Bluepoint Games have done some impressive remastering work including the God of War Collection, Metal Gear Solid HD
Collection, Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection and others. They’ve also worked on Titanfall and are currently prucing up one of the Vita’s best games, Gravity Rush, for a PS4 release soon. Last week, the popular Uncharted series got the remastering treatment in the form of the Nathan Drake Collection. It includes 2008’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, 2009’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and 2011’s Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Unfortunately, the Vita exclusive Uncharted: Golden Abyss (which was not developed by Naughty Dog), remains a Vita exclusive, and it’s not included here. You also will ot find any multiplayer content; the multiplayer modes in Uncharted 2 and 3 have been entirely removed.
Those caveats aside, what remains is a superb compilation of three of last-gen’s best games. Rather than cover the games again, I’ll instead point to my detailed reviews of each game. Please click through for reviews of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Within those articles you will find my take on all three games.
In reviewing the Nathan Drake Collection this past week, I was attempting to replay through all of these games again on Normal difficulty but I’m coming up a bit short on time. Instead, I got through most of each of the three games and, well, they’re still awesome. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune has, unsurprisingly, aged worst of the three. Graphically, its quite an improvement from the original PS3 release thanks to screen space ambient occlusion and the removal of screen tearing. Additionally, all three games run in 1080p/60fps and draw distances, shadows, lighting, character models and shaders, particle effects, texture res and geometry detail, have been improved. Drake’s Fortune does not quite look like a native PS4 title, but it’s close, and what impressed me the most early on was how ‘easier on the eyes’ the dense jungle settings were. The clarity of the foliage and the lighting thereof was way crisper and more vibrant than back in 2008.
Not to pick on Drake’s Fortune specifically because it’s easily my second favorite game of the series, but it has some pretty severe floatiness issues with the camera and controls. Combat encounters are awkward; taking cover and aiming, honestly something that was never quite perfected in the Uncharted games, seems almost worse in this version of Drake’s Fortune than it was originally. What really surprised me were the camera woes and ‘on skates’ feeling I got at times with Nathan. Case in point, very early in the game you encounter a wrecked WWII submarine. While swimming near it, I could repeatedly get to a point to where the camera would spin 360 degrees around while I was idle. Later when I traversed the area and walked on top of the sub, Nathan actually took several steps himself before simply sliding right off. It’s a real shame that these weird camera and ‘floaty’ experiences are present as often as they are, I definitely don’t remember these issues on the PS3. Fortunately, the game is strong enough in every other regard that it’s well worth dealing with and getting through, but it does taint the overall experience. Hopefully we’ll see a patch to help this out.
As for Uncharted 2 and 3, I can’t say I’m having any obvious problems like that. These two games showed Naughty Dog’s own progression in developing games of this genre, skills that they no doubt continued to run with in making The Last of Us late in the PS3’s prime. Again I haven’t completed Uncharted 2 and 3 yet on this Collection, but for as far as I am into them, I haven’t had any major issues.
The graphical changes across all three games is tangible and they make a significant impact. Each soundtrack has been remastered and tuned for 7.1 as well. A variety of other tweaks and changes were made to the games, including things like the grenade throwing mechanics from UC2 and UC3 being integrated into Drake’s Fortune. The Crushing (Hard) difficulty is vailable from the start, so you don’t have to beat the game on Normal first. You also get two new difficulty modes: Explorer and Brutal, which are pretty self explanatory, but if you want to just enjoy the story and the characters (and who could blame you if you do), check out Explorer mode which is really easy. On the other hand if you want to take the combat of the game — which, honestly, is not its strongest element to be sure — to an extreme level, play Brutal. For those with plenty of time on their hands or if you just want to compete with friends, you can do the endless speed rush mode which places a clock in the HUD and times you as you go through segments of the game to see how quickly you can do them. Not something I’ll be doing myself, I’m not a speed-runner type of gamer.
One reason not to rush through is the new Photo Mode and the game gives you plenty of opportunity to snap, edit, and share some great views. I’ve also been consciously more thorough in trying to find all of the hidden treasures that I missed in years past. The hidden treasures are actually worthwhile; it’s exciting seeing that little glimmer and then working your way over to it. When you’re there, you don’t just get a generic item, you get a named and 3D rendered object that you’ll feel some satisfaction in finding. Naturally, finding these treasures also unlocks some Trophies, and the Collection includes all new Trophies, too.
There’s no question that these days there are a lot of re-releases. Games that have been visually remastered or just a series of games that have been collected from a previous generation into a new single release for the current generation. Some of these are just okay; but others, like the Nathan Drake Collection, are of such quality that they belong in the must-have category. Whether you have been with Nathan every step of the way so far or are deciding whether or not the series is worth investigating, you owe it to yourself to pick this up for your PS4.
To the summary…