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Veknoid_Outcast on 09 June 2016
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Boutros said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

Whoa, whoa. I didn't write that Naughty Dog didn't invest any time developing the gameplay in Uncharted 4, or that it's uninteresting. I said that the gameplay is uneven and the production values are all-time great. If the gamplay was also all-time great, the game would be unstoppable.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Uncharted 4 a lot. But I think you'll agree that Naughty Dog invested as much time and resources crafting a story and creating an engine as it did inventing interesting gameplay scenarios. I mean, that's what people expect from Uncharted.

The problem here is that movies and video games demand different things, and they don't always make good bedfellows. Naughty Dog is probably the best in the industry at weaving the two media together, but even they can't negotiate the difference every time. When a sequence unfolds according to a rigid script, it takes away from the agency of the player, which diminishes the gameplay possibilities.

Now, in terms of mechanics, you're right. Uncharted 4 is great. Shooting, moving, and climbing is all much improved since Drake's Deception. But gameplay is more than just mechanics. It's about how the player interacts with and experiences those mechanics.

Well you said "If Naughty Dog spent the same energy crafting interesting and involving gameplay, the game would be unstoppable".

And what I'm saying is that they've done that at least within the realm of possibilities. What you seem more troubled by are pacing issues. The balance between gameplay sections and cutscenes/walking sections. That's another issue. What I responded to was what you quoted from his review ("If Uncharted 4 played even half as good as it looked, it would be a masterpiece…"). He's strictly talking about gameplay here. And I don't think it's true that the game plays less than half as good as it looked for the reasons I gave.

Well, I don't know about percentages. Remember, I said the author was unduly harsh. I agree with the overall message though, which is that Uncharted 4 is as much concerned with telling a story and looking good as it is with playing well.

I think we're still caught up on mechanics vs. gameplay. Because, for me, any section where we have control is a gameplay section. So any chapter where we're just walking forward and looking at stuff or any level where we're autoplatforming is technically gameplay. And those end up being boring. When all I need to do as a player is press forward or hit a button to trigger a quick-time event, I start to tune out - no matter the gorgeous graphics on display. 

The biggest problem here, again, is the marriage of cinema and video games. Video games are special because we as players are given control. We can interact with and change the game. In a way there are two narrators, the developer and the player. Gameplay emerges out of the dialogue between those two narrators. With movies, conversely, there is a single narrator. The movie is always the same, no matter how many times you watch it. So, by making concessions to movies, Naughty Dog paints itself into a gameplay corner. If you want players to experience events in a certain way, you need to guide them and manipulate them. You need to funnel them. And that's where gameplay suffers.