Uncharted: the nathan drake collection

Reviewing something lượt thích Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is a little strange because I know I’m going to recommend it before I’ve even started. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception were two of the best games on the PS3 & they’re still great games on the PS4, each a peerless realization of a particular cinematic tone. If you’ve never played them, The Nathan Drake Collection is worth picking up simply lớn get your hands on the two best Indiana Jones movies of the past decade.

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However, I am nothing if not professional. I played The Nathan Drake Collection and can verify that you already know everything you need to lớn know about the new PS4 compilation, which also includes Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. The extra graphical & mechanical polish makes the games look and feel less dated, but the excellent essentials are exactly what you remember. It’s pure video clip game popcorn, và Naughty Dog does it better than any other developer on the planet.

Or at least it did two out of the three times it tried, because The Nathan Drake Collection serves as an odd reminder that Drake’s Fortune is pretty average. The original’s shortcomings – và the drastic improvements Naughty Dog made for the sequels – become more evident when Drake’s Fortune is placed next to lớn its successors.

The problem is that Drake’s Fortune feels too much like a capital-V đoạn phim Game. Despite the tropical locales, the trò chơi is a series of flat, unremarkable shooting galleries positioned at varying levels of unfairness. It’s also ruthlessly difficult. In far too many instances, bad guys rush in and shoot at you while you’re in the middle of an xuất hiện area, often from places you can’t see or reach even if you were so inclined. They always seem to lớn get a few không tính tiền shots before you can get lớn cover, which makes it nearly impossible khổng lồ clear many of the areas on a first attempt.

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Unfortunately, horror is scarier when you’re afraid of dying than it is when you are dying (at that point it just becomes frustrating), and the same is true of action. It’s more exciting when the anh hùng is battered but less fun when he’s broken.

With Drake’s Fortune, you rarely have time lớn react. You have to lớn know where bad guys are going to appear long before they’ve actually appeared in order khổng lồ have a chance, & the only way to acquire that information is through painstaking trial & error. Khổng lồ beat the game, you need to lớn die & then die again, và it feels less like a continuous narrative & more lượt thích a game-y exercise in mastery & memorization.

Among Thieves, on the other hand, introduced a more forgiving balance & sense of flow, and it’s an essential component of the formula. The later games give you the opportunity to improvise, which means you can get into a firefight, come within an inch of death, and then recover and adapt to lớn overcome long odds. It becomes a series of near-death experiences that spike your adrenaline instead of a crushing grind of repetition.

Drake’s Fortune is similarly missing the more spectacular mix pieces that defined the sequels, from the train convoy lớn the truck convoy to the horse convoy in the desert (the series is uncommonly fond of convoys). Among Thieves & Drake’s Deception have memorable game play ‘scenes’ that feel like interactive versions of the best moments in a blockbuster, và while Drake’s Fortune has shades of that, it never achieves the same grandeur or refinement.

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The sequels make other improvements, doing a better job of telling you which ledges can be climbed và which ledges can’t & making stealth a viable alternative when going up against better-armed opponents, which helps mitigate the difficulty. If Drake’s Fortune feels lượt thích a game engine with a story painted on top, the later games use those systems in service of a more deliberate tone, which helps bring the adventure to lớn the fore.

That’s what makes the franchise so brilliant. It’s generally a mistake when video games try to imitate cinema because they’re almost always fated to be lesser versions of cinema that aspires khổng lồ be cinema. With Uncharted, the mechanics are so polished that you don’t notice the seams, which makes it feel like Hollywood even though it’s composed almost entirely of interlocking systems. They’re video games, but the mechanics are so well realized that Among Thieves và Drake’s Deception are able lớn mimic the aesthetic of another medium without sacrificing the interactivity that makes gaming unique.

That speaks to Naughty Dog’s considerable acumen as a developer. The game play and the story complement each other perfectly, making Among Thieves (and to lớn a lesser extent Drake’s Deception) one of the best examples of a trò chơi that uses mechanics in service of a specific artistic purpose, even if that purpose is frivolous entertainment.

Drake’s Fortune, meanwhile, is still fun và worth playing for the backstory (I forgot how much I like Elena), but the game play and the style never really come together. I’d recommend playing at least one difficulty setting lower than you’re used to. It’s just not worth the hassle.

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On that front The Nathan Drake Collection introduces a very easy Explorer mode, which is a nice cảm biến for people who just want khổng lồ make it through khổng lồ the credits. It’s also worth noting that the disc is single-player only, which is a bit of a bummer if you liked the Uncharted 2 Team Death Match as much as I did. Thankfully, the lack of online multiplayer does not in any way diminish the chất lượng of those solo campaigns. Everything that ships with the disc is excellent so I won’t complain too much about stuff that’s missing.

Other features include a tốc độ run mode that’s nothing more than the regular game with a timer in the corner, as well as access khổng lồ the Uncharted 4 multiplayer beta that doesn’t go live until December. Both are superfluous additions. If you’re picking up the disc, you’re doing it because you want khổng lồ play Uncharted, và in that regard The Nathan Drake Collection delivers.

That’s why I won’t hesitate lớn offer a recommendation. Uncharted lacks the emotional heft of The Last of Us và there are serious conversations lớn be had about some of the game’s more troublesome aesthetic choices. However, those conversations wouldn’t be possible without reliable access to lớn the source material. Uncharted remains one of the most purely entertaining franchises released for modern consoles, và The Nathan Drake Collection is a laudable attempt lớn make the history of the medium more accessible for future generations.

games • Nathan Drake • Naughty Dog • PS3 • PS4 • đánh giá • Sony • Uncharted • Uncharted 2 • Uncharted 3 • Uncharted 4 • Uncharted: Among Thieves • Uncharted: Drake"s Deception • Uncharted: Drake"s Fortune • video clip games
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