When I finally pushed myself to betray the great master race and got a PS4, the first game that I knew as a gamer I should be playing would be the renowned Uncharted series, a masterpiece in game engineering and development that pushed the boundaries of what the PS4 could give to us. I was blown away by the sheer beauty that all four games provided me, knowing that the first game, despite being visually stunning, but had a slight drag to it, still satisfied me when the credits rolled and I was looking forward to diving into the second, third and fourth game. When I finish the fourth game I was devastated as I had to admit, it was one of the best series that I ever had the pleasure to play. It was like watching the last episode of the last season of a favourite TV series, it left me with one thought in my mind, “what do I do now”. Then, they announced Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and I was once again overfilled with a purpose. Let’s put the melodrama aside and dive into the new entry into the Uncharted series.
I think I don’t need to say this but this review will contain multiple spoilers, so if you are looking to come into the game blind, this is where you stop reading. That aside, the new entry takes place after the end of the last game and follows the adventures of Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross on an adventure into the jungles of India to discover a long-lost civilization that Chloe’s father was researching and locating but never managed to find in his life time. You play as smart witted Chloe accompanied by Nadine who lost her company, Shoreline, during the events of the fourth game and is hoping to recover it with the riches that they will find in the jungles of India. This gives to players an interesting dynamic from the duos, front being business partners to being long lost friends that they never knew they were as the game progress.
Design
If you have played the fourth game, then the game will have a very similar art style, beautiful lighting and shadows will still be seen in this game alongside the full motion acting that Naughty Dog is renowned for. Playing the game feels more like being a director playing out the movements of an action movie as every action and events feel like something Michel Bay would direct. Temples and dark caverns are beautiful to observe and that is even better with the Photo Mode that they included from the previous entry, and the landscape will make your jaw drop as the jungles of India looks so breath taking and you could simply pan the camera for hours looking at the trees sway in the wind.
Gameplay
Again, similar to the previous games, the epic gun fights make a comeback and the cover system that is also vital to survivability has been slightly polished making it easier to take cover, but the opponents A.I. seem to have been a tad bit improved, knowing that you are taking cover and using sneaky tactics to approach you from another direction and for those of you that are unaware of your surroundings, it forces you to be constantly on the move, hiding from cover to cover while shooting back at the enemies.
However, the open world was slightly disappointing as they don’t really give you the option to explore seeing as how they already marked the maps on locations that you should visit, making it unnecessary to do the exploration yourself. There aren’t many events that take place while travelling to your destination other than the small groups of patrols that are easy to avoid if you are driving the jeep.
The Bad
Now you might think that this game is another gem that Sony had the chance to bring to their system, but the game feels like it’s not very polished. Sometimes if you pan the camera beyond its limits, the textures and landscape seem to flicker and sometimes disappear, disorientating you tremendously. There were also instances where certain events do not trigger making you reload the chapter and playing it again in hopes that you do not run into the game breaking bugs.
Naughty Dog did mention that when they had some issues making the game fit into ten hours and they were working hard to solve that, but what came out was a rushed story that does not give you enough time to absorb the current story of the area before moving into the next stage or scene. I did wish that they took their time with it making it into a full blown game rather than something like the Last of Us: Left Behind which had a similar length but felt like it took its time in establishing the characters and stories.
