Uncharted 4's lower combat encounter count was actually a good decision.

Positive Champ thread for the week. Oh and spoiler warning for Red Dead Redemption, congrats.

Now that headline normally would read like something that doesn't really fit my line of thinking, because I find large stretches of Uncharted 4 boring, but here me out, or well watch this first.

And remember that I made a thread on this.

Yes you have to do some homework in my threads, get over it. Anyway, video game violence is rad, one might argue I'm a pretty big fan of the want n destruction of my fellow man in the realm of video games given the games I like. But, games have had this absurd notion that they can tell a story like other story telling mediums, and if we have to suffer those stories I'd at least like them to be well thought out.

The first part is working around the artificiality of games. And that requires, you, gamers making every excuse in the book and just letting shit skate by under the false umbrella of "well it's just video game logic".

Red Dead Redemption wants to present an ending where over the course of your playthrough, and your connection to the protagonist, you feel something when they put the man down. Problem? It's sort of intellectually dishonest as ****.

1. You murder like 500 (and that's probably way lower than it is) people over the course of that game
2. Pretty sure he molotv'd the shit out of a village area because it housed rebels or some shit, and that wasn't exactly morally gray sunshine, it was pretty cleanly on the bottom end of the morality chart.

Either way with all that killing people, and the game acts like there was value to this one life? The game itself, its mechanics, its missions has devalued human life, but the ending wants to be all sad n shit over one guy? It's absurd, ridiculous. And if your argument is violent movies

Yeah, a character in a drama might kill 4 people tops, and be labeled a murderer. Flicks that are in the 10s, 20s, 30s? They are things like Die Hard and Commando, more cheesy fun. Go watch Unforgiven and tell me how many dudes he honestly kills, and then compare that to the number you get in video games, given how much you fucks give about a review score, don't tell me numbers aren't important in this instance.

This brings us to Uncharted 4, I don't like the stuff that isn't the combat in the game, it is exceptionally dull. It's shallow mechanically, it's usually a lot of presentation flash over genuine substance so the grayseals of the world can go "bu the aesthetic quality", it's a dull game. But, BUT, the first step to correcting a problem is supposed to be about acknowledging the problem.

And the first step naturally would be, maybe tone down the action. Now Uncharted is still a blockbuster, and homeboy still kills a nation's worth of dudes, but the decision to go that route wasn't inherently wrong. The problem was the non-interactive elements, as Mr tongue has pointed out, haven't really evolved. And for them to evolve, first step, do things that aren't just violent actions.

And Uncharted made a genuine step into that direction.

Would I rather play Ninja Gaiden? Of course, but, if Naughy Dog's goals are to tell convincing and compelling narratives, then they need their game to not undermine their narrative.

SW material: This is of course a product only glorious Sony would fund as Nintendo can only fund toys, and Microsoft, I mean do they even finish developing games anymore? right?

anyway

1. How do you feel about more story driven triple A games needing to find more engaging interactions for their games that isn't violence oriented?

2. What would be your idea of interactions that can be added to these games to offset the vacuum that would be left over with less shooting n stuff?

3. Do you like your cookie crispy or chewy?

4. Have you ever had a black n white cookie? Because I had one for the first time, not a fan.

But NADIIIIIIIIIIIIINE

Definitely a shit character.

If is was making games I would just come up with loads of new idea to to make these story driven games better without shooting people. I don't really see why they have never thought of it!

@jg4xchamp: On the other hand Rafe was pretty dope.

My problem isn't that there isn't enough combat. It's that there is too much climbing.

Climbing in itself isn't so bad, Zelda has f*cking hours of it.

Just the climbing in the Uncharted series mainly involves holding up on the thumbstick and awaiting.

Well true, but this is like a preemptive to if the Uncharted 4 convo ever turns to "it needed more action" it's like no no no, please complain about this correctly, the issue isn't the lack of action, the issue is that the non-violent systems are shallow as ****.

This would be an example of a gap. Zelda's stamina meter adds to genuine curious you will be while playing. Because it impacts how certain areas will be more difficult to get to, now you could circumvent it by using your space and the tools at your disposal (ala the dude who speed ran the game), or you recognize that I'm not in a position to get away with that climb, but I'll be back to conquer that shit. And when you try to be ballsy with a climb that may or may not work out, that meter ticking away creates a genuine level of suspense of "will I or won't I". **** that game actually makes rain an organic system that impacts your climbing.

Uncharted 4? Super scripted ass wet rocks, that will not let you climb for a bit, before they let you get right back on track. Follow this texture.

Haven't finished the game, but I enjoy the climbing searching more than shooting dudes over and over again

I agree with what you're saying. I think The Last of Us is a better example however as opposed to Uncharted. In Uncharted you're supposed to like and feel like Drake is a good person. When he murders mercenaries like he does, it lessens that. Joel is the opposite however, he has turned cynical and callous due to the events over 25 years into the apocalypse. He's cruel and selfish. His killings make more sense for his character.

1. I dunno, I like having interactions that are unique or entertaining, but can't exactly define what that would be. I think Uncharted 4 did a great job with the Crash Bandicoot segment (regardless of how you feel about Crash). It's personal dialogue and exposition that still allows me to interact with the game and have fun instead of sitting there or following a character. I think there's a ton of unexplored territory but it's usually relegated to boring mini-games or movie-like talking.

@jg4xchamp:

1. How do you feel about more story driven triple A games needing to find more engaging interactions for their games that isn't violence oriented?

I like Story driven games but I don't like cliches and I hate restrictive gameplay

2. What would be your idea of interactions that can be added to these games to offset the vacuum that would be left over with less shooting n stuff?

Puzzles , really good puzzles that are hard to solve , jus like old school adventure games , more variety in quests and missions

3. Do you like your cookie crispy or chewy?

I dig both but with a cup of coffee (lotta suga , lotta cream)

4. Have you ever had a black n white cookie?

I don't think so

By black and white cookie do you mean like an oreo?

nah, one of these

@jg4xchamp: Nope, never had.

I mostly enjoyed Uncharted 4, but I hated the fights that were basically on-rails. The prison fist fights and the fights with Nadine would have been better off as cutscenes where I can chill and sip on a beer or something until they were finished.

I actually think that the platforming in Uncharted 4 doesn't feel that bad. It's just that there is almost never a sense of urgency to it. The game would be more enjoyable to me if it would tone down on searching every nook and cranny for collectibles and fill areas with the sort of traps you would expect to find in Prince of Persia games.

I do like climbing and exploring better. Sometimes shooting gets boring as you can tell when an altercation is going to happen by what set pieces are in the area you are moving to.

I loved U4, but i think it could have had a bit less climbing and more encounters. On the other hand, one of my favourite levels was the auction, which had zero action!

When it comes to pacing in Uncharted series i think U2 had the perfect balance between action, climbing, puzzles and exploration.

The auction ends with an action section.

I meant the first part of the level.

I really enjoy exploration games. One of my favorite games of last gens is basically a Metroidvania kind of game with exploration + puzzles and no shooting or killing at all (Knytt Underground). I think if someone would tackle something like that on a AAA game I would love it.

Chapter 13 was an example of what this game does best.

Just find a way to make the rest of the game match that, I wouldn't know where to start honestly.

I think this problem has plagued gaming for quite some time. Is violence always necessary? Shoot things, kill things, stomp things, destroy things, slice things, it's always about killing a thing to proceed.

The only other side quests are collect a thing, deliver a thing, bring a thing back. But you're also quite likely to murder things during those quests.

So what can gaming do? Well, it's hard to be creative, and gamers are afraid of change. Kudos for not using the words cognitive dissonance. Sometimes there will always be a hypocritical nature to art. The way rage against the machine was on a big record label and yet pretended to "fight the man."

I wouldn't be against a game where you hug the bad guys to calm them down and make them stop fighting you. This is why stealth games always appealed to me. Finding another solution that's not always the gun solution.

I agree. Uncharted 2 is the pinnacle of what the series was capable of and delivered an experience that could not be beaten. Every uncharted since has been a try-hard to recapture that moment. The only answer is to go in a wildly different direction. The cut and paste of U3 and U4 don't appeal to me. This is why gears became so stale so fast.

agreed, always felt Uncharted had too much combat given the light-hearted adventure vibe the games always went for, and the combat was always just kinda in the way of the better parts of the previous games. They also improved the combat compared so for the first time I actually found it somewhat enjoyable. Now they just need to find more interesting stuff to fill the non-combat parts with.

My primary doctor always says I'm heading for Destruction.

But anyways, depends on the main character, I did felt the emotions for Commander Shepard in Mass Effect Games. Shepard is no different then John Morston who kills more in his fair share and even in ME3, I saw my favorite protagonist severely hurt near the end and I did feel sorry of the character despite he/she a murdering colony no good for nothing Human.

As far as Uncharted 4 goes, the game is all about a Treasure Hunter right? There's gonna be climbing, even Mercenaries to deal with, and it's what I expected from Uncharted game so it's why I never look at the problems it had.

No

I'd like less narrative moments then, since Uncharted 4 is so bloated in that department. I started replaying it, and I stopped in Scotland.

And then I looked at the chapter select screen, and none of them seemed brilliant, because they all feature, and start, with the ol' walk and talk.

Was Nadine a new character? I don't remember her from the first 3 games, but the narrative made it seem like I was supposed to know who she is.

I loved UC4 outside of Nadine Ross who was just a pointless character placed by obnoxious SJWs.

@jg4xchamp: Hell yes they need more meaningful things to do and interact with in AAA narratives and uncharted was not a step in the right direction on that front. So many times I said to myself, welp, time to do some meaningless bullshit just to say I did something, rather than doing it because it offered me, the gamer a better experience. The problem I see however, is that meaningful activities in games run parallel with story telling, and if the story telling is bad, it effects the side activities worth in the eyes of the gamer.

Uncharted for example, gassed up this whole 4x4 Jeep component to the game, which made sense considering where they were in the narrative... It was a great *new* element that had potential to offer something totally new to the uncharted series with possibly a few finely crafted chase scenes, or even some tricky maneuvers to reach new ground and new discoveries... Instead it was used solely as a way for naughty dog to show off their visual aesthetics and as an element in a few children difficulty puzzles, hence you had a new side thing, with the depth of a puddle. You could cut the entirety of the Jeep scenes in U4 and only kept the big set piece chase and I would've had more respect for that section.

Honestly, Gagan and I know you're gonna hate this, but Fallout 4 did something so right with being a big AAA game that introduced a hugely executed new feature set that gives weight to the narrative and the world and its called settlement building... It made me feel like I went from a lawless mass murderer in the post apocalypse to someone who not only aligns themselves with a faction in the narrative, but effectively makes the game arguably as much about building the world while also working through the narrative, rather than "go shoot things and ignore the myriad of junk laying about"

The problem is fallout 4 has a weak story and repetitive missions which dulls the importance of the settlement building because you can effectively ignore it and still go through the game with horribly ignored settlements of beggars, but not to your benefit.

So, in short, I think game developers need to examine how the narrative ties into the gameplay and what aspects make the game better (settlement building) and which elements offer diminishing returns (everything in uncharted 4)... Good games can be created within the confines of crap narrative, but superb games marry the meaningful activity with the narrative...

Also, I like cookies of all shapes, sizes and crunchyness... Chewy chips ahoy are the cancer of cookies. Disgusting. On the other hand, though we've furthered our capabilities over a hundred years, science cannot explain why we cannot go beyond the oreo cookie... Its molecular perfection.

I didn't dislike Nadine as a character. I just didn't like the "gameplay" where you fight her in completely scripted fights you can't win.

@PurpleMan5000: Exactly as they wanted her to be this unstoppable bad ass.

Action games haven't quite figured out yet how to instill the moral weight of death. :P

Though in all honesty, doing such a thing with any real weight and gravity? I can see the headlines. :O

Rise of the Tomb Raider tries it, but it does it by taking all the wonder and excitement right out of it.

I'd rather have them stop giving a shit about the narrative, cause more often than not, non-violent gameplay is a lot less enjoyable unless it's a puzzle game.

Interesting topic, and a great video!

How about The Witcher 3? Thanks to its engulfing and gorgeous enviorment, and well-thought-out writing, you can find yourself immersed in this world where you can explore new areas, delve into new quests, and never get bored of it, I mean when you play this game, say for 2 hours, half of it is exploring and engaging in conversations, and it's enjoyable. it's not all about combat and violance. And even the violence suits the character and the lore.

Another example would be HL2, thanks to its physic-based puzzles.

So my answer would be puzzles and a strong world filled with quests offering engaging writing that even contribute to character development.

I gotta say tho, no matter how much you add these not violance-oriented interactive elements, you will still end up killing a shit ton of ppl, it's just no way around it, yeah you can slow down the violance but still, you gotta suspend your disbelief.

3. Crispy

4. Yeah and I loved it!

Platformers exist. RPGs, crpgs specifically built entire dialogue systems that rewarded you for being astute of your setting and following the game's internal logic, stealth gameplay, and again I refer to the main video: Violent gameplay only comes off as "more enjoyable" because it's had decades upon decades of refinement. The non-violent stuff has more or less stayed stagnant because devs have gone the safer route, Uncharted more or less fits that safer route, because lets be real Naughty Dog tends to make games that are generic conceptually.

Factually not true. If you followed the straight line, the jeep section is just there to be there. But the collectible, while still a shitty thing, can be found for the more exploring type, and the set up actually requires some basic thought besides go there, grab thing, leave. It's sort of a mini-puzzle, that uses the wench in a fairly believable way. That requires you to recognize the physics of the thing, how to extend around the way the cave is placed, and then boom drop support beam, get item.

Also the game has optional combat encounters, so the jeep's purpose besides being a calming drive is that in that space it helps you get around fairly quickly in an area that is large enough for them to do their cinematic thing, while giving the player some optional things to hunt down.

Does it all fall under the "I could do it, but why would I want to" category? Eh, sure, but Uncharted is a franchise that has rarely even given you anything that would remotely be interesting enough to be "I could do it, but why would I want to?" territory in the first place.

A mechanic the game does absolutely nothing with. It's nice that it has it, and yeah it makes a ton of sense for a RPG. But you have no real reason to worry about your settlement, than just cause, it's just as tertiary as the optional stuff during the jeep level. It doesn't add the level of impact that say your group of survivors adds in State of Decay, or This War of Mine, or the need to rest, get supplies in a game like The Banner Saga. I think wrpgs have long since needed that type of resource stuff, interesting resource stuff, that isn't a product of boring planet scanning or drive on dull green planet with nothing exciting on it to keep you honest in the setting, but the one in Fallout 4 is like a half-step. Admirable, but similarly like Uncharted 4 (where the less combat is admirable), but now they gotta do the next part: make the non-violent thing good, and not a half-baked idea.

This is all a nothing counterpoint.

Mass Effect is absurd, it creates genuine empathy for its characters, but it's also science fiction. Science fiction gets away with absurdity, because of the fantasy nature of the story. Red Dead tries to be more grounded and straight forward, but while we're on the subject of Mass Effect you still spend a ridiculous amount of time doing chest high wall cover shooting, as opposed to actually seeing interesting alien worlds. I mean what is future earth in this universe? brown n gray with cover shooting. The asari planet? brown n gray with cover shooting. The turian planet? Haha, child pls, go fight on the moon next to it, and imagine what it would be like if we actually made the turian planet something you could see.

As for uncharted: the climbing isn't the issue. How shallow of a gameplay system it is to the point of you doing basically nothing as a player is the problem. Treasure hunters actually perform an arduous task if they need to climb something. The way it's handled in Uncharted, the player does with ease like it's something Nathan can do any given Tuesday.

Half Life 2 is sort of right, but it does it more for the sake of making a game. Which is more admirable to me, it's not really there because of the story, because the story that game tells is shit. But I digress, it's more to show off their fancy physics engine at the time and vary the game up, which Half Life 2 does in general, since it's the most varied action game this side of Resident Evil 4.

The Witcher 3, yeah for the most part. That one is more about taking in its setting, and being part of that world. This doesn't work everytime, but to me it's rad where when you're just walking about the world and stumble on a quest organically. As opposed to following the gps line. There is a what are them shits called, the wraiths near a lighthouse in skelliga, where the only reason I went down there was because I was looking at my map, and there was this whole corner area where there wasn't a quest symbol on my map, no monster nest, nothing. So I was like **** it, Im gonna go see what they put there, and I found a creepy as shut in town, knocked on the door, found out the lighthouse needed some cleansing.

It was neato, it was natural, no fucking "follow the marker"still violent, but yeah stuff like that is rad. It doesn't necessarily work with what I'm saying lol, but it's rad.

@jg4xchamp: Oh, I definitely murdered waaaaaayyyyyyy more than 500 dudes on RDR lol I went all generic Western Villain with every chance I got :P

I'm sorry, but as someone who played waaaayyyy too many hours of F4 + it's DLC, that is just flat out wrong. Settlement building matters exactly 0.1% to the entire experience, much less to the actual narrative. And it's not a clear 0.0000000000000000000000(etc)% simply because the main quest asks you to use it some like....3 times? 2 or 3 times anyway.

Like...did we really play the same game? At no point did the settlement building add anything to the narrative. ****, half of the main quest adds nothing to the narrative lol The game effectively, pre-Far Harbor does exactly the whole "go shoot things and ignore the myriad of junk laying about". It does literally that dude, that's why anything that wasn't the actual gameplay loop in F4 (pre-DLC's) sucked massively. It only decided to become an actual RPG with the DLC, otherwise it was just giving a new paint of colour to whatever/whomever you were murdering, depending on who you joined. Heck, even THAT didn't really matter (both in the narrative and gameplay) until they introduced the Survival mode for the base game.

I mean, if you actually managed to make it have an impact by building settlements, more power to you man, but to say they mattered? Never. Doing them or not didn't result in any gameplay benefit or hinderance. You'd still get great armours, great weapons, a crapload of money and items regardless of how you went about it.

The vast majority of platformers are violent, mate.

Anyway, have you watched Logan?

Sure, but they don't necessarily need to be. They are either wall to wall sillyness (mario, rayman, donkey kong) or you can have them entirely separated from the violence ala Prince of Persia sands of time. Whose acrobatic stuff, is stuff Uncharted's base systems could easily emulate. In fact the lone interesting sequence from its platforming mechanics is an extended stretch where you do the rock sliding, with timed jumps, a grapple hook and the spike in succession near the end. It's a fucking basic as **** sequence, but had they actually done more of it early in the game and expanded upon it, it would have only added to the experience.

Instead we got go find crate on wheels in the middle of bumba ****.

The problem with having less combat encounters is that they didn't give you shit to do in between. Lowering the violence is a nice idea but it means **** all when you don't fill the rest of your 15 hour game with something interesting. UC4 is is on par with Skyward Sword with how much they hold your hand and insult the player's intelligence. That game is terrified at the idea of letting the player fail.

The combat encounters themselves weren't much better. Very limited ammo, boring one dimensional weapons that aren't fun to use and you're fighting the exact same enemies you've been fighting for 4 games with the same predictable, shitty AI but hey, at least now some of them aren't bullet sponges so they learned 1 thing in 4 games. Similar games like Rise of the Tomb Raider have much better combat encounters because you already have a wide array of weapons with multiple functions going into every combat encounter and you have bigger areas that allow different approaches to the combat. You can go guns blazing or use stealth and it even lets you set up traps. Its not very deep and its still a dumb action game but its still far more interesting than any combat encounter in UC4.

Seeing as Uncharted is inspired by Indiana Jones, I do not take issue with the violence in the game. It makes for good gameplay as does changing the pace with puzzles and platforming. It all comes down to finding the right balance (the balance was off in U4). Uncharted and God of War are 2 of my favorite franchises and part of what makes them great is that they slow things up and change the pace.

There are many games that are not violent at all. A game like SOMA is great and there is no combat. For me, I am more concerned whether they can keep the game interesting and engaging regardless if there is violence or not. If the game solely relies on violence, then it has to mix things up with great level and encounter design or it just becomes boring and repetitive.

L.A. Noire did it right. Story was the focus and the gameplay was investigative instead of killing hundreds of people.

I don't mind the non-violent parts but the climbing could have been trimmed a bit. Still enjoyed it and just started playing through 2nd time.

Absolutely not.

U4 was by far the worst out of all 4.

It was pretty boring and the characters werent interesting, story wasnt good, locations were under-used, too much climbing, no interesting platforming (even with three new elements for climbing/traversing: the pick to that on to rocks and, the jeep, and the lasso).

It sure was! I traded that one and done in yesterday and got Horizon zero dawn

"No thanks I like my games to have as little gameplay as possible."

Yea I'm not really getting this. Shooting in Uncharted is pretty much the only point where the gameplay is actually gameplay. The platforming and climbing and occasional puzzle solving might as well be cutscenes with how little time or effort you have to invest in them.

Ludonarrative dissonance is far less of a problem for this series than the fact that huge segments of it are utterly shallow.

yep. Ive played the first 3 Uncharted game more than a dozen times each. And try to plat them.

Uncharted 4, I beat it once and never played it again.