‘Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection’ Review (PS4)
With Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End coming in 2016, what is the best way to get players re-invested into the world of Drake? Yep, that’s right by remastering the games. Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection brings together the first three games in 1080p and 60fps, but is it worth spending the money on?
With Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection there are two sides to the remasters: the original games that these remasters are built upon and the remasters themselves. Looking at this collection – remastered by Bluepoint Games – in a technical sense, the company have done an excellent job. With the first game Drake’s Fortune looking very nice visually, when you move on to Among Thieves the upgrade is noticeable, as happens when we move to Drake’s Deception. For my tastes, the second game is the one that hits the sweet spot in terms of playability and looks. If anything, the third game tries a little too hard to push its limits and the cracks begin to show (which are problems from the original ietration of the game).
When you strip away the story from the Uncharted games you also realise that these games are basically fighting off waves of enemies, and in the first game this can be to annoying levels. The second game deals with this issue to a point, but the structure is still there. In the third, it often feels that this wave structure gets to ridiculous levels. When an ancient city is falling around you, why are enemies still managing to arrive in perfect formation? Shouldn’t they be running for their lives? It gets to the point where you can’t wait to finally complete the game just so you don’t have to go through yet another iteration of the same battle.
The problem with the Uncharted games, and which has been brought into Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is the restricted movability of Drake himself, the linear nature of the levels and the annoying way the enemies soak up bullets. These issues aren’t down to Bluepoint though; this is the problem with the original PS3 games.
The fact that it takes so many bullets to kill enemies, even on easy setting is something more noticeable now that games have evolved. The fact that I found myself getting around 5 headshots on some enemies and them not going down is annoying. In some cases, some enemies were invulnerable because they were running through certain animations. There were also cases of bad AI when enemies were totally oblivious to Drake being right in front of them, because they were busy moving to their next location.
While it feels picky to point these things out, it also should be something that is focused on with remasters. There are moments in Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection where the gameplay just flows perfectly and everything fits together, but then others that can have you rage quitting. An example of this is in the third game. If you know that Drake has the manoeuvrability of a tank why stick him in small corridors when they are filling up with water, then slow down the character even more? This is definitely not one of the games finer points.
If you’ve never played an Uncharted game, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is the perfect chance to learn Nathan Drake’s story before the fourth game comes out… and it is still a very good story. And for people who’ve not played the games for years but remember liking them, then this release is also worth its money.
Some of the more annoying aspects of the Uncharted games are still here. Yet Bluepoint Games have done an excellent job, technically, to bring the visuals to current generation standards, and they really do look beautiful at a comfortable 60fps but just be ready for the same old annoying gameplay that sometimes gets in the way of the fun.
**** 4/5
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is out now, exclusively available on PlayStation 4.