This video is over two hours long because it looks at four different games I've put breaks in each section So the video can be watched in pieces. There are links in the description. Each section is about 15 minutes long the reason I spend so much time looking at each game is because this is meant to function as both a critical analysis and a watchable plot synopsis meaning that even if you've never played these games I speak in depth enough about the gameplay and story that you should be able to Understand everything you should have a good grasp on what these games are all about after watching this video Which also means I'll be spoiling everything about them The Uncharted games are a series of PlayStation exclusives that were developed by naughty dog The first was drake's Fortune that released in 2007 then among thieves in 2009 followed by drake's Deception in 2011 all of them for the PlayStation 3 the fourth game in the series just came out a thief's end for PlayStation 4 You should also know that there was another game golden Abyss that released for the PlayStation Vita I haven't played that game so I won't be discussing it, but I thought it was worth mentioning I believe it's a prequel that set before drake's fortune The loss to us was also made by Naughty Dog and came out in 2013 Although it's not part of the Uncharted series it could be seen as something of a spiritual sequel by that I mean both games are third-person shooters with cover mechanics that share a Lot of features, but they are made drastically different from each other by some relatively small tweaks. We'll be taking a thorough Look at this game at the end of this video If the first three Uncharted games competed an Olympic event Then uncharted 2 & 3 would be left fighting over who gets gold and silver while uncharted one would be sulking at the bottom with A bronze medal but there's a vast difference between these two sides the gold and silver medals are real While the bronzes won't like a painted piece of plastic that's how sharp the Increasing quality is after the first one I'd go as far as to say that drake's Fortune isn't even a good game It's comfortably mediocre and would be outright terrible if it wasn't for the strong introduction it provides for the characters in the series It's a surreal thing to say about a game that parts of the story save it from being a waste of time Instead of the gameplay now I know I can often come across as a lot more negative than I really feel about a game especially in previous videos like Dragon's Dogma or even blood-borne or the witness? So I want to say right now that I think the other games in the series are good But also that I'm not exaggerating when I say how much I dislike the first game I played the demo of it when it first came out and I was so Unimpressed that I didn't get it it wasn't until after in charge 3 came out that I went back and played it and I'm shocked that such a weak game got A sequel of course I'm glad that it did because I'm charted 2 is such a big improvement But that in itself is a big surprise the major problems. It has they're mostly to do with its gameplay in length I went through all of the five games shown here in the same way in order to make this video by that I mean I didn't rush through all the content But I didn't inspect every corner of every area either I went through at a comfortable pace uncharted 2 & 3 took me about nine hours each to complete the last of us took 14 Uncharted 4 to 15 The first game only took 6 hours and despite this being the shortest of them all It also has the least amount of variety and its game playing setting and also recycles a lot of its content First however, let's look at the story even though it's the strongest part of the game It has its own massive issues parts of it make absolutely no sense. And there are long stretches of time that very little happens It's still strong. However, because it's carried by its characters. I will find her just how much trouble could one girl be Well, come on We open with a profound quote and a surprisingly smooth transition from a coffin underwater to after it seemed pulled onto a boat The two characters here are the focus of the series Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher Drake is the descendant of the famous explorer Francis Drake who is meant to be dead in the coffin that they just crawled up. Elena is a journalist that is funded Nathan's expedition to find the coffin so that she can record the whole thing and make a Documentary out of it. These characters have only just recently met before the game started and they're still a little awkward with each other Dirty this awkwardness can also be felt by the player since the dialogue in these games is saturated with attempts at sarcasm and witty lines Pretty much at every opportunity now I've said in the past that I'm sort of sick and tired of that it links back to a lot of action movies and TV Shows I'd argue that the closest thing that Uncharted gets to his fireflies since nathan is more captain Reynolds than he is Indiana Jones or Han Solo sometimes it even sounds like voice actor nolan north is trying to emulate Nathan Fillion in some of his lines Desperate times, right? What does that mean? I Believe on the wind, what does that mean? The writing gets better as the series goes on and that holds true here at the beginning It comes across like the characters are aware that they're in a game They talk to themselves and move and speak like they're actors rather than actual people This gets better as the game goes on and I'd say by the second game the problem has vanished completely Although it's possible that it's simply the player getting used to these characters and their mannerisms If anything the first game serves as a great foundation for Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher to have for the rest of the series This opening is also pretty good and establishing two other things in the games pirates attack and you have to fend them off with a pistol and using parts of the boat for cover and Eventually fighting them with your bare hands But Nathan's casual reaction to it also clearly shows that this is a usual day for him fighting is common for this man and either he's become desensitized to it or the game is Screaming at you that this isn't a story you're meant to take very seriously uncharted 2 to something similar that's opening that we'll see when we get to that game the problem here requires only a short rewind to See the game opens with that profound quote Every game in the series says actually and some of the plot points that happen later. Leave me wondering if Naughty Dog Themselves forgot that they weren't meant to take it seriously either. However, this isn't the problem in the first game more So the second and third the final major character in the series shows up at the end of the scene, Victor Sullivan Who is basically an older grumpier and occasionally wiser version of Nathan Drake? He's acquired a no-nonsense attitude in his older age yet He still puts up with a lot of shit from Nathan because they've known each other for so long The trio escape on his plane and recap a story safely away from the Pirates Francis Drake's Kaufman was emptied because he faked his death His journal was in there instead Which is full of clues needed to find El Dorado an ancient lost city of gold This begins a tradition that continues in every single Uncharted game including uncharted 4 There's some secret place full of riches as the end goal Some long dead explorer almost found it and failed but left a lot of clues and a trail to follow Nathan Drake and Friends try to find it while being hunted by another group that also want the treasure That's the basic skeleton of the plot that's used in all four games the flesh added to it is what's different each time Sully explains that he's over his head in debt and really needs this treasure hunt to end Well this time the scene that ends with Nathan and Sully dishing Elena They leave her at the fort and she acts like there's a stage of people watching her Should seen that one coming The next area is with Nathan and Sully they walk through a jungle together and speak about some of their old adventures It's decent enough dialogue and fills in some of the silence as you proceed through the level this place acts as a second tutorial there's no shooting just yet only some climbing and puzzle solving these add with the other main chunks of content in the series of the Uncharted game cycle through combat shooting or stealth Exploring usually climbing walls ruins or ledges puzzles We'll get to them in just a second set pieces some sort of unique lethal Situation that you need to play through and then Story movies that run without player control Puzzles in uncharted one are no different than the rest of the gameplay on offer here by that I mean that they're terrible the climbing isn't much better and has you following the only real path available to you in order to pass A wall or something else then you'll be pushing a box or moving a ladder these parts feel more like filler than outright bad But then you come to these puzzles that require you to look at your journal or Francis. Drake's notebook in this case The solutions are already given to you You just have to follow them some of the later puzzles in the game require a little more thought But they're more about trying to understand the clues in the book rather than looking at the puzzle instead here It's about using these shapes in the right order. That's it That's all this puzzle is other puzzles aren't much better and some of them leave you wondering why they even exists at all We'll get to them in a little bit this trek through the ruins ends in failure There's no lost city of gold. In fact, it looks like someone already beat them to the treasure decades earlier Regardless Nathan and Sully push on and find a marooned u-boat For some reason Nathan thinks this might be connected to the treasure and wants to investigate He gives Francis Drake's notebook the Sully before he leaves for absolutely no reason It's not like he's afraid of getting it wet either since he was already swimming earlier in this level, but it happens Anyway, you do some more complicated climbing to reach the u-boat, which is expanding on some of the experience You've gained climbing through the ruins earlier. This part looks good And the interior of the submarine is suitably wrecked inside you find out that Nathan's guest was somehow correct The Germans were also looking for the treasure because why not you learn that El Dorado is in the city at all But a giant golden statue you find the information needed to continue the search But Sully is attacked outside before you have a chance to use it Nathan knocks over torpedo on his way out which will show how much dumb luck the guy will benefit from through all the games That's probably bed Sully is being held captive outside by villains. So forgettable that I had to google his name in order to write this script Gabriel Roman Sully O's Roman a lot of money He used his latest wild goose chase with Nathan in order to buy some time But instead made Roman more interested in finding the treasure for himself Somehow he followed the two of them to this island He shoots Sully in the chest and kills him The rapido and Nathan knocked over explodes and gives him the chance to escape before it could be forced to find the treasure for Roman You run away immediately in a few seconds later who also followed you both to the island They quickly reconcile the differences since Sully has just been killed He fights some of Romans goons on your way back through the ruins you cleared earlier The combat is very simple hide behind cover anyone the enemy stop shooting pop off some headshots and continue on the sequence ends with you leaving with Elena and her car then you're Both in a plane flying to the next island, which honestly looks exactly like the same island You were just on a second ago And that really confused me when I first played Nathan doesn't seem to tour enough about his old friend being dead and is still cracking jokes and being sarcastic This could be seen as the continuation of the fake aid He maintains in order to appear like nothing fazes him and I do know that it's pronounced facade I just wanted one of you to lose your mind when I mispronounced it right there or it could be because Sully isn't really dead So the writers didn't think to use any time lamenting a character when he comes back later The plane comes under attack Nathan and Elena Bale a minute or so apart with parachutes and are separated when they land on the island at this point the story slows down immensely So this is the start of the terribleness and I'm tired one You're stuck on this island and in this environment for the rest of the game very quickly You meet some of Romans goons And you enter into a gunfight after gun fight after gun fight you move from one area which has tight cover to the next and it just keeps going with very few breaks for more story or interaction with any other characters It wouldn't be so bad except the combat is one of the most dull iterations of third-person with cover that I've ever played All the weapons feel the same. There are some variations on the same handgun an assault rifle. Then there are shotguns and sniper rifles It's standard stuff and you could make a strong argument And these combat encounters are here just as some filler gameplay sections to act as a break from some of the story sequences Unfortunately as is the case at this point in the game, they go on for too long and simply aren't interesting the other problem I have with them is that precision aiming for the gamepad never feels good to me now? I'm not saying that shooters can never work with a gamepad I know that some people have played enough console shooters that it can become second nature to them But uncharted 1 has bullet sponge enemies that can survive entire clips being unloaded into them Headshots are the best and most efficient way to get through the game But aiming with the analog sticks can feel like Nathan is trying to shoot while drunk a solution here is to tweak the controller Sensitivity settings, but this is trading one problem for another you can make it So the target reticule can move precisely enough to regularly aim properly, but then that aiming is painfully slow You can either be a drunk turret snapping from target the target or you can be a tank that should emit those loud beeping noises whenever you start to turn I should say that the shooting gets better with every game and the Loss to us has its own changes that I argue work in harmony these limitations But it's not something I think could ever be considered good or fun We'll discuss the shooting a little more in later games you continue through the jungle and get close to finding Elena you arrive at this ruined fort and go through one of the first grandiose climbing sections in the series the camera even zooms out to Give you this great. Look at what you'll be climbing. There's no real danger here You follow the only true path that's available to you. And that's it There's nothing else to do just follow the handholds and just keep going Nathan does all the work for you and you nudge him in the right direction There's another section like this before you get into the fort properly which ends with yet another long relentless series of gun battles Like the jungle before it the game really squeezes all the playtime I can out of this area two things happen here That are worth talking about the first being that this is where the idea behind the game is puzzle slash treasure hunt begins to deteriorate This Ford is crumbling apart. You find a locked door with a symbol on it which links back to your book guide? This leads you to a key that was stashed in a nearby Tower That's also falling apart that you need to open the door This was a deliberately placed trial for whoever is seeking out the treasure yet. This door doesn't lead anywhere it's simply another part of the fort that Romans goons had no trouble getting to but you Acrobatic Nathan Drake had to follow some elaborate trail in order to find the key to get through now I know this may seem incredibly Mickey even for me But I wouldn't bring it up at all If this didn't set the standard for every single puzzle waiting for us further into the game The other thing that happens here is that Nathan makes contact with his ancestor an undiscovered message from Francis Drake There should be a moment of reverence for our hero and it almost is but it's immediately interrupted with yet another Fucking gunfight like the game is so frightened of letting us go more than a few minutes without either climbing on some ledges or shooting something Elena is also in this fort She's filming a lot of the area since she's determined to still make a watchable show out of the expedition You're almost reunited with her but end up captured instead. The story finally resumes in this part is pretty good, Eddy Raja is your captor and apparently he and Nathan have some history They taunt each other while Elena is outside playing the hero to Nathan's damsel in distress, Eddy Raja is a less intimidating villain than Roman, but he's definitely more entertaining and interesting When Elena uses a car to rip off the wall of your prison he chases after you as you drive off This is one of the action set-pieces in the game You act as a turret on the back of the car that has infinite ammo you blow up other cars and bikes they're chasing after you You can also top a lot of trees that you pass which is what I found to be the most impressive part of the sequence It's an OK section, which ends with Nathan Elena risking a deadly fall rather than being captured again by Eddy Let's pick things up a bit. There's more shooting to do in the following sections, but now Elena is with you Nathan is someone to speak to and he moved through some of the flooded ruins on the island at a better pace rather than being Constantly stuck in the jungle on the fort It's important to know that Nathan actually wants to give up on the hunt for the treasure at this point It's Elena that pushes him to continue. She reasons that the way off the island is the next place They need to go to find the treasure anyway So why don't they do both and see what happens Nathan agrees and they continue on there's another vehicle section here That is the worst in the series the two of them riding on a jet ski Now this thing handles like you're riding on two cows hide together that hate each other It might have been okay if you could focus on speed and weave between Obstacles we have to constantly stop a name a grenade launcher with Elena in or declare a path I suppose in theory You could try to rush past everything in these sequences But the enemies here also tend to be armed with explosives That can trigger the floating barrels in the water That can kill you in one hit if you set them off it's very tedious and never feels fun You arrive at a half the short customshouse on the water Elena wonders aloud If something otherworldly happened to the colony that made everyone disappear and all the buildings flooded Nathan refuses to believe that anything supernatural could exist. It's a brief set up for later when it turns out that he's wrong Just up and vanish Yeah, you fight through more of Romans sunless henchmen in the building and we get to see that Elena and Nathan are beginning to rely On each other a little more she films more of the area and wall zoomed in discovers that Sully is still alive and is working With Roman on the island. Hello Shortly after this she loses her camera in a fall and yet still wants to pursue the treasure even though she's no longer collecting footage for her show Now that Sully looks to be alive in a trader nathan is convinced to remain on the island and the two set off together in another awful jetski sequence Which has all of the same problems as the previous one Elena and they fight their way to a section of the Lost Colony Farther into the island including a monastery where you're reunited with Sully This part of the game is one of uncharted its major flaws were Surprisingly close to the end here because a lot of what's left in the game involves retreading over this location again? And again you fight your way through this building twice this wide-open courtyard multiple times as well Thanks to waves of enemies that keep spawning from nowhere after you've killed a certain amount of other enemies The game really rings out every bit of content it can out of these areas And since that combat is only average at best it. Isn't that enjoyable? This directly links to the puzzles and story in this section first. However, let's go over the meeting with Sully well You're looking awfully good for a corpse Nathan and Elena rightfully accusing them of switching sides Which after you learn more about Sully's backstory with Nathan and in the next games? It's something Nathan should really know better than to do regardless. It's somewhat forgivable that all these details wouldn't be planned out yet It turns out Sully really was shot by Roman but that Drake's notebooks often the bullet enough that he survives and is being forced into helping Roman find the El Dorado statue ever since So that's why the game has that really awkward forced moment earlier with Nathan giving Sully the book I don't like this because as we established earlier There was no reason why Nathan would have handed it over but the real reason I dislike it is because it has such an easy Fix a line from Sully saying hey kid Give me that book before you go stomping in that submarine If you get yourself killed in there, at least I can follow the book myself without your sorry ass this shows how much of a scoundrel Sully can be and I'm really sorry for that horrible impression and then he cares about the treasure almost as Much as he does about Nathan since he never wanted him to risk going into the sub to begin with he still has the book To block the shot and the means to string Roman along boom done It's not so forced anymore that said I really like that Sully wasn't a traitor this series Does this more than once actually with introducing you to a character with some heavy hints that they're going to turn on you and then? They don't and everything is cool It keeps you guessing for some of the times that surprises do happen and your suspicions about characters aren't always going to be correct There's a lot to be gained by subverting expectations And you can watch my videos on the Tomb Raider series If you want to see a story that does this poorly you use the book to solve a puzzle in the monastery Which is once again already solved for you You just have to follow the directions This acts as a starting point for what I consider to be the most ridiculous part in the game and perhaps the entire series This puzzle leads to an underground section Which once again Romans men have somehow broken into before you which leads you to another part of a building that you already explored earlier? yeah, so I'm just going in circles here to the top of a church where you follow clues in order to open a path to A secret hallway also you can look through a window to see a symbol on another building nearby There are all these really elaborate hints lovers and mechanisms all for what amounts to going in circles and never finding any actual treasure But just the next hint that you could have easily bypassed if you were given the freedom to explore the area yourself with the rest of the clues in the notebook It's about here that you eavesdrop on a conversation with Roman and his two main assistant Attie Raja and another guy named Navarro There's some more hints about something supernatural lurking on the island Roman does the usual evil guy posturing about wanting results? No matter the cost This scene is mostly about introducing you to Navarro and a heavier foreshadowing of the monsters that you'll be fighting soon the clues eventually lead you to the same room Celie provides you with the Distraction and you murder some more guards on your way there You open a secret passage to one of the more impressive locations in the game. This maze like level full of overlapping pathways It's a decent section that is once again ruined by Romans people somehow finding an alternative Way into the area even though you just had to jump through so many ridiculous Hoops in order to find your own path It's a section that I think didn't really need any fighting until the end It could have been a good break from all the combat Just have it be about the puzzle of finding the correct way forward down here in any case Nathan and Elena find where the golden Statue should be and discover Francis Drake's corpse instead. This is one of the best moments in the game Nathan is clearly devastated by this discovery and not just because the treasure is absent it's drink He never found it he just died here learning that his idol had a pathetic end and failed in a search is quite the blow and it comes coupled with Eddie Raja once Again, getting the upper hand. It doesn't last long however since this is also the grand appearance of the monsters that inhabit the island you do have to wonder why it took this long for Nathan to encounter them, but it works to set up a twist on combat in a big moment in the story You're forced to fight alongside Eddie while Alayna works on rescuing you the monsters required different tactics and regular human enemies They're a lot faster and come at you from all sides standing still and firing doesn't work all that well And that made fighting them awkward until I tried running and gunning instead this turns some bad combat into something. That's a little more Okay and having the freedom of movement while not having to worry about cover since these monsters don't have guns to chip away your health while you Run around is a decent change from the rest of the game It's a shame that it comes so late and is only used a few times Eddie dies here and that's one villain down two more to go You barely escaped in time and run from the underground city to a Nazi military base because apparently remote islands and video games can't exist without some sort of Nazi influence There's some more climbing here in the game Actually lets you go for more than a few minutes without having to fight something your goal is to turn the power back on so you and Elena can escape without having to fight too many of the monsters that Chase you out of the previous area but then you get the power back on and more monsters comes forming out of the walls than just chase you how to the last Sequence it's here that you learned that El Dorado is cursed which is the reason that the creatures that you've been fighting Exists the curse turns people into these monsters Nathan having seen the supernatural monsters himself now believes in the curse He knows that he has to stop Rowan from taking the statue off the island and rushes back only to witness Elena being taken by Roman as a hostage, so Nathan won't interfere any longer Loud and clear jackass Well, no microphone on your end What a shame after a long series of battles Nathan meets up with Sully and they immediately decide to interfere Anyway, you fight your way back to the monastery section and the church that you're in earlier for yet another hidden path You finally get to see the golden statue which isn't a statue at all it's a sarcophagus with a cursed corpse inside Rome is infected with the Christian goes mad He's killed and at this point in the story Navarro who is barely been in the game or mentioned at all Becomes the final villain which really drained a lot of detention for me But I can see why some people might like it Navarro claims that the curse is the real treasure and is worth far more than gold to the right buyer He begins his escape with both El Dorado and Elena the monsters attack you and you have to charge forward Just don't drop in the water because Naughty Dog decided this should be an instant kill for a reason that I don't Understand the sequence always looks a little off and shaking and kind of rushed to me Navarro is escaping on a helicopter you ride out with him and caused the crash that you see playing right now and maybe you can See what I mean? You end up on a ship which links nicely back to the beginning of the game with the first gun fight you had with Elena You start off on a boat you end on a boat? Unfortunately, this is one of the worst final boss battles I have ever seen in the game Navaro breaks pretty much every single rule that's been established so far both for you and the enemies here's a laser sight Which is a mechanic you encounter earlier on that requires rolling way to break the lock-on since it's a one-hit kill Navarro's can't be shaken off He stays behind cover indefinitely he never runs out of ammo if you try to charge him He'll kill you if you try to shoot him when he pops out a cover He'll kill you Basically if you try to engage him in any way He'll kill you what you're meant to do instead is use cover to hide from his steady attack pattern and wipe out all of his Guards this forces or retreats in the next area where you do it all over again now on the one hand This can be seen as a good final encounter since there's a sharp focus on all of the cover based shooting He been doing throughout the game and it's against the more powerful Enemy that has some of the same skills that you do But there's no room for any real creativity in this fight. You have to go through the predetermined path The boss is meant to have avoid his shots kill the guards rinse repeat in the next area because there's a set ending to all of this that you have to get through even here with Navarro standing out in the open you Can't do a damn thing But follow the predetermined path move from cover to cover closer each time and then go for a quick time event brawl instead of shooting Him. It's like they moved the same thought process behind the climbing sections into a shooting one There's only one path only this time there's some trial and error involved in learning what that is with a bunch of wrong paths that appear reasonable at first these look like things you should be able to do but they're still wrong because the game requires this Exact set of actions from you Navarro goes down the fight Nathan goes to Elena without dealing a killing blow Navarro Then of course gets back up and threatens to kill both of them with a gun and then proceeds to stand there doing nothing well Nathan takes the time to push a Helicopter off the boat instead of charging at Navarro to disarm him some how this works and hey Like I said at the start as long as you don't take the game, seriously This is all fine the ending movie also reinforces this it's surprisingly short for one Elena and Nathan have some closing remarks Then Sully shows up with some treasure that he magically found somewhere So the whole adventure was on a total bust the three of them sail away from the island, and that is it That's the whole ending. It's so abrupt and it makes me wonder if sequels are always planned for the series. So that's uncharted one I think it suffers a lot from overusing dull combat and stringing puzzles together in strange arbitrary ways It's still worth playing to see the beginnings of an otherwise good series of games We have a few more than to get through still and obviously I have a lot more to say about the series handle some things I'll be jumping back for some examples on HR 1 at least once but for now, let's move forward to the first sequel Most people consider this to be the best game out of the first three some even think it's one of the greatest games ever made It can also be surprisingly divisive some people think the game and the entire series is quite boring and that Rifton opinion is so wide and different that it's really interesting to me my intention with the section of the video is to Go through among thieves in the same way that I just did for drake's fortune But I also hope to illustrate why I think it is that some people view the game in vastly different ways Firstly I want to say that I think the Uncharted games get better with each entry There's a giant leap in quality from 1 to 2 then a small step from 2 to 3 The games are closed But I enjoyed three just a tiny bit more Uncharted 4 is a more significant improvement in my opinion for reasons that we'll get into in the next video One thing that uncharted 2 does better than all of them However is its opening which is arguably one of the best interestings in any game Period we once again have the profound quote to start us off and instead of some fun dialogue or action beginning nathan is sitting in A train with a bullet wound in its stomach we pan back and have a shift in perspective. The Train isn't even standing upright It's dangling off the edge of a cliff then already things start to go to shit and we're controlling nathan dangling along with the Train The sequence works on three levels first the visuals here are genuinely impressive I'm playing the remastered edition, but I'm confident the ps3 version would still look decent if played today Secondly, you have Nathan half-dead hanging from a crash train doing all sorts of crazy acrobatics I Can't think of a more obvious yet fun way to set the tone for the game the stuff you'll be doing is crazy and over-the-top Try not to take it too. Seriously. This is the standard we're setting right at the start. So enjoy how ridiculous it is Thirdly, you aren't in danger here. You can't fail so it acts as a tutorial for moving Nathan and the climbing and that he's injured also helps explain away in game any mistakes that the player might make it's also Probable that a new player might not even realize they aren't in danger and that's something you should try to remember We'll be coming back to this and it's kind of important after getting out of the Train you stumble through some more climbing sections and a little bit of shooting the flashbacks begin here as Nathan gets more and more injured This part is still ridiculous jumping all over the crash train, but I think it's a cool setting and it's well put together It's already far more interesting than anything you were doing in the previous game the same goes for the story Uncharted 2 at this early stage feels like a grand departure from the first game so much so that you might wonder why they didn't Start a new series instead. Nathan is still here But Elena and Sully are nowhere to be found Nathan seems to be enjoying some sort of time off and it's two new characters that show up instead Flynn and Chloe this part of the story is fairly dense with information Flynn has a job offer to break into a heavily guarded museum and steal an oil lamp for some collector who hired him It's established that nathan has worked with Flynn before Chloe shows up and there's a hint of some Familiarity there to which Nathan finds himself forced to hide when Chloe pretends not to know him and speak of the devil Here she comes now Nate Drake, Nathan Drake Chloe is one of the best drivers in the business She'll take good care of us. I bet the idea that the three of them are all going to manipulate each other is Established which heavily leans at this point on Nathan being played by the other two more importantly However, the main goal of the game is established along with hints of the game's main villain an uncharted one You were following a trail left by Francis Drake in order to find Eldorado You have to deal with the opposing forces controlled by Gabriel Roman here You're following a trail left by Marco Polo in order to find Shambhala and have to deal with the posing forces controlled by another powerful Madman named lazarevich in a charged one. The big treasure was a golden statue and uncharted two is the gigantic gemstone There's a similar set of all these things in uncharted 3 and for the interaction between the characters here stronger than in the first game But some of the same attempts at what are present even down to the same question about whether you spent time in a foreign prison What? Yeah, so unless you want to end up with a Panamanian jail Should probably handle this ourselves. But what's worse you obviously haven't been in a Panamanian jail relax relax relax Have you ever been in a Turkish prison, mate? If we get caught they will lock us up and throw away the sodding key. You do realize that don't you? Then you do things become more interesting after you return to the frozen trainwreck We're taking this guy over right damn straight You were just watching Nathan happy warm and eager to betray the trust of whoever hired Flynn to retrieve the oil lamp And now you get to see where those ambitions ended up taking him as he struggles to survive in the cold The story shifts again between these two moments in time with another reveal that Chloe was already in contact with Nathan and that the two Are in a relationship And that there's some sort of special dagger that Nathan felt important enough to pick up amongst the ruins of the Train So to recap the beginning has given you a visually impressive introduction while you familiarize yourself with the controls There's nothing in the story sequences that references the first game so you won't be lost if you're new to the series and the tension Quickly ramps up as you start to wonder if Flynn is telling the truth or which side Chloe's really on Nathan's Flynn's or her own and you have an apparently difficult task of robbing a museum ahead of you with the larger mystery of how Nathan ends up almost half that in the middle of a train derailment If you did play the first game then there's even more here to wonder about why is it Nathan with Elena anymore? what happened to them or the treasure that they found where Sully I really think it's a strong opening and marks a significant increase in quality in the series one that continues with the next scene You execute the heist in the museum with Flynn and Chloe This is a surprisingly lengthy sequence that introduces a new side of combat in the series stealth This was technically already an option in the first game, but there are more opportunities to use it in the sequel in fact It seems pretty evident to me that the general idea behind Every encounter from uncharted 2 onward is that Nathan will use stealth at the start to thin up the enemy numbers which eventually leads naturally Into a shootout with whatever is left Flynn is here to help guide you through some of the climbing and self takedowns you work together with him and that you have some Competitive banter as you work through the museum, what do you bet that will take us right into the boiler room Yeah We're in Yeah in like Flynn right? Well in like Flynn, I don't get it Just give me a boost Flynn makes it clear that he wanted to bring a gun in case they got into trouble whoa Needham and Nathan shows that he occasionally has a conscience about killing people when he disagrees and says the guards in the museum are just doing their Jobs and don't deserve to be killed, but that doesn't stop him from killing one without an ounce of remorse Whoops this is especially funny since I think it's a tutorial kill to teach you about Ledge takedowns So already we've seen so much more variety in the first hour of uncharted 2 than the constant jungle haven't charted one The main difference going forward is this change in scale? It's a global adventure now with time passing between chapters and new locations At the end here Nathan breaks open the lamp and discovers the next clue to find Shambhala Flynn shows his true colors and pulls out a real gun Not to kill Nathan just to stall him enough so that he's captured the game seemingly gives you a chance to escape in a final Chase sequence and at least the first time I played I was convinced I was going to make it out without being caught then you're arrested when you get out of the sewers Nathan is in prison for Three months and goes a little stir-crazy while he's locked up. You overlooked one little detail, didn't you thought what? Face it genius. You've been played. Oh, really? Hey Jackass, you're ruining the show here the game sort of reboots here Sully shows up and there's a line explaining away where their money went From the treasure in the first game at the grease a few palms Did go through the rest of your money Chloe is also here who Nathan understandably distrusts Sully men's their relationship and the three move on to begin plotting in a way That's very similar to the opening scene on the beach I think most people are still going to be suspicious of Chloe but Sully's insistence and the trusty earned in the first game is enough to make this plausible a new plan is formed to use Chloe's position is Flynn's partner in order to infiltrate lazar Twitch's base to acquire more information on Shambhala The following sections are weird restraint. When charred one in quite a few ways. Actually you're back in a jungle You're alone with Sully they reminisce about some of their past adventures There's even a line which is a new version of an old one from the first game Brought a hooker to church Unfortunately, it's also a return to some of the TDM This is quite perplexing since well It's almost the exact same flaw that was seen in drake's Fortune You get stuck in the strangle arena behind cover and you keep fighting wave after wave of enemies that just keep spawning it goes on For too long and it's one of the rare parts of the game that does this It's almost like they're making fun of the first game a bit by having a quick throwback before continuing on with a much better game either way You collect the information and go exploring in some nearby ruins you find the dagger that was in the train in the opening the ending Sequence here is also similar to the one in the first game you find some new information You're then confronted by the bad guys before you can make your escape they end up with the same knowledge that you just found so that when you do ultimately get away the race is still on for both groups to get after the treasure In this case you're headed to a city in Nepal to find a temple that will leave the way to Shambhala in the giant gemstone once again in another way that marries the first game Sully is absent after this opening only this time he stays out of the game until the very end He decides that this adventure is beyond him and leaves it to Nathan and Chloe to continue Chloe had some Nepal with Flynn to continue working undercover with Lazarre vicious forces Nathan goes there alone with the plan to meet up with her later I Think this first part in the city is the longest stretch of time that you're ever alone in uncharted 2 that are the Train scene depending on how long it takes you neither time is very long and I think that the games work best when Nathan is paired with someone the Interactions between the characters is something the series excels at and it's a good way to provide hints to the player by having the other Character suggest something instead of having to rely on UI prompt some players get stuck, but that doesn't stop the game from doing it anyway It looks like that'd get me up there Which is a problem for me in this area my first time through you have the short action part to start when Nathan is being chased by a car then you're left to wander the city streets in the middle of a battle lazarevich doesn't do treasure hunting in the Same way that Nathan does He's using the clue to find a temple to mean that he should raid the city and tear down Every single temple until he finds the correct way by brute forcing it instead of understanding the clues So the city is being torn apart in this chaos and lazarevich as people are everywhere The guy clearly wields a hell of a lot more money and power than Roman did in the first Uncharted like most of the game I think these city streets look great. They feel very authentic and that sort of feeds into the problem I had here after clearing the place of enemies you have to find a way to move through the city You quickly discover that all the streets are blocked somehow You have to look for something to climb instead which turns out to begin at this path on these signs Now this may look obvious to those who have already played the game But these signs didn't look that sturdy to me are very climbable It's another example of the game having the specific Order of events that it wants you to go through and they're being very little creativity or alternative ways to get around Although I am willing to admit in this case that I might be the problem and that this is something simple that I missed this Isn't the only time that the series does this? Yury not a closure in the next battle the shooting is for the most part a little better in the sequel I don't know if the sensitivity for the controller was tweaked or if the aiming reticule was changed but it definitely felt better in every game as the series went on with the most noticeable difference being here from drake's Fortune - among thieves Unfortunately weapon variety is still lacking The biggest change is a few new enemy types with shields and heavier armored mercenaries Core gameplay is still the same though Remain, mostly still behind cover and do some precision aiming with less than precise controls to life the mouth Overall the best changes that you're often moving through different rooms and environments as you fight now that you've left the jungle you're rarely pitted against continually spawning waves of enemies and in the few times that you are It's a more dramatic arrival of a loaded Jeep of dudes instead of guys spawning from nowhere around corners It feels a hell of a lot better Once you get into some of the interior sections of the city Since you're moving quite quickly through many different rooms and fighting as you go The goal in this part is to get to the top of the tallest building in the city in order to spot the temple that Has the same marking as the trail that they're following Chloe and Nathan eventually get to the roof and succeed in spotting the temple better than ambushed on the way there by one of those Are bitches helicopters, this is for all intents and purposes a boss fight There are some cool-looking moments with the building collapsing while you're still inside of it which has you jumping out of danger and something close to a chase sequence before you turn the fight back on to the helicopter and Take it down. It bears repeating here that you're not meant to take the game Seriously for two reasons that Drake not only just survived an onslaught from a flying machine of death But managed to scramble his way into the explosives needed to destroy the thing while injuring who knows how many Bullets and that very shortly after this you drop down into the streets of the city and bump into Elena desperate times, right? So let's pause for a minute, I think I've said that line about not taking the game Seriously at least three times now It's the excuse the game can use in order to have you do some truly ridiculously awesome things It looks fun to survive the destruction of an entire building and shoot down a helicopter it's also great that Elena is here because I think the Interaction between her and Nathan is the best pairing in the series for funny and endearing dialogue But because you can excuse it doesn't mean that it's good You can suspend your disbelief about a lot of things look at the monsters in uncharted one You can accept the curse and the rules that has that it turns people into crazy beasts that are stronger and faster than normal humans Even though this is impossible You can still accept it just like if they suddenly sprouted wings and flew around the place viewing lasers out of their mouths something that is the same amount of Impossible as before you'd have a problem with it because that's taking things too far and breaking established rules I think that the helicopter flight is perfectly fine It's in line with the baseline of ridiculousness that is established with the trainwreck opening Elena. However, cracks the story for me It's a story that's here to provide a reason to go through all the action sequences and character interactions So it doesn't need to be stellar compelling stuff the set pieces and dialogue are the reason you're here But it still needs to make some semblance of sense Elena being here requires so many coincidences that I was certain Sully was behind it He must have tipped Elena off the Nathan was in over his head and that she needs to go talk some sense into him but nope the reason she's here is that she got a new job that just so happened to be doing a story on those are Which the same guy nathan is fighting this meant that she just so happens to be in the same city That nathan is in at the same time and while in the city She just so happens to be wandering down the same street at the right time to bump into him so that she can be in The game I hate coincidences and stories I hate them even more when they have easy solutions what I just said about Sully being behind it Uncharted three does almost the exact same thing with Elena and it comes across as so lazy Regardless she sparked some great dialogue now that she's here I sensing some history here Elena Fisher Last year's model There's the teasing of a love triangle between Nathan Elena and Chloe But the game rightfully doesn't focus on it and by the end it's resolved with everyone being adults about their feelings and not being petty Which is a refreshing change from the usual at the moment, though it raises the tension a bit since anything gets all heroic about protecting Elena and the cameraman that she dragged along to film in the city Let's get forward a bit you arrive at the temple you use your notebook to solve a puzzle involving the arms of a statue then You go through an underground section nearly died in a trap and then have a much more complicated puzzle to solve At least it appears that way this is mostly a climbing section. That looks fantastic This gives you the next clue to locate Shambala and they reveal that the dagger you have is the key needed to reach the city Somehow loser bitches people find the temple right after you and you have to fight your way back out I'm Elena's cameraman was shot in the fight. Chloe wants to ditch them But Nathan refuses you go through one of the most hilariously awkward scenes I have ever played in the game as you brace the camera guy on you to move through alleyways and you both take a bullet After bullet after bullet since he moved so slowly which of course has no real ramifications Because this is a video game and damage taken during cutscenes is the only time it's ever canon It's still only the first injury that the cameraman is suffering from when you reach the end of this part Okay, you tried but it's over he can't go any further The cameraman sole purpose was to die in the scene. That's how the game is trying to set up. Those are bitches It's intimidating badass in order to maintain her cover Chloe has to pretend to have captured Nathan and the others Flynn seems to see through her deception but lazarevich doesn't he does some big? Bad villain peacocking and then kills the camera guy and since he only met him 20 minutes ago And I can't remember his name and keep calling him camera guy. You can tell how much this death fails to have any impact Killing. Chloe probably would have been better lazarevich Then further proves that he skipped a lot of classes in evil villains school by leaving before confirming that nathan is killed It's left to Flynn instead Elena and Nathan Of course escape Chloe leaves with Flynn they head towards train station so they can journey to the mountains where Shambala is meant to be Along with a dagger key taken from Nathan here the rolls from the first game are reversed Elena wants to give up Nathan doesn't because he thinks Chloe's in danger so you could argue that Chloe couldn't have been killed in that scene since it's Nathan's motivation to continue on but it could have become a revenge story instead or He could just be hungry for the treasure or so many other reasons, really Elena decides to help him and the two begin to reconcile some of their differences It's clear that they still have feelings for each other And as usual their dialogue is some of the best in the series. No, I don't really have much of a choice Honor among thieves the only thing that might surpass it are some of the exchanges with a Charlie cutter in uncharted 3 and some of the scenes with Salmon are charted for Jews Of course that's ignoring the Last of Us which has a better story and dialogue all round But we'll get to that you've had some more bad guys and have a shootout of the train station there are a lot of snipers in this part and it's one of many shooting sections that have that same sort of preordained events that You're meant to follow like some of the climbing instead of having a lot of options and freedom in combat You're meant to stay here and learn how this exact order events work so you can get through it You meant to jump on the train, but you're pinned down away and it comes to your rescue and you drive after the Train We jump off the car and onto it and leave her behind for now At least Nathan is alone again and most players will immediately make the connection with a train to the opening scene and we'll go through This part wondering what exactly causes the crash. I haven't spoken much in detail about the set pieces in the games yet I'm saving up a lot of Commentary for the end of this part since a lot of what I have to say can apply to all of them However, this part of this series deserves a lot of praise. It's arguably the best level out of all of them And that's including uncharted 4 I think I like some other sections just a little bit better, but not by a lot If you excuse the pun there's a lot riding on this part You have the dread of the crash ahead of you, but the whole event looks so incredible But I don't even know how Naughty Dog got it working The Train is always moving through so many different environments through jungle across bridges into the mountains It looks so convincing and it's even incorporated into game play It's one of the rare parts in this series that there's more than just climbing and shooting you have to keep track of enemies both Inside and outside the train and obstacles farther along the track that can kill you if you're not careful There's another boss fight with a helicopter and the solution this time makes a lot more sense with using parts of the Train for cover and Eventually using one of the tanks being carried on the train to shoot it down along with the fun If a little simple mechanic that has you blowing up missiles in the air before they can get to you Then there's a moment of subverting your Expectations after the chopper is brought down since my guess is that most people would think the end of that big battle would be what? Crashes the Train at least that's what I thought. There's this weird moment of calm afterward where you're like wait This is still going you confront both Chloe and Flynn and that's when Nathan is You just don't know when to quit do you Part of the train is derailed and we finally loop back to the start of the game It also marks about the halfway point among these is a damn side longer and more substantial in drake's Fortune There's a lot that could be said about Naughty Dog's attention to detail not so much in gameplay But in visuals animation the clutter in each level, etc I'm sure there are other people who have made far better videos on it than I could since I try to look more at gameplay And story and my stuff here though. I can't help but point out how much this repeated scene is elevated. Nathan is new dialogue He's muttering to himself this time It's like that change in Fight Club When at the beginning Norton says I can't think of anything and then after the flashback in getting back to this part at the end This time he says I still can't to give anything It's not knocking down the fourth wall But it's hammering on it enough to cause some cracks You skip some in the more tutorial parts here - which happens seamlessly you get to enjoy the spectacle of the Train without the tedium Of doing all those sections again. It's great Unfortunately, it's followed by something when I'm conflicted about I think that the big confrontation on the train was a big climax in the game. The next level is a slow Calm one without any fighting you have a peaceful walk through a village in the mountains Before you get to that you have to fight at least three waves of enemies and the Snowy train wreck arena All the while Nathan is still bleeding to death as far as arenas go. This is one of the more enjoyable ones There's a lot of different routes around and more options for self kills than usual but I think it's largely unnecessary in a game that already has too much gun combat a short walking section instead with the player getting lost in the snow before the movie plays when Nathan being rescued might have been better a Guy named Tenzin saves you a few days past and you wake up Miraculously healed of a bullet wound in the same way that many action heroes Are you get a walk through the village without anyone speaking at you to distract you? There's a language barrier that makes Nathan a stranger yet. He's still clearly welcomed and interacts with some of the people that you pass It's a quiet break from all of the action But also laying the foundation for some tension later when this peaceful place is attacked by lazarevich Tenzin leaves you do some old-guy in the village you can speak English Elina is also here and there's a break in narrative consistency from uncharted 1 to 2 This guy's name Schafer and he explains that he first came to the village like Nathan did Injured after searching for the giant gemstone in Shambhala. He speaks about a great mythical and supernatural power that the stone possesses Which Elena's suspicions also supports and she quickly points out lazarevich clearly doesn't need any treasure for the money He's probably spent more searching for it than is actually worth after the ending uncharted 1 when Nathan Discovers the curse and even witnesses at first hand you would think that he would be more open to believing Schafer story power to power Is precisely the problem some of the most fearsome rulers through history have possessed only a fragment of the Chintamani stone men like Tamburlaine Genghis Khan If a mere sliver could bestow such power What would a man become if he possessed the stone itself? This is crazy, it's got to be what he's after Nate then lazarevich really is a nut job He's chasing a myth and what if he's not? Elena come on. I mean what if it's true? We've seen what he's capable of. I understand your doubt is actually a fairly large part of the plot was Shafer trying to convince Nathan that the stones power is real and this is really Stupid it's just stupid. Nathan is someone who has more reasons than anybody to believe it yet? He doesn't because I actually don't know the game doesn't use it for anything. Really Maybe it's used as justification for following TENS into the next part But this could have easily been required to find another clue that leads to Shambala imagine If one day you meet a ghost after a while you need a vampire or a zombie Would you really be that surprised after meeting? The first ghost up next is probably the longest acrobatic section in the game You work through it all with tenzin swinging on ropes that he throws for you climbing on ledges. Yeah You're almost killed by some Yeti monster that you can't actually kill yourself You're just meant to survive long enough for Tenzin to save you in a scripted sequence instead It leads to a massive area full of gears and cogs for you to climb on it's a single-player co-op section that has you in Tenzin pulling levers and switches for each other There's a lot of jumping and following and it's the closest the game gets to making you think about where you have to go next Only a little though The ending here is very similar when the monsters attack you in uncharted one You just had some big plot Revelation that the stone in Shambala really is cursed that there was some Nazi involvement in the past that I guess was mandated in adventure games before 2010 the Nazis know You have to fight off more monsters while waiting for an elevator just like you did with Eddie Roger and Elena in the first game Both you intends in almost Iowan the Eddie jumps onto the platform But you both make it to safety only to discover that lazarevich is just a tap Tenzin's village People are being slaughtered as those are vegetarian place apart in search of the relic dagger Schafer has taken prisoner and the intensity of the invasion keeps rising Tenzin's people aren't helpless however and stand in some amount of resistance more mercenaries Keep attacking you fight your way through the village That was so quiet and welcoming a little while ago eventually One of the tanks you saw on the train rolls through the streets and acts as another boss fight You and Tenzin have to hide from its attacks while climbing around the houses to find RPGs and the right vantage points to fire at it a Lot of the village is destroyed in the sequence and it really feels like you're struggling against this big thing that has you totally outgunned It's a memorable sequence and is actually the moment in this series that I had a shift in perception on how Naughty Dog makes these Sections, let's finish summarizing the rest of the game before we get to that Elena gets another car after the tank is destroyed the two of you chase after lazar bitches convoy and then attempt to save Schaffer this is the first of three times that the series does this you have a long line of enemy vehicles that you need to attack and Then jump along in order to move through them I'm Charlie three has a sequence that does the same thing so doesn't charted for and sorry to keep doing this But we'll talk about it in more detail when we come back to the tank section There's a break in the action when you arrive at this gigantic abandoned monastery You might be forgiven in thinking this is actually Shambhala, especially since compared to one charred one The game should be wrapping up by now There's actually a whole other section after this which works both and for against it in terms of pacing this feels like the end Maybe this is another moment the game tries to subvert your expectations. It has this final act that comes as a surprise Things start out quiet but escalate rapidly you can try to use stuff to get through here, but like many sections in the game It's actually impossible. The game doesn't tell you that however So it can be frustrating to retry some parts going for stealth kills when in reality the game has triggers place that prevent you from Doing it. There's a hell of a lot of shooting here that follows a similar style There are snipers and rocket launcher guys that show up that you need to kill quickly Often the only way you learn where they are is to be killed by their one hit kills that if you're unlucky Will hit you first time So there's this trial and error to these sections that make you have to memorize where and when these guys appear to take them out While also dealing with the normal enemies from behind cover without getting overwhelmed It's probably why the game has quick restarts and checkpoints all over the place to facilitate this type of gameplay This part could have easily been terrible since it has such a high concentration of gun battles But there's enough variety with different encounters getting close to a turret to steal it Clearing out a tower using a sniper rifle yourself, then it's a decent section there's a lot of destructive feedback to keep you engaged and you're never stuck in one part of it for very long it avoids the Pitfalls and uncharred one fell into but again the gunplay isn't fun enough to ever be more than decent in my opinion Even with all of the variety you're still almost always hiding behind cover and playing whack-a-mole This place appears to behind the mountains There's a lot of open space around the monastery You do some climbing to get through here and it's clear that you're high above some nearby lowland. Anyway, you find Schaffer He dies in Nathan has a much stronger reaction to this than I think is fair considering how little he needs a man It's firmly decided that lazarevich is too evil to be left to get the power of the mythical gemstone Nathan Elena reaffirm that they need To go after him you meet with Chloe shortly after this and solve one of the better puzzles in the series and probably the best Puzzle in uncharted 2 but moving these objects and then deciding on the right symbols You do use the notebook again, but the answers aren't quite as plainly stated this time around at its core It's still the same as the others making the player feel smart instead of actually needing them to be smart, but it's still pretty good Elena can you hear me? Yeah, I think I just found the secret entrance Yeah, you see the base of the cliff with all the statues Meet me there What happens next is another terrible story moment you go through another short sequence and unlock the way to Shambala It's far across the monastery and at the edge of this vast open space that you can see here Would you look at that You arrived there to send some stairs and are captured by lazarevich. Now. This part is fine It seems a little forced since you fought so many enemies before now but this time you're overwhelmed because the story requires it But hey, don't take it too seriously, right? Those are bitches unstable enough that there's some tension but if he had killed Chloe earlier or some other major Character that could it be introduced along with her then it could have been made even more Nerve-wracking since you might expect him to kill again here the path to Shambhala is in this huge interior Corridor the bridges break out of alignment and Nathan negotiates the lives of himself Chloe and Elena, but convincing those Irish that he needs them to gain access to the city those are bitch agrees and pretty much accuses Flynn of being useless and Forces the two of them to scout ahead to fix the bridge like the ending of uncharted 1 being on a boat which links neatly back to the first scene You have another acrobatic co-op part with Flynn here that links back to the job you both did in the museum There's another simpler puzzle to solve at the end and then a fight against more of the Yeti monsters So two things happen here that I still don't understand The first more minor one. Is that lazarevich? crosses the bridge and rips off the face of one of the dead yetis and shows that they're actually people in costumes, but they're still Monster people they're not normal They've still been enhanced in some otherworldly way Especially given how many bullets they can take and how they can leap and climb around There are more of them in the next section and I really truly do not Understand why the game did this it's heavily hinted at that The power of the gemstone is what turned the people into more monstrous forms So maybe it was for consistency and that it doesn't make them grow fur or something But then why bother with the fake outfits at all, why draw attention to it when it doesn't matter? it's very close to a Scooby-doo moment with it being revealed that there was never any monster when they rip off the mask. Just an elaborate ploy But there are monsters and supernatural forces are at work So really what the hell the much bigger problem is that the doors open and show Shambala a gigantic lush green paradise with a vast open sky a Vast open sky when you were just standing in the mountains overlooking a tall a few minutes ago Your journey through the city makes no sense You don't walk far enough for this to be hidden lazarevich has helicopters Or you could just have a laptop with internet access and just find the damn city on Google Maps instead This place simply isn't hidden enough to remain out of sight in the world And the only way this could have made sense would be if it's Underground Like really look how big this place is and then look back to where you open the entrance. It's like Elena's arrival in Nepal It's too big of a problem for me to dismiss is the game being some light fun But maybe other people will be ok with it And I'm just being too nit picky because if we do ignore it, then Shambhala is a great way to close the game Although it's also a missed opportunity This place looks incredible and you have a fun introduction to it when you go running and slide deep into the jungle city You move through it all the Chloe and Elena new enemies in a new mechanic the volatile blue sapper introduced Just like The enemies don't really work that well since they jump around a lot, but also shoot back at you So the controls never feel like they work well against them Which is probably why the game never throws too many of them at you at once and gives you the hard hitting crossbows that inexplicably kill them in one or two hits There are more open areas later on in the series especially in uncharted 4 and it's a shame that for whatever reason it wasn't possible to do the same here since the sprawling city looks like an interesting place to explore You're kept confined on narrow routes and eventually arrive at a temple and learn the gem stone doesn't really exist It's a big clump of amber from The Tree of Life Instead a source of great power that the city was built around it can grant Everlasting life and probably some other powers - to whoever consumes it The trees below the temple and you do have to wonder why the city is in its current state if its people enjoyed such powers And managed to build the place It could be that the SAP also corrupts them or turns the mindless But this is something that's easier to let go for the sake of telling a more simple story Lazarevich is ahead of you and has already been here. He's gotten fed up of Flynn's bullshit and left him for dead again He skipped too many lessons and didn't stop to confirm the kill Flynn is Petty enough that he still tries to kill Nathan and friends instead of helping them get back at lazarevich who just killed him He detonates a grenade Elena is almost killed. She's injured enough that they need to leave the city immediately Mason decides that keeping was our bitch away from the Tree of Life is too important and leaves Elena with Chloe the goal of the game suddenly ramps up to us save the world scenario since the garbage would be too evil a force if he left Shambala with his powers This is the game's finale He got alone would arrive too late to stop lazarevich before he consumed some of the sap You see as James Bond villain scars heal from the trees powers And it's clearly shown to you in a movie scene that he's now immortal or close to immortal I don't actually know how immortal he is This is the game's final boss and you defeat him by luring him close to the big SAP deposits on the tree and then blow I'm up when he's closed for some reason this can deal damage to him when bullets can't you also can't consume any of the SAP yourself either in terms of Story, it's quite weird lazarevich gets hurt Kind of but also not really the fight goes on for quite a while - and your best bet is to run away from him Since your usual tools are ineffective, it's a much better final boss - Navarro in the first game But I'd say it's only service a little best at the end of it the game fully embraces the action movie cliche Lazard Which is kind of dying and does a big speech about he and Nathan aren't so different They're both as bad as each other You're no different to me take I'm ylönen men. Have you killed how many just today? The game has the balls to call attention to the fact that Nathan has killed hundreds of people Which some have criticized the series for the dreaded ludonarrative dissonance? Uncharted 4 even has a trophy with that name if you kill 1000 enemies I don't agree with this criticism of the first three games The enemy forces are hostile to you first, even when you do instigate some of the encounters It's clear that they're going to kill you not capture aside from that one moment. I mentioned in the museum I think the game's use of violence is fair and fits the over-the-top tone that the games are going for which makes the Czar bitch's Speech here all the more questionable Nathan doesn't actually kill him He sees the monster Guardian surrounding the damaged tree and he lets them finish off the warlord instead The final part of gameplay is escaping the crumbling city since apparently so much of it was being supported by the tree There are two more action sequences a falling bridge and a sliding part with some shooting They're both pretty short, and then you're done All that's left is the final movie among thieves has a longer outro than drake's Fortune It works a lot better and bringing the story down and gently ending instead of the abrupt fate the black after Sully Magically appears with the treasure Chloe and Nathan agree that their relationship is over Nathan admits that he loves Elena that you have one of the best scenes of dialogue in the whole series as the game winds down to the credits good so On a scale of one to ten. I was scared really that I was gonna die for four Yeah, what for? Yeah, you were at least an eight You were a total eight and eight those Guardian things were an eight. Are you kidding me? Yeah, those were terrified. What's a ten? clowns Clowns over my death. I hate I hate clowns. Oh my word thought I was dead You thought I was yes you did Tears we shed a bunch of them tears. It was raining No, it was not you were unconscious and it was raised totally sunny out and you were boiling wasn't sunny You were unconscious, whatever. I kept your tears in the jar proof I'll give you five is it? That's all there is to uncharted 2, which means we're two games in and have a lot of examples to work with so far I've tried to avoid commenting too much on how gameplay works in the series, especially on the set pieces I Wanted to give a more neutral look at that while giving more attention to the story and my opinion on that the reason for this Ties back to what? I said at the beginning of the among thieves section that some people love these games and think they're some of the best ever made Other people really dislike them and don't know what all the fuss is about for those who haven't played them I thought showing a lot of the series first would be better for you to formulate your own judgement before we look at why this? Difference of opinion exists and the simplest way. I think I can go about that is with this sentence The Uncharted games are cinematic experiences that aim to be visually interesting which might sound like a tame thing to say But for some people this is the holy grail for what they want out of games for others It's the exact opposite of what they want. See this isn't just about graphics It isn't about emulating movies either a cinematic experience can be surprisingly difficult to truly define in games Or at least it can be challenging to understand how some people use it It could be something as basic as trying to pretend that there's a real camera guy Recording everything during movie scenes instead of really stiff shots of characters It could refer to pacing our movie like script dialogue and scenes that play out without any Interactivity or choice some have even argued that a lower frame rate can make something a more cinematic experience and those people are insane but to me All of these games are under that cinematic umbrella the games that try to make you feel like you're controlling a character in a movie another way of saying that sentence could be the Uncharted games are a series of QuickTime events without the button prompts a Mechanically interesting game gives the player a lot of options and the freedom to use them Whether that's in a combat system or an exploration or tools and choices to navigate a story Although that can blur the line between narrative and gameplay This can lead to some incredibly awesome moments when you make something cool happen in the game the visually interesting sequences and uncharted on the other hand are all about giving you the Illusion that you're doing something cool when in reality you're following a meticulously crafted guided chain of events You're on Rails without realizing it. There are no options. It's a movie scene in which you're controlling a character And as long as you don't break the scene everything is fine The game over is the director calling cut when you go off script before we go into examples Just want to say that I really like the games for this I don't love them, but they are entertaining I like them especially on your first playthrough Visually interesting doesn't do a lot of these set pieces justice Which is another reason why I wanted to show some of them before talking about all this. It's not my favorite thing That games can do but it's definitely fun and I'm trying very hard to criticize them without Making them sound overly simple because Naughty Dog put a lot of work with level design and environmental Clues, in order to nudge you down that preconceived correct path, so you don't notice that you're on those rails my guess is that many players don't realize they're not in any danger while climbing the Train in the opening the set pieces in this way are No different than the Past you follow while climbing They just look a lot better or those climbing parts have more added to them Like there's not really much decision making even when what you're doing looks so elaborate whether that's reaching higher on an oversized Ceremonial dagger or moving from gear to gear in the mountains It's all about how cool it looks even though you're doing the same thing all over again Not every sequence is like this some combat arenas have some freedom others are Surprisingly rigid like the rocket launcher guys in the monastery or the appearance of more powerful armored enemies Sometimes enemies will spawn and flank you and because Nathan's health pool is so low and that whether you get shot or not is randomly determined This can lead to some Frustrating gameplay with you having to play the part multiple times and memorize what it is that new enemies appear so you can correctly move To new cover in this way. Even some of the shootouts become this by-the-numbers Choreographed battle that you learned through trial and error then when you have it all mastered the end result can look pretty cool Even if the gunplay is so simple for me The illusion was both shattered and strengthened years ago when I was fighting the tank with Tenzin on my first playthrough for the first half I was in awe by how amazing it felt. This wasn't a movie. I was in control It felt heavily scripted, but I was still moving Nathan around so clearly the game was reacting to everything I was doing right then. I got through this part and due to either poor level design or my own stupidity Probably my own stupidity. I didn't see this turn up ahead I thought I was stuck and had to go around the tank up close and then this happens There are many sequences in the game that can be broken when you don't follow the path You're meant to be on the game doesn't know what to do with you it's like you let go of a legend and climb and died only there should be more options here or a Better example would be when you don't follow the precise chain of events The game wants you to do in the drake's Fortune boss Even though you should be able to shoot him more time a good charge The illusion broke with this tank and I realized that in a way I was being manipulated by the game into having a compelling time I wasn't the one doing all the cool things the game was and I was just along for the ride and giving some basic inputs But after a while I came to appreciate this even though the way I'm describing it might sound bad it really isn't the set pieces still look cool and because of the way that they're made they can do things visually that aren't really Feasible in other games with more in-depth mechanics. It's still not my preferred type of game, but I can still thoroughly enjoy it I know I'm repeating myself here but I want to really try to address why so many people love or hate these games and why the critical reception for them can Often be polarizing as well The car chase is another example of when the game gives you a little more freedom But even here you can hit a dead end if you don't jump when you're meant to yeah, like the Train part There's enough going on that you can interact with that isn't quite as on Rails as some of the other parts Which is probably why this series uses this template again in the next games Ultimately, these games are very simple in what they demand of you both in terms of mastery and in how interesting they are to play But the visuals make up for it not just in graphics But in the spectacle of what you're doing and that you're in control of it all kind of For some I think the illusion never breaks and they remain enthralled for others I think the game can be enjoyed for what it is Even when you recognize and predict the basic controller input that the game wants from you for one group The story's a wonderful presentation and characters might contribute with that to make it the best game ever for others It's not something that they think the do game should be Then there are some in-between that can see it as a fun mindless action movie and still be entertained Thanks As I said earlier in the video uncharted 3 is my favorite of the original trilogy, but not by much I think that the best moments in uncharted 3 are better than 2 but it also has some bad moments that are worse The story is I think more ambitious in scope but has some much larger plot holes and shortcomings because of that At the start we can see that things are a little different this time around after the usual reverent quote We see Nathan and Sully walking through London. There's no gunfight no ridiculous climbing section The tone is a bit more serious and this carries forward throughout the game this is what I considered to be the turning point in the series for when Naughty Dog decided that they wanted to take it a bit more seriously Unfortunately, it's a corner they don't finish turning until uncharted 4 and this third game suffers a bit from drastic conflicts and tone The opening the story shows us the main villains early this time Which I think is great Nathan and sell your at this pub to make a deal to sell Nathan's ring Which belonged to Francis Drake the buyer is a guy named Talbot who is representing a woman named Marlowe who will be meeting shortly Charlie cutter is also here who Pat's down both Nathan and Sully for weapons The deal is called off when Nathan claims that the money on offer is fake Talbot disagrees and a fight breaks out Talbot runs away I'll spoil something here. He'll quick so you can understand something about Talbot. It's really important. He's not actually human He's a cyborg wearing a human skin suit It's a big twist that comes up later Whether or not he's from the future is unclear but he acts so erratically that it's a possibility that he's a time traveler here He decides to show mercy and doesn't interfere and leaves instead of fighting. We'll be seeing a lot of him later There's a lot of mystery around this character since the game leaves it to you to explain much of his actions for yourself This brawl in the pub is when you gain control of Nathan for the first time and it's a great Example to further support what I spoke about in the last part The Uncharted series is about being visually interesting instead of mechanically. A lot of effort went into these fights to make them look fantastic Nathan and I think Sully too will use the environment around them in convincing ways grabbing objects slamming enemies until walls or tables It's the beginning of the system that I think the last of us took to another level But how does it play you're mashing square triangle and occasionally circle. That's it You can even alternate between smashing the square triangle button. So you'll automatically trigger the defensive animation without having to time it I'm not criticizing this for a lack of difficulty because I don't think that's the point like much of the series It's about giving you the illusion that you're making all of this cool stuff happen when in reality It's a more flexible QuickTime event that only occasionally shows you the button prompts This fight goes on for quite some time and moves from room to room ending in a British pub bathroom Which I can tell you from experience are some of the most disgusting places in the modern world One of these guys is far larger than the others and these act as mini bosses throughout the rest of the game This isn't the only one that shows up. It's more of a struggle this time around and it's much more scripted but once again, it looks great so did deer so the goal of the series I Think it was a good idea to have the first fight be a brawl no guns no stealth one of the reasons why I like uncharted 3 the most is that it isn't afraid to let you go for long periods without having to shoot something It makes stealth and fist-fighting more viable options this time around - so there's some variety they still lack a lot of depth But the choice is good enough that you don't get overly sick of one kind for long Same goes for the story outside the pub You meet Marlowe Nathan and Sully have lost the upper hand and she takes the ring from you It's clear that she has some history with both of our heroes and she lets them live Mr. Solo and I won't harm your precious boy I Made a wonder what's mine? As she's walking away. She seems visibly distraught when Charlie cutter shoots both of them down in the alley for no reason You fool Bloody welcome your majesty Marlowe. We have to get you out. I don't actually know why she reacts like this It's one of many things that's never clearly explained a few of the encounters you have with her later directly contradict her reaction here Although it could be excuses or having some sentimentality for Nathan and Sully or that she's a type of villain It doesn't need to be extreme when she's already one The ring is all she wanted not their lives, so Nathan and Sully are dead We go to a flashback here to when Nathan was in his early teens It should be noted that uncharted 3 is set two years after uncharted 2 and once again, Elena is nowhere to be found She's absent in the game until about a third of the way in and you're left to wonder why that is again This flashback is a lengthy sequence with no gunfights the game trusts that you won't get bored by having some things to look at Explore and enjoy some story that you can take at your own pace There's the enhanced version of Nathan's journal that you can read, which is updated more regularly this time around This is also a feature that's made even better and uncharted 4 You have a cool moment here when you realize that this is when Nathan stole Francis Drake's ring and that it's how we need Sully for the first time In terms of gameplay, this is the games climbing tutorial every Uncharted game has one and this is uncharted threes You're following Sulley through the city. He's also trying to steal something from the Drake exhibit only He has the resources to make a copy of the key to get into the cabinet This part is decent I could see why some people might consider it dull, but it's not much different than most of the climbing parts in my opinion It's just more transparent of how little danger there is while you do it Nathan Steele Sully's wallet Sully notices and confronts him It appears like Sully outsmarted the kid, but Nathan had already lifted the key and is the ultimate winner He goes to the museum to steal Drake's ring But Sully is already there along with a bunch of guards and a younger. Marlo there are two items they want from the museum the same ring that Nathan is after and a secret decoder that uses the ring as A key a minor issue here is that I don't understand how a ring could be used to activate something like this and even if it could why a replica wouldn't work just as well because these items are the reason that Uncharted 3 story happens at the end of this part Marlowe has the decoder. Nathan has the ring Marlowe has little patience for the whole thing and is fine with killing a teenager who's standing in her way Little beggar you're not to touch these You fool Sulli thinks this is going too far and interferes allowing Nathan to run away with the rain This is the first chase sequence in uncharted 3 and like many other set pieces in the game It uses visual cues in order to funnel you down the correct path Although when you miss them or they fail to communicate with you the section can feel awful and forced Doing it in one take so to speak is great though. It moves quickly and you feel like a champion dodging all of Marlow snugs Ultimately you're cornered and Sully comes to your rescue Nathan reluctantly enters into a partnership with him and the ring remains in his possession the decoder stays of Marlo and although it's possible a few attempts were made by each group to steal the other piece over the years about two decades passed before the present-day events occur with Nathan and Sully trying to get the decoder and finally follow Drake's clues The flashback ends with a cut similar to the one in uncharted twos opening Nathan and Sully say they're going to be destined for great Things in the future. I see great things in our future kid great things and then we're abruptly back to them laying dead in the alley just like the celebration on the beach leading to Nathan almost dead in the Snow this time. However, there's another layer to it. The gunshots were faked Charlie cutter is in on the plan and working for them. The ring Marlowe got was also a fake The money Talbot was offering was real and we're still in the middle of a con job There's some more simple climbing to do as we go through the streets and alleys to meet up with Chloe There's still no sign of Alaina which is fine for now because Charlie cutter is one of the best characters in the entire series His introduction is clearly meant to make you think that he's some moron thug Then when he's in on the plan things quickly change, you're sure they didn't see you Jalen not a chance Sorry, which door scary popping. Sorry mind. He's just as quick with his math as Nathan and Sully He's knowledgeable and never lags behind Nathan when he's working out clues. Sometimes he's even ahead of him. See this mark This is John Dee's signature tells John Dee. John dee wonna Queen Elizabeth's closest advisors Everybody knows that signed all his letters to the Queen with this symbol meaning he was her eyes the original double-oh-seven You see look double us and that really that relevant Some of his lines are funny and most importantly of all he's genuinely enjoying himself He often acts like a kid who gets to play a role in one of his favorite adventure movies He's having a blast in nearly every scene that he's in and I loved that even his grumblings about being Claustrophobic or endearing which you hear about a lot since you delve into the sewers under the city Like I said, you meet up with Chloe the best driver in the business and do some more climbing in a puzzle. That's okay It's probably the worst one in this game since it's slow to get going Even after you solve it either way things continue to get weirder as you climb down the sewers There are some guards to kill both with stealth with guns It's similar to the museum heist in the first game, especially when you're climbing through all the sewer walls Then you arrive at the ancient train station. Then the next section is even older than that Even the characters comment wondering who the hell they're dealing with and how powerful they must be to have all this hiding under the city So I think answering that now is the best time for watching this video even though it's a minor plot reveal later Marlow is the leader of a secret society that was formed hundreds of years ago by Queen Elizabeth Francis Drake did work for the group, but eventually betrayed them when he found something too powerful for them to have Even so Marlowe is at least equal in terms of power and influence to lazarevich in the second game She may even surpass him. It links back to what I said about the ring earlier It doesn't quite make sense that she wouldn't have found a way to use the decoder in 20 years or that the ring would be The key if it was so difficult to use ultimately It's only a minor quibble since I like that the ring that nathan has been carrying for two games ends up meaning something But since the game is trying to take itself Seriously this time around it's not something that I can call good about the story. This isn't the ring really And that goes double for what happens next Nathan and Friends sneak around Marlowe and use the decoder They used the artifacts and the underground vault to find the next clue the game Establishes the same thing that the past two games did we're following the trail of a dead Explorer, Francis Drake we're searching for a long-lost city full of riches the Atlantis of the sands and Another much more powerful group is competing with us in order to find it however Things are supposed to be different this time around which is the bad plot point you escaped going through several shootouts in the process Marlowe and Talbot aren't left with any way to figure out the same clue that Nathan just did in the group even celebrates this in the next scene some questions are raised about whether they should risk going head-to-head with someone as powerful as Marlowe and this fact is brought up as an Excuse to continue the search that things are different this time they're ahead and there's no way from Marlowe to learn where they're going. I Don't know no, hang on a second because if you recall the last time we went halfway around the world searching for a lost city things got More than a little dicey. Yeah, but this time we have the upper hand Drake only had half the clues lawrence only a half we have both and Marlowe has nothing the Ford then split into two teams to find the next set of breadcrumbs on Drake's trail And of course Marla finds them anyway by following them somehow, that's it. That's all the information you're given I thought it must be building to some reveal that Chloe Sully or cutter betrayed them, but nope It's just as lazily explained the way is that somehow Marlow found them and followed them, which is honestly terrible. That's it That's how the game continues to have conflict in its story like oh I don't they just let Nathan and friends do all the work For them and then just show up at the very end instead of fighting them at every single point Anyway, Nathan and Sully pair off. They find a jungle in France to go through together And this is three games in a row that has them both come through an environment like this early on in the game I guess it was a tradition they were going for which is fine You don't stay outside for long and end up exploring this gigantic Manor slash castle instead Talbot who supposedly followed you Ends up getting here with greater numbers and sets up camp before you this means you're going through the usual cycle in the game Exploration climbing combat puzzle solving and end with us apiece This isn't a bad area by any means It looks great has a puzzle that actually requires a bit of problem-solving and the ending sequence is one of the better ones But Talbot cyborg powers of just appearing dragged it down Along with this part where you find a corpse of one of his men that looks far older than it should be being Specifically draws attention to this and never explains it ever I think the answer is meant to be these evil spiders that infest all of the major locations you travel to throughout the game They suck the life out of their prey or something. At least I guess so but this is never shown to you or maybe Talbots cyborg body requires the life force of a human in order to function every so often You find half of a medallion and then lose it right away when Talbot shows up the game won't let you fight him here Which is always frustrating when games arbitrarily decide when you can or cannot fight back Nathan tries to do so in the movie that plays and Talbot shows off his superhuman robotic accuracy by shooting him in the Now Marlo's people have the same information that you have but it's alright because Nathan drew an imprint of the thing in his journal What is that? Stay in the light You're chased out of the cellar by the spiders I just spoke about It's a shortish run that Establishes the rule that they're afraid of light soon after this the chase resumes only this time you're out running the fire That is burning the whole Manor down around you This part is no different than any other climbing part of the game But all the fire makes it feel like you have to move quickly in that you're in danger Same goes for the standard shooting parts that you'll be doing here against Talbots men had apparently don't care that they're about to be buried Under a burning building in terms of gameplay. This is just the usual climbing set-piece Visually the place looks great as it starts to fall apart And there's an explosive ending when the tower starts to fall and knocks you clear away as you run along the roof Which has one of the more convincing parts for making you think you're making smart decisions by following the stable parts of the roof Which lines up perfectly for where the tower comes down to send you flying? You end with the conflict being a stalemate with Talbot since you both have the information that was hidden in the matter but also with urgency since if they followed Nathan and Sully That means Chloe and cutter must have been followed Somehow - and since Talbot can use his cyborg powers to teleport around the world that will he might already be there You leave for Syria to save Chloe and Qatar and the following section in the Citadel is probably the worst part in uncharted 3 I gotta say I'm losing the plot here Remind me again why we're doing this No, no, no. No if you're gearing up for one of your I'm too old for this speeches spare me Mate, these guys are playing for keeps. Yeah, so Chloe and cutter aren't answering their phones Which is meant to build into the idea that they might have come under attack when in reality They've just forgot to charge them which is mind-boggling that that was considered to be a reasonable enough excuse to put in the game at the start you have an elaborate climbing part that you would normally have to open some shortcut afterwards for Sully to get through the Game has a magically teleport up to you instead. And I know that may seem really nitpicky But previous games use these situations as problems to solve and it's kind of weird. They just forgot about it here Then you go into the next tower alone and Marlo's men inexplicably knew you were coming They're already active and ready for a fight. Now as we just established with the dead cellphone batteries chloe and cutter haven't been discovered yet and Marlo's people should have no idea which we'd be coming from just that you're in this general area So why are these enemies already armed and active and knowing that you're here if they're following you that closely? You have to wonder why they just don't kill you at any time This part is pretty thoughtless, and I'm confident it's impossible to do purely with stuff because of it But it does return to you having to open a path for Sully after you clear it out This area isn't all bad though after the group is reunited You have some great dialogue from cutter and a fun action sequence when nathan is bloss it out of a window There's also a good puzzle down here when you have to move the globe to match the light sources But it's brought down by some truly baffling moments that you have to wonder what Naughty Dog was even thinking First off the clues you follow here are looking at the stars and then moving the camera down to where the lines in the fort Which is as awkward as it is stupid for hiding something then when you reach the final part of this series Talbot literally just appears out of thin air next to cutter no one else notices him He uses some mind-control toxin a dart gun. I swear. I'm not making this up to make cutter susceptible to his orders He then steals the notebook. They've been using as a guide and then leaves without doing anything else this deserves its own section None of this makes sense. This moment is why I've been making the running joke about him being a cyborg How did he just appear here? How does he have this toxin? All he does with it is tell cutter not to trust Nathan Why doesn't he simply just killed them? All right now all he has the drop on them Where are the rest of his guards? How does he just vanish again? And it gets even worse because the toxin works but only sort of sometimes cutter goes into a rage but doesn't start fighting Nathan until a few minutes later right before its effects start to wear off his claustrophobia triggers it I guess and I was here for a long time just Dodging all of his attacks until Sully finally showed up and broke up the fight since it's only Nathan That cutter doesn't trust because of Talbots orders the group works out what happened cutter recovers and they realized that the book is gone because Talbots stole it you go through one of the worst puzzle parts that involve the spiders that requires you to throw torches ahead of time to light your way and the only way This puzzle works is that these brassieres act as infinite torch dispensers Which is the only puzzle that ever has to resort to this type of crap in order to work at least it's the only one That I can think of right now. Maybe there's another one. That's just as bad Right after this you find the second half of the amulet Nathan matches it with the imprint He did of the other one so that they know where to go Next cutter decides that he's the one most suited to carrying it since Nathan lost the last one Cutter the guy who has just mind-controlled a few minutes ago and everyone thinks this is a great idea and lets it happen Of course Talbot shows up again out of nowhere and you're at a standoff four-on-four Drop your weapons. Yeah, I don't think so Well, then what a dilemma We seem to be equally matched Until the rest of my men show up. That is we can wait The balance is tipped when cutter gets mind-controlled again, the others are forced to throw their guns away But surprise it turns up cutter was faking it. So Talbot would let his guard down So even Talbot doesn't know how his own toxin is supposed to work Cutter shoots Talbot in the chest clearly killing him and sending him to the floor you run away And because this is game play now and not a movie bullets don't hurt anymore So you're fine, but then the chase ends with Talbot back at it again cutter is separated because of course He's the one that was carrying the half of the medallion So he has to be the one that lags behind so the Talbot and Marlowe know where to go next How is Talbots still alive? I don't know the game seems to be building to a big event here like they're about to kill off a character But Qatar jumps instead and only breaks his leg This is something the series fails to do and never has the balls to kill off a character to raise the stakes it should have Been Chloe in uncharted 2 and it should have been Qatar here I really like both of these characters a lot and I think most players will but like the characters are the only ones that you can ever kill off because their deaths are the only ones that are going to Have any impact the series consistently teases that it's going to do this and then fails to pull the trigger at the end but let's get back to Talbot for a second the game draws attention to a survival after this Qatar is Understandably furious and wants to know how he survived And The game never addresses it. It is never resolved. You never find out how he took that bullet So he's a cyborg. What makes it worse. Is that Chloe and cutter leave the game after this and never come back? They're not in uncharted 4 either So yeah I really think one of them should have died here in this story could have been different to make this section good Because the game also foreshadows that it's leading to something like that but several points Nathan is told to let it go to let the adventure go this time and not to interfere anymore Let this one go and there's some heavy-handed hints that old man sully is going to be the one who pays the price It's blatantly stated in the next scene after you leave the Citadel you steal a bus and khloé the best driver in the business isn't Allowed to drive Sully does instead In the business Cut her vows out because of his broken leg chloe leaves with him and the scene ends showing clearly that the only reason that Sully is still sticking with it is because he feels Like he owes it to Nathan. He's pushing himself harder than he should be you up for it This marks the end of roughly the first third of the game from this point onward, I think the gameplay gets better There are some fun set pieces ahead of lesson some much better puzzles for the story things remaining consistent the best example being that Elena Returns now when Nathan and Sully had to Yemen the game attempts a more organic way of reintroducing her but it still requires so many coincidences like before and uncharted 2 Elena just so happens to have the exact job needed in the exact city that they need to get to in order to get them Passes to explore she even knows her way around the city enough that she can act as a guide again I know I'm repeating a lot because I'm looking at three games here instead of just one but I really liked their relationship Nathan Elena Have so it's worth all these hoops to get her back in the game, but the story could have been written in another way So it didn't have to essentially repeat and try to all over again They were married and then quickly divorced in the past two years. Elena is still wearing the ring Nathan is more interested in Drake's hanging around his neck This is a calm section through the city That's a good change after escaping the Citadel you go on for a while without shooting people and instead follow Talbot who has appeared in their path Once again, of course, he already knows they're following him since his cyborg sensors have scanned the whole city There's a brawl in the market and then you come to the path to the next hidden section the three descend to one of the more elaborate parts in the series You have three puzzles here all of which require some actual problem-solving instead of just following the answers in your notebook The book only gives hints instead of solving it for you. There were two in the manner like this as well You have to work out the path over the floor that matches up to the symbols in the book then you had to move squares on a grid by working out what the surrounding square should be like Here are the first puzzle is to match the sketch in the book to where you're standing So three switches can be pulled together next up the path splits to two puzzles The first has you putting some cogs in the correct order with a neat trick of the light that acts as a hint along with the symbols on each one Finally, there's a light and shadow puzzle with all of these mechanical body parts on spikes You need to put light in the correct spot to cast a shadow that impales the figure on the wall. It looks pretty cool And these aren't mind blowing but they aren't so insultingly simple as the other puzzles you've done before either They don't reach the same heights to some of the great moments and say the witness But they're visually appealing and required just enough thought that I think they're entertaining You find a star map at the end of this section which Nathan refuses to record and has Sully memorize it instead This is just as force as the moment in uncharged one when Sully takes Drake's journal And it was a giant red flag for me that something was about to happen to Sully You could remember this No, I really don't recommend that first you have to run away from more spiders These ones don't care so much about the light and you have to constantly wave it like a windshield wiper to proceed Then you're stuck at the door and somehow your shotgun makes them retreat. I I don't know This part is kind of awkward to be honest I can kind of see what they were trying to do, but I think they should have stuck with using the fire There are some messages written in the room from Francis Drake warning off any who might be trying to find the lost city Elena isn't as perceptive as Nathan when it comes to figuring out clues and puzzles But she's far more adept at thinking about people and their motivations this is the second time that she points out that there must be something more going on and that someone is wealthy is Marlo or Lazarevich wouldn't be after treasure just for the money You would think Nathan would have learned his lesson about mythical artifacts by now, but nope not much else is said about it Okay You've outsmarted her You know where to find the city and Marlowe doesn't Why can't that be enough there's a gunfight as you leave in a room full of smoke that in my opinion goes on for a bit too long then you Climb out and Talbot shoots another one of his hallucinogenic darts This time it hits Nathan and even without Talbot around to suggest anything to him. He goes berserk This is different than what happened to cutter, but this is so ill explained that I don't even know how to talk about it So I won't Nathan runs through the city and this part just drags It just keeps going and going this is really happening all in his head though Since he's been captured by Talbot and Marlowe and is being interrogated When it's finally over you're sitting at a table and everything is calm you have apparently just told them everything And that Sully is the only one who knows how to get to the Atlantis of the sands So I think that the awfulness of the sequence we just went through speaks for itself It really is abysmal, but it's not all bad here Marlow reveals some tidbits about Nathan's past. She hints about his real name It's such a sudden sobering shift in focus that it was immediately engaging for me And that's more support to what Nathan stealing the ring earlier hinted at that He might not be a descendant of Francis Drake after all mother commits suicide Father surrenders son to the state at the age of five Entrusted to the st. Francis boys home Dickensian It seems like it's building to Nathan being killed and Discarded but he manages to break himself free this snaps into a chase sequence with you running down talbot Which doesn't make sense since why doesn't he just teleport away jokes aside. This part is great It's a longer more involved chase than what you did in the flashback earlier only now, you're the aggressor There are a lot of cues that you should be watching for and responding to you Which if you get them right on your first try and make this feel awesome Unfortunately Talbot does show more of his cyborg powers by being super humanly fast and strong even after you catch up and fight him then You're captured again anyway, so it was all for nothing which may seem strange It's a bit out of place and I have a theory about that So when Nathan wakes up He's been taken somewhere else when the marlowe's pirate friends who just sort of shows up out of nowhere once Nathan as a prisoner Apparently he has Sully - which Nathan blindly believes because sometimes the story requires him to be an idiot. You free yourself Have a massive brawl and are then left to work your way through this giant shipwreck junkyard in the middle of nowhere I am I In terms of gameplay, this is probably my favorite part in the trilogy I go back and forth between this and the train from uncharted 2 in terms of story its filler my guess Is that the team behind the gameplay and set pieces had these cool ideas about Nathan swimming around for cover and wide-open? Shooting arenas with a lot more freedom which transitioned into these gunfights while you climb up the side of a tower it's all capped off for the fight through a cruise ship which is where you find out that Sully isn't being held at all and then a scramble to get out of it when it starts to sink and I mean look at all this the shooting arenas are about As fun as the combat is going to get in these games Which means it's only slightly above decent but visually Climbing and using the cover is a neat gimmick And then you have the cruise ship which makes you learn the layout on your first trip through so you really understand How messed up it is when it starts to sink ceilings become floors. You're climbing on furniture It's like the Train climb on a larger scale It's one of the best visually interesting but mechanically shallow parts that the series does so well, there are a few missteps though There's a lot of trial and error to learning what the game wants from you with our old friends the rocket launchers appearing Killing you in one hit so you have to do the part again and this time be ready for them There's an armored guy on the ship That is the best example I can ever use to support this idea that some of the combat sections have this predetermined path You're meant to follow just like a climbing part or a set piece. He shows up and even going for headshots I ran out of ammo before I could kill him because what the game wants from you is to avoid him until the grenade launcher Guy starts attacking then you kill him? steal the launcher and then use that to kill the armored guy in like two hits and if you waste your time thinking that you Can shoot this guy with regular weapons since he looks human enough that it should work, right? Then you're screwed because you're not doing what you are supposed to maybe he's Telesur robotic brother or something Something similar happens after the ship begins to sink to there's this big gunfight in the cargo hold and sometimes enemies will appear behind you Or flank you and if they randomly land enough shots before you know that you can die before you understand what's happening So there's this rhythm that you have to learn by dying of where to shoot and where to hide next which once you have it Down feels fine But when you don't it can be frustrating just like the appearance of the rocket launcher guys Even with the fast reloads it just feels so forced For the story, there's nothing here Sully was a prisoner turns out he wasn't you escape the ship That's it you wash up in Yemen time has passed so Sully really has been kidnapped just not by Captain Crunch and is being forced to work with Marlo Nathan finds Elena and they form a plant again on one of Marlo's planes to rescue Sully it's not leaving for a few hours So Nathan has a chance to rest and get some sleep So we're roughly two-thirds of the way done Now which goes to show you how much of that ship sequence is filler since so little story happens yet We're suddenly so much further into the game. Like I started saying earlier It's like one half of the team had this idea for these cool things to happen But they didn't have time to fit it into the story So nathan is just randomly taken hostage by a new character whose only purpose in the plot is to make this section possible It's a bad resolution to the conflict of gameplay vs. Story that Naughty Dog is usually good at avoiding at least I think they mostly succeeded in avoiding it and then try two to four and lost of us Elena and Nathan go together to get on a plane It makes sense to use stealth as much as possible here, but there's a part where it's literally impossible You can clear out a whole area but there are two guards at the end that will never move even if you kill them quickly together it still triggers and more carts form the area again It's completely arbitrary and you have to wonder how many other sections make it look like You can use self the whole time But you really can't the game has its own ideas on what you have to do All in all this is a throwback to the train depot scene from the second game Nathan even comments on that he decides to storm Off alone for the plane which almost gets him killed Elena helps him instead with the car to catch up to the plane Which he uses the time of jump just like he did on the train Elena then escapes on her own and Nathan climbs into the plane to hide for a while The story wants a big crash to happen here the title screen and cover art even show you that it's going to happen So when Nathan starts crawling around the plane? You have the most alert guard in the entire series sitting there waiting to snatch him out and cause the whole thing to go to shit This sequence follows the same visual flair with little to do as many others and it's just as enjoyable the part where you're dangling from The plane shows just how extreme this can be since all you have to do is hold forward yet It looks like you're clinging on for your life I Wonder if there is meant to be more to do here the way some of the cargo ships around hints at the idea of movable Cover but it's over very quickly if you like there's something missing or maybe you were meant to fall from parachute to parachute or something on the way down instead of it being a Movie either way, we only have a couple more parts to get through Nathan is the only survivor of the crash Apparently there were no usable supplies and any of the crates that survived from this supply drop for Marlowe He has no choice but to wander aimlessly through the desert He has no water and no food and although he tries to remember the starmap. He can't piece it together This part goes on for a while and I'm mostly positive about it as I've said too many times now I don't think the combat is that engaging in this series? So I don't mind when the game has been doing something else instead others may disagree and for them This might be one of the worst parts of the entire series because there's nothing to do Nathan begins to hallucinate he sees some mirages he discovers that he's been going in circles at least two days past with the player Occasionally having control and then watching him in a movie I think it looks fantastic and it could have been great if it led to some sort of changing gameplay Unfortunately when he arrives in an abandoned town, he's suddenly fine now I know I can get really nitpicky about things but I feel really justified in being annoyed at this part I'll give Naughty Dog credit because this isn't the Atlantis of the Sands. It's just some other place that Marlo's people are searching So they didn't make him luck out to an extreme degree But he stumbles upon this place finds a well falls down it and finally sees water He spits it out and proclaims its undrinkable Three Whoville Then he stumbles into the main section of town and initially I thought this was great One of Marlo's guys is practically having a shower as he pours water all over himself in contrast to what Nathan just went through this Is hilarious but then you fight them all and Nathan is abruptly back to action hero status He isn't slowed down or fatigued or injured or anything There's no interesting twists on gameplay by having him forced to use different tactics or having him weaken Like he was when he was carrying the camera guy in uncharted 2 and I would be willing to forgive all of that I really would accept that after you kill all these guys Nathan doesn't drink any of the fucking water that they were carrying They just established that they have water the game went out of its way to show you yet He doesn't take any just ammo and guns and grenades instead. This part goes on for several battles, and he doesn't fucking drink what was the point of the desert Odyssey if it didn't do anything and if the game promptly forgets about it five seconds after it's over anyway You rescued by some locals You got a horse steal an RPG blow up a door and then finally get to drink something at their camp What the fucking dude the leader of these guys is useless and disposable to the story as the pirate captain who kidnapped you He's here to explain the city. They're searching for was lost when it was used to imprison some evil Djinn in the water below it three thousand years ago King Solomon commanded the power of the jinn demons born of smokeless fire Until they rebelled He imprisoned them in a vessel of brass and cast it into the depths of the city Iran became a place of either cursed by the tormented spirits of the jinn Which seems like a big plot point to me, but it's introduced so quickly and then glossed over so it's kind of weird But this leads to one of the best action scenes in the series, so I guess it's fine This is a better version of the car chase in uncharted 2 in virtually every way it's longer it makes more sense The visuals are a lot better. You have more control since you can move from car to horse and then back again It's a bit like the car chase and the Train put together Really? There's one of the big guy mini bosses to fight toward the end And you get to rescue Sully and it feels like you actually did it instead of it being a movie This is one of the few set pieces that has done. So well that it blurs the illusion that I'm in control, so it's great You and Sully then leave together and ride off to the finale There's another section that I suspect can never be fully completed with stealth once you're spotted These guys can suddenly see through the sandstorm like it's a sunny day and I really don't like this part for that you reach the entrance video Lance's of the sands and there's a similar-looking room here to the doors of Shambala in the previous game and That similarity sparks what I can only describe as an inferior version of uncharted twos final chapters at first It seems to have a lot of the same strengths and flaws But this part of the game continually gets worse as it goes on First off it suffers from the same stupid issue that Shambala did how does a giant sprawling city of gold in the desert remain hidden? in the modern age If the sandstorm around it is permanent, and therefore blocks it from view, even though there's clear skies when you do get inside how does the city maintain that storm that's never explained the city needed to be buried in order for the story to work at the most basic level and this is Doubly frustrating because very soon after arriving. Here you go Underground and spend most of your time in this buried part of the city All they needed to do was cut this opening part out, but maybe they didn't want to because of the following plot twist The city has a lot of machinery parts of it are designed to pump water from a massive reservoir below the streets You find what is functionally a fountain with Sully and take a drink then all of the foreshadowing comes true the sky Darkens an eclipse just so happens to occur this moment when they discover the city Talbot appears nearby in his usual way and shoots Sully he dies and Nathan goes into a rage to chase after them and kill them Please The supernatural part of the game reveals itself here in the form of these corrupted humans They teleport around and throw fire at you at this point. I was really interested in the story since I thought holy shit They're actually going to explain how tall but does the things that he does Clearly he must be some sort of projected form of the imprisoned Jinn, it explains how he's able to do all the crazy things that he can do He's manipulating Marlow in order to free himself and these creatures of those who are just like him and You continue for a while and things start to get increasingly more weird. Nathan is hallucinating again You have some trippy sequences until your vision clears You're underground and kill some of Marlo's thugs you have to wonder how exactly it is that they got here before you but never mind about that you run into Sully and he's Okay, sort of Alright And I had a hell of a time Commander with you. So the water you drank is tainted by the imprisoned jet everything that happened after Nathan consumed It was all in his head So once again, the game didn't have the confidence to kill off a character and chickened out with that. It was only a dream instead know What's really nuts about this part is that nightmare Talbott still acted like normal Talbott? It goes to show you how little care went into his role in the story But if you think about it Marlowe and Talbott want the Djinn because of this magical effect. It's the water That's the true treasure but Talbott has been poisoning you in the exact same way already throughout the game So even that doesn't make sense. I can't even begin to comprehend. What was meant to happen here You might argue that they want the Djinn for some other nefarious Purpose and I would love to be able to discuss that but nothing about it is ever said the ending here involves fighting a bunch of guys Getting to the watery prison where the Djinn is entombed. The thing is being hauled up just like the golden sarcophagus and I'm tired one Then you fall into the water and shoot the crane which causes the entire city to begin to collapse from just two shots We've got a code the Jinna falls back down nathan is slightly scramble out of the water and Miraculously the poison effect doesn't stick to either of them even though they're right next to the source this time You then have to flee the crumbling city Just like the ending of Shambala complete with a bridge that falls away as you run along it There's no final boss this time. Marlow is dying Nathan tries to save her for some reason Talbot goes apeshit, even though he clearly sees that you were trying the saver You never find out why they wanted the junior what it looks like or what it's even capable of at the ending just deflate Even uncharted one had the decency to spend more time showing the end treasure There's then the excuse of a boss fight, which is just a QuickTime brawl Which I guess links back to the opening just like the other games did but it's still a basic QuickTime section with the button prompts on the screen something that the series has avoided as much as possible Until now and it ends up being the final chunk of gameplay in the whole trilogy Nothing about Talbot is revealed. He dies Silas arrives and they flee the city Nathan loses Francis Drake's ring in the city and doesn't get it back Sully reveals that he's been keeping his wedding ring safe instead Nathan takes us as a replacement and for the third game in a row It ends with him realizing that Elena is the one he wants to be with It's all right. I swapped it for something better Sully has a new plane that looks similar to the one in the first game. They walked toward it and that's the end It's not quite as a brethren ending his drake's Fortune, but neither does it provide enough time to come down as among thieves? It's a weekend to an overall solid game Which I have probably made sound a lot worse than it is by doing the nitpicky story thing The reason for that is that it tried to be more than its predecessors it gave itself more to work with more space to have stuff purely for the story and Unfortunately failed to bring it all together in a cohesive way Whether that was because of time constraints or some trouble with developing the final few chapters I can't say I want to commend its ambition even as it failed Especially given the quality that the rest of the game has and that the whole series has in its animation voice acting and the quality of writing in its dialogue it's only the overarching story that suffers which I'm tempted to say can be blamed on the idea of Gameplay as king like in rights of the Tomb Raider But I'm not exactly sure it wouldn't be fair of me to ignore though A lot of these problems are fixed and lost in us in uncharted 4 and that bad writing is an easy label to put on Something when you don't know how development of an entire project went. This video is already very long But I feel it's necessary to look at the last of us while we're here We've already committed to looking at the series leading up to uncharted 4 It wouldn't be right to leave out what could be argued as a spiritual sequel The last of us released in 2013 and is one of the best games that I've ever played I don't know if it's worthy of a spot in my top ten list or anything, but despite some jokes I've made in the past I don't actually have a top ten list a big part of why I like it is its story and how its told which are Two distinct things in my mind. It's a decent story. That's told very very well It doesn't necessarily use video games as a medium to tell that story in a unique way But at the risk of having to give up my credit card I don't think that every video game needs to aspire to doing that on the surface The game has a lot in common with Uncharted. They're both third-person shooters combat involves frequent use of cover between shooting There's some self sections yet. A lot of small tweaks all compound together to make it something very different For the story one of the reasons that I like it so much is that it's one of the best games that has ever managed To pull off both gameplay and a narrative that works together aside from two moments The gameplay is king mantra does not interfere with this game's story Nor do I think that gameplay was ever sacrificed in order for some part of the story to be told Some people might disagree with that since the game uses a lot of movies But I don't think these happen often enough to weigh down the game There are probably ways that the player could have retained control in many of these parts just like similar scenes do in half-life 2 But all you need to do is go back and replay that game in order to see that uninterruptible movies Can sometimes be the better choice both ways have their merits? The Last of Us is about two people Joel and Ellie Initially, it may appear that it's solely about Joel just like Nathan is clearly the main focus of Uncharted But as the game progresses, it becomes clear that the game is about both of these characters The setting is the United States after a fungal plague has wet down most of the population the cordyceps It's a more creative twist on zombies that is refreshing visually, but not so much somatically like many zombie stories The zombies aren't actually the point. It's about Joel and Ellie Another key differences of the game is far more grounded in reality Which may sound ridiculous considering that I just said the game has mushrooms on bees Whereas I'm charted to set in our world visitors today Which is used as a foundation to have the player do some unbelievable impossible and ridiculous things The Last of Us gives us the impossible setting right from the start and then makes it as real and believable as possible No one in this game has the acrobatic ability of a trapeze artist on crystal meth There aren't any parts where you're hanging on to the side of a plane slash car slash train It's a game that wants you to take it seriously And that actually takes itself seriously - unlike uncharted 3 that just wants you to respect it without earning it Gameplay has more depth as well. But only a little more there's no climbing or action set-pieces It's about gunplay and stealth instead with the occasional unique situation that twists these basic encounter types like the Uncharted games There are still a lot of instances of you being guided on invisible rails or parts that are meant to be more visually interesting Than mechanically but there's definitely more here for the player to work with let's start out with what I think is the best change shooting I Criticized the imprecise controls of the gamepad for aiming a gun earlier in the video I don't know if this is intentional or not. But this limitation clearly works in favor of the Last of Us ammo is scarce So much so that you're quickly taught that if you want to do a lot of shooting then every shot you make needs to matter Automatic weapons are exceedingly rare. I don't think you get to use one yourself until the very end of the game So for the vast majority of your time playing enemies will also be pelting you with more deliberate spaced out shots In a way the shooting feels bad aiming is difficult You know that you can't afford to miss it encourages this more Methodical style of play to really think about how you're going to aim and use the few bullets that you have which ties up nicely To using the analog stick on the controller for these kind of weird movements When enemies are shooting back at you things become so chaotic that you also can't afford to waste a lot of time Since help doesn't regenerate in this game So there's stress running from both sides Which is one of the reasons why I'd recommend playing the game on a harder difficulty setting if you're familiar with shooters This also encourages you to get the most out of stealth when you first arrive at an area with enemies This is like foreplay before you get stuck into it the best case scenario is to kill everyone silently so that you don't have to have a gun fight so you can save your in health packs, I Usually don't like stealth games that have you do this sort of thing since it rewards saving and reloading if you don't know an area Ahead of time then you can hit that ends or get caught simply because you didn't know the layout of a map yet You act as a scout on some attempts to see what everything is about and then reload into a proper playthrough of the whole thing Which is just a kind of a waste of time for me here though. The best parts of the game were one I would use stealth to take down about half of the enemies then I would mess up and get spotted which would transition into a Mad scramble to punch the guy who saw me to death and finish up with a gunfight Sometimes I would be successful in silently clear level but most of the time this to act drama will be what happens Unfortunately, the combat does have some problems The first one is one of those game players King issues that I mentioned about a minute ago Enemies have lots of guns an infinite ammo when you kill them. You aren't able to loot any of them This annoys me because the game tries to be realistic in so many other ways but it gets worse when you play enough and start to learn how ammo drops work because it's only sometimes That enemies will drop ammo and it's almost always for the weapon that you're currently using And only when supplies start to get low the game is making these small adjustments as you play in order to make sure that you always have some ammo but little enough that you never feel comfortable enough to Waste any of it? If you had lots of ammo drop then all of the stress in combat would be lost and you could just aim your shots without Caring about where they're gonna go if you made it so enemies ran out of bullets Then that wouldn't be good either since you could choose battles by weighting them out although now that I'm saying that if the AI was a little better then that could be a Rewarding experience for smart players if they would bait out shots to make them lose their ammunition to get out of bad Situations that actually sounds pretty good. Just because I can't think of a solution doesn't mean one doesn't exist, though So it's still worth pointing out the problem my opinion Combat also becomes less enjoyable when you're thrown into a battle without any chance to use stealth beforehand Which is unfortunately how the very first battle works in the game This doesn't happen often and it's not always bad. But when it does it usually feels a lot worse than other sections Stealth also has some issues of its own, but we'll get to them a bit later Other things that improve mean play are the crafting and the zombies damage you take needs to be healed with a medkit medic it's need To be found or more off crafted by the player with materials you scavenge in the environment. This is all done without pausing So if you make the mistake of going into a fight Unprepared you have to make sure you have a good opportunity to be safe And restore your health same goes for craftable tools Like Molotov cocktails and shrapnel grenades and switching your weapons out into holsters that you assign them in order to use them It's a great system that makes it so you can carry around a lot of weapons for some variety in combat But also that you can't just switch between them like crazy during those fights to make them really easy I'd argue that these are small tweaks though. It's that health doesn't regenerate for free. That's the big one. However funnily enough I'd argue that this has a bigger impact on the game when you're not fighting If there's anything we can use The crafting system comes with a standard weapon upgrades and experience levels only they're not awarded to you by killing enemies But by scavenging for gears and pills and all the places you go through this makes exploring just as important as the combat and Since Naughty Dog puts so much effort into making all of these places look so interesting It gives you a gameplay reason to go through them all which is also reinforced in the story I'll briefly mention some examples of this when I summarize the plot, but there's even more emphasis on characters and dialogue in the last of us then and uncharted a lot of these conversations are optional and you find them by Looking at something or by talking to Ellie I saw this before the outbreak you did does he totally gut her by the end? Nobody gets gutted. It's a it's a Dumpty movie who dragged you to see it then? I don't know. Does he stay focused? Alright, alright These feel like natural real conversations instead of so many Force Ones like in some RPGs When you get past a big plot point return to camp and know that you're due for a new Conversation with one of your companions since they trust you now more some fucking shit here the characters are speaking about what they're seeing and going through as it's happening as for the zombies They provide a lot of variety not just in the different zombie types of which there are only really three But in that you have to handle them very differently than human enemies I think a lot of games could benefit from having at least three factions like this standard humans some sort of monster and then the player it allows for two simple types of encounters to still feel fresh because they can be cycled through although I think it's a shame that You never have to deal with the zombies and human enemies at the same time That could have been pretty interesting and that's something that I feel is important to stress right now The gameplay here is still on the simple side It's not incredibly deep but it's still a full step above the serviceable passable shooting galleries from uncharted This isn't just filler between the story sections anymore. And with the game making its story just as important as gameplay I think this was a good decision It's a lot easier to avoid them clashing with each other when it's kept relatively simple and it's still very enjoyable Tommy listen to me he is the contractor. He's the contractor. Okay. I can't lose this job. I Understand with let's talk about this in the morning. Okay, we'll talk about it in the morning, you know Scoot Monday at work, huh? What are you still doing that it's late crud, what time is it it's way past your bedtime still today Honey, please not right now. I do not have the energy for this here This is your birthday So we've touched on gameplay there are a few more things I want to talk about But let's save them for some breaks as we go through the story We'll be doing that next a summary of each section the lost of us unlike the chapter system and uncharted This game uses the Four Seasons as a way to break up each section with smaller chunks divided in each one We start off in summer, which is by far the longest of the four I asked me that it has roughly the same amount of content as the other three combined before that However, there's the game's prologue this can work in one of two ways Depending on the person playing simply put there going to be two types of people holding the controller Those who know something about the game and watched a trailer - and those who know absolutely nothing and are playing it blind That may sound really stupid and basic when laid out like that but here's why I'm going to the trouble We start playing as Joel's daughter Sarah not Joel This isn't the same girl that's seen in the trailers and considering that it's a game about the apocalypse The dread starts to set in about what's happening Which is expertly helped by how great the opening exchange of dialogue is between these two characters You kept complaining about broken watch so I figured you know, you like it Honey this is Nice, but I think it's stuck. It's not what no, no no. Oh ha ha Where did you get the money for this drugs? I sell hardcore drugs. Oh good We start helping out with the mortgage then yeah you wish Joel is a struggling single father and Sarah deeply cares about him. They have a strong relationship despite this situation The dialogue is quick funny and delivered with as much confidence as a great scene from a movie and you know This is all about to go to shit and Sarah's going to die If you don't know anything about the game Then you get to experience the surprise of the city descending into chaos and being unclear about what's going to happen next You have some time to explore the house which was at the time of release one of the more convincing homes that I've seen in a game and witnessed this trick that I Love a few minutes in there's a reporter on the TV that is dealing with some crisis You're a little girl safe in her quiet home Clearly far away from in an explosion happens on the television that can also be seen through the window And just like that whatever is happening in the city feels a hell of a lot closer and then it was a second ago Things continue to get worse as the scene goes on Joel rushes into the house They're attacked nice for us to kill someone which is a lot more impact for these characters, since they don't know what's happening yet and just contrast that to Nathan's reaction in the first scene in uncharted 1 Joel's brother. Tommy is introduced who is important to the story later all the while? You're just the helpless kid in the back of the car along for the ride But with the perception of an adult holding the controller that's able to recognize that these two men have absolutely no idea What the fuck they're doing There's a sense of scale in this opening that I really like it actually feels like you're being driven around a real place the visuals Aren't quite as cutting-edge now, so it might not have the same impact But at the time it was very impressive The one flaw I can point out is that the game switches avatars partway through Sarah gets injured enough that she can't walk Joel has to carry her and I wonder sometimes if the game should have kept the player with Sarah and have Joel carry you around This change arguably might ruin a moment at the end of the game. But like I said, I have to wonder try and remember that The opening ends with Joel fleeing the city with Sarah in his arms. Tommy is only a few minutes behind them a soldier stops him from leaving and if you didn't see Sarah's death coming before now what this guy mutters into his radio will be an Oh shit moment Sir, there's a little girl I think the image of this guy is also important what he's wearing the automatic rifle and the flashlight. You can't really see him clearly He opens fire Joel turns to shield Sarah Tommy shows up and kills the soldier Sarah somehow still got hit in the game fully convinced how serious it's going to be in the ending moments of this scene they could Have faded the block with Joel crying They could have avoided showing the girl dying But not only do they linger here Sarah whimpers and squeaks as she dies the game makes you watch it and solidifies the tone that the rest of the game will follow The opening credits playing it's 20 years later summer So a lot of that played out like a movie this is something that the game is often criticized for and it's definitely true Some people want games to always be fully interactive and think it's a failure when control is taken away from the player I think that it's fine as long as it isn't done excessively Of course, I think that it's better when interactivity and gameplay can add to the story But it doesn't have to happen in order for me to enjoy the game To look at it another way if the loss of us was a movie or a TV Miniseries to better match its lens then I think it would be pretty good the gameplay sections don't detract from that So I think it's still great. It's not pushing the medium forward in terms of interactive storytelling. I don't think it has to do I Do think there are a couple of moments of gameplay that add to the story though the one I want to talk about here is the amount of people that you fight and kill again some have criticized the game for This that Joel is a monster that kills too many people as you play I think this is being naive these sections allow you to experience how harsh the world has become and how ruthless those who are left have to be in order to survive 20 years is a long time a naughty dog have properly thought out what could have happened in two decades some places have banded together Something close to a new society has emerged in some areas But the zombie threat still hasn't been resolved and these safe havens don't last forever This is the world that joel has been forced to live in after losing his daughter all the fighting you do as you control him Has been a regular occurrence and judging by some of the things he says halfway through the game What you see as you play it might be some of the more peaceful years compared to what he's seen This is how you go and repay me, huh? Repay you for all those goddamn years. I took care of us. Took care That's what you call it. I Got nothing, but nightmares from those years you survived because of me it wasn't worth it and Not only has he survived. It's established right away that he's doing better than most he's become the sort of man that thrives in this new world and Because of that this next scene might be kind of dull depending on how much you're invested in the game Joel's partner test shows up apparently someone stole from them and they want revenge but you have no idea who these people are So it's difficult to care. It's really about showing that joel has made something of himself And what life is like now inside the safe zones? The place is understandably Totalitarian because security is more important than anything when there are monsters that can turn other people into more monsters People are executed right there on the spot in the street if they're infected a bomb goes off Which while unusual doesn't exactly surprise either Joel or tests You're also shown a network of resistance against what passes as a government a network that apparently has a lot of respect for tests not So much Joel though Tes is the boss and Joel seems content to debate some issues with her but eventually settle into following orders There are also mentions of a larger resistance group called the fireflies that are apparently being purged from the safe zone today Joel and Tess don't care about any of this all they want are the weapons that were stolen from them you go through some combat And stealth arenas, you're introduced to the basics of gameplay This is some sort of old shipping or warehouse area so stuff you use for cover here mostly make sense It's not the best part of the game, but it's functional Joel and tests confront the guy who stole from them and if there was any doubt left in your mind Whether these are noble people or if noble people can even exist in this world it's squashed when they execute him without a second thought that is a stupid idea a new character named Arlene shows up right after this She's an officer in the firefly group and are the new owners of the weapons that joel and tess want a new deal is struck For them to smuggle something out of the city which turns out to be ellie the other main character in the game What happened? Don't worry. This is fixable. I Got his help But I can't come with you this section here from credits to Elly isn't necessarily bad It's just slow because it has to introduce so much the characters Joel's new life both gunplay and stealth then both human enemies and zombies and what the government now looks like in those that are rebelling against them Stories usually have some sort of slow momentum like this after a big opening and the Last of Us is no different it can feel A lot worse than just a movie or a book though because gameplay also has to be shown to the player in a similar way I think it's fine on a first playthrough It suffers a bit on subsequent ones From this point onward the game changes and it shows how much of a departure it is from Uncharted in two ways How much more of a cohesive story that is trying to tell and also how much less of a cohesive story is trying to tell? And that's stupidly contradictory, but it also happens to be true You'll follow me so what I mean is the goal of the game is to get Elly to the fireflies across the country being partnered with Elly the Whole time means that the game has a permanent relationship for the player to follow and see change whereas in charted Nathan is continually cycled through so many different pairings with characters With Elena and Uncharted one seeming like the most time spent with one character But the game is so short that it's comparable to some sections and the other two games in opposition to this However are all of the different levels that you go through with Ellie many of which have abrupt break points and jumps forward in time in place because the game spread over a year and that there are large gaps in time that are never filled in the story can also be Seen as more of a series of stories despite there being the stronger permanent one between Joel and Ellie the goal of getting Ellie to the fireflies remains a vague one for most of the game and there's no villain that is Constant from beginning to end. So a more cohesive with Joel and Ellie less cohesive with all the many adventures they have as they travel this also makes it a lot easier for me to summarize at the beginning because most of these are simply Situations that you have to get through while both the player and Joel increasingly grow to trust Ellie This starts with escaping the city with tests where you learned that Ellie is Infected but immune which is why the fireflies want her so badly Marleen citizen Why the hell are we smuggling an infected girl To make a vaccine. So the zombies can be wiped out tess immediately latches on to this as hope for humanity Joel doesn't give a shit and disagrees but goes along with it anyway because she's in charge if Joel And we've come this far. Let's just finish it. Do I need to remind you? What is out there? I Get it At some point test gets bitten which causes her to be even more desperate to find meaning in Ellie's immunity since this is now the Cost she's dying for whether she likes it or not This leads to one of the most wonderfully dark moments in the game when Tess turns that on Joel and guilts him into taking Ellie Which is yet another example of how much higher the quality of writing is in this game compared to many others And it's already worse. This is fucking real Joel You've got to get this girl to Tommy's he used to run with this group. He'll know where to go. No No, that was your crusade. I am NOT doing that. Yes, you are. Look There's enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me. So you get her to Tommy's It's like we're on a date. Well, I am the romantic type Got your ways It's easy for me Joel is cold to Ellie but far from indifferent he often loses his patience yet There are moments when his guard drops and some of his past self comes through With the wristwatch scenes being the most often pointed to examples Your watch is broken and Then here with him glancing at it in a calm moment, which is probably something he isn't even doing consciously He doesn't care about the Cure and at the moment of Tessa's death He barely cares about Ellie either yet. The guilt trip works and he continues on Why are you just taking me back to my room she was up to the task? Maybe she's better now That'll mean upset your friends changes a survival weren't too high to begin with The next scene shows slices of the new world while also being the backdrop to this new partnership These sections offer more opportunities to explore and do some of that scavenging. I mentioned earlier along with some optional conversations with Ellie Would you play this before no But I had a friend that knew everything about this game apparently there's this character called Angel knives who'd She punch a hole through your stomach before kicking your head off already we've gone from Joel barely talking to her to humoring some of her quirks by the time they arrived at Bill's town a smuggler that Joel and Tess worked with When they're alone, Joel is a little more friendly to Ellie When they meet up with Bill he acts like she's more of a nuisance in that It's just a job probably because he's more aware of his actions now There's someone else to judge him and he doesn't want to admit that he's growing to like the girl what I need a gun No, you don't Joel. I Can handle myself no just Stay here It's fine just wait around for you to to get me killed this goes on record as the worst fucking job you've ever taken Heads up there. Oh and the hell is test okay with a suicide mission It's not an accident that she's about the same age as his dead daughter just like it's also not an accident that she speaks with the same kind of quick jokey sarcasm although it is a bit rougher was more swearing which is more likely a way to get the player to identify with her more than Joel Is late What time is it? There's a part here when Joel steps into one of Bill's traps and has to shoot off zombies while dangling upside down It's one of a handful of parts that comes close to the set piece gameplay uncharted It's a fun twist but because I'm a nit picky asshole It bothers me that the game magically gives you infinite ammo for this to work I can't see a way around it though without it becoming frustrating Bill is an erotic survivor. That is always muttering reminders to himself. He finds some of his notes scattered over the town Which come across is the usual terrible video game crap of people leaving journals everywhere? Then you meet him and yeah, this is a rare exception. This guy has gone a little nuts and all the notes make sense He apparently owes Joel a lot of favors and the deal they make is for a working car to call it even as they gear Up, he orders Ellie not to touch any of the stuff, which she does anyway and steals a couple of things that come up later This part is heavier on gameplay a stealth section past some zombies than a shoot up to the school bill mentions that he had a partner working with him for a while that left in the same direction that they're going to get a Working car battery from a truck that crashed into the school a while ago When you get there, the battery is already gone and you're attacked in the gym by a giant zombie This is a boss fight the justification the game has for all the different types of zombies Is that the fungal infection the cordyceps thing continues to grow over more of the hosts over time? The longer a person has been a zombie the larger and stronger they are From those who are just turned who are like normal zombies to the blind clickers and then the giant brute guys seen here the boss Will kill you instantly if you get too close it also throws fungal bombs at you between charges I'm Mostly neutral about this fight sometimes I think it feels kind of forced but it's a fun departure from the other enemies These things come back later as semi normal monsters and you can learn that they're easily taken down with fire damage You find those partner in a house after this He was the one who took the car battery and managed to fix up a car But he was bitten before he could leave and killed himself before the infection could change him. You can find a suicide note That's a hateful rant against Bill and the game even lets you give it to him, which is pretty harsh But without much context about the relationship It's possible that bill might be glad that he had something of them at least even if it is this hate note Joel and Ellie leave together in the car. She reveals what she stole from Bill stash a comic book and a porn magazine She cracks a pretty good joke I'm sure your friend will be missing this tonight Light on the reading but it's got some interesting photos that ain't for kids Get rid of that hold your horses, I want to see what all the fuss is about. Oh my knees all stuck together And this makes things click into place about bill that Frank was more than just a friend I like this for two reasons It adds some extra weight to everything that just happened in the previous scene But only if you stop and think about it for a second or two instead of having its land over your head but once upon a time I Had somebody that I cared about Partner and that the game has a homosexual character without having their sexuality be their defining trait I think it's a much more mature and serious way to go about this sort of thing And it also means that while Joel was hiding what happened to tests from bill that he was doing something similar about his partner About your buddy back there That's a tough deal What else did you get well Here this make you all nostalgic, you know, that is actually before my time I also like this car scene because it shows Joel and Ellie bonding Samara along with one of the funnier jumps in time from when Ellie Proclaims that she's not tired and is then immediately asleep in the next scene? This is one of the calmer moments in the game And that doesn't last for long it transitions into one of the more memorable fights for me since this is one of the rare times That starting you already in a gunfight works. Really? Well only You ain't even hurt This battle against the Raiders is frantic and I think that how you're dropped into an unknown area and cornered adds a lot of tension I felt like I had beaten the odds when I had gotten through this part This is the beginning of what I think is the longest series of directly linked events in the game getting through Pittsburgh Meeting Sam and Henry and reaching the end of summer There's a lot of sections of fighting exploring and some character development with Joel and Ellie He's starting to open up to her and that changes immediate after the car crash when you find the Raider Supply garage He reveals that he's being on both sides of the fight that they were just in and that adds some more Complexity to what he's had to do to survive and then 20 years that we didn't see after Sarah's death I'll take that as a yes. Take it however you want Again I see people criticize his character a lot and I don't think that's fair He's not beyond redemption. And at no point does he appear to enjoy any of the violence that he inflicts on others? It's purely about survival Of course, there might have been a time when that wasn't the case But we can only go by what we're shown and told in the game I think the games ending also plays a big part in how people view Joel that he's a bad Selfish person and we'll get to that But it's funny for now There's a cycle between different combat sections some light Environmental puzzle-solving and some story the battle arenas are larger here and at least in my experience this led to more opportunities To mess up the south part and get myself into a gunfight At one point you're separated from Ellie and have some zombies to get through Then when you reunited Joel is nearly killed and Ellie saves him. This is the first of many turning points in their relationship I'm not sure if Joel is embarrassed or angry that she had to save him but he's initially pissed off and acts like a dick and you just hang back like I told you to Well, you're glad I didn't right I'm glad I didn't get my head blown off by goddamn kid There's a pretty good optional conversation about it soon after with Ellie being just as passive-aggressive as he is She's basically telling him that he's going to treat her like a child then she's going to act like one Wait there, okay We need to get back out find that bridge Jolin finally admits that she was right and he lets her have a gun a rifle at first and then a pistol afterward and says That she should start helping him. He's moved on to accepting her and trust that she won't accidentally shoot him in the next scene. I Know I do this a lot. But I want to skip over this part and come back to it There's a problem in this section that ties back to a couple of other things I want to say about the game same goes for the next part with the armored car So let's get through it You have to run away and end up taking shelter in one of the nearby buildings where you meet Sam and Henry Who are this sections version of Bill the guest stars of this area? Henry is the older brother Sam is the younger Ellie immediately bonds with Sam Henry and Joel take a little longer the brothers have a similar dynamic as Joel and Ellie and since Henry often treats him like he's an idiot and far less mature than He actually is I have to wonder if this is meant to make you think about how Joel treats Ellie If so that I'm going to be honest and say that I didn't get it They felt like standard characters to me interesting because of the conversations they can start but not carrying any bigger meaning in the game Anyway, the four of you move further into the city The goal is to reach the bridge and this is something all of the games in this video Do there's often some? Landmark in the distance that you're always working towards and I was often surprised by how much closer you can be to these goals after finishing what feels like a short section Sometimes it'll be a building or a tower or like I said a bridge in this case You can navigate every area by exhausting every option So these sorts of guys aren't strictly necessary and I'd say that these games used in too often since they occasionally feel predictable But for the most part, it's a good way to give you a goal. That isn't just dialogue You rest for a while before going for the bridge Joel and Henry are still wary of each other But there's enough trust that Yolo goes to sleep It's night now and that makes the next section one of my favorite in terms of visuals I like sneaking down this street with the burning bright spotlight and the radar shouting at things in the dark you work with Henry to do a double stealth takedown and then move on to do your best to thin up the rest of the guards including turning off the spotlight So let's talk about those earlier parts now that we're at this one the problem few pieces in the Last of Us Is that they can devolve back to what I'm charted us Naughty Dog has this very strict Limited idea of what you need to be doing in a scene and if you deviate from that plan in the game just fucking breaks I'm not 100 percent sure about this part specifically But the way that guards keep jumping down from the barricade as I stealth kill some of them leads me to believe that clearing this area with just stealth is Impossible probably because the sound of the battle is what draws the armored car to come back What I am sure about is the earlier encounter with that car, which is an invincible tank of death Even if you think you're smart and get under its gun in order to blow it up Which probably sounds familiar if you watch the whole video? This part feels just like the awkwardness of the uncharted 2 village scene with another big vehicle Just like it you have to run away because there are scripted events linked to this car You can't fight it even though you kind of should be able to Further back then that we have the part when Elia is covering you with the rifle Which is also impossible to do with just stealth because the game has a movie after this with dialogue that mentions Ellie fighting This could have easily been resolved by having someone spot Ellie So it's not the players fault or someone spots Joel right at the start So the player doesn't grow to resent Ellie from messing up and you having to fight how'd I do? Even earlier than that is when Joel is separated from Ellie and you have the basement area That is completely empty of zombies until you hit a trigger point which causes them all to spawn out of nowhere It's like they come out of the walls There are more parts like this coming up and it's frustrating because Naughty Dog clearly wants to provide players with the illusion of freedom instead Of actually giving it to them there are solutions to these encounters either do a better job funneling the player to trigger points before they can explore everything or Put the extra time in and have alternative Story parts that react to different ways that you can get through each area about something a Little more your size The most ridiculous of them that we've already passed is right after test dies if you waited the locked doors to kill the soldiers in An ambush which I thought I was being smart when I did it here Then you can walk back into the room with Ellie and see Tessa's corpse on the floor No one speaks about it or mentions it you can't do anything Then you proceed up the path you're meant to take and now on the second floor balcony There's this big message of oh, no Tessa's dead body how sad because the game shits itself when you go off-script Yes The group makes it through the gate and have to scramble to climb onto a truck before the armored car breaks through to get them Everyone, but Joel makes the climb Henry realizes that it's hopeless to try to save him and runs away with Sam Ellie proves her loyalty by not only staying behind but actually jumping down from safety in order to stick with Joel Which I think is pretty cool of her the two of them find an alternative path to the bridge instead which involves another gunfight and Then a chase sequence from the armored car. That's what's playing right now And this is something that I really like about the game Do you see how the car is missing virtually every single shot? As long as you're running like you're supposed to the game does this in combat, too? Often the first shot that an enemy would land on you Especially if it's one that just showed up to enter the fight has this special animation tied to it with Joel Flinching as it cuts around his head, but it doesn't actually hit him Uncharted doesn't do this even in uncharted 4 during scripted chase sequences when you're not meant to fight back Nathan will still take pass loads Of damage and the screen goes red as he takes a bullet after bullet Same thing for new enemies that just show up you eat that damage My guess is that the last of us has to do this because there's no regenerating health But it adds a lot of immersion for me and I wish other games would do something similar At the end here Joel and Ellie have no choice but the risk of deadly jump into the water by all reasoning they should have died but are saved by Henry and Sam who see Them in the river. This makes the next part awkward in two ways first It's literally awkward in the game Since Joel is out for blood since Henry abandoned them But also saved them it takes him a few moments to resolve this conflict and then they all move on It's also awkward because the whole betrayal into chase sequence starts and end so quickly that it doesn't seem necessary Maybe this is an instance of the game letting gameplay take priority since that chase sequence was made without sufficient Planning to sync it up with the story. I'm not sure it's not really that big of a deal I just thought I would mention it while we're here You'll be really happy you didn't kill me Either way the four continue to work together and go through a sewer level Which is a common environment in many games and at least as far as I can remember are usually bad The Last of Us is the exception however, and this is my favorite part of the summer section There's a lot of fantastic environmental storytelling here of which you can decide the skip or inspect depending on how much you care some of it is surprisingly dark even for this game and there's a lot of journal notes to find that make a little more sense in most games since the place is covered with signage Some real thought has went into how the people down here would have gotten food and water to survive and I think it's a shame That this place wasn't still active when you get here I think it could have worked well to break up the action and seeing a thriving little village and the sewers that's still functional may have Been more interesting than the zombie slaughter that you do here in the game instead Like my last point this isn't something that I'm sure about it's a part that I like so much that I guess I just wish There was more to it Maybe the people living here could have had a section that they blocked off that was full of zombies that you needed to get through So you could have had the best of both worlds Maybe I'm wrong and it would be worse though because the next area offers a peaceful pause anyway You get to explore one of the more convincing suburbs and gaming all of the houses can be entered and looted there are a lot Of things to scavenge and optional conversations and it's honestly great In terms of gameplay However, it's luring you into a false sense of security You think you've put enough distance between you and the Raiders in the city and you're quickly shown that you're wrong It's strange to me that my least favorite part of the game is right after one of the best ones This is the most blatant example of the game having a set order of events that you need to follow out of everything We've looked at so far Including uncharted this section stood out in my memory So clearly that it's the reason that I knew I have to replay the Last of Us and talk about it in this video There's a sniper at the far end of this area The game tells you to go forward so you have a better chance of taking him out What it actually wants you to do is get into the house and sneak up on him in the room But it doesn't tell you that so I did what I would do in any other game I went for the closest piece of cover to the snipers window that I Could find and I tried to kill him and you can't you just can't there's no one holding the gun It doesn't move when aims at you You can throw Explosives and maltose to the window and it doesn't matter the game refuses to let you choose you're only to solve this or a better Way of saying it would be that the game refuses to let you use your usual tools in order to solve this It gets even worse however When you're forced to give up and go through the house, the sniper anticipates you sneaking up on him and hides in the room But he's invisible you can look inside before you go in. He's not there He magically appears when you cross the door You'd think Joel would be more suspicious after years of fighting that the game supersedes that in order to have a struggle with the guy Followed by you taking the rifle for yourself to protect the others At least the game gives you the same infinite pile of ammo that the sniper used beforehand Now this part is okay. The best moment is when the armored car shows up since if you're like me You probably thought it was long behind you and that you wouldn't have to deal with it again Some zombies also attack the others which are also scripted to set up a small twist in the next scene This movie is the end of summer. And I think it's the first time that our narrative perspective shifts Um, Joel - Ellie Joel and Henry are busy getting along after they've injured another fight Sam is feeling neglected in the other room What are you scared of? Oh? Let's see Scorpions are pretty creepy Ellie tries to cheer him up and of course since this game can rarely have a happy moment. It turns out Sam is infected he proves his older brother right about being an immature kid by not telling anyone which almost gets Ellie killed in the morning the Celebration from the night before shifts like a whip crack into Henry having to kill his own brother and then turning the gun on himself Nobody spoke Henry Henry no The game then cuts to black we don't get to see the aftermath or how Joel and Ellie react It's a rare case of letting the player imagine for themselves that I actually liked since Joel and Ellie are clearly getting along better in The next scene but not as much as you think considering how much time has passed clearly Henry and Sam's death was a setback and how they judged each other and maybe that's all the game was going for showing how a similar deal ended up and how easily it could be them or Maybe it's the narrative casting judgment on them for leaving Joel behind on the bridge. Like I said, I'm not sure We stick together There are three seasons left But I'd say we're at least halfway through the game fall has another big turning point for Joel and Ellie It also sees the return of Tommy from the opening There are some more optional conversations here and some depth is shown in the characters by having them speak about multiple things There are some nods to the events that just happened with Henry and Sam But the whole mood and conversation isn't dominated by it. Not every piece of dialogue is armed sad It makes them feel like actual people with complex thoughts and reactions to what's happening This probably won't be the first time that I say this the writing and characters in this game aren't just good for video games They're good compared to a lot of movies and books as well. That doesn't stop this section from having some flaws, though I'd say the opening of fall has some extreme shifts in quality with some filler moments of gameplay that I don't think the game needed - one of the best story moments in the game. So you arrive at this dam There's one of the exploration puzzles that we'll talk a little bit about later There's no combat just yet We're meant to be getting close to Tommy Joel's brother from the opening and we end up running into him much sooner than expected Ellie who was a lady says Joel explains to Ellie that the two of them didn't part on the best of terms Tommy was more idealistic and invested in the fireflies Joel doesn't say this But it's clear that he was more jaded after the years of doing horrible things for both him and his brother to survive My god damn, brother But Tommy doesn't seem to care about this at first he welcomes his brother with literal open arms He reveals that he's building a new town here with his wife Maria. Who is the leader of the place? They have a semi working electric dam. So their homes have power it all sounds great, but Joel doesn't care He's here to pass Ellie on to his brother so that he can be done with the whole thing Sometimes I think this could be a plot hole Joel and Ellie are clearly getting along better Ellie's showed that she was committed to him The moment she jumped off the truck earlier and she reinforces that when she's hesitant to be apart from Joel even for a few minutes After they arrive at Maria's town Come on Ellie, let's give the boy some space Joel apparently doesn't feel as strongly about her But I'm not sure if it's that simple right before he tries to dump Ellie on Tommy. He's given a picture of himself with Sarah I'm good You sure, I mean I've said I'm good He refuses to take it. It's clearly too much for him. And now that I'm thinking about it I wonder if this is why Henry and Sam died in the end It's a much more recent reminder of death and tests Joel also strikes me as stubborn enough that he's following the plan that he formulated in his head months earlier and hasn't thought to consider that things might have changed but I'd taken that girl off your hands This is how you gonna repay me. Huh? Repay? You all those goddamn years. I took care of us. Took care That's what you call it. I got nothing but nightmares from those years you survived because of me it wasn't worth it Bring you the Cure from mankind you will play the pissy little brother Tommy refuses to take Ellie and the two are about to have a blowout fight about it when Raiders attack the dam and this is The game play I mentioned a bit ago that I considered to be completely unnecessary It's the closest the game gets to the awful shooting galleries of uncharted I guess it provides an excuse to break up the conversation about Ellie And ultimately leads to her having an opportunity to steal the horse and leave but some spectacle with the dam lighting up the town could Have worked instead of some force combat Unfortunately, it only gets worse This is the only other time in the game that I think gameplay is king reared its bloated head and ruined some of the story Ellie has rushed away from the dam on horseback Joel and Tommy follow and are ambushed on the same path that Ellie took Which she somehow got through just fine without any danger whatsoever Yeah, you have to stop and play whack-a-mole with the Raiders and your guns. I really really dislike this part in Naughty Dog's defense. However, it's possible that these fights are here because combat in the next part is more necessary You tracked down Ellie in a farmhouse. She sensed that Joel is about to leave her and she's not happy about that Well, I guess we're both disappointed with each other then. What do you want from me? Admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time Murrieta apparently told her a few things about jewels dead daughter, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a better Presented big moment in a game than this one right here. Stop with the bullshit. What are you so afraid of Then I'm gonna end up like Sam I can't get infected. I can take care of myself close calls Have we had well we seem to be doing all right so far and now you'll be doing even better with Tommy Not her you know what Maria told me about Sarah Ellie You're treading on some mighty thin ice here The delivery is perfect. The look on Joel's face works to reinforce what is being said? there's this well of rage and sorrow that's threatening to burst if Ellie keeps pushing and that's why the radar showing up is important because Joel isn't stable enough here that this break is necessary to welcome Raiders are common enough though that I don't think it would have been bad if they just showed up without being seen earlier a line From Tommy worrying about making so much noise as they travel through the woods also could have solved it. It's another thing I'm unsure about since I really do think this section of combat and the house is a much-needed beat in the story But that the two fights before this are terrible It's enough time for Joel to start to think and cool down he reconsiders what he should do And by the time they make it back to Maria's town Joel has decided to keep moving on with Ellie Come back in town was disgusted at least My Mind's all made up It's a lot different for Joel to decide to do something rather than being guilted or Obligated by Tessa Marlene and the option to leave was being handed to him by Tommy. Joel is different after the scene He doesn't love Ali like a daughter just yet. But he's gone through the same change that made Ellie jump off the truck He's more patient with her and opened the discussion Which is made abundantly clear in the many conversations in the quiet beginning of the next scene First first down that's right You just got a blade a couple times it all makes sense They arrive at a University on horseback. Ellie still has questions, but now joel has answers. There are still limits But they're understandable and met with a gentle rebuke rather than the harsh dismissals of the early game The fireflies are meant to be here But it's so quiet that everyone Joel Ellie and the player quickly conclude that this isn't going to be the end of the game There are some zombies early on here Which is a good return to some of the other side of gameplay since it's been a while since the sewers in summer It's a solid section. That looks great. And I really appreciate how Ellie will ride the horse to follow you So the game doesn't waste your time with all this Unnecessary going back and forth to the horse as you open many paths to get further into the university I think most games wouldn't have the courtesy to do that for you At first the ending here feels like an anti-climax you get into the university proper and you're given the impression that someone is following you live delivery It turns out to be some monkeys that were used for experiments here that were freed the place is abandoned There are some audio logs from a researcher that provide you with the information for where you need to go next Along with the short tragic story about how they were doing experiments on monkeys with cordyceps in order to find a cure The researcher decided to let the mountains that have killed them He got Benton since they were infected he had to kill himself before he turned Oh My god Joel and Ellie get their next and final goal to get to a hospital in Salt Lake City where the fireflies have wondered their final remaining basis Some hostile scavengers then move in to the University Things quickly changing go to shit when Joel falls in the middle of a fight and is impaled on some rebar I Wasn't expecting this to happen in fact I knew very little about what happened in the game when I played it other than one gameplay trailer with Joel and Ellie So as a surprise Angela's hurt so severely after his bonding with Ellie that I wondered if the game was going to kill him It's Ricci Andrea. Seriously as it is at least and your movement is really limited your vision of what's happening isn't clear either Ellie has to save you a number of times while you struggled the line up a handful of shots Joel is close to dying here and I'd guess is being fueled by adrenaline more than actually being able to stand which ends as you'd Expect when it runs out and he blacks out on top of the horse Ellie is naturally freaking out about the whole thing and doesn't know what to do The game cheats a bit here by doing another cut to block without resolving how it is. Ellie gets out of this situation She isn't strong enough to move him drag him a little bit sure, but not the distance. We see in the next section I Strongly suspected this cut the black which transitions to winter with you controlling le in a completely different situation Is to get you wondering if Joel is dead this opening is one of the most memorable in the game hunting the deers le and it could also be quite long depending on how Good you are at shooting My first time I missed quite a few shots my second time I didn't miss at all and had this long trail of love to follow because of that Either way It goes on for a few minutes and you're a bit into a tense encounter with two Strangers when Ellie finally says that she needs medicine, which means Joel must be alive We'll get back to these guys in a second So let's discuss that that the game wants you to wonder if Joel is alive or not This is good and bad but also leads to the game's worse plot hole which isn't actually how Ellie moved role she might have been able to drag into some sort of temporary shelter nearby get him awake again and then back on the horse or Scavenge some sort of harness sled or cart to get him on and then have the horse drag him There are quite a few ways. She could do it difficult but possible if she's resourceful which she is It's still cheating that the game doesn't show this though the plot hole is that the game loses its commitment to realism about halfway through the winter part, but only temporarily So Ellie killed this deer for food and these guys find it right after she tracks it to where it collapsed This guy here is a nameless grunt The other is David who as an aside here is voiced by Nolan North the same guy. Who does Nathan Drake It's really impressive how different they are and if I can take a minute to push my own theories I consider it more evidence that Nathan's sounding a lot like mal from Firefly is intentional You might tell me what the hell is going on, but from a larger group Women children. We're all very very hungry enough about that though David is in charge of a group of people that live relatively close by you're meant to be unsure about these people Ellie who is usually one of the most optimistic characters in the game is equally unsure and I think she tries to channel what she Thinks Joel would do if he was in the same situation She doesn't stop anything her bow at them But they don't attack her even though she's outnumbered they offer to make a deal instead Which I don't think she wants to make but she's desperate enough for medicine that she goes for it. Anyway, you have any antibiotics David stays is something close to a hostage while the other guy goes and gets the medicine This part is fantastic because it toys with your trust I think most people are going to think David is evil and waiting for a chance to kill Ellie Then it turns out that he's had a gun He could have used the whole time and he actively tries to protect her when they're attacked by zombies He compliments her shooting ability and doesn't use any of the opportunities open to him in order to attack her You work together the player might even learn to trust him through gameplay Ellie Also lets her guard down by the end Which is then twisted when David reveals his group are the same people that Joel and Ellie killed in university months earlier slaughtered by a crazy, man and Get the heads, he's crazy man traveling little girl Everything happens for a reason He still lets her go though with the medicine he follows her the next day instead So why didn't he just kill her when he had the chance? Well, the reasons are disgustingly complicated disgusting in the literal sense This isn't the plot hole joel is because he's laying half dead in a cold basement of a house when Ellie returns with antibiotics She gives him one dose and it appears like he's in such a bad state that he's in a fucking coma This isn't bad on its own is what happens later Ellie Realizes. She was followed and takes the horse to lead David's men away from Joel This is one of the better sections of gameplay since your combat options are a little different as Ellie There's even more reason to focus on stealth and to be more exacting and lining up your shots like the escape sequence at the beginning of uncharted 2 I thought I was going to make it an escape David captures her right before she can make it and she's taken back to their base as a prisoner From here you switch between Joel and Ellie The big problem is that Joel wakes up alone and is miraculously healed He staggers abit Minh is then perfectly fine to run and climb shoot kill dozens the people and you get the idea It's like he becomes Nathan Drake look when it is my favorite part of the game I love the switch up from Joel to Ellie and how the game handles what is functionally its only villain in the form of David But this issue with Joel sticks out He shouldn't be capable of standing let alone running and fighting Like many of the problems you discuss so far The worst thing about it is that it could have been avoided What I think is the root causes that they wanted the player to wonder if Joel was dead so they couldn't have any scenes with Them together before the deer hunt with him being awake and maybe moving a bit, but still needing something to be fully healed Then he needs antibiotics is also bad. My guess is that this was written backwards? They needed an excuse for Ellie to be stuck with David Joel being injured and needing something was the best fit so they used that but in the process made Joel's recovery so sudden that it ruins the game's believability Maybe you don't care about this sort of thing. It didn't spoil the game for me. It didn't even spoil this section I just wish that it had been handled better So that could have been another great part of the winter portion Instead of something that I have to ignore in order to enjoy its better moments Of which there are quite a few there's a revolting revelation that Ellie hasn't been taken to be eaten like the butcher may have led you to believe but to be romanced by David and your special Oh Ellie remains defiant and brave and doesn't back down from him Joel similarly shows a slice of his ruthless violent past when he tortures to a David's men to find out where Ellie was taken and what is possibly one of the most badass scenes I've ever seen in a game which to market Right there There five go ask him Fuck you man, told you she wanted my shit. That's alright. I believe in no wait Le subverts expectations by getting herself out of being captured and cleverly uses her bite and immunity to her advantage She finds her own way out of David's encampment and almost makes it before she's cornered by the man himself in an old restaurant this acts as a boss fight that tests you on stealth instead of combat both to stay out of David's line of sight and to Sneak up on him and to avoid the broken plates on the floor that make noise and to also hear when david steps on one Too to get his location At one point you switch back to Joel who fights his way into the same town and I was expecting him to show up during This boss to help Ellie and he doesn't Ellie handles this herself She carves David's face to pieces and the only thing Joel rescues her from is her rage as she does it This is the final big change in the relationship Joel fully commits to her as he calms her down and names her as his adoptive daughter She realizes that he's not dead and that she isn't going to be alone It's such a big moment for these two that we don't even get to hear it Their voices are blocked from us before we cut the block and move the spring This is similar to the jump we saw from summer to fall the two of them have just gone through something traumatic They're still dealing with how it's changed them, but it's not the only thing dominating their lives Ellie is quiet in the first scene of spring which is the shortest of all of the sections This could be explained by her still recovering for what happened, but it's not that simple. There are still optional conversations that happen here And standing in such stark contrast to this that some have criticized the game for lacking any subtlety You have the game's happiest the most beautiful moment early on here I think it's more likely that Ellie is scarred from what happened with David, but it's the trepidation of finally arriving at the fireflies That's making her quiet just like Joel and maybe the player she senses that something isn't quite right I'll wake up I've never been on a plane It's not weird Before we get to that though Let's look at two things that the game does that I think falls short. The first is about stealth sections so that clickers in particular I Like these enemies a lot I also like that they require resources to kill silently as it's another way that crafting is made more important than you're encouraged to go Scavenging as are the upgrades that make your ships have more charges to kill more clickers with each one These things are very sensitive to sound and although it's true that the game is wrong when they say they see like bats Sort of They see using sound Like that, if you hear one clicking, you gotta hide, that's how they spot you This plot hole is rare and that I don't mind ignoring it because the name and clicking sound they make is distinct enough to be Interesting and that the enemy still makes a lot of sense. They're powerful and blind just don't make noise maybe it could have been more interesting if it was based off of both movement and sound so that you have to be silent while Moving and that you have to be still when you hear the clicking start requiring much more careful timing on the player But it's fine the way it is in the game right now It's the companions that break it who are able to make as much noise as they want while they follow you They even talk or use objects This is bad early on with Tess and Elly in the ruined city But even worse when you're with Bill who apparently has set up his main home right next to a whole pack of these things Which oddly makes sense as they don't seem to give a shit about him? I'd say the reason Naughty Dog's did this is so the player never fails because of something an AI partner does and that's a really Good fucking idea But the solution has its own lesser problems having Ellie stay back until you clear an area out could have also been bad since it Forces you to have to kill all the clickers which means the game has to now Carefully make sure you have enough materials for SHIVs or drop that limitation Completely, which I think would be a bad thing in the game currently You can just bypass a lot of them now and decide for yourself The best idea I can think of is that the zombies don't care about Ellie because she's already infected They don't need each other and therefore they will need her and therefore she can do whatever she wants while joel has to handle them As he always does This unfortunately breaks the encounter she has with David, but then you could specify that It's only clickers that ignore her because they've progressed further into the cordyceps Amplification and are therefore more sensitive to sensing and in others or something? That doesn't solve the part student s or bill make noise But I think that only happens twice and it also means that only one of the AI companions has to be careful about what they do or say or They could force the player to clear the clickers in just these encounters It could also have opened up more opportunities for unique Situations by having some locations that only Ellie can explore if there are a lot more clickers than Joel could handle Just like how she doesn't need a gas mask when the intern area was sports ultimately, it's not a big deal since the game often makes it so Joel is separated when you have some zombies to fight I just Thought it was worth bringing up since I'd be mostly positive about the game The other thing I don't like her the single-player co-op sections and when I say I don't like them I don't dislike them either I'm dead neutral since they feel like filler, but I can appreciate what Naughty Dog was trying to do the parts I'm talking about are in all the games we've looked at It's when Nathan has to boost someone up a wall or a Ledge or they have to push a box So the other person can climb up The same thing is used and lost of us a lot more along with finding wooden pallets for Ellie to stand on to get across Water since she's unable to swim I throw some puzzles into this category to such stellar moments like find the plank of wood or set the ladder against the wall These are boring and the game has you doing each of them a few times Sometimes I think they're there just so you're not walking through area after area doing nothing other times like boosting up to a ladder I wonder if they're hiding some sort of load time the big thing I wonder though is if this constant back-and-forth With helping and then receiving help from these characters is some weird attempt at making you appreciate them You're bonding with this teamwork and look you're in control of it, which I think fails it didn't work for me I felt like I was being slowed down instead So maybe I'm completely wrong here and it's just about low times and making areas feel larger than they really are It is undeniable that the game makes some attempts at it here though You arrive at the city you speak with Ally you need her help getting a ladder from the second floor you do the usual thing With the button prompt to call her and nothing for the first time. It doesn't work. She's distracted and moody You have to call her over again It's trying to show something at least and that's what makes me wonder if there might be other reasons for all the fake co-op Anyway, this is the beautiful moment. I mentioned earlier it was one of the most talked-about scenes - when the game first came out My god There's an Advertisement earlier in the level about the cities you having drafts in The 20 years since society collapsed these animals have thrived this nature has started to reclaim the city The zombie fungus only infects humans. So animals are largely unaffected I think that's part of what the scientists were trying to prove of the infected monkeys at the University that while carrying cordyceps were not taken over by it. I Really liked the scene and I don't agree with some other critics that I said It's too obvious or too blatant about one of the game's major themes The giraffes looked great the shot of the city looking familiar and foreign at the same time is incredible It's enough to break Ellie away from aerelon Kali and it acts as a calm moment after everything these two have been through Even joel stops to admire them all and looking at them isn't over until you pick up the controller and decide you've had enough it serves as another type of calm - the one that comes before things go to shit a Lot of things could be made better by having to earn them whether that's through Observation or thought but not everything needs to be like this. Sometimes you can enjoy something for its simplicity The next two parts of the most difficult Encounters are the two main types of enemies zombies first and then humans with guns a little after that I don't have much to say about the zombies other than the flamethrowers overpowered against them which ruins some of the challenge here Especially compared to the fight against human enemies There's not much story down here either Joel and Ellie work together to get through the underground They probably should have turned back and found another way through instead of risking crossing this river of broken cars and busses Especially when Ellie still can't swim it sort of works out in the end So I guess it's okay, but it makes them look a little stupid Both of them are swept away in le drowns Joel tries to resuscitate her when two of the most idiotic Guards and all of the fireflies show up and knock him out when they clearly just witnessed them both coming out of the water again It's not that big of a deal and it is necessary in order to have this blackout transition to the Firefly base So you wake up inside of it. It's one of the lesser plot contrivance is in the game This is the final section of The Last of Us It's where the two big plot lines Joel in Ellie's relationship and the journey to the fireflies interlink and then a clash Welcome to the fireflies The goal whether you bought into it or not has been about Delivering the cure for the zombie infection to be used for the revival of humanity The twist here is that this plot line now directly conflicts with the other one because Ellie needs to be killed in order to extract The means to create the vaccine This is a twist that many players predicted and that's fine a good twist is either an Unexpected plot development or something that makes everything that came before it have a new exciting meaning a great story twist Does this and still makes the story interesting even if you predict it? Which is the case for the ending here in the Last of Us? So a lot is being said about this ending and I'm no different. I have a lot to say about it First off. I think it's worth reviewing exactly what happens here without any of my commentary Dang me do I you don't have to worry about her anymore. Well, take care. I worry yes. Let me see her please You can't She's being prepped for surgery. Oh You mean surgery the doctors tell me the cordyceps the growth inside her has somehow mutated It's why she's immune Once they remove it they'll be able to reverse-engineer a vaccine Magazine but it grows all over the brain It does Joël wakes up Marlene explains the situation Joel refuses to go along with it Marlene gets on her high horse named morality and says there's no other choice she threatens to kill him No other choice here Joel pretends to back down and then kills the guard that was about to explore him out of the hospital you then fight through that? combat sequence I just mentioned the most difficult group of human enemies since there are quite a lot of them and this is the only area in the game in which Automatic weapons are common the game even breaks one of its own rules and you can loot one for yourself to use You fight your way through several waves of fireflies you then enter the operating room. There are three surgeons Ellie is unconscious. But alive on the table one of the surgeons grabs a scalpel and stands in your way The player is forced to kill here. The game will not continue until you do this Joel picks up Elian you run out of the hospital under gun fire an elevator takes you to safety in the parking lot where Marlene Is waiting as the final obstacle between Joel saving Ellie she pleads with Joel to think of the greater good this and flash he jumps between this moment and Joel driving Ellie away in a car with it eventually being revealed that Joel shot Marlene and then Executed her so that none of the fireflies will ever come after them. Ellie remains unconscious throughout all this you just come after her All right So that's all of it reactions to this ending have ranged from calling Joel a selfish monster that doomed mankind So that he was right and justified in what he did and somewhere in the middle was sure He did do a selfish thing, but they still agree with it because they like Ellie so much It's not an exaggeration to say that there are more than a dozen interpretations and reactions to what just happened The big one for me is that a lot of it is determined on what choice you make at the end? If you've played the game, you're probably thinking there is no choice to make what is he talking about? You have to kill the surgeon the game doesn't let you walk away It's another part of the game that's on Rails and needs a specific set of actions from you And you're absolutely right about that the real choice is whether or not you have faith in nah dog writers to decide whether or not this section is full of really Stupid plot holes or if they're intentionally in the game or to support Joel's decision. So let's go through that First off the fireflies are a bunch of amateurs that have no idea what the fuck they're doing Marlene is near dead The first time you meet her her group was being squashed out of a safe zone that just joel and tess had a better handle Up. This is an organization. That's so mismanaged and desperate that It had to entrust the potential cure for all of humanity to two strangers who? Also happened to be some of the worst thugs around that are doing the deal to get their stash of weapons of all things This is a group that has continually been absent in every area. They're meant to have under their control They're losing bases and resources all over the place The perimeter guards didn't even know how to handle a drown girl on a man with both of his hands in plain view trying to Resuscitate her which almost resulted in that precious cure for humanity dying right there on the spot Which hey if Marlene was smart She would have just told Joel that Ellie died right there in the street and that they quickly did an autopsy to salvage What information that they could? it gets worse because you can't even trust their research staff of Nobel Prize rejects because the last time you saw some of their work, It was a man So stupid that he managed to get bit by one of his own test monkeys that he had just infected with cordyceps. Oh And these are the people that want to work on Ellie These are the people that think killing one of the rare few or only cases of someone with immunity to cordyceps is the right call without even a day of observation Or live tests or all of the scans that they could possibly think of before resorting to ripping fungus out of her brain Joel is unconscious long enough for the fireflies to have done even a fraction of all the possible tests That should be ruled out before they have to kill Ellie and to be clear. This isn't even about the moral dilemma at hand It's about saving humanity killing hers forever destroying this one potentially unique instance of immunity They are idiots who have no clue what they're doing by jumping to this irreversible Procedure the average IQ of the planet goes up when you kill this guy Which brings us to the choice Do you think that the Naughty Dog riders chose to ignore all of these really obvious things in order to make this an interesting? Morally grey problem or were they left and on purpose in order to make the fireflies look like idiots Oh that Joel isn't that much of a crazed lunatic when he goes on a murder spree? There's a lot of support for this on both sides the game has Absolutely Benefited from its ending and how much discussion it sparked you could argue that it's worth the plot Falls for how much attention at God On the flip side the more you think about it The more you realize that if the game is taking the Firefly seriously here and that it actually thinks they're making the right Decision, then a lot of the game disintegrates and becomes a waste of time Meanwhile, there's all the evidence I just provided that shows how much of a joke the fireflies are and how much Marlene might just be Responding to pressure to take the last shot. They have at finding a cure and gaining some legitimacy before they're wiped out Unfortunately, the game doesn't say this clearly enough through Joel. He doesn't tell them to do more tests or to wait or to argue leniency Instead he goes straight to the argument. That's the most personal for him. But he was just knocked out and unconscious It's not fair to expect him to be thinking critically here. He's already worried about Ellie Vaughn someone else there is no one else. So you were gonna show me where's enough? stop This may seem like I'm biased because I like the game so much But I'm willing to think that it's this version that's intended The reason for that is how Marlene and this grunt treat Joel like a piece of shit with Marlene Grandstanding and claiming that she has it way harder than Joel Which is invalidating a huge chunk of his life and the most recent events of the prior year. He spent travelling at her request They're so eager to send them packing on his way without any sign of the supplies that were originally promised to him without any speaking Of tests, and they have the audacity to act like they're giving him this huge gift for not killing him along with Ellie Marja Maddy here. He tries anything shoot him Don't waste this gift Joe There's even an audio log in which Marlene confesses just that her orders from higher up were to kill Joel not let him go So I have to conclude that they're desperate idiots who have no idea what they're doing which makes this next section easy to justify and it also scrubs away a lot of the discussion people have about whether Joel was right to kill them all and save Ellie if There was a near 100% chance of the vaccine and if the fireflies took the time to explain How killing Ellie will result in discovering that with almost absolute certainty Then there'd be a good reason to discuss whether Joel is right or not But as it stands now I'm sorry to say that anyone who engages in that discussion with an attempt to actually judge. Joel is Overlooking how inadequate the fireflies are at doing anything and I kind of like that about the ending it shows that there yet another group That is just as lost in the world as crazy bill the rating hunters and the slowly dying safe zones It's places like the home made in the sewers and Tommy's newfound town that are the current hope for Humanity even though it's not going To be easy as the sewer section proves Maybe it's explained in an audio log somewhere, but I'm not exactly sure why the fireflies are even fighting what's left of the government except that it's become a habit after the early days of the Apocalypse when the military was killing so many people to keep the safe zones viable Cute and no my money's on the military Why would they mow down all these people you can't let everyone in? Both sides clearly think they're doing what's right They think they're Noble and idealistic and keeping humanity forward but in a very real sense to know better than the hunters So that's the really long reason for why I think Joel is completely right in his decision to save Ellie There's another question we need to address after this. But for now, let's take a closer. Look at this area. There are two things I really like here both of them tie back to the very start of the game The first is the presence of the soldier looking enemies with flashlights and automatic rifles Which are almost the exact same visual as the guy at the start who gunned down Sarah? I consider this section to be the most difficult one in the game. And I don't think these two things are accidents Joel is facing that exact same situation all over again, and he has the same thing to lose this time He's capable of fighting back and each one of these guys was one of the most lethal weapons in the game is difficult to take Down it makes each kill more meaningful and a higher chance for the player to notice this link back to the start of the game Secondly and directly related to this is that the scene where you flee holding Ellie is the last time the player has control of Joel And it's almost identical to the running you had while holding Sarah when you first take control of Joel which is why I said way back at the start that maybe the abrupt change from Sarah to Joel is worth it to tie to The beginning in the end together this time you make it Ellie lives. Joel doesn't lose another daughter The one thing I'm unsure about in this part is the surgeon this may sound odd But I have to wonder if Joel taking control of the game for a second would have worked better Many have argued that forcing the player to kill this guy makes the scene carry more weight But because this isn't actually a real decision, like I said, the game won't continue until you do this I wonder if it would it be more profound if Joel thinks so strongly about this that while keeping the camera Perspective like you're still in control. He raises his gun and decides for himself Either way, the surgeon isn't so innocent for reasons that I just went into too much detail on more than that He's so determined on killing Ellie that he's actively willing to defend his commitment with a raised scalpel Which isn't the kind of guy you'd wanna turn your back to you while you lift someone off an operating table The scene ends with the jump back and forth between Joel's decision to kill Marlene and him lying to Ellie that the trip ended up being a bust; that immunity the cordyceps is fairly common and that it can't lead to a vaccine Joel: Turns out there's a whole lot more like you really Joseph: The fireflies have given up looking and they sent them quickly on their way; they're going back to Tommy's now The game's epilogue is with Ellie, the player controls her as they follow Joel. If you haven't played the game, then you might be wondering why Ellie would believe what is obviously a sack of bullshit from Joel, and she doesn't The game ends with that confrontation, But not before you get a glimpse of the new man that Joel has become; a mix of his old self from before the apocalypse And the ruthless killer still lurking underneath on my first playthrough. I thought his speech here was kind of pathetic (Ellie says "Bet I would've", not "yeah" here) He's committed so hard to this idea of Ellie as his adopted daughter that he comes across as desperate for it to work Now I'm not so sure, since he might think of it as a victory instead; that he was given a second chance to relive the night that Sarah died and This time around he saved her It's why his biological daughter's at the forefront of his thoughts and why he's able to speak about her. He's finally done something after years of struggling to survive That's worthy of her something that might have made her proud of him, which is unlikely considering he just killed about two dozen people But hey, Joel is the only one that needs to believe it The final moments and as suddenly as every other season in the game. Ellie asks Joel outright if he was telling the truth about the fireflies. Joel lies to her. He swears it's true. Ellie says "okay", the game ends This is the part of the ending that truly warrants speculation and it gets as much if not more than Joel's decision. Does Ellie believe him? Does Ellie know he's lying, but accepts it as necessary? Is Ellie now afraid of Joel, after she suspects He killed all the fireflies and she doesn't want to question him. There are many things like this to discuss. On the other side is whether Joel is right to lie to her, and that's probably the most complicated thing to reconcile in the game. The strongest argument would be that Ellie should have been woken up and given the choice herself, but the fireflies didn't let Joel do that. They forced his hand, whereas if they had been willing to work with him, He may have been convinced if Ellie insisted on sacrificing herself; Which I'm not entirely convinced she would be, since it comes back to that long rant on how more tests should be conducted first, But that doesn't change the fact that you'll have killed so many of the people that Ellie supposedly respected, Including Marlene who was a close friend of hers, Should he explain all this to her? Probably, but how do you even start? And, by telling her all of that, You're making her share a huge portion of the guilt, even though she didn't ask him to do it, He still did it for her as much as himself. She's half of the reason that all those people are dead. Is he so wrong to lie to her about that, when it's protecting her from that knowledge? For me, I think she knows he's lying, she doesn't know why, but she strongly suspects it. She's just as stubborn as he is, So I'd like to say that she can't let it go, and eventually gets the truth out of him. I'd like to say that, but for some reason this Conversation comes across as firmly final on the matter, and that she's willing to go along with this in order to secure their relationship. [Her logic being] "What happened in spring doesn't nullify everything that came before it in summer fall and winter." That's my take on it anyway, which may be wrong. I ended up talking about this game for a lot longer than I originally planned, And when I started this project I had no intention of even playing this game. It was just Uncharted. These games have been discussed a lot already, So I hope that I managed to bring some new ideas forward, or at least provide an acceptable alternative to playing the games yourself for those Who aren't able to, but want to get a taste for what they're all about. To return to some of the points made over the course of the video, I think that the second and third Uncharted games succeed in almost every way in regards to the end experience they were trying to go for; a fun action movie wherein you get to act out a role doing some visually thrilling things, and Just like action movies, It can be a lot of fun as you know what you're getting into, and don't expect some high piece of art, Both mechanically and in terms of story. That's the only area that I think they fall short of the intended quality, especially in Uncharted 3, Which I suspect is a result of some gameplay set pieces dictating too much of how the story could work. Yet there are also those long sections like getting lost in a desert that seem to be only there for the story So maybe they were given some semblance of equal importance, but weren't mixed together as well as they could have been. For the Last of Us, I want to say it again, that the primary reason I like it so much is how much work went into fixing that flaw [That] I just mentioned. The story is taken seriously and, if gameplay sections were given priority over the narrative, then they did the best job I've ever Seen in the game in making them fit together. The story being told isn't the best I've ever experienced, It's not even the best story in a game, But it's told at such a high quality, With what I'd argue is the best acting in any game, and takes itself seriously, and then lives up to that standard That I feel compelled to commend it. The gameplay sometimes adds to this, but it's mostly above average, and I think that's okay I think that Naughty Dog are the best in the business at creating narrative focused, linear, Entertaining games, that are heavy on story and spectacle, and light on mechanical depth. For some people That's the best thing that games can be. For me, I think there's some potential here to add some of that missing depth, to incorporate some gameplay that adds to the story in the unique ways that only video games can. Personally, I think that means a more reactive story with choices that try to be as invisible as the cues you're meant to follow in the set pieces. I think the four games we looked at here are constantly improving on what came before. I think that Naughty Dog are capable of pulling it off. The next video will be a similar run-through of uncharted 4 the plan wasn't to spend so much time in each Uncharted game, But I started writing, and this is what came out. The Uncharted 4 video was meant to be the longer of the two But now I'm certain it'll likely be just as long as what we did here for just one of the games, about 40 minutes. Hopefully people enjoy it. I strongly recommend that you play the game yourself first before watching it. Let me know what you think in the comments below. I've started using Twitter more regularly to give updates on future videos, So if you're interested in that, you might want to follow me there, There should be a link on the screen along with the usual ones. I do similar updates on patreon that you cam read without pledging anything if you want to check that out; Which is also the place that you can support the channel if you'd like to see more of these videos. Thank you so much for watching, Congratulations on getting through it.
Sorry, I messed up my time stamps. The discussion on the ending begins at 3 hours, 3 minutes into the video.
Great analysis!