Now Playing: Uncharted: A Thief’s End

I picked up the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on Steam during the winter sale. I was originally going to play and review A Thief’s End and The Lost Legacy expansion together but, after finishing End, I didn’t want to jump straight into Legacy. The plan now is to return to and review the expansion separately at a later date.

Uncharted: A Thief’s End is my first Uncharted game. I’m obviously familiar with the series in terms of its popularity, but I’ve never actually played any of the games before. I wasn’t sure jumping into A Thief’s End which is the fourth and (final?) game in the series was the best idea.

But I’m pleased to say that the game does a pretty decent job of establishing its characters and their history for a new player. I never felt like I was missing important context or information and I felt the game did a pretty remarkable job of investing me in this story and these characters despite this being my first Uncharted game.

It’s rare I can just say a game has a really good, well written story and characters, but that’s exactly what A Thief’s End delivers. I was totally engaged by the plot and really came to care about the fate of these people thanks to the great dialogue and perfect VA. Despite the sometimes crazy, over-the-top situations, the game always felt very grounded from a character perspective.

The story, the way the narrative unfolds, the characters and their dialogue – these are easily the strongest parts of the game. It’s a fun, old-school pirate treasure hunt but it’s also a clever and I think worthy finale for the character of Nathan Drake – if indeed it is his last adventure. Now, because I’ve not played the other games, maybe I’m not the best person to judge but I don’t think fans of the character will be disappointed by how his story ends.

So it gets the story right, but what about the gameplay? I must admit, A Thief’s End doesn’t get off to the most compelling start. Although I was engaged by the story, the actual gameplay felt rather lacklustre. The levels are balanced between a combination of exploration and combat and that balance just didn’t feel quite right during the early chapters of the game.

The exploration sequences were either too short or too long, and the combat sections were spoiled by some bland, unexciting environments. I wouldn’t say any of it was bad. It was all fine, but nothing special. Thankfully, the game picks up significantly once you reach Madagascar a little under half way through the game.

That’s when the gameplay of A Thief’s End really starts to live up to the excellent story. The levels are much better paced in terms of both exploration and combat. The balance between the two is pretty much spot on. The puzzles become more complex and enjoyable.

The environments feel better designed for the action, and then you throw in some excellent cinematic action sequences on top. Madagascar is the point where A Thief’s End goes from being okay to play, to pretty damn fantastic. It’s just a shame the previous chapters are kind of dull in comparison.

Visually, A Thief’s End looks pretty damn good. The character models and their animations are all great – aside from the odd times when Nathan’s limbs twist at odd angles when you’re climbing. The environments are also great. There’s a good selection of weapons although the enemy selection is a little repetitive. It’s certainly not the best third person, cover based shooter I’ve played, but it’s engaging enough and it does the job.

You know, I don’t really have much more to say about A Thief’s End. It’s a game I’m very impressed with and I really don’t have any real complaints aside from those somewhat weak (but certainly not bad) opening levels. But, once you’re through those, the game picks up significantly and delivers an extremely enjoyable adventure.

I really hope they bring the Nathan Drake Collection to PC now. I’ve heard the earlier games are not as good as this one but I’d really like to go back and see how this series progressed from the beginning. If you’ve not played Uncharted before, be sure to pick this one up and try it out.

8/10

Gallery: Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Now Playing: Sable

I claimed a free copy of Sable through the Epic store some time ago and added it to the ever growing pile of free Epic games that I rarely get around to actually playing. But, finally, I gave Sable a shot. I’m sure it caught my eye during an E3 event or something a few years ago thanks to its distinctive art style, but I didn’t really know much about the game.

In Sable you play as . . . Sable, a young girl embarking upon a rite of passage known as the Gliding in which she is bestowed with the power to . . . glide. I don’t really get why, but that’s how it works. As part of the Gliding, Sable must venture from her home and explore the world in order to collect badges relating to various trades. Once Sable has three of a particular badge she can create a mask related to that trade.

The Gliding is all about Sable figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. As you explore the world you’ll encounter a lot of people happy to assign Sable various tasks with the prospect of a badge as a reward.

Traversing the world of Sable is primarily done through the use of your hover bike. As you explore you’ll discover or purchase new parts you can use to customise your bike. It’s not the most robust system of customisation – only 3 changeable parts and colours – but the parts do impact the speed, acceleration and handling of the bike which does give the bike a different feel in terms of how it performs.

The bike is, overall, fun to ride but it’s certainly best suited to more flat terrain and there’s a few areas of the world in Sable where it can feel kind of annoying to ride because the terrain is so uneven and your bike feels like it’s constantly getting tossed about.

Aside from your bike, you’ll also spend a fair amount of time climbing. The game uses a Breath of the Wild style stamina system in the sense that nearly every surface can be climbed but you have a limited pool of stamina that determines how much you can climb before Sable will need to stop and rest. This stamina pool can be increased, however, by collecting chum eggs which are, more or less, like the korok seeds in BOTW.

The world of Sable is pretty desolate but if you see anything that looks even slightly interesting then the chances are you’ll find something there, even if it’s just a small chest or another chum. This really does encourage and reward exploration which is, really, the heart of the game. The only real ‘main’ quest is to find a mask but beyond that, you’re free to go where you wish and engage with the quests as much or as little as you want to.

And there’s lots of neat stuff in Sable that’s not marked and not tied to any quests. There’s just cool stuff to find if you take the time to explore. The quests, of course, do provide some direction and typically send you to the main landmarks of each region. They are, for the most part, all fetch quests which might sound kind of terrible but the game does a good job of mixing up the locations and what you need to do to acquire the items you need.

And it does make sense, I suppose, that Sable is given what many see as rather tedious tasks – she, like others on their Gliding before her, is doing these tasks not just to explore, but to help others on her journey and gain a greater understanding of the various trades she might wish to choose.

And something I really like about Sable is the characters and the dialogue. There’s no VA in the game – it’s all written text. And I love how succinct it all is. It’s tight. Conversations are short and punchy. I’ve played too many games where characters ramble on in ways that feel entirely unnatural and annoying. Not in Sable. They get that aspect perfect.

There’s no combat in Sable. The world isn’t dangerous and there’s no hostile creatures. It’s kind of refreshing. Sable is a more sedate game focused on exploration and that’s fine with me. Combat would have felt horribly out of place.

I can’t review Sable and not talk about those wonderful visuals. The art style and animations are all fantastic. There’s not a moment that the game doesn’t look good and your screenshot folder will fill up fast. The music and audio is also great. That said, the game does suffer from some technical issues and bugs – poor optimisation in some regions when using your hover bike, bad pathfinding for some npcs as they get stuck walking against scenery, and some badly placed world objects that float above the terrain. It’s pretty minor stuff, but it’s a shame the game isn’t as polished as it deserves.

The world of Sable is very cool and interesting, full of ancient ruins and crashed starships. I really never got tired of exploring it. It also helps that the world is split into different regions each with its own visual style. And there is a welcome fast travel option to any major landmark on the map for those times when you don’t fancy a long bike ride.

What else? You can find various pieces of clothing for Sable but these, sadly, are cosmetic only, so they don’t have any real use beyond playing dress up. There’s no levels or experience to gain. There’s no skill trees. No crafting. No ‘points of interest’ or collectibles littering your map. Sable is a game that strips back so much crap that clutters up modern games and focuses purely on what really matters – your journey, the characters and the world.

I’m not saying these things are all bad but too often they’re shoved in when they don’t need to be and don’t really add anything meaningful or interesting to the experience. They’re only there because they’re ‘expected’ to be. I think that’s why I found Sable so refreshing to play. It’s not a perfect game, but it looks gorgeous and has simple, but engaging gameplay. You’re exploring not because the game is telling you to but because you want to.

It’s very evocative of Breath of the Wild in that sense and that’s clearly a game the developers took inspiration from. I think if you liked BOTW you’ll also enjoy Sable. It may be a smaller, more simple game but it’s got a lot of heart and a cool sci-fi world that feels cohesive and perfectly realised. In fact, I liked it so much I might pick up the Steam version in the future to play it again.

8/10

Sons of the Forest: First Impressions

I enjoyed The Forest in solo and co-op so I was very interested in a potential sequel that I hoped would expand and refine the original game and improve upon some its weaker aspects. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Sons of the Forest released into Early Access. I wanted to try this early release and share my initial impressions, but with plenty of other games lined up to play and lots of actual work to do, I didn’t (and couldn’t) get too stuck into it just yet. So these impressions are based upon only 7 hours of play.

And to be honest, after those 7 hours I’m kind of happy to put this one down for now and wait for some more updates to roll out. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy what I played, but in terms of being a sequel and my expectations for a sequel, Sons of the Forest, in its current state, is a little disappointing. Because right now it’s just more Forest. It doesn’t really do anything the original didn’t and it doesn’t really do it as good.

Visually, Sons is obviously a significant step up. I really can’t fault the visuals, although I do think they either need to make the night less dark, or make ‘lighter’ nights an option. It gets dark on the island around 6pm and, regardless of a clear sky or not, everything suddenly becomes pitch black. It’s like you’ve suddenly been swallowed by a black hole.

This means that from 6pm onwards you can’t really do anything. Even trying to traverse with a torch is an absolute pain. You just have to sleep – if the annoying cannibal AI will let you, which is an issue I’ll touch upon later.

Like Forest, Sons sees you crash on a mysterious island. There’s a story that in order to progress through you’ll need to explore several different caves to retrieve key items. I’ve only explored a couple of caves in my time with the game and I have to say they were both a little disappointing compared to those of the original.

They were both short and very linear and neither really invoked that sense of fear and confusion those in the original had with their winding, diverging paths, or how they linked up to other cave systems. Maybe there are more complex caves in the game and I just didn’t see them, but of the few I did, they weren’t particularly inspiring.

And then we have the survival aspects in which you can build shelters and gather materials and craft tools and it’s all good stuff and I really do like the new building system but at the same time, there’s less stuff to build in Sons than in the original. In my view, a sequel should not only be refining what we had but building upon it. Sons does refine the building / crafting systems but right now, it offers less options and that’s also pretty disappointing.

One of the best things about the original was the cannibals on the island and their AI. Once again, I wanted to see a refinement and improvement of the original but Sons, in its current state, is a lot worse. In the original game I could go for days without seeing them if I was careful, avoided their camps and didn’t draw too much attention.

In Sons, however, they seem to swarm around me almost as soon as I step outside of the starting area. They’re not hostile, they just won’t leave me the f**k alone. And this causes real problems with Kelvin, your friendly AI. I love the idea of Kelvin. Being able to send him off to collect materials and do some of the tedious busywork is a great idea and just the kind of new and interesting system I want to see in a sequel.

Unfortunately, as soon as Kelvin sees the cannibals he tends to drop whatever you’ve assigned him to do. And because the cannibals seem to constantly follow you about, it makes Kelvin kind of useless. It also makes sleeping a real pain because the cannibals keep running around your camp and waking you up.

And when you do find a nice spot to build, even if you think you’ve managed to lose them, as soon as one tree hits the ground, another group appears. Even if I don’t attack them, they turn hostile and I’m forced to kill them but once I do, the bodies just disappear and more spawn in. They also have the annoying ability to hit you through walls, or even glitch through walls and into your base. That’s where I quit the game. It was impossible to do anything because I was constantly being attacked – and this was on Day 3 on Normal.

Maybe this was just a bug, but I’ve seen plenty of people complaining about it on the Steam forums. Maybe it’s just an AI aggression trigger that’s not working correctly. I don’t know. I never had this problem in the original so I know it’s not the way I’m playing. It’s like they just lock on to you as soon as you leave the starting area and it’s almost impossible to shake them. And even if you do, they can seemingly just spawn in, one group after another, right on top of you. Their AI clearly needs work.

And finally I have to talk more about Kelvin. In theory, he’s a really cool addition. In practice, his AI is also kind of bad. He’ll frequently wander off, ignoring your orders. He’ll drop anything he’s doing as soon as he sees a cannibal which is . . . often, as I’ve described. He can’t fight. He’s also prone to walking into your fire and setting himself on fire or running continuously into a wall.

If you tell him to gather logs he’s liable to cut down trees that you’ve used for your structures, resulting in their total collapse. I guess it’s kind of funny for the internet memes but at this point, I think I’d prefer to just kill him at the start and play without him.

Overall, I can’t really recommend Sons of the Forest in its current release state and I’m pretty disappointed that the game, aside from its visuals, offers less than the original. I’m fine with an Early Access release but I would have expected Sons, as a sequel, to still offer as much as the original did in order to then build upon that over time. Instead, it’s going to take time for Sons to even reach the same level of content as Forest.

Despite my issues, I do still kind of want to keep playing it because I do still find it compelling to play. But for now, I think I’ll wait and see what updates roll out. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.