Uncharted: Chloe Raider

[bork]

Out on 8/22!  People are saying it approaches Uncharted 2 levels of greatness.

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Chloe has come a long way.

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[Himu]

Never heard of this. Looks great.

[bork]

Never heard of this. Looks great.

It's story DLC for Uncharted 4, but is also being sold as a standalone game.  You also get the UC4 multiplayer modes (versus and co-op) with all the DLC included.  The game by itself is $39.99.  Not sure how much it is as UC4 DLC. 

[chronovore]

I'd love to complain about how Chloe is a rip off of Lara Croft, but Lara was basically Indiana Jones with boobs, and then LucasArts made that one horrible Indy Jones game which was just Tomb Raider without boobs.

So… whatever, man, that's just, like, your opinion…

[MMaRsu]

Eh

 Its chloe

Meh

[bork]

Eh

 Its chloe

Meh

No, it's awesome.  It's far from "meh."  The vibe I'm getting from the game is more like Uncharted 2, so I'm already liking it more than UC4.  The game has much better pacing than UC4 did.

My only complaint is that there's too much motion blur and while you can tone it down, you can't turn it off. 

Don't have much else to say because well...it's Uncharted.  You know the drill.  You either like these games or you don't.

[bork]

Is nobody playing this or do we just have nothing else to really say? 

[Positive Touch]

i liked all the first three uncharted games but that's all I've played. u4 is still over $20 and this is like $40 so they'll have to wait.

[bork]

[archnemesis]

I bought it on a whim and I hope to have time to play it this weekend.

[bork]

My place with the franchise is I dislike the first one, love the second one, thought the third one had glaring flaws but I enjoyed, really liked the fourth while having issues with it's pacing and walking simulator bits.

If this is more like U2 like people are saying, then a big ol' fuck yeah from me. Especially since you get to play as bae this time.

So far have only been in a "walking simulator" scenario in the beginning of the game.  But it's short enough and then gets right into the action.  You then end up in an open-world type area and can tackle the objectives in any order and go find stuff/take out gangs of enemies.  Dunno what's gonna happen after clearing this area...my assumption is more linear levels after it.

[Himu]

I beat the fuck out of UC2. Love that game.

Love UC4 too.

[bork]

Finished the 'open-world' chapter (4) last night.  I'm not sure exactly how long it took, but to get to what I believe is everything you can do on that map probably was around 2-2.5 hours of play time.  Maybe a little longer.  Most of what you can do here is entirely optional.  If you go for it, your reward is:

(Non-story spoiler)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

A bracelet that emits a sound from the controller when treasure you can find is nearby.   You can toggle it on/off in the options and it stays in your inventory when you replay older levels as well.

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If you want to do everything on the map in this chapter, be sure to go to the question mark point first.  It will help to reveal various locations you need to go to.  I didn't do this until I already found half of them on my own, lol.  Probably could have saved a bit of time if I had gone there first, but you really can do things on this level in any order, so that's cool.

And as expected, you go right back into a more linear level after finishing this.  Makes me wonder if Chapter 4 by itself was originally the DLC they had planned for UC4.

[Rahxephon91]

Finished it. It was pretty good, I mean it's just  more uncharted 4 but UC4's main problem with me is that it was a little too long. Legacy is pretty short and had a pretty breezy pace. So I never felt bored. It also felt more stealth focused and less about the verticality of the levels like UC4 did. Still the combat situations didn't have that start and stop feel of UC1.

The story (and really game itself) were really small scale, so nothing really epic. Yet, Chloe and Nadine are really fun and the game did'nt really hit you over the head with Chloe's backstory.  Maybe the scale here helped, a bigger version of this would probably have flashback Chloe Kid levels and all that crap. This doesn't and the story is honestly better for it. I don't need to see every part of her backstory, I get it from simple conversations.

Pretty good game.

I wish more developers would do this engine/asset resuse to make smaller, but still polished and up there with production value side games. Things like Lost Legacy, Halo ODST, and Ballad of Gay Toney still feel like worthwhile single player games and I'm sure didn't cost that much to make.

[Bebpo]

This game's pretty great and Chloe is a fantastic lead. I can't believe these visuals. Game looks like a goddamn painting.

[bork]

Just finished the game and absolutely loved it.  Was way more fun than UC4 and I agree with Rahx that the shorter game and pacing is what made it so good.  It never felt like anything was dragging on and I kept looking forward to seeing what was going to happen next.  The last few levels really delivered on the action, too.  I don't know if this tops UC2 for me, but it's definitely the #2 Uncharted right behind it.  An absolute blast to play.

Story spoiler:

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I didn't expect to see Sam Drake pop up but figured whoever was helping Asad had to be a familiar character.  I was thinking Sully.  He was a fun addition.

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This game's pretty great and Chloe is a fantastic lead. I can't believe these visuals. Game looks like a goddamn painting.

I wish some of the filter options were available from the start.  Cel-shading

[TVC15]

I still can't believe they had Nathan marry that vanilla bitch Elena. Chloe was a far more interesting babe.

[Bebpo]

You know, the worst part of Uncharted is always the combat sections. Like I appreciate that U4 improved the stealth from U2 so if you really hate the combat and like stealth gaming you can basically avoid most of the fights. But then I just did one of those U4 APC turret sections and ughhhh those were not so great in U4 and this was not so great here.

Also the dialogue is very well written and Chloe is a super good lead, but where I'm at just past the APC stuff the story beats are kinda bad and why does every Uncharted had a lame antagonist. Just feels really contrived and forced drama. It's just weird because the chit chat character development between the two is really well done.

[demi]

Uncharted stories got wack when they got spooked from super natural stuff like the undead people in U1

[Bebpo]

Uncharted stories got wack when they got spooked from super natural stuff like the undead people in U1

Eh, this bothered me in U4 that there was no supernatural twist, but by LL that ship has sailed and it doesn't bother me.

[bork]

The one thing about the lack of anything supernatural here is that it makes one aspect of the story kind of a head scratcher:

(Story spoilers regarding the last few levels)

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What was the point of Asav looking for the tusk if he was just going to trade it for a bomb?  He had a shitload of valuable artifacts already in his collection that is shown in the beginning of the game.  Didn't exactly seem that hard up for the cash to buy some more weaponry.

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[Bebpo]

This is easily the best looking game I've played in my life. It's not just that ND has the tech, they seriously have the best artists & art directors out there. There's like 300 rooms/sets that all look like paintings. In another game the main sets would look like art and everything between would be a hallway but here every step of the way looks like somebody painted it first and then they recreated each landscape. It really is mind blowing.

[Bebpo]

Finished this, took me 8 hours on the dot. The graphics were amazing, the character dialogue was fantastic and Chloe is just as good as Nathan, the highlight of the game was definitely the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sandbox area. At first I wasn't feeling it that much but once I got the hang of the navigation and did all the side puzzles, it was a gorgeous fun area to explore and have a blast with.

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Problem being that everything after while good and gorgeous never really reaches those highs again outside one part

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The elephant ride.

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One of the issues is that other than those parts, the rest doesn't feel particularly fresh and just feels like the same old same old Uncharted. For instance

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The final bit on the train while visually cool, was like "ok, already did this in Uncharted 2", sure it's a throwback to that, but it doesn't feel like anything in the finale is fresh and new. We've done the jumping from jeeps before, we've done the fist fights (which are pretty terrible, I preferred U4's fencing final boss to this punching final boss). And while it was all kinda visually impressive, after they got captured and got the tusk the rest of the game just felt a bit boring for me because the mystery of the ancient civilization was over, and all that was left was traditional climbing, shooting, helicopter fights and the final train sequence which was all been there, done that. I enjoyed it but also kinda tuned out after they left the ruins.

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Also while as I mentioned the character writing is great and snappy and funny and develops the cast nicely, the story beats were pretty mediocre imo. The main characters would constantly get captured out of nowhere whenever just because the plot makes it so rather than actually feeling natural events leading to it. They'd always escape just as nonsensically. And when that happens multiple times it just felt really contrived. It's weird because I think TLoU plot is quite good but a lot of Uncharted games have weak stories and story beats especially with antagonists even if Uncharted games have snappy dialogue. Hmmm...

And I died so much in the last 25-30% of the game, it was a bit frustrating. I suck at Uncharted combat and the infinitely respawning enemies parts annoy the crap out of me. I prefer Uncharted when it's adventuring and puzzle solving. Even the stealth is kinda fun. But the non-stealth combat waves part just ugh, every Uncharted game from 3 onwards seems to have a handful of bullshit combat bits. LL doesn't really do a single thing to improve those bits unfortunately.

I'm really glad this wasn't just some DLC add-on. It feels like a full game, the only thing keeping it from feeling like Uncharted 1 quality full game is the variety (would've loved to have a large city section). Feels closer to a full game like Golden Abyss where it's smaller scale. Feeling like a full game is pretty satisfying and it's nice getting another Uncharted. It looks incredible, has good dialogue, the gameplay is generally fun (combat ymmv) and the one big section in the middle is incredible and one of the best gaming experiences this year. I'd give it like a B+

spoiler (click to show/hide)

If they ever did another Uncharted game, I'd really enjoy a sandbox Uncharted with multiple sandbox maps (city sandbox maps, jungle, desert, etc...) like the Western Ghats. Definitely feels like an idea that could be expanded, although Uncharted without ND, no idea who could pull it off.

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[Himu]

Make a final uncharted game playing as my girl Elena where she takes photos in dangerous locale. Pokemon Snap X Uncharted. It'd own. Takes advantage of Uncharted vistas and art design too.

[Bebpo]

Wow, we're like exact opposites on what parts we enjoyed. What was less than A+++ in the sandbox section? I can't think of a single thing. It had stuff to climb, bases to take out, driving, puzzles, and you got to do it in your own order and sometimes even your own non-linear way. Was a lot more fresh than do a little platforming -> shoot a bunch of guys -> walk a little -> repeat cycle that's the same thing since Uncharted 1.

[Bebpo]

Judging from your posts you play Uncharted more for the snappy dialog and sentimental moments than you do the game. Which is fine since the game does both very well. I see them as pop corn videogames, like good action/adventure flicks so I judge them by the set pieces and how those are executed including everything else. But those set pieces are the biggest reason for why I play the games, so to speak.

What? I basically said Uncharted games have bad stories  Yeah U4/LL/TLoU has good dialogue but uh, no I do not play these games for their writing.

(spoilers below for LL)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I play Uncharted for Tomb Raider adventuring, platforming, exploring, puzzle solving mixed with some combat and set pieces. Out of all of those I think the combat is the weakest link in the series still after 4 games. The set pieces are cool, but none of the ones in LL impressed me? Like LL felt budget in the set pieces compared to the crazy stuff that goes down in U2/U3/U4. I mean I thought the best looking and most exciting set piece was the opening escape in the city at the end of the intro chapter. The final chapter just didn't do it for me because fighting your way through a train has been done so much it wasn't really exciting to me. The only part I thought was cool was the running from the falling train bit at the very end but it was like 15 seconds.

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[bork]

Judging from your posts you play Uncharted more for the snappy dialog and sentimental moments than you do the game. Which is fine since the game does both very well. I see them as pop corn videogames, like good action/adventure flicks so I judge them by the set pieces and how those are executed including everything else. But those set pieces are the biggest reason for why I play the games, so to speak.

What? I basically said Uncharted games have bad stories  Yeah U4/LL/TLoU has good dialogue but uh, no I do not play these games for their writing.

(spoilers below for LL)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I play Uncharted for Tomb Raider adventuring, platforming, exploring, puzzle solving mixed with some combat and set pieces. Out of all of those I think the combat is the weakest link in the series still after 4 games. The set pieces are cool, but none of the ones in LL impressed me? Like LL felt budget in the set pieces compared to the crazy stuff that goes down in U2/U3/U4. I mean I thought the best looking and most exciting set piece was the opening escape in the city at the end of the intro chapter. The final chapter just didn't do it for me because fighting your way through a train has been done so much it wasn't really exciting to me. The only part I thought was cool was the running from the falling train bit at the very end but it was like 15 seconds.

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He didn't say the story...he said the dialogue.  And you did note more than once that you like the banter.

Also the dialogue is very well written and Chloe is a super good lead

.....

It's just weird because the chit chat character development between the two is really well done.

Also while as I mentioned the character writing is great and snappy and funny and develops the cast nicely

[chronovore]

https://magazine.artstation.com/2017/08/naughty-dog-uncharted-4-lost-legacy-art-blast/

Thought some of you might enjoy these concept pieces, some of which are 360º enabled.

[Bebpo]

I lent this to my brother and he said the same things as wrath, sandbox part = worst part, train part = great. I asked him on the sandbox part if he took the time to explore and do all the optional puzzles and he said no though. I still think the sandbox part is great if you want to explore and find secrets. That part feels like an adventure to me.

[El Babua]

Beat it tonight.

Really enjoyed it. A lot of it was basically fixing/improving on UC4 and the final section was basically just combining every big set piece in all the games into one, but holy hell did I enjoy it.

The open world section was good, but I wished the puzzles there were a bit more challenging/intricate. Liked the axe one but I could do without so many rotating wheels.

Overall, UC2 > LL > UC1 = UC4 > UC3 in terms of first time playthroughs. This one definitely didn't overstay its welcome and actually ended with a well designed end segment which the series never had till this point lol.