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UNCHARTED |OT| The Master Thief Collection

dmshaposv

Member
Just finished the collection. First time playing these games.

Uncharted 1 is a mediocre and quite boring game. But 2 and 3 are the fucking Bomb. I played 2 and 3 in extended sittings and they are a blast. Variety, pacing, pulpy story, visual design - top notch work.
 
Regardless of all that though, where it really crosses into bad game design is that even if you stealth everyone possible and have one enemy left, if that one enemy spots you, suddenly 20 dudes just come seeping out of the walls from nowhere. Like, wtf is that?! You might as well just have an open firefight from the start and not waste time trying to stealth anything

Hahaha, so true. I always avoided stealth because of that. It bothered me that the game doesn't have very good stealth mechanics and on top of that punishes the player if stealth fails. So I mostly just went in guns blazing right from the start.
 

Revven

Member
Speaking to UC3 specifically, it felt like the game would tease you with segments that suggested they could be stealthed but then the game would pull some BS that would make it nearly impossible to do so without essentially "gaming the game" I don't know if they tweak this for the remaster but in the original it was horrible.

The two segments that stand out in my mind with great disdain in this respect is the airport sequence and the ballroom of the cruiseship.

You can stealth the airport! The cruise ship you cannot but you can 100% stealth the airport and I made a video showing how (can't link it right now, at work but I did link it quite a few pages back). It's incredibly satisfying and completely removes all those additional waves of enemies they throw at you.

But yes that is a common trend in UC3 with the cruise ship, the ship graveyard (it is set up as stealth initially), and the desert sandstorm as the ones that stick out the most.

It's odd when you consider UC2 towards the end of the game or even compared to near identical/similar scenarios you can completely or partially stealth the arenas but yet in UC3 those near identical parts (desert sandstorm, for instance) are not remotely stealthable or able to be stealthed to the same degree.

I would really love to talk to some of the designers about what made them decide to not make those parts, clearly set up to be stealthed, stealthable.
 

Vitor711

Member
Just when I thought you were cool smh :p

I just can't get into it. The graveyard feels like a great concept of a dynamic combat bowl ruined by really obnoxious enemy types and placement- pretty much the story of the entire game tbh. And again, I could possibly still forgive it and have some fun if not for the underlying issues with shooting and melee that make it totally unsatisfying for me to interact with enemies. It IS proto-Uncharted 4 combat, I won't deny that, but it seems like they made some refinements since then that will totally blow it away.

In terms of arena style firefights in the series so far, I think the snowstorm encounter from UC2 is my favorite.

Amen. I remember the ship graveyard being annoying but super interesting on my first playthrough on release and used that as a counter to people saying that UC3 was far worse than UC2.

Then I replayed it and, ugh, the lack of hit reactions, the instant grabs from enemies, the fact that if you still get punished with poorly spawned waves whether you fuck up stealth 10 or 90% through the scenario is maddening.

EDIT: I stealthed 99% of the airport sequence at night too and then missed the final headshot on the last enemy. Got him on the second shot though. However, suddenly waves everywhere. FUCK THAT NOISE.
 
Almost done with 3. I still think there needed to be another platforming section and some more character interactions after the desert section. In fact 3 does not have very much platforming at all compared to 2. I guess it replaced them with all the case sequences, which are cool and all, but also kind of awkward and not a good replacement for awesome shit like the ice caves. Iram of the Pillars is also really short compared to Shambala, and even with the blue dudes and shitty final boss I think I prefer it, especially with how sexy it looks in the remaster. The cutscene of
Sully's "death"
is really well done though.

Just when I thought you were cool smh :p

I just can't get into it. The graveyard feels like a great concept of a dynamic combat bowl ruined by really obnoxious enemy types and placement- pretty much the story of the entire game tbh. And again, I could possibly still forgive it and have some fun if not for the underlying issues with shooting and melee that make it totally unsatisfying for me to interact with enemies. It IS proto-Uncharted 4 combat, I won't deny that, but it seems like they made some refinements since then that will totally blow it away.

In terms of arena style firefights in the series so far, I think the snowstorm encounter from UC2 is my favorite.

Meh I think the enemy types and placements are fine for that encounter, they make you move around a lot without descending into BS like some of the bad ones like the sandstorm.


Snowstorm encounter is beast. Great level design, and feels incredibly badass when the snow hits and the armored guys show up. Made me weep for the sandstorm in UC3, idk what they were thinking with that one. At least The Last of Us delivered again with its vision obscuring weather.

I also really dug the combat arenas in the village invasion in 2, particularly the one with the turret on one side.
 
Do we know which game the so-called "B team" is doing next? I know there's some overlap between the teams but I just hope Naughty Dog's finest is handling the unannounced yet inevitable The Last of Us 2.
 

Revven

Member
Alright here, I'll repost the airport video which covers every area but if you want the infamous one skip to about 6:08 of the video for the strategy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkLFJwmABY

The last part of that section can be really picky sometimes with the grenade so be mindful of that. I got it on both my Hard and Crushing playthroughs though so it's pretty consistent.
 

Revven

Member
idk why you'd want to stealth the airport anyway, the combat area with all the crates is good fun

Because it can be a pain on Crushing or even if someone attempts Brutal lol. It's fine on Normal if you don't care but higher difficulties it's really important to stealth it to avoid bullshit, basically.

And stealth is fun too! If you enjoy the feeling of accomplishment for avoiding a good chunk of combat.
 
Because it can be a pain on Crushing or even if someone attempts Brutal lol. It's fine on Normal if you don't care but higher difficulties it's really important to stealth it to avoid bullshit, basically.

Ah yeah, I've been playing on hard. I never got up to the airport on my crushing play through on PS3. Probably never gonna attempt brutal lol
 
There is no B-team.

Fair enough. I suspected that was a possibility which is why I phrased it that way. In that case I'll just go ahead and hope that Neil Druckmann is as involved as possible with the next TLoU game, seeing as he appears to be the constant behind my favorite Naughty Dog games.

Not to take credit away from their other creators. You obviously need a ton of talented people to deliver the level of quality the studio is known for.
 
Fair enough. In that case I'll just go ahead and hope that Neil Druckmann is as involved as possible with the next TLoU game, seeing as he appears to be the constant behind my favorite Naughty Dog games.

Not to take credit away from their other creators. You obviously need a ton of talented people to deliver the level of quality the studio is known for.

To clarify, they don't have two full production teams. They get some people to do pre-production on the next game while production for the current one is underway. That is the "second team".
 

zsynqx

Member
Fair enough. In that case I'll just go ahead and hope that Neil Druckmann is as involved as possible with the next TLoU game, seeing as he appears to be the constant behind my favorite Naughty Dog games.

Not to take credit away from their other creators. You obviously need a ton of talented people to deliver the level of quality the studio is known for.

Last of us team was the Uncharted 3 team but with different leads (plus a bunch of new hires that came on during production). The leads on Uncharted 3 went on to do pre-production on UC4 while the Last of Us was in full production, but they were scrapped and Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley stepped in. So basically the A and B team phrase only works in the sense that there were different creative teams for UC3 and TLOU but now the whole studio seems to be under Neil/Bruce. I agree with your sentiments about Druckmann though.
 
Beat Uncharted 3. My series ranking didn't change with this playthrough, it's still 2>3>1. I think 3 is still a great game, it's just an uneven one. I can't believe I'm not tired of replaying these games yet.

Can't wait for Uncharted 4, got a great feeling about it.
 
Just got the Plat on uncharted 1 again was just as fun as the first time gonna take my time with the other two but so far I'm enjoying the collection alot more then I thought I would
 

dmshaposv

Member
Last of us team was the Uncharted 3 team but with different leads (plus a bunch of new hires that came on during production). The leads on Uncharted 3 went on to do pre-production on UC4 while the Last of Us was in full production, but they were scrapped and Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley stepped in. So basically the A and B team phrase only works in the sense that there were different creative teams for UC3 and TLOU but now the whole studio seems to be under Neil/Bruce. I agree with your sentiments about Druckmann though.

It seems like after TLOU, everyone threw amy hennig's accomplishments with uncharted 2 under the bus.

She was the creative director of naughty dog before neil, and she did a great job.
 

Revven

Member
Platinumed all three, now I'm going to try and get all the extra trophies for each -- currently sitting at 90% for all three so I need to attempt Brutal on each and do the speedruns.

There's definitely some weird stuff going on with UC3's implementation of the cheats and skins, though. For starters, there's limitations on when you can spawn weapons and also it seems you can only spawn one weapon otherwise if you spawn a pistol your long-gun disappears for some reason. It could be because of where I was testing this (Chapter 22) but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter if you have both a pistol and long-gun before spawning a weapon because Chapter 22 has you start with a Para-9 and M9 in your hands. This isn't how it works in UC2 or UC1, you can spawn two weapons (one pistol and one long-gun).

With respect to the when part, during Chapter 19 for example I was not able to spawn any weapons until mid-way through the first combat arena. I suppose it makes sense to not let you spawn any weapons in areas Drake doesn't have any weapons but... it's so silly because these sections are often short (especially in 19's case where it only takes you like 3-5 minutes to get to the first combat arena). It's just a bit of a hassle to spawn it in the middle of a gunfight than letting you spawn it before you get there, you know?

Then there's the fact that during Chapter 19 when I spawned an AK-47 (any of them) the firing effects and bullets themselves are invisible. Did they even test these things? This also applied to the G-MAL. It is likely because these weapons cannot be gotten in this chapter normally so... the effects don't work for some reason? Or rather, aren't being called to be used? I'm just surprised this wasn't something fixed in the day 1 patch, to be honest.

And then as you all probably heard me say awhile ago, all the skins in UC3 are a huge step back from their implementation in UC2: no wet effects at all (not even for Drake skins!) and no unique voices for the skins, all Drake voices (save for the Doughnut Drake skin which thankfully works like it does in UC2). The other Doughnut skins use Doughnut Drake's voice (which makes sense but is still disappointing all things considered).

The Drake skins part is especially disappointing because I'm definitely 10000% positive they used the multiplayer versions for some bizarre reason. Yes, that means Desert Drake skin isn't the one in single player that can get the desert effects on him. Yes, this means the default Nathan Drake skin you pick from the cheats menu does not have wet effects even though the single player version of the same skin (the one featured in Chapters 6-9) gets wet and everything.

Now UC2 also had a similar issue with the Winter Drake skin where the snow effects weren't the same for the skin from the cheat menu but it did at least have some snow effects attached to it if you walked through water or what have you -- essentially the wet effect was replaced by snow appearing on his body instead. At least UC2 went halfway in that regard.

But UC3 you can't have any of that. None of the skins have the wet effect or their unique special effect they're supposed to have (i.e Desert Drake getting sand in his hair and etc.)

I didn't expect it to be the same as UC2 but at least the Drake skins should have worked how they do in single player and I'm just still baffled that's not the case and it was something ND and Bluepoint missed (or maybe it was a conscious decision? Who knows).

These aren't a big deal but for someone like me who likes these smaller details it bothers me -- the inconsistency or inability to get the same experience as the default Drake in each chapter with the different skins really bothered me in the original release of UC2, for instance and they fixed that here. Only to do the same thing, except even worse, with UC3 is just disappointing. :(

Now I kind of want to see if the tweaks like No Gravity do anything funky to the game that's not intended lol.
 
Just opened up my PS4. Never played Uncharted 1 (I've played the others) and WOW. I'm pretty amazed at how good this game looks for being a really early PS3 game! Bluepoint did some good work remastering this.

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specialK

Banned
just finished UC2...way way better than UC1 in every aspect, UC3.... you're next!

man did I miss this awesome series last generation, thank god I switched to Playstation this time, can't wait to play UC4...greatness awaits!
 
...These aren't a big deal but for someone like me who likes these smaller details it bothers me -- the inconsistency or inability to get the same experience as the default Drake in each chapter with the different skins really bothered me in the original release of UC2, for instance and they fixed that here. Only to do the same thing, except even worse, with UC3 is just disappointing. :(
.

Hey man, games are hard to make :p Admittedly disappointing, but props to Bluepoint for implementing these things nonetheless, sounds like it would have been a pain in the arse to implement.
 
Holy cow! UC2 on crushing is weird - piss easy for 90% of the game; it only gets challenging in Shambala. Then at the end that funk hole Lazarevic is feckin' impossible! I had to exploit glitches to finish him.

UC1 on crushing is great though. It's a consistent challenge throughout, without a bs boss at the end. It's not flashy, but it's satisfying.

So, on to UC3 crushing...
 

illusionary

Member
New update!

Version 1.02:
- Adjusted trophy requirements.
- Adjusted forward movement sensitivity.
- Improvements to package installation.
- Various visual improvements.
- Stability improvements (but of course!)
- Updated credits

I'll see if I can find any more specifics on the "adjustments" and "improvements"...
 

Ezi0

Member
The Dyno-Might Master trophy in Uncharted 3 has been changed from killing 5 enemies with 1 Explosion to 4 enemies.
 

illusionary

Member
The Dyno-Might Master trophy in Uncharted 3 has been changed from killing 5 enemies with 1 Explosion to 4 enemies.

Indeed - good spot! That'll just be a descriptive change, though, as the trophy has always been earned for four kills - but with incorrect text.
 

specialK

Banned
nice, already downloading it (1.037 gigs)

New update!

Version 1.02:
- Adjusted trophy requirements.
- Adjusted forward movement sensitivity.
- Improvements to package installation.
- Various visual improvements.
- Stability improvements (but of course!)
- Updated credits

I'll see if I can find any more specifics on the "adjustments" and "improvements"...
 

Oneself

Member
So, what are those various visual improvements?
I have to compare with pre-patch screenshots but it seems like it might be better texture filtering (among less noticeable things).
 
So, what are those various visual improvements?
I have to compare with pre-patch screenshots but it seems like it might be better texture filtering (among less noticeable things).
Perhaps they added the missing
bubbles
in the
cruise ship
section?
 

cereal_killerxx

Junior Member
I can't wait to replay these masterpieces! Call me crazy, but I'm more excited to replay these games than I am for Fallout 4.

For those who've played Uncharted: Golden Abyss, is it worth buying a Vita for?
 

Vashetti

Banned
Would be interested to see a comparison of the improvements with the new patch.

Glad I haven't got the collection yet, should be pristine by the time I get it.
 

dr_rus

Member
New update!

Version 1.02:
- Adjusted trophy requirements.
- Adjusted forward movement sensitivity.
- Improvements to package installation.
- Various visual improvements.
- Stability improvements (but of course!)
- Updated credits

I'll see if I can find any more specifics on the "adjustments" and "improvements"...

Yay. Too late for me but it's nice that they've probably fixed the running forward issue people were having in UC2 and UC3.
 

dLMN8R

Member
Can you link to some comparison videos or something? I never played UC3 on PS3, just the remastered version, so I didn't know what I was missing.
 
How do the games look with 60 fps? Does it take away the cinematic feel or add to it?

It looks great. I don't think it alters the "cinematic feel" in any way except that it controls better and animations seem more fluid. If you've played The Last of Us Remastered and the OG that's a good benchmark for the change in feeling.
 

dLMN8R

Member
How do the games look with 60 fps? Does it take away the cinematic feel or add to it?

"Cinematic feel" is a dumb buzzword that fanboys of all platforms make when their platform of choice doesn't run a particular game at 60fps.

The Uncharted games are friggen fantastic-looking on PS4, full-stop. The frame rate thoroughly improves it and doesn't take away anything.
 

Revven

Member
Holy hell yeah, Brutal is utterly ridiculous lmao.

If you want to see the VODs on some of the bullshit I went through, links below.

Part 1 (from the other day)
Part 2 (today)
Part 3 (Stream randomly cut off hence the ten minutes of footage)
Part 4 (Stream cut off here as well apparently)
Part 5 (final part from today).

I'll be continuing on Friday but trust me, I am feeling a mixed bag of enjoyment and frustration LOL. When things go right though I get hyped and feel accomplished.

Also, notice how the first arena in Chateau where I kept dying a lot by trying to stay in one place but as soon as I started moving around the arena the fight became much easier. Of course, that doesn't apply everywhere but in that arena it absolutely mattered.
 
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