This review contains spoilers
20
Clearing My Backlog #4
I’m astounded as to how this game spawned a whole ass franchise after it, considering how straight up awful the first one is. I guess it probably helped that it sold well but the actual quality found in here is not good… even when compared to other 2007 games, such as Bioshock, God of War II, and the critically acclaimed Ratatouille! It’s even crazier to think that Batman: Arkham Asylum came out less than two years later. This game wasn’t good then and it’s even worse now.
The characters being likeable is pretty much the only thing Uncharted has going for it—without that, it’d be a miserable experience from start to finish; however luckily, the interactions between them are funny, charming, and entertaining, which makes up for the lack of depth found in all of them. It’s pretty funny how they clearly had no intention of expanding on the characters’ backstories—or so it seems—with how the characters react to certain situations. For example, Sully gets shot and seemingly dies right in front of Nate, and it doesn’t seem like he cares that much? Especially in the next scene where he’s basically like “Sully’s dead, anyways…”. These characters are supposed to share a lot more history together so seeing dialogue this un-future-proof takes me out of it instantly, it's like they didn't plan anything beyond this first entry. There’s nothing interesting about the story, it’s all meaningless and devoid of any substance, especially when it takes a detour in the second half of the game to throw you into a bunker filled with… nazi zombies? That was weird. And that final chapter, what the fuck? Probably one of the worst boss fights I’ve ever played. The villains are horrible too, they’re very generic bad guys who have boring motives and aren’t memorable whatsoever.
As for the gameplay loop, it’s pretty much just a shooting room, followed by another shooting room, then a very simple symbol-matching puzzle, followed by a boring climbing section, and then another shooting room, with some occasional set pieces in between; only one of which was actually fun to play (the truck one). There’s three different occasions where you’ll be forced to use a jet ski, and I’m baffled as to why they thought that would be fun, seeing as it’s an absolute nightmare to control. The shooting sections aren’t inherently bad or anything, but this game throws them at you constantly with almost no variety, it doesn’t help that it feels very clunky thanks to its enemy behaviour, their health, the amount of damage they inflict, and how they can fucking shoot you through walls and cover at all times. They can also spawn out of nowhere; like you’ll literally clear out a room and then die from behind because you were apparently supposed to push up more, pair that up with the frustrating checkpoints and you get some really annoying/monotonous gameplay. Side note: there are these weird QTE’s that happen at random points in the game and they feel so out of place, it’s even more strange that they only appear like three times? Hopefully the next game removes them entirely.
Some random notes:
- The soundtrack, especially Nate's Theme SLAPS like holy shit listen to this, it’s probably one of the best themes I’ve ever heard in any game.
- The graphics hold up pretty well, although the setting doesn’t really lend itself well because of how boring it is (forests/jungles suck).
- The mocap is one of the things that really stood out to me, it’s actually surprising how good it still looks, there’s a lot of weight behind Nate’s movements and that’s something I really appreciate.
- When I went for the brutal trophy, it felt extremely unfair as to how the enemies could just kill you as soon as you got control of Nate, leading to many RNG moments where you just had to hope they would miss, which is very lazy difficulty scaling.
Playtime: 27.2 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Playstation Exclusives - Ranked
Naughty Dog - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog
Uncharted - Ranked
2007 - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog #4
I’m astounded as to how this game spawned a whole ass franchise after it, considering how straight up awful the first one is. I guess it probably helped that it sold well but the actual quality found in here is not good… even when compared to other 2007 games, such as Bioshock, God of War II, and the critically acclaimed Ratatouille! It’s even crazier to think that Batman: Arkham Asylum came out less than two years later. This game wasn’t good then and it’s even worse now.
The characters being likeable is pretty much the only thing Uncharted has going for it—without that, it’d be a miserable experience from start to finish; however luckily, the interactions between them are funny, charming, and entertaining, which makes up for the lack of depth found in all of them. It’s pretty funny how they clearly had no intention of expanding on the characters’ backstories—or so it seems—with how the characters react to certain situations. For example, Sully gets shot and seemingly dies right in front of Nate, and it doesn’t seem like he cares that much? Especially in the next scene where he’s basically like “Sully’s dead, anyways…”. These characters are supposed to share a lot more history together so seeing dialogue this un-future-proof takes me out of it instantly, it's like they didn't plan anything beyond this first entry. There’s nothing interesting about the story, it’s all meaningless and devoid of any substance, especially when it takes a detour in the second half of the game to throw you into a bunker filled with… nazi zombies? That was weird. And that final chapter, what the fuck? Probably one of the worst boss fights I’ve ever played. The villains are horrible too, they’re very generic bad guys who have boring motives and aren’t memorable whatsoever.
As for the gameplay loop, it’s pretty much just a shooting room, followed by another shooting room, then a very simple symbol-matching puzzle, followed by a boring climbing section, and then another shooting room, with some occasional set pieces in between; only one of which was actually fun to play (the truck one). There’s three different occasions where you’ll be forced to use a jet ski, and I’m baffled as to why they thought that would be fun, seeing as it’s an absolute nightmare to control. The shooting sections aren’t inherently bad or anything, but this game throws them at you constantly with almost no variety, it doesn’t help that it feels very clunky thanks to its enemy behaviour, their health, the amount of damage they inflict, and how they can fucking shoot you through walls and cover at all times. They can also spawn out of nowhere; like you’ll literally clear out a room and then die from behind because you were apparently supposed to push up more, pair that up with the frustrating checkpoints and you get some really annoying/monotonous gameplay. Side note: there are these weird QTE’s that happen at random points in the game and they feel so out of place, it’s even more strange that they only appear like three times? Hopefully the next game removes them entirely.
Some random notes:
- The soundtrack, especially Nate's Theme SLAPS like holy shit listen to this, it’s probably one of the best themes I’ve ever heard in any game.
- The graphics hold up pretty well, although the setting doesn’t really lend itself well because of how boring it is (forests/jungles suck).
- The mocap is one of the things that really stood out to me, it’s actually surprising how good it still looks, there’s a lot of weight behind Nate’s movements and that’s something I really appreciate.
- When I went for the brutal trophy, it felt extremely unfair as to how the enemies could just kill you as soon as you got control of Nate, leading to many RNG moments where you just had to hope they would miss, which is very lazy difficulty scaling.
Playtime: 27.2 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Playstation Exclusives - Ranked
Naughty Dog - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog
Uncharted - Ranked
2007 - Ranked