I finally bought myself a PS4 last week. Mostly to play Destiny, but also to revisit Naughty Dogs' games; The previous Uncharted games and The Last Of Us are so much better when they're not held back by the PS3 hardware, it's astonishing (Although the visual polish for Uncharted 1 highlights its shortcomings in terms of game design rather drastically).
Anyway, this week Uncharted 4 came out. As a fan of the series, I was kinda obligated to check it out, and oh boy is it good. In terms of sheer wow factor, this is one of the first games I've played where it's clear that this is definitely a new generation of videogame tech; The vistas this game presents without ever dropping below a buttery smooth framerate, the animation quality, the fact that almost nothing in it is prerendered (The Uncharted series has always tried its best to avoid loading screens, using movies to cover scene changes).
In terms of gameplay, Naughty Dog has for some reason decided to change the control scheme for this one, a decision which is really irritating given that said scheme stayed more or less constant for the previous games (and has been changed to be constant for the Remastered versions).
Storywise, I feel like this isn't ND's best work. A lot of this is due to the early game needing to set up the relationship between Nate and his long-lost Brother, a person who hasn't been mentioned at all prior to that point. I am not finished with the game yet, but it feels to me like one of the characters introduced in earlier games (like Chloe or Cutter from Uncharted 2 and 3) could have filled his role in the narrative just as well.
But whatever. It's a new Uncharted game, and if you've loved the series so far (or games like the most recent Tomb Raiders), chances are you're gonna enjoy this one too.
