Tag Archives: Uncharted

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Review

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I have returned to the world of Uncharted with this spinoff adventure. Chloe and Nadine get to serve as the leads this time so Nathan is getting himself a break. It’s a fun adventure although you can definitely see how it is a lot shorter than the main titles. Typically Uncharted adventures have over 20 chapters while this one has 9. Still, the 9 that we do have are very good so I had a great time here. There is a whole lot to enjoy.

The adventure starts off with Chloe trying to get aboard a truck. She manages to slip through the enemy defenses and we find out that she is working with the mercenary, Nadine. Together they are going to try and grab another ancient relic but there appears to be more to this mission that Chloe is keeping secret. The two will try their best to work together while staying professional but this doesn’t do wonders for their very tenuous bond.

At first I actually thought the opening level was a flashback because it’s rare to see Chloe panicking or unsure of herself. I guess that’s what happens when you go from the big rival character to the main lead. She ends up needing a little help from a kid in order to get past the initial guards. I would have preferred Chloe to be her usual sarcastic self right from the start and just beat everyone up. Instead she acts a bit more like Nathan this time around and panics a whole lot.

Still, Chloe is a fun lead overall. Once she begins her team up with Nadine then she goes for more of the usual quips we know her for. Nadine ends up being less likable by the end as she tends to blow up at Chloe a whole lot. She also goes out of her way to mess up their plans on different occasions because she couldn’t contain her emotions. It was a very difficult situation at different points so I understand that, but Nadine is supposed to be a professional.

She does get hit with the main character nerf as well though. In the last game she was defeating Nathan and his brother Sam at the same time. Here she and Chloe are losing when going 2 v 1 against the new villain. Times have really changed. That villain end up looking pretty impressive as a result though. He’s certainly not my kind of villain but I do have to respect his abilities.

The story is fairly straight forward here though. The two heroines have to get to the treasure before the villains do. In the process of this we get a ton of action scenes and have to blast through the equivalent of a mini army. From a gameplay perspective you get a lot of the usual parkour and gun combat. They are both handled very well and in some ways the parkour can be a little more difficult than the main titles. This game assumes that you have played those so there is no kind of tutorial at all. I was a bit rusty at first but quickly got with it.

By contrast the gun combat was a lot easier than the main Uncharted games. One reason for this is the amount of checkpoints in them. Usually if you lose a gunfight then you have to restart it. In this game some of the enemies will stay dead when you die so it inevitably gets easier as you keep on fighting. As long as you use some good tactics and hide as necessary then you should be fine.

There is a decent amount of replay value to be had here. There are a whole lot of collectibles to grab after all and there is a proper level select here which allows you to nab them. Completing the game will only get you a few trophies as well so you will need to replay the game a lot to get the rest. Only the slow motion walk scenes may get a bit annoying but the rest is really easy to replay. Sony games are known for being cinematic and while some use that as an insult, I always find it to be very impressive.

You feel like you’re in a movie here. The graphics are really strong and there is a ton of attention to detail. The gameplay is very well polished as well. I suppose I would have liked to have had a map that was always active instead of having to constantly pause to see it. That’s a bit more of a nitpick though. I was starting to get lost when driving around in the car but was gradually able to figure it out.

It was cool to have a car in general. That’s something you don’t see every day. There isn’t much of a soundtrack here but they squeezed in a song for the end credits. Those credits were extremely long though, one of the longest ones I’ve seen in a long time. I looked it up and apparently they are close to 11 minutes in length. That’s pretty insane, they needed to speed that up or let you skip them. It’s extremely rare for a game in 2026 to not let you skip the credits.

Overall, I would definitely recommend checking out this Uncharted title. It is a full fledged game even if it is shorter than the others. I got this one for $10 so if you get a deal like that then I’d say you should really jump on it. As far as I’m concerned that is an absolute steal! Even if you have to shell out a little more for this one, you should do it. Hopefully one day we get another Uncharted game. This is the kind of series that could easily have many more adventures because there are an infinite amount of treasures out there. I feel like the recent James Bond game was essentially a kind of Uncharted title so they need to follow that blueprint.

Overall 8/10

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End Review

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It’s time for Nathan Drake to have one last journey. I got to play this one pretty much immediately after the original trilogy so it was fun to see how the gameplay had changed over the years and how it remained consistent. This is a great wrap up to the main series. Naturally I would still like a full Uncharted 5 but the game went out of its way to really wrap everything up nicely so it really does feel like the end.

The game started off by introducing us to Nathan’s brother Sam. Turns out that they were really close as kids but unfortunately a job went sideways one day and Sam seemly died. We fast forward to the present where Nathan has put his adventuring days behind him and married his adventuring buddy Elena. The two of them have agreed to lead quiet lives now but Sam shows up one day and asks Nathan for his help. They need to find a $400 million treasure fast or Sam’s going to get bumped off by the mafia. So Nathan agrees to help and lies to his wife about a quick work trip. Will this come back to bite him and does Nathan still have the physical abilities needed for a mission like this?

Obviously lying to your wife is never a good idea and this game shows you a bunch of great reasons for that. You’re throwing a ton of trust out the window in a single moment and also showing that when the going gets tough you are willing to do your own thing. Elena gives Nathan a hard time about this later and it’s completely justified. Honestly I think she would have ultimately been ready to help Sam even if she wasn’t big on the idea. Sully also stops by so we really have the whole gang together for one last ride.

You could tell that the game wanted to go all out here as we have several gameplay types outside of the main one. You have at least 2 levels where you drive a car around and there are even puzzles bult around the car. You play as Sam in one level which is the first time you’ve played as someone other than Nathan in one of these titles. Then you also have some underwater sections as well as a boat level. The game has much larger levels than the other titles. While the overall game length isn’t much different, you can actually get lost in some of these levels.

As a result I got less collectibles than in the other games as you’re probably supposed to explore these sections. There are also mor kinds of collectibles than in any of the other titles. You’ve got a good amount of replay value built right into the title although it also looks like the hardest platinum since one trophy is about beating the game in 7 hours. I believe it took me at least 4-5 hours over that in my initial run. Knowing the puzzles will help a lot but even then I feel like this would take me a whole lot of practice.

The core gameplay is still built around a lot of parkour and platforming. They actually streamlined this a little bit as you don’t have to worry about jumping into nothing anymore. The game has invisible guard rails that prevent you from taking wrong jumps. Yes, this may make things a bit easier but it’s a nice quality of life approach. Then the shooting gameplay is still around even if it doesn’t feel quite as tight as in the last few games. Shooting is much less of a focus this time around as you are heavily encouraged to use stealth attacks to take down your opponents.

I enjoy hand to hand well enough so it works but part of me did miss going for 1000 headshots for all the trophies. The shooting gameplay is still solid but perhaps it feels a bit more arcade-like. The difficulty is pretty reasonable. I’m sure you’ll die several times during the adventure and usually it’ll be because you just got too aggressive. I’d see two enemies and charge in, only for another 5 to show up out of nowhere and take me out. I did like how the villains would essentially set traps like that.

The game also has an easter egg for another Playstation title which was a lot of fun. It definitely felt nostalgic and I like the idea of being able to play a video game within a video game. More titles should try something like this. You don’t want to overuse the idea but right now it is absolutely underused. The game’s story is also really solid and by the end of the title you will feel like you had a whole lot of different adventures. Sam may only have been around for this one game but the title does a great job of giving him a lot of character. At the end of the day I can’t say that I was a big fan of this guy but I was glad that he was in the game. You need somebody to dislike a bit and there was nothing two dimensional about him. If the series keeps him on as a main character, I’d say that it would make a lot of sense. I would still want Nathan to show up in some capacity though. Maybe he could be the one Sam calls for some of the trickier puzzles?

Overall, Uncharted 4 is definitely a great title. For the record, I’d still say that the second game is the best one but this is a close second. It’s all relative though as all 4 games were really excellent. Uncharted is absolutely a true AAA series and after marathoning all the games, I’m going to miss it. I’ll absolutely be getting the spinoff at some point so that I can say that I really experienced the whole franchise though. That’ll buy Uncharted 5 some more time to get everything in order. If you haven’t played the game after all these years, then you need to change that asap!

Overall 8/10