Uncharted - The Nathan Drake Collection PS4 Review
Posted on: 2015-10-21
Our rating:
Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection is a fantastic package of games which lets you experience Drakes adventures in one sitting. If you?ve never played these games before get this collection, you won?t regret it.
We once again get another remaster of a game from the PS3 ported onto the PS4 and what game is it this time? Not one game, but 3! Yes you get Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception. This is a great way if you’ve never played these games before and you want to get ready for Uncharted 4 in 2016.
Each story in each game is about a man called Nathan Drake, someone who claims to be a descendant of the famous sailor Sir Francis Drake. Drake comes off as an arrogant and cocky person, however when you go through the later adventures he slowly grows up and you grow to like him. In each game he is in search of ancient treasures from the vibrant jungles of Peru, the cold mountains of Nepal and the empty and desolate sands of the Rub' al Khali desert. So you set off on a swashbuckling adventure similar to Indiana Jones to find treasure and beat up bad guys.
You really feel that you’re exploring these places with Nathan and you feel the strain that he does when he gets into dangerous situations. It really leaves you off the edge your seat with how engaging and exciting this game is with great acting and set pieces. This game has serious elements but it does know how to lighten up with quips and jokes here and there.
The gameplay is more or less the same in each installment but with added features and tweaks to the controls. It’s a mix of platforming, shooting and solving puzzles, this keeps the game fresh and it never gets old as the situations are very different and unique to keep you invested. The platforming is what you’re going to be doing mostly throughout the three games as it’s your means of traversing the different locales. You’ll be scaling the cliffs in a lush tropical jungle to Middle Eastern ruins as the sand withers the structure away. The climbing is very responsive in Uncharted 2 and 3; however they do feel a bit dated and clunky in the first game but to be fair the first game is nearly 10 years old so I can’t fault it too much.
The shooting is snappy and fast which helps with Nathan’s quick movements and rolls that he can do to avoid gunfire to the fact he can hang off ledges get them while they’re not looking. You can take cover and take enemies down slowly or you can do what I did in most fire fights and run around like a mad man where I took down every enemy in about 3 minutes by hip firing an AK-47.
The presentation is fantastic in these games and they’ve done their best to update the visuals for the PS4 which they’ve done a good job, it also helps that the game runs at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second and a full 1080p HD. The environments really feedback on you and it feels as if you are there, you feel the humidity of the jungles of Peru, you feel the biting cold in the mountains of Nepal and you get thirst for water as you stumble through wilderness of the Rub' al Khali desert.
The music is appropriately themed for each game and fits the locations you’re in. You’ll have upbeat jungle music in the first game, in the second the music is Tibetan and finally in the third game the music is Arabian and sounds like it borrows from the Lawrence of Arabia musical score which the story does revolve around T.E Lawrence.
The negatives that I have with this game is that the enemies can be extremely aggressive especially the ones with shotguns because they’ll charge your position until they’ve gunned you down. The next negative point is that in the second and third game in the final chapters it gets aggravatingly hard even on the standard difficulty, the games idea for ramping up the difficulty is by throwing guys in heavy armour at you armed with Light Machine Guns which can kill you in a couple of hits.
Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection is a fantastic package of games which lets you experience Drakes adventures in one sitting which will prepare you for Uncharted 4 when it’s released in 2016. If you’ve never played these games before get this collection, you won’t regret it.
4/5
Reviewed by The Bristolian Gamer for 365Bristol
Article by:
Born and raised in the suburbs of Swansea, Jimmy moved to Bristol back in 2004 to attend university. Passionate about live music, sport, science and nature, he can usually be found walking his cocker spaniel Baxter at any number of green spots around the city. Call James on 078 9999 3534 or email Editor@365Bristol.com.
