Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection Review
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Developer: Naughty Dog, Bluepoint Games
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Original developer: Naughty Dog
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Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
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Genres: First-Person Shooter, Action, Adventure, Cinematic
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Platforms: PS4
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Release date:
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Collection: October 7th, 2015
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Uncharted 1: November 19th, 2007
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Uncharted 2: October 13th, 2009
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Uncharted 3: November 1st, 2011
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Playtime: Around 30 hours (enough to complete all three campaigns)
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Reviewed on regular PS4
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is a pretty good deal for people who are looking for relatively short games full of over the top set pieces combined with satisfying gameplay that consists of combat, puzzles and climbing. All three games received plenty of improvement such as the addition of photo mode, statistics (very in-depth statistics actually), a solid 60fps throughout the whole experience, a speed run mode and a couple other.
Let’s dig into each game individually and see what each one had to offer.
The first chapter in Nathan Drake's story is unfortunately a terrible one. While this is the kickstart to a great series, it couldn't have started worse.
Without needing to generalize too much, Drak'es Fortune, at its core, is a third person cover shooter, with some cutscenes in between, along with a handful of puzzles and climbing sections. Unfortunately, compared to the other entries, this one had a much bigger focus on the shooting, so much that at times felt like the game was nothing else than moving from shooting "arena" to shooting "arena". Due to this decision, the game on its first half ends up feeling soulless, leaving the main three characters to be just something that contextualizes the setting. Fortunately, the second half of the game is able to recover, with cutscenes, allowing the characters to be fleshed out and actually presented to the player, while the gameplay itself becomes more varied with the introduction of more puzzles as our group gets closer and closer to their sought treasure.
What about the shooting, was it at least good? Not really. Even taking into account this is the remastered version of an 11-year old game, the shooting felt bog-standard, with both weapons and killing enemies feeling completely boring. Enemies just flail around as they are being shot at and there's no visual or audio feedback that make killing enemies satisfying. It does not help that the game has a huge tendency to always go too far with the number of enemies that show up in firefights, making it both frustrating due to the additional player deaths it creates but also because it pointlessly extends these sections. It's also a shame that, specially in the first half of the game, around every corner, right after every cutscene, as soon as you climb a mountain, new enemies appear.
Beyond the bland shooting, movement itself is another element that leaves a lot to be desired. Movement, in general, feels imprecise making some climbing sections very frustrating, in combination with an uncooperative camera. Even during firefights, trying to punch or kick an enemy will lead to unnecessary deaths because Nathan misses the enemy or simply because melee is not advised at all during firefights: it's slow, it takes a long time to kill the enemy and just leaves you out in the open to be shot at. Speaking of melee combat, from a design point of view there's a strange decision going on. While it's a terrible choice to use melee during combat, the game for some reason rewards players with extra ammo for killing enemies using a specific melee combo. The problem here is that for the player to melee kill an enemy it will have to be close if not at the end of a firefight, that is, by that time the player won't be needing extra ammo, in fact, if the player is melee killing an enemy it means there was only that one enemy left. It's a strange design decision that can only be taken advantage of at times when its effects are not needed anymore.
Overall, Uncharted Drake's Fortune is a very frustrating game with good ideas, plagued with bad controls and too much of the same content in very quick succession. If the game had been able to show more of its story and cinematic capabilities in the first half as it did in the second half, this would have been a much better game. Honestly, it's incredible when you think of this game as the first game in the Uncharted series because, when compared to the other games, this game doesn't hold a candle to them.
Fortunately, after a terrible first entry to Uncharted, the second game manages to get the series back on its feet with both solid gameplay and storytelling.
Right from the first few minutes, Uncharted 2 already manages to surpass the first game in many ways: it starts off with a set piece that demonstrates a more mature climbing system, thanks to the better animations and sound effects, but also due to the scripting of the set piece. Due to the game making use of in medias res, the beginning of the game leaves the player with a huge sense of curiosity to learn what happened to Nate and why did he end up on that situation. On the other hand, right after this first segment, the game transitions to a cutscene where a couple of new characters are introduced, along with laying out the objective for this game, that is, what treasure Nate is going to go after this time.
On the gameplay side, this sequel clearly worked hard to make the gameplay what it should have always been: a mix of puzzle-solving, climbing, and shooting. Actually, it's commendable how long the game goes on without shooting sequences in favor of fleshing out the story and making the game feel more cinematic and thought out instead of being filled with shooting segments. It evens goes as far as to make it possible to clear a lot of sections using stealth, that is, instead of going guns blazing into the middle of the enemies, players can instead opt to remain silent and kill enemies one by one by getting close enough to perform a melee takedown. However, the shooting overall got a much better feeling to it in the sequel: the weapons sound better, the enemies are more reactive when they are being shot at instead of just standing there and the number of enemies per area is much more sensible now, instead of spawning wave after wave of lumps of meat to be shot down.
There were also two other points that hugely contributed to this game's success: the improvements to controls, now it feels much more precise to control Nate, especially in climbing sections, and the graphical improvements. Everything, from characters to the environment, looks better and in combination with much better animations, storytelling in the form of cutscenes, for example, is able to shine in a way that wouldn't have been as satisfying in the previous game.
Overall, in Uncharted 2 it feels like the series hit a winning formula (albeit not complete). As the game goes on, there's a healthy combination of puzzles, set pieces, cutscenes, combat and exploration, so that both the characters and story can evolve, in great part thanks to the gameplay staying varied enough to allow the set pieces to shine and keep the player engaged.
Being the third entry in the series, Drake’s Deception takes advantage of the maturity the series has achieved across the previous games. Now that players are more than familiarized with the main characters, Uncharted 3 can make full use of that and delve into these characters' past, finally addressing the protagonist's origins, how he came to meet Sully and become who he is today.
Gameplay-wise, the third installment retains all from Among Thieves, albeit with some refinements, namely to the combat as a whole, introducing some more mechanics to melee combat. Puzzle-wise, these have been the most interesting ones featured in an Uncharted game so far, making a lot more use of space so that a solution can span more than just a tiny room or allow the addition of vertical depth to the solution. Still, even if improved, puzzles are still moderately simple, so they could use a bit more complexity.
Story-wise, Drake's Deception is a much more solitary experience than the previous stories. As I've mentioned, the story does delve into Nate’s origins and, consequently, Sully's. However, Nate ends up spending a lot more time alone, especially during the time he is abducted by pirates and when he is trying to rescue Sully from the antagonists, both of which take up a big chunk of the game’s runtime. There's even a certain scene in the middle of the desert, after escaping from a crashing plane, where the camera pans out to show Nate walking forward desperately, in hopes of getting somewhere that is not covered in sand. My only gripes with this game, story-wise, were the antagonists. These were far too boring and forgettable, and even the way their demise was handled was not the most memorable.
In the big picture however, Uncharted 3 felt like a more fun and enjoyable experience than the previous entry. Among Thieves, for all the good things it did, it also added plenty of padding, be it by introducing more than a few closed doors that Nate had to workaround so that his companions could then go through said doors or by the simple globetrotting the main characters had to go through to find the next clue for where to find Shambala. Here, in Drake’s Deception, the objective and necessary intermediate steps were simplified and “straight to the point”, so the journey ended up, albeit a tad shorter, much more enjoyable. On the other hand, since Nate spent a lot of time alone anyway, there was no need to introduce the aforementioned padding sequences and thankfully Naughty Dog made the right choice to not include any other shenanigans in Nate’s way.
As a final analysis over what the experience actually is after playing all three games, it’s quite polarizing depending on the game. When I think of the first game, I’m filled with feelings of disgust and boredom as I couldn’t wait for the suffering to end as I killed enemy, after enemy, after enemy, after enemy across the various shades of green present in the environment. When I think of Among Thieves though, it feels exactly like the starting point for the series, but an extremely good one, with plenty of what is expected to go bad in a first attempt at something new to just not be present at all. However, as I have pointed out previously, the game still had some areas that could have been better. That’s where the third and last game in the collection comes in, Drake’s Deception (unfittingly titled for this phrase). Uncharted 3 is quick to the point, with almost no padding or confusion thrown into the mix, rather it’s aware that the players have had two full games to get familiarized with the series, so now it’s time to finally show more about the main characters, specially the most important of all other characters, Nathan Drake, and throw aside the boring parts, improving most of the existing ones. The environments presented in the third game are not as diverse as the ones from Uncharted 2, but they feel good to explore and, ultimately, what transpires in said locations is enjoyable.
Then, what are my absolute final thoughts on Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection? It includes the first three games for one of Sony’s most famous series that, overall, deserves a lot of its credit. The set pieces are super fun to play through, even if heavily scripted, and between the various environments, puzzles and technical improvements of Uncharted 2 and 3, the players are in for a good thirty-ish hours of content. Uncharted 1, though? Please stay away from it. The only remotely interesting thing to happen in those seven hours of killing nameless lackeys is the development of Nate and Elena's relationship, not much more than that.