Up until 4, Uncharted relied pretty heavily on bombastic setpieces in favor of making a fun 3rd person shooter and interesting characters. I love those games, but sometimes you get full after 3 buckets of buttery popcorn and you need something grounded.

A post-apocalyptic zombie may not be the most grounded premise, but the game gradually relieved any cynicism I initially had. This feels like the perfect cocktail of storytelling and gameplay because it's grounded in a world and circumstance that the characters actually live in. It's not an excellent TPS, but the emphasis on stealth and resource management over pure run-and-gun makes it a tense, satisfying experience. The encounter design with the crafting options creates puzzles to solve with multiple solutions.

It blows my mind that this was originally a PS3 game. ND's art direction and fidelity proves to be top-class, and it's easy to imagine a lesser game if the character performances and animations weren't so convincing. The environments were beautiful and varied. I actually wanted to get lost in the dilapidated concrete jungles and suburbs when I knew there was more to the world to discover through environmental storytelling.

Above all, the best part is the development of Joel and Ellie as characters and their relationship. I knew this game was lauded for its writing but I was not prepared for many of the key moments here. Joel is a such a complex individual whose morality frequently teeters between his emotions, past, and survival. And Ellie is surprisingly the compass that guides him through it. Not only does she literally save him but she also centers him on something to live for after losing his daughter. By the end, the dynamic feels so earned.

Episode Two is an extension of all the great qualities from the previous games in the series.

The strongest suit of this entry is the intricate, spiderweb-like design of the many and varied levels. From the descent into the ant lion nest to the linear but occasionally branching vehicle treks, the environments often feel perfectly suited to the gameplay system that's utilized.

The vehicle moments are vastly improved from those in Half Life 2. Rather than just having checkpoints at houses where there are resources and random enemies, each one is either a story moment or small puzzle that can be discovered by use of the radar. Using the car to load sticky bombs and catch up to Striders made it feel like more than just a way to get around.

This doesn't control like a stealth game at all, but it was refreshing to see them add sections where you have to move deliberately to avoid detection like crouching through the scrapyard with the gun turret.

The encounters with waves of enemies always felt balanced between overwhelming and possible. The auto-turret standoff with ant-lions coming down the tunnels and the Combine encounter in the town start simple and slow-paced at first but quickly become a frenetic run-and-gun à la Doom.

It's hard to forgive the ending of this game, not only because it ends on a massive cliffhanger but to think there still hasn't been a Episode Three or HL3 over a decade later. As of writing this, I'm just starting Half-Life: Alyx, but since it's a prequel I'm not really expecting any resolution.