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REVIEW: UNCHARTED - THE NATHAN DRAKE COLLECTION (PS4)

12/10/2015

10 Comments

 
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Pre-Uncharted, we already had a lot of love for developer Naughty Dog.

Crash Bandicoot was always bursting with accessibility, and their next big franchise - Jak and Daxter - had a solid, polished, quality that made it feel different to everything else. Somehow more finished. 

Indeed, the worst day of Mr Biffo's life was the day he realised that his daughter had wiped his Jak II save files, when he was about three quarters of the way through the game. Fortunately, he found it easier to put her up for adoption than you might think.

But what both those series were rooted in, over and above the polished gameplay and the slick visuals, was character. That, for us, is the hallmark of Naughty Dog, and why the studio is one of the best in the world.

The Last of Us, which we know we keep banging on about, is the only time we've ever actually cared for the characters in a game. That's as much a feat, as much a leap forward for video games, as the move into 3D, or the rise of CD-ROM, or the first appearance of flushable toilets.

Naughty Dog's games display an intrinsic understanding of story and character - and while their stories and characters may not be the most original - the fact that they're being applied to video games is.

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UNORIGINAL
Indeed, on paper there was nothing original about Uncharted.

The world, the characters, were shamelessly "inspired" by Indiana Jones, and the play mechanics were as much a descendent of Tomb Raider as Nathan Drake was supposedly
a descendent of Sir Francis Drake. 

And yet, somehow, Uncharted surprised everyone when it arrived on the PS3 in 2007. Dipping into the series again, it's easy to see why; it was a refining of the DNA that had been mixed into its soup bowl. Admittedly, there are tweaks in this collection - a graphical overhaul, improved controls - but what Uncharted: Drake's Fortune achieved beyond anything else was just sheer likeability. 

It's a romp; ridiculous, over-the-top, but rooted in humour and characters that you want to be around. Drake - thanks to the unquestionably warm and witty delivery of Nolan North - is unlike any other video game character.

His bond with his partner Sully, the way cut-scenes blend seamlessly with action beats, the way the series - particularly as it goes along - uses that action to reveal character (they even successfully manage to convey vulnerability - despite Drake being a virtually invulnerable video game avatar)... it all conspires to make us invested in what happens. To make us care.


INNOVATION
That's the real innovation on this series, and it continues to build over the subsequent two games (although, for us, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has the most iconic action set pieces; the train, the tank...). We enjoyed the Tomb Raider reboot - which was, ironically, clearly inspired by Uncharted just as Uncharted was inspired by Tomb Raider - but it missed out on giving us a central character who we could love.

Lara Croft might qualify as eye candy, but she's achingly dull as a person. The grim adventure she goes through in that game is the antithesis of why Uncharted is so much fun to play.

Let's say you walk into a party and Lara Croft and Nathan Drake are both there. Who are you going to choose to talk to - the cold, intense, teenage girl who wants revenge for the hell that men have put her through... or the guy who shrugs off everything bad that's ever 
happened to him with a flippant wisecrack, and who likes a beer?

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LOVE
Should you get The Nathan Drake Collection? If you've missed out on any of the Uncharted games - then yes.

Don't go in expecting all three to be perfect: the first one is showing its age (though not to the extent that you wouldn't want to play it to the end). But if you already own these games, it's up to you whether you need to play them again in slightly better resolution. It's a shame they couldn't have included the PS Vita-only Golden Abyss on here... but maybe it would've required too much of an overhaul.

Regardless, there's no question that they're three of the finest action games of all time - and the perfect reintroduction to Drake and his world before he bows out with next year's Uncharted 4. Apparently. We'll see how long that lasts. 


SUMMARY: Three of the most likeable games of all time, for the price of one. You might say they're "Drakingly" good. But don't. Don't say that.
SCORE: 100,000,000 out of 100,000,001 

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
VIDEO REVIEW: Mad Max (PS4, Xbox One, PC/Windows)
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REVIEW: METAL GEAR SOLID V - THE PHANTOM PAIN (Various)
REVIEW: LIFE IS STRANGE - Eps 1-4 (Various)

10 Comments
Superbeast 37
12/10/2015 10:30:02 am

Funnily enough I've never cared for Drake.

The only Uncharted game I've played was number 3 - and that was for free on PS+ in late summer 2013 after I'd already played the Tomb Raider reboot.

Uncharted felt very linear in comparison and I didn't warm to Drake at all; he seemed like a generic video game protagonist. No idea what the draw is there.

I've been told that the third wasn't the best in the series though so maybe that tainted my view.

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James Wheeler link
12/10/2015 11:47:35 am

Sign me up for DrakeHate. I managed maybe an hour of Uncharted, which was all I could take of the cheeky misogynist, his lecherous granddad, and their colonial mass-murder adventures.

"Get the man from the metal bird! Get Nathan Drake" - cool dialogue from excellent characters in an award-winning world

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John Whyte
12/10/2015 12:05:58 pm

I enjoyed all three of the games and think that they are the best examples of their tyoe. The first one creaks a little but is still better than most third-person action-adventure games.

My main issue with them is - even in the clearly fantastic world in which the series is set - how many people Drake kills, essentially for his own profit. There are lots of opportunities for him to simply leave or wait the villains out but by the end of the series he has possibly killed thousands. It is a game, I know nut I always had that feeling in the back of my mind.

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Terrence McPringles
12/10/2015 01:04:30 pm

They usually justify it by having the bad guys want the same treasures for reason worse than just regular old greed for money, and they do the whole "you're as bad as me" thing in the second one.

That said, it kind of helps to think of Drake as Han Solo as seen through the filter of a genre where shooting is the primary form of interaction with other people. Basically he's a charming rogue who will shoot first without question. And there also happens to be a million Greedos at his cantina table.

That said, Uncharted is really fun regardless, but you do have to accept that the genre means that the gameplay and the narrative kind of find themselves at odds in places.

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Alan
12/10/2015 12:46:51 pm

Always thought the uncharted games wildly overhyped a woolly control system coupled with an unoriginal story isn't for me ,had to play them though as the wife insisted on buying them for me,no give crash any day of the week

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Bugler
13/10/2015 06:07:39 pm

The woolly controls seem to a be a feature of all Naughty Dogs games. Every that isn't interactive is great, but the bits you have to play just don't feel right and are so repetitive that it actually becomes a bit boring.

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Jogosity
12/10/2015 04:45:58 pm

I remember when I first played Uncharted (number 2, I think) I initially rolled my eyes in despair at the generic wisecracking, trope peddling nonsense the Nathan showed at every turn. Then I started to like him. As the game grew he fleshed out a little and the goofy wisecracking became quite endearing to me. But I like the fact that he stayed a goofball and didn't Go Moody. Enough Moody Men...
And yes, Uncharted 2 is terrific, wonderful fun. Everything you've seen before just really, really beautifully done. Naughty Dog also manage to be the only developer for whose games I think "Oh great!" and happily put the pad down when there is a cutscene. Apparently they wrote them from the perspective of "character driven" rather than "narrative driven" so the cutscenes always play out interesting character relationships and rarely bother with plot exposition. It really doesn't matter why we have to go to Tibet - just get there! Great games.

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Kelvin Green link
12/10/2015 08:02:34 pm

Uncharted 2 was the first game I got on my PS3, because it was cheap and someone had said it was good, but I had no real idea what it was like. I was surprised at how good it was. I have never been a fan of the Tomb Raider games but Uncharted -- at least the second one, I haven't played the others -- seemed to make the formula click in a way that the Tomb Raider series itself never managed.

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Stay
12/10/2015 08:50:04 pm

Uncharted was the second game I got for my PS3 (I swapped a WII for it for) after Pro Evo 2008. I loved Uncharted until near the end and I felt pissed of with it with one of my least favourite game mechanics and left it alone. Then Uncharted 2 came and I loved that game - it was much bigger and the combat encounters had been improved with more options most began with stealth. But it was the co-op that that I loved and I played that for 2 or 3 months.

Then I went back and played Uncharted from the start to the end and regretted my folly through my first play through.

The third game I was given as a leaving present from my last job although that had to fight for playtime with BF3. 3 wasn't as good as 2 and I only played the co-op for a single night.

But for me the games are fun with some great characters and lots of bright happy colours not the brown and grey of Gears. But for me its the combat that makes the games for me the way you can mix stealth, shooting and melee giving the encounters lots of character and making me feel like an action hero.

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colincidence link
12/10/2015 11:10:43 pm

I'd talk to Lara at the party, but then again I'm an SJW

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