fortune the most out of the 5 games(I haven't played the Vita one), and I can't explain why combat feels more satisfying in the first game for me. I can't remember if it's the controller that rumbles more, if there's just a louder sound effect, but each punch and kick feels more impactful than it does in the rest of the series, the worst Melee combat has to be in Drake's Deception where most of it(if not all of it) is QTE.
My first game on the ps3 and a showcase until uc 2 came and blew everything away. Still the best uncharted . The train and truck chase levels have not been beaten by any other game - in rare cases just improved upon. I still remember beating the truck chase without dying on my first attempt. The game had sucked me in, jumping truck to truck whilst unwittingly i got out of my chair and was standing throughout. It was like in that moment i was living Drake’s desperation to survive. Few games have managed to get me get out of my chair like that and uc2 is one. To talk bout uc 1 and throw shade at uc2 for lack of foliage has got to be the lowest blow this dude has ever performed.
Great review. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune shows its age and it's quite obvious it was Naughty Dog's first attempt at this sort of game. What I think the game does very well - better than even its sequels - is the atmosphere. Exploring the island and slowly uncovering a mystery was nice. Since it was a new IP and character backgrounds were not fully sketched out, Drake and co. all feel like rookies. They all still have a sense of wonder when they find something new. The bunker level was a good twist, and none of the sequels did the supernatural twist as well as Drake's Fortune.
This is just what I needed to fold laundry to.
this was a transition era ... i was starting to get used to the patterns in games and i couldnt wait for the next gen to come the impressive visuals and immerive interactive elements and interconnectivty ..for once my vision of how future games should be was closer to reality than ever i was already fanatsizing about games of all genres making the world more interactibale and giving player agency over what happens in the game.. sadly it was a gimpse of a future we never got because big companies with the budget who can pull this off stopped investing in niche genres that appeal to a small audience.. the innovation and risk taking stopped instead we got cutscenes simulators with good graphics and worse and less varied game mechanics in fact from around 2010 the better the graphics got the more dumbed down game mechanics got. the graphics and cutscenes became a mere tool for merketing while the gameplay never tried to improve to match this level of details ... but now i have accepted that mechincal complexity and visual quality are uncompatible espicially on a big scale .. even now the only immersive experience that you can get is in indie game with simple old school visuals .. this is why i say the ps2 era was peak for the game industry because after progress was only surface level
The black level in this game footage is insane. Either a video or error or you need to look at your TVs settings xD
It’s funny when you mentioned the gameplay and story being at odds. I always felt like the uncharted games were the first of their kind and the last of their kind. It was embracing the direction of more cinematic story driven action, adventure games while still hanging on to old-fashioned popular gameplay. The series would keep evolving until the gameplay element went completely shallow in uncharted 4. Some love the game but I felt it was very much lacking in action. I also like the story and the setting more in uncharted 1 than 2. Uncharted 3 also has the most variety in gameplay by far, I know a lot of people give the story crap but as an action game, I think it’s kind of underrated.
Exactly
We had so good cinematic games with actual good gameplay, as in "videoGAME".
Now we just have cinematic "games", more like experiences.
Just like the Transition with the new God of War Mov...i mean Games.
Imagine you had multiple sequences in Uncharted 1 or 2 where something happened on screen while you, as a gAmEr, just push and hold "up" on the D-Pad for minutes.
No way you think 1 is more fun than 4
@@tydendurler9574 I really don't think the change between new GoW and old GoW was that different. I guess the new GoW does have more of these just press up segments (boar and getting to the top of the mountain). But I still think both are fairly cinematic while still having plenty of gameplay.
@@rouge939 yeah, I pretty much did, sorry. At least there was action throughout the whole game. Four had these overly long sliding, walking and driving sections with basically no obstacles I just felt it was really lacking in action. I think they were going for more of a drama approach or something. Personally, I think 3 had the best gameplay. It just had the most rushed story.
@@deleteTF the cinematic feel with the OG Trilogy comes from the glorious, mostly fixed (but moving) camera perspectives. But the gameplay was 100% pure videogame, all the time. (just compare a humping-QTE-minigame to "hold up")
The new ones instead have cinematic-gameplay all the time, for the sake of actual good gameplay (not saying GoW2018 is bad per se). The perspective alone destroys so much just for the sake of being a movie without cuts from start to finish.
"Under the majo" has some very good videos regarding this.
Uncharted was a fun series and I don’t think the game damaged anything that would come later. I think TLoU did way more damage to games in my opinion.
Great Vid mate. never had a ps3 back in the day but got a used one and found myself playing a few older titles. its been a cool window into gaming histories past.
I got this with the remaining games (up to PS4) as a bundle with my PS4 a decade ago. LOVES THIS SERIES. 1 was amazing - especially the insane twist end game that sent me into shock. #2 was insanely cinematic, the best one. #3 was amazing but fell short of my expectations. Did not play #4.
Hot take: Uncharted 2 > Uncharted 4
Not sure that's a hot take, both games are very well liked.
agreed
This videos great but the mirrors edge comparison for the platforming is somewhat flawed because that game wants you moving at a frantic pace and uncharted gives you time to figure it out
Feel like GoW1 is still way more of a big deal for popularizing TP Cover shooter just because of what a huge huge deal it was & the turnaround time on game development. I appreciate your theory though from a creative's standpoint on it.
The thing that aged the worst is definitly the lighting. It looks so awkward. Uncharted 2 is just as big a step up as jak 2 polygon increase compared to jak 1
I know there's a lot of criticism against the action and body count but honestly if they took that away the game would just be a hair away from being Until Dawn in terms of gameplay it feels like.
It's odd since Indiana Jones never gets the realism questions (well from what I saw) where he's having is face punched so much it's incredible he has bones in his head and not a fine powder. He falls from planes, punches nazis, nearly gets crushed several times, becomes a slave via mind control, brutally murders tons of badmen in cold blood.
Doesn't shoot a group of nazis with a rocket launcher because he'd be able to see the ark.
Uncharted is basically that, just more badmen are getting shot because it's a 10+ hour game and not a 2 hour movie.
I never found Uncharted to be remotely trying to be realistic given how fantastical a lot of it is, especially when you get to the end and the not-zombies show up and there's a sub that's laying on land after a jungle excursion, Sully survives a bullet because of the thinnest, smallest book that fits in a breast pocket of a modern shirt, all the insane climbing where- no matter how strong your hands are, Drake SOMEHOW catches a ledge and doesn't snap all his fingers? Or dislodge that ancient brick that just took his full weight from a huge fall?
It's pure fantasy.
Supposedly the "taking damage and recovering health" in Uncharted is not Drake being shot but the bullets nearly missing and his "luck running out", by taking cover his "luck" resets.
I've always considered that more of a last minute excuse, but it's fine. Obviously the dude isn't shot within the games canon (unless in a cutscene) but for some reason people get hung up on that.
@@Darek_B52 at no point does the game show Drake flinching from being shot or blood spurts until he dies. Fragmentation from grenades is also a probabilistic thing, a grenade shoots out fragments that might miss entirely.
So it's less a matter of impossibility of regenerating health but improbability of dodging bullets.
Though I did read a statistic that in WW2 an average of 10'000 rounds of ammunition were fired in combat for each individual wound from a firearm.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the Tomb Raider reboot games. Loved the first game.
I always like the viewpoint you have of analyzing what a game is and what it (tries) to go for on it's own merits
I think the nature of the greater gaming landscape before and after a notable title (such as this one) releases is intrinsically tied to a review of said game
Namely, if you don't like the era of cover shooters, or what games like Uncharted did to the "action adventure" genre, it would no doubt color your retrospective on Uncharted 1 or 2 or etc
It shows the value in allowing a game to sit and simmer for a while (16 years in this case), to be able to have that breathing room necessary to commend and critique. We ourselves grow older, and with it we (hopefully) become less hotheaded and passionate, and I believe that helps us to be more fair individuals
--I'll stop myself from writing an essay in the comments and just close with a "this was a good video that made me think, thank you"
If GamingBrit says it's 2007, then it's 2007 dammit.
One thing I've always liked about Uncharted 1's gun combat is that enemies would sometimes even react to bullets that go near past them. So blind firing is actually useful when you shoot a couple rounds in the direction of a pirate who would flinch and get "stunned" for a short time while you're getting up close and personal.
I'm a huge uncharted fan and the first Uncharted still holds a place in my heart, yeah it has it's flaws, even more today compared to when the game was released, but it has so much charm, the artstyle is unique and the gameplay is still fun. If you never played it, you should definetelly give it a shot.
Yeah I agree absolutely loved this game. But the shooting got very frustrating very fast. Only thing that stops me going back. So I play it on easy just to do the story. 😅
First game I played on the PS3, it was really cool when I was 10. Hell, I still have a soft spot for this game.
I'll still be fairly critical of games regardless of their quirky level AND blame Uncharted for popularizing a ton of design elements in games that I can't stand.
I really like Uncharted as a series. It's not a top 10 series or anything, but I liked all the games and loved the characters. Even seeing gameplay of Uncharted 1 here, despite being "flawed", I like seeing it be a bit more rough and "gamey" compared to modern Naughty Dog stuff and similar games. Gets my seal of approval though. Hopefully Naughty Dog never touches the series again because I don't trust them anymore.
I really need to go back and play the Jak games though. I had a weird pattern with Naughty Dog and Insomniac games where on PS1 I played all the Crash games, but no Spyro (aside from what was included as demos in Crash), and then on PS2 I played all the Ratchet & Clank games and no Jak. I don't even know if there was a particular reason for this; just random. I'm sure I would've liked Jak at the time.
PS3 I played both the Ratchet & Clank games and Uncharted, but not Resistance. I feel like you never really see people talk about those games.
i have a soft spot for the first two games, and whilst 3 and 4 have their issues to me theyre also pretty undeniably more mechanically complex and enjoyable on a gameplay perspective. imo if uncharted 2 had the gameplay and controls of 4 you would have the best in the class game in the series. the 1st game in particular feels almost somewhat stitched together with how many environments it reuses and the general lack of variety on display, as well as the overall length being pretty compact.
i do think that works to the games favor though, it doesnt overstay its welcome even if the combat does get samey. as someone who has beat at least one of these games on crushing, frankly theyre arguably best enjoyed on easier difficulties where you can much more freely go full "indiana jones" to your hearts content, and play every situation as a mad run and gun affair trying to look as cool as possible as opposed to just surviving by the skin of your teeth stuck behind cover for every firefight. playing these games on their hardest difficulty where two bullets will kill you feels almost antithetical to the actual design ethos of the game. nobody watches a pulpy action movie to see the protagonist realistically cower behind cover for the majority of every fight scene and i think the same notion should carry into games like uncharted.
4 did a great job naturally encouraging more dynamic fights in its encounter design, but the actual number of combat sequences are relatively low in spite of them being much more engaging on average, and i think the overall pacing is arguably the worst in the whole series. i really enjoyed playing the lost legacy and getting those combat sequences back to back in a much more compacted manner, made the whole thing flow a lot smoother.
I’m mostly impressed how HUGELY better U2 is despite the gameplay loop being similar. All about execution.
I would give U1 a 5/10 yet U2 a 9/10
U1 is atleast 8/10 this is madness 5/10
Fuck yes dude, seeing this in my sub box is so exciting!! Gamingbrit on Uncharted is something I didn't realise I needed
This game holds a special place in my heart. I recently just started playing through all the games again and have been enjoying myself.
You know it's crazy when you get the 250 headshot trophy halfway through the game. Great vid thanks.
It was so funny how I was brutally killing everyone in gameplay just for Nathen to pretend like he has never hurt a fly
After playing 4 I wanted to try to revisit the collection. Starting with the 1st one, I honestly don’t ever think I played past ch 4.
Yes it looked great on PS3, but I just found the game boring. Now replaying it, have managed to get further but noticed just because its better visuals, does not equal a better game.
Its wash, rinse, repeat formula is very boring. The jumping sections are unforgiving at times, and the camera angels, and lighting are terrible at times.
It seems they really polished the graphics, but not the game mechanics. You can’t throw grenades back, cant zoom into enemies, sometimes it’s like “where are they”?
I also feel the game looks more cartoonish now in the remaster.
2 & 3 are amazing, so I’m not sure why they didn’t bring those mechanics into the 1st one.
Theres rumors of a remake, which I feel the 1st one needs the most.
Actually just finished the first game and yeeted it across the room. If this game didn't come out as one of the first PS3 games I don't think it would've seen such good reviews as it did. This game just adds to prime examples of why exclusives (from consumer point of view) should never been a thing and should've had a PC port. Like inFamous if this had a PC port this would be a 8-9/10 and most of the gameplay issues would be gone might be even fun on hardest difficulty. The only positive thing about this game was the infected section, it was creepy, grim and fun.
Miss the PS3 era. Simpler times for sure.
This makes me wish you would do a video on the "Legacy of Kain" series. The writer of uncharted was the same as LoK's writer, Amy Hennig, and as natural as the writing is uncharted is it feels like a step down from her previous work on the Kain games the same way you once said in your review of the Jak trilogy how naughty dog going from the unique and creative world of jak to real people shooting and taking cover felt like a step backwards.
Legacy of Kain had an unbelievably great story with a complex world and characters that kept you guessing where they all would go next with the cosmic game of chess most of them were playing, the tone of the story and gameplay didn't clash like uncharted since the main characters were morally gray (At best in Kain's case) and it actually implemented time travel in a reasonable, albeit still complicated way.
The dialogue was flowery and shakesperian without being exagerated into something incomprehensible like most purple prose dialogue tend to be and the conversations beteween characters was engaging thanks to it and the voice acting. (One of the actors being Tony Jay, Judge Frollo from disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Trying to get into the LoK series is a major challange though because you have to play the games in order to understand the plot (Except the second game) but finding out the correct order is a bit dificult when the order is;
1- Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
2- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
3- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
4- Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2
5- Legacy of Kain: Defiance
Even if you get through that hurdle though there is the fact that the first game is one of the most unapealing i've ever seen, both graphically and gameplay wise. The 3D cutscenes look terrible, the 2D sprites look decent but they almost never animate to make in-game scenes more engaging and watching the game is boring as sin because nobody wants to see a top down game where the main character WALKS everywhere slowly. The game having audio quality that makes understanding what the characters are saying dificult and having no subtitles makes it even worse. Wether or not playing it is even worth it is a question in and of itself (If you can even find it anywhere), what with the many long loading times.
But if you can get past that, it's worth it though and the fanbase is one of the most dedicated and loyal i've seen as a result. Exploring and analysing the story is a ton of fun and even the second game, which has less world building and twists than the others has all of it's cut content that makes you wonder what the rest of the series could have been if the game had been completed like intended (Same with wondering what the series would have been if Sillicon Knights kept the ip instead of Crystal Dynamics taking it over for themselves).
Uncharted does have some merits, But going from Legacy of Kain to Uncharted feels like a big downgrade and makes me worried that Amy Hennig may never get the recognition she deserves for that series or have a chance to work on something on the same level but with wider public aproval.
I remember trying Uncharted because I liked Uncharted 2 and I was surprised to find that Uncharted has bullet sponges that are even more bullet spongy. Couldn't play to the end, just so scuffed. And it's kind of boring.
I believe one of the music tracks in the roman numerals level used distorted samples of a baby crying and when i first noticed it it actually shook me
Great review!!! Iam still waiting for the resident evil 5 road to the rocket launcher ❤❤❤
The first game I felt was the hardest. Felt like old school PS2 difficulty.
I never thought this channel would ever get weekly uploads but here we are! Enjoy the golden age of TheGamingBritShow folks!
Your segment at the end hits hard
Great video as always. Noticed you mentioned Gears in the video. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it sometime. Been playing through the series for the first time recently.
Ok, I have to make this comment regardless of the rest of the review, because GOD is this something that ticks me off.
No, enemies hurting you is not weird at all. Doesn't feel tonally deaf or anything. You can. LITERALLY see in the Uncharted games how the bullets that "hit you" actually just graze you, it's a choice that was made from the very first game. When you die, is the first and only time you actually get hit by a bullet. The health system really is a "how far can you push your luck without a shot actually hitting you" type of thing, which is not only perfect for the character, but also does put to shame literally every other shooter out there, where you DO get pierced by countless bullets throughout your playthrough, with no consequence at all. It's a detail that deserves to be acknowledged as one of the series' best things
It baffles me how grown adults miss that every time, point it out as a flaw, when it isn't, because it doesn't fucking happen, I figured that out as a kid in mere minutes
Okay first off...you're half right.
I'd just say it's a gameplay thing and obviously generic pirate number 12 didn't shoot Drake in the canon of the story. That is just something to accept.
2nd other games have handled player damage and death in ways that check out. Halo with it's shield, Prince of Persia with it's rewind (and 2008's never die), and Assassins Creed has synchronization (or at least it did) where every hit/civvie killed is a point off synchronization because your ancestor wasn't hit there and didn't kill civvies.
Also I'm pretty sure Brothers In Arms (hill 30 and earned in blood) as well as Shellshock Nam 67 used a danger meter. Syphon filter also had one but in a different sense as it just measured how accurate enemies would be and chances of a headshot on the player.
was my first ps3 game when i bought it in 2011 and it was fantastic, still love it after all years
I adore how you talk about older games.
Uncharted was the game often imitated and rarely replicated. Naughty Dog knew how to balance things out even if the first outing was uneven at parts due to them getting their footing. On paper it’s the original sin of all PS3 era gaming tropes but it handles them so much better and finer than many of its followers, and the improvements each sequel brought after only further showed that Naughty Dog were top of the game then.
I don't remember people talking about the disconnect between gameplay and story until the tomb raider reboot. Did anyone talk about that in 2007? I genuinely don't remember.
Its not a big deal but something i dont like is how as your dying, all the color leaves the game and you cant see the enemies. An idea I had is that as drake takes damage, he has a white hankerchief or bandana that gets more red and fills up. The game can stay clear and you can still see the enemies as you take damage.
I always liked this series for its Arcade like feel. Going from set piece to set piece, with good characters to interact with.
Glad this franchise ended (kinda) on such a high note with uncharted 4
Despite the rigid structure of the ps3 titles they’ve definitely still got a ton of charm, and it’s good to see how much the combat has evolved from then to now with the last of us part ii which of course has the addition of prone that you’ve suggested here 6:11
I still wish we could've seen Amy Hennig's version of Uncharted 4.
@@aNerdNamedJamesSame. It sounded really interesting.
@@aNerdNamedJames It would've been less serious than what we had. The ending was great but the story and characters felt different than the other Uncharted entries.
4 is a perfect way to end a series. The games stories were always fun and charming but 4 really ties it all together with an emotional bow. It's also a really damn fun game
@@Englebert3rd It's on record that Amy hennig's version was much darker lol wtf are you on about. The original trailer is still up and has a much more serious tone than any other game in the series, even the finished Uncharted 4.
The bullets aren’t hitting him, the red is his luck running out till he’s eventually hit, the other bullets aren’t spraying around him in lore
You know he's serious when he's playing the OG PS3 version
From what I’ve seen of these games (I haven’t played them, cause I don’t own a Sony console), the dialogs remind me less of the real life and more of Hollywood.
I've always been of the opinion that as video games get more realistic, they should also get even more shamelessly and arbitrarily gamified, because video games are the superior artform and cohesion is for cowards! Giant floaty spinny weapons with 4k textures, bosses with million-polygon count models damage flashing like strobe lights at the rave, power-ups that glow with the bloom of a thousand technicolor suns!
Jokes aside, I always felt that, when the question came up, ludonarrative dissonance always comes down to the same two things in any medium: themes and tone. If your themes aren't touching on it, and your tone isn't knocked off-key by it, then it's incidental. Uncharted is pulp action fantasy all the way, so of course bad guys get iced like a broken Slurpee machine. If it's not making a big deal about killing goons, then why should we?
I honestly adore this game. Even the jet ski sections. I honestly think it’s perfect. Maybe that makes me insane. It really is one of those games that while playing it, I’ll be actively admiring it for its many great qualities.
Can you review 2 and 3? Just to have a full review of the mainline series. I know you did the flaws in 3 video but I think it would be cool to revisit that game as well.
The second game is the best in the franchise but the first is still the most charming.
I usually just recommend folks play this on Easy Mode so that they can get through it quicker (the enemies are bullet sponges so combat can be slow at times), because its Easy Mode isn't bad, and so they can get to 2 quicker.
That being said, I appreciate your ability to make me remember why I was so blown away by this when that demo dropped fall 2007, and what made me replay it over and over to get all of the skill points (and then the trophies when the trophies came later; Uncharted 1 is one of 4 games I platinum'd).
On normal I wouldn't call them bullet sponges. I mean the shotgun reliably one or two shots and headshots aren't difficult especially on the monster enemies (who charge head first)
Thank you for talking about wise-cracking versus pirate murder without mentioning ludonarrative dissonance, a thing that has never applied to the Uncharted series and it pains me every time someone suggests that it does.
Does this mean you’re going to review The Last of Us Part I and II?
This game is the reason i got a PS3, i remember playing a Walmart demo station and thinking it was one of the most amazing thing I've ever seen
The foliage is so impressive for the hardware
I always thought it was funny how dude can take an 50 cal to the face but can't survive a 12 foot fall.
It gets me how critics say this game doesn't hold up. I was really late getting a ps3 so I only got to play this just a few years ago. Despite the jank controls, I could tell Uncharted was a game changer. First-time players offer an interesting viewpoint.
I loved playing 1 for the first time over 10 years after playing the 2nd. I saw the age when I played it but that just made me appreciate the leaps Naughty Dog made even more!
0:14 nice bait bro, this 'banter' sounds like a marvel movie, and this 3:56 isn't "panic" at all, it's snarky sounding slightly annoyed "oh boi" like a borderlands character, it's seriously bad and not believable at all