Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection

[Sly Boots]

So the first Uncharted game to make it to PC, I've not played the series before so looking forward to this one. It's a while since I bought a AAA game on release, but £30 at CD Keys isn't too bad.

Will report back.

One thing, though, 130GB install?!

[Snowy]

I have been noisily dying of Covid this week but I snagged this for £30 from CD Keys and have been playing it. Notes from a rather unwell canary:

First off probably worth some context. I have only ever properly played Uncharted 2 and can't remember if I finished it, but if not I did get quite a long way in and I remember really liking it. I bought the collection on PS4 years back, with the intent of playing through the first three in sequence including a replay of 2, but got bored playing the first and didn't go back for the others. I did like 2 though as I say, and fondly remember some clever levels in a collapsing city and on the back of a truck iirc. Figured this would be fun.

It is, but man they make you work for it.

The game opens with events from the past which take the form of both some exposition and a 'how-to-play'. Honestly, when are games going to stop feeling they need to teach me how to fucking jump and duck? These sequences really, really overstay their welcome. I genuinely don't care about the protagonists and the extended dialogue that follows everything bored me to tears, even though it is fairly well acted. Two snarky yank brothers who just can't stop quipping? Pass me my Tony Stark-themed vomit-bag please.

My initial thoughts after ending my first session went "they forgot to include a game", not since Max Payne 3 have I had to sit through so much in-game cutscene bollocks and getting to steer one of the drippy brothers while the neverending screenplay rolls out before my bored eyes does not equate to gameplay.

Anyhow - it gets better, thank fuck. In parts anyhow.

Once the game gets rolling, the story (utter drivel, with the Eureka moments just so hilariously bad...) is about pirate treasure and takes the brothers to some really cool locations. A ruined cathedral in Scotland is pretty nice, but the pick of the bunch so far is a cracking sequence set in a huge clock-tower in Madagascar.

Some of the pathfinding is very clever, making you feel you are finding your way and not being steered.

The puzzles are a bit hit and miss, some are very good and you feel a right clever git, whereas others are annoyingly obtuse.

Like most games of this ilk, it has its sets of toys that it wheels out that you recognise as each takes centre stage - the exploration and exposition bit, the jumping and climbing puzzle bit, unfortunately it also makes frequent use of the combat bit too, which is it's absolute weakest area.

I tend to like combat in my games, especially in this type of game, but Uncharted combat is fucking appalling. First there are the enemies - they are insanely easy to stealth kill and if spooked will calm down and become automatons again within about 10 seconds. You can literally walk openly in front of them and then crouch in some grass and as long as their moron-meter doesn't fill, it is like you were never there - wrecks any immersion. You can alert them and if you manage to climb out of sight, again within 30 seconds it is like you were never there. Where are my Batman/Lara Croft abilities to turn them against one another or use the environment against them? With the exception of the obvious stacking of bright red explosive shit where they are going to spawn, you either stealth it, go loud, or more commonly a couple of the first followed by a lot of the latter. Stealth doesn't really achieve much so I have started just mowing down enemies - who all take too many hits to die. The combat really is weak, a shame when there is so much of it.

Even so, the game IS fun. I am not sure whether I would play another in the series, but it whistles you along with it, from set piuce to set piece, stunning vista to stunning vista, with its cheesy heart on its sleeve. The characters are all cut-outs, the script banal beyond belief, and I am absolutely expecting to see a heroic death somewhere along the way that I will be expected to get misty-eyed about (I won't), but it is the video-game equivalent of Romancing the Stone, so I am just going to go with it.

This probably doesn't read like a good review, it is, but more that the bits they get wrong could have made the game so much more fun got right...

[Animalmother]

I found them very enjoyable but you definitely need a break between games as they can be exhausting. As Snowy said the combat is pretty weak at times and often gets in the way of the story, you'll often stumble from one gun fight into another when all you want to do is explore. The visuals in the later games are amazing at times, climbing over a wall to see a huge area open up in front of you.

[Alan]

4 is a slog but on the bright side is much less of a slog than 3! I thought Lost Legacy was excellent but I’m not sure if jumping into that without playing 4 would be as good but I think it probably would be fine.

[DjchunKfunK]

4 is my least favourite, the idea to shoehorn in some half-baked semi-openworld stuff was a weird choice and I thought the additional stealth stuff they added took away from the gameplay experience. Lost Legacy is really good though.

[Can't think of one]

It is, but man they make you work for it.

The game opens with events from the past which take the form of both some exposition and a 'how-to-play'. Honestly, when are games going to stop feeling they need to teach me how to fucking jump and duck? These sequences really, really overstay their welcome. I genuinely don't care about the protagonists and the extended dialogue that follows everything bored me to tears, even though it is fairly well acted. Two snarky yank brothers who just can't stop quipping? Pass me my Tony Stark-themed vomit-bag please.

QFT! I'm new to the Uncharted series and started playing this last night. I found this section really tedious and boring! This is the fourth game in the series, right? Did it really need a 20-minute tutorial on the climbing mechanics?

[ManBearSquid]

I remember the release of the first game and my cousin had it on his ps3, which I never owned, and I thought it seemed amazing.

I remember the gameplay trailers for the 2nd game and wishing I had the means to play it as it looked so good

I picked up the collection a few years back on ps4 and looked forward to finally giving them a proper go. Quit the first game after reaching the abysmal jet ski section that takes place upriver. Not fun.

I decided to move on to the second game, the most highly regarded one. Finished it and found it a bit "meh" overall. I just didn't get it, really. No interest in the characters, combat was fine, it was mostly cinematic style over any sort of substance, for me. Maybe I would've loved it back in the day.

Started the third and decided that I had no desire to continue.

For those reasons, I doubt I'll ever play this one.

Edit: semi-inebriated phone typos. I'm semi-inebriated, not my phone...