Of course, in-universe and in terms of the series, there’s never really one “last” job.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (M)
PlayStation 4
Copy purchased

I’ve always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Uncharted games. The series is beautifully cinematic, pushes the limits in terms of the PlayStation’s graphical capabilities (both the PS3 and PS4), and has reasonable popcorn-blockbuster stories. It’s basically the interactive-movie vision we had in the late 80s/early 90s except without all the pre-rendered video sequences.

On the downside, Uncharted’s plots don’t make a heck of a lot of sense if you think too hard about them, and some of the gameplay elements have been extremely ropey; the combat isn’t fantastic and don’t get me started on the speedboat sequence from the first game. Even the core climbing/platforming mechanic can be off; things you can climb are generally highlighted in the environment, but some things that seem climbable are not because… well, because you just can’t, okay?

As a result, I tend to find myself really involved in the games early on, but later resorting to downloading FAQs just to work out how much further I have to go to get my Trophy and uninstall. They’re really pretty, though.

Really pretty.

Nathan Drake (voiced as usual by Nolan North) is kind-of retired after the events of Uncharted 3, working a regular job for a salvage company and married to series regular Elena (Emily Rose). Out of the blue he’s contacted by his older brother, Sam (Troy Baker), hitherto not even referenced in the previous games; Sam and Nathan talked as kids about the treasure of legendary pirate captain Henry Avery, and now Sam has a plan to find it.

The catch, of course, is that Sam was busted out of prison by Central American drug lord Alcazar (Robin Atkin Downes) and has to repay the favour by delivering Avery’s treasure. And he’s competing with rich kid and former friend Rafe (Warren Kole) to get there first. Thus Nathan is once again lured into a life of… well, it’s crime, but trust us, Nathan is the good guy because… er… yeah. But just this one last job and Nate goes straight.

Thus we’re off on another adventure across multiple exotic locations, as Nathan climbs, dives, jumps and shoots his way towards what might be riches. The gameplay is fairly linear for the most part; there’s generally only one way from point A to point B, and your job is to find the foothold, passageway or ledge that will get you closer to the next checkpoint or cutscene.

There are a few sections where it is unclear where to go next. The vehicle sections in particular suffer from this; you’ll have a wide-open jungle area with no obvious path or markings to tell you what to do, which can be confusing given the on-foot sections of the game are so linear. I also found a few sections where you could be instantly killed for making a wrong move, but with no real clue as to what the right move might be. Is that a ledge you can jump to? If you jump to just the right spot, it is. Can you turn down this alley? Maybe, or maybe the armoured car pursuing you will crash through the wall and run you over. The game even commits the cardinal sin of having sections where you run towards the camera, so you can’t see what’s coming. (Developer Naughty Dog is at least self-aware enough to know this, as early in the game Nathan has to play a chapter from the original Crash Bandicoot that also commits the same sin.)

Occasionally there is combat; the inevitable private military contractor that the Big Bad hires to stop you is staking out an area, and Nate has to get past them to progress. (They all have South African accents, because of course we have to honour that particular cliche as well.) It isn’t possible to do a full ‘pacifist’ run in the game- there are several points where you just have to shoot your way through- but a number of encounters can be avoided altogether if you’re patient, and the game has Trophies on offer if you can pull it off undetected.

The combat sections can be annoying, though, often putting Nathan in confined spaces or on cliffs. What little cover there is can be destroyed by sustained gunfire, and enemies annoyingly seem to always target Nathan rather than any companions he might have; the soldiers seem to know that you’re the only character that actually matters. Add in enemies that can’t be downed except with the use of (rare) explosives that make a beeline for you, and controls that seem to get in the way (the in-game camera can only look over your right shoulder, a problem if you’re in cover) and it’s a recipe for frustration.

(As an aside, despite basically being a cat burglar, Nathan is able to not just outwit, but overpower entire platoons of soldiers; at one point the eventual Big Bad tells Nathan he knows he isn’t a murderer, even though the in-game stats told me I had killed over 300 people in U4 alone. Again, though, Naughty Dog are self-aware; there is a Trophy for killing 1000 people in-game called Ludonarrative Dissonance.)

Luckily game design has advanced since the first entry in the series, and there are a number of features that will soothe the pain of the harder areas. Your AI companions don’t have a death wish and tend to stay in cover; they are careful enough not to cause a ruckus during stealth sections, and will even get kills if you’re patient enough. There is a new difficulty level below Easy called “Explorer”, which speeds up your regenerating health and turns on automatic aiming. And if you do fail, loading times are short and the game is generous with checkpoints, so you won’t be sidelined too long. It does take ages to load when you first boot the game up, but if you die load times are only one or two seconds before you’re back in action, and the game uses cutscenes well to cover loading time between chapters.

For all its faults- heck, Uncharted 4 isn’t even the fourth game in the series, as Uncharted: The Golden Abyss on the PlayStation Vita exists!- there are some great moments. The game is graphically stunning, with glorious landscapes, lush colours, and crowded marketplaces bringing the scenery to life, and the voice acting is top-notch, bringing you into the story despite its inherent silliness. As a result, even the more frustrating sections can feel rewarding, as you travel over the crest of a hill or visit cities abandoned for centuries.

And for its newly-reduced price, there’s certainly a lot of bang for the buck. Uncharted 4 is now a PlayStation Hits title, available for under $25 both at retail and on the PlayStation Store; if you shop around you can get games 1 through 4 for under $50 combined, all remastered for the PS4. At full price on launch I probably would have been upset with most of these titles, but coming in late and getting the games at a discount makes them an easier recommendation.