Video Game Review: Uncharted (The Nathan Drake Collection)

My husband has been bugging me about this game. After about three years since he began telling me about it, I finally took the plunge.

I played it on the PS4, and since I wanted to start from the beginning, I began with the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection, which has the first three games in the series.

Uncharted 1: Drake's Fortune

This was a pretty short game. My first impression was that it was a lot like Tomb Raider. The linear storyline, the shooting (and finding amo), the climbing...

I got very stressed at first because the bad guys ambush you, but I soon learned to duck and cover and that made it all better. Don't make fun, but I played it on Easy. Even so, I got so stressed out by the bad guys coming at me at the same time.

And I died a lot. A LOT. But at least the game didn't have me redo everything from scratch. The auto-saves are many and when I died (mostly because I fell of a cliff—although I was shot to death quite a bit too) you come back almost where you died. That made things less frustration.

Or . . . less frustrating until I got to the last few chapters, where things that looked like the Morlocks in Time Machine showed up growling and scratching. And so many of them! That part I didn't like. It felt like I was being chased by zombies and I don't like zombie videogames at all.

I did have to replay several scenes with these zombie-morlock. I didn't enjoy that part. 

Nathan Drake is so likable, though. That made it easier to continue the game despite the zombie-morlocks. Overall, I enjoyed the game very much. It reminded me of Tomb Raider. And it was short. Too short perhaps. Less than ten hours. Now, onto the second installment.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

The second Uncharted was a bit longer (but not by much) and a little more difficult than the first one.

I felt the bad guys came at you more violently than before. Instead of staying in their hiding place shooting at you, sometimes they just came over to try to shoot your in the face. The game's playing dynamic is pretty much the same, but now some of the bad guys have missiles and more of them have laser sniper guns.

This game didn't have the same zombie-morlocks, but they had a similar creature that also growled and came at me. This time, they could shoot guns and swing missiles at you, too! Not very nice.

I'm glad they got the same voice actor to play Nate. I love him. I love the story just because he's so likable. I also played it on easy, but it felt like hard mode. I don't think I'm bad at playing videogames. I'm average, I think. But this game was the right difficulty on easy. I also died a lot. And I didn't collect most of the treasures because they were harder to find this time.

It was still a short game compared to other RPGs. I think I played for about twelve hours. It was still pretty fun, but by far the most annoying final boss so far.

And finally, there's the third installment.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Before I start talking about this game, I have to say that it's the best game so far because it has that amazing sinking boat sequence. Yep. Enough said.

Now onto my other thoughts about the game...

I really enjoyed Uncharted 3. The graphics were better and I liked how Nate moved around (more naturally). The game play was basically the same. Although in this game you had to figure out which weapon to use at some points of the game or you couldn't advance. Realizing it was the wrong weapon that kept killing me was a bit annoying, but oh well.

This game had some great sequences, which I really enjoyed, and Nate went to all kinds of places. The story, as always, was a lot of fun. I think this is one of the few game franchises where I don't hurry up the animation. Nate is just too likable—at least to me.

This game also didn't have a complicated boss fight at the end, which I really liked. It was more character driven and running away (because Nate always seems to destroy the final "dungeon" in some way. One last thing I'll say about this game, is how nice to see old characters pop in. Sully, Elena, and Chloe are now favorites and I hope we keep getting a glimpse of them in the titles to come.

I can't wait to start Uncharted 4!

Cheers!