Tech review: Unchartered 4: A Thief's End

After jumping out of planes without a parachute, escaping sinking ships, and driving trains off cliffs...where could Nathan Drake go for his fourth adventure? Home, it turns out.
We find Drake, in the early stages of A Thief’s End, in something resembling domestic bliss. The swashbuckling rascal has shacked up with Elena, his old journalistic squeeze, and makes his shillings diving for salvage. But then adventure comes calling. While previous Uncharted adventures concentrated on Drake’s relationship with his sidekick Sully, this is a tale of two brothers, as he embarks on a quest to find a lost fortune with his older sibling.
This is Uncharted’s first outing on the PS4. The valleys, mountains, crumbling tombs and ancient temples are graphically stunning. There’s vomit-in-your-handbag vertigo as you climb cliffs, and the gun-play moments are tenser than a new trampoline. Alongside the climbing bits, there’s a mix of head scratching puzzles, shoot-outs, and vehicle chase scenes.
Every so often, there’s a fist fight in which you team up with your bro to slam dunk a bad guy. The addition of a grappling hook adds little to the adventure, other than the mystery of how it magically returns Drake’s belt a second after he uses it. The game has way too many cut-scenes, but Uncharted’s beauty was always its characters and storytelling.
Nathan Drake, voiced by the brilliant Nolan North, is the kind of character you could share yarns with over a pint. That’s quite a feat, since most video-game stars are dead-eyed bores.

Rating: 8/10