Review: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End's single player campaign is the best in the series

The Uncharted series has always had great single player campaigns but Uncharted 4: A Thief's End might have the best one of them all.  Due to technical issues, we were not able to provide our online multiplayer impressions for the game just yet. No matter as the single player campaign is lengthy and I can safely say that Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is the best game I have played on the PS4 to date.  The first thing that will really stand out to you while playing this game is just how vividly striking the graphics are. Naughty Dog went out of its way to make what is possibly the best looking game I have ever seen on the PS4. They are a huge step up from the PS3 trilogy as the colours are vibrant and the characters models are much more detailed. The graphics shine mainly because of the exotic locations that Nathan Drake will visit in his long adventure. The muddy environment of Madagascar is clearly a highlight as well as the many jungles that Drake has to traverse. The levels are also large and expansive as Drake will have to ride inside of a jeep to get across the treacherous terrain.  Speaking of the jeep, riding vehicles in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is an all-new mechanic in the franchise and it works really well. The vehicle sections don't feel forced like how the Batmobile in Arkham Knight bombarded you with lots of tanks to destroy. Here, the jeep and boat sections are a nice change of pace as they're relaxing segments that allow you to take in the beauty of the environments. The pace is another thing that this game improves upon. In the previous Uncharted video games, the pace was full-on as it seemed as if you were bombarded with fire-fights too often. This game adds more variety as you might play a section that forces you to explore or you may have to solve a puzzle in-between all of the action set pieces.  That's not to say combat isn't fun in this game because the gunplay has improved for the better. In my opinion, the weakest aspect of the older games had always been the gunplay as it felt too loose and the hit detection was poor at the time. The fourth game rectifies this as bullets are more effective this time around. Not to mention Naughty Dog also added a lock-on mechanism so beginners won't have a tough time shooting bad guys.  It's also worth mentioning that the enemies in this game are far less frustrating to kill in this new game. Even though this game has destructible walls, the levels are designed perfectly to move around and kill enemies from a lot of different locations. This is all thanks to the new rope mechanic that allows Nathan Drake to swing onto higher platforms and more.   The only kind of weak part about the combat in general is that the stealth and melee attacks still feel a little bit off. Punching and countering enemy attacks are not as graceful as seen in the Arkham video games while the stealth mechanics still feel awkward as it's much faster just running and gunning your way to victory.  While the gameplay in general is mostly excellent, the story is quite compelling too. At the start of the game, it's nice to see Nathan Drake happy and relaxed as he has settled in with Elena. It's not until when his brother Sam comes back into his life that he has to go to another adventure.   Arguably Uncharted 4: A Thief's End has the most exciting story in the series as a lot of stuff happens over the course of the 14 hour long campaign. Not to mention it has the longest cutscenes in the series, but this isn't as bad thing as it tells you a lot about all of the characters' motivations and backgrounds.  Overall, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is without a doubt the best single player campaign in the entire series. The gameplay mechanics have improved a lot and it has a story that is exciting enough for you to play until the very end of it. If you own a PS4 console, you'll be mad not to pick this game up.  Verdict: 9.5/10