'Uncharted 4' is a gorgeous adventure game everyone can enjoy

After 17 hours and 15 minutes, I finished "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" early Thursday morning.

Having played all the previous "Uncharted" games, I can definitively say "Uncharted 4" is easily the best game in the series.

It's also, hands down, one of the most beautiful games I've ever played.

If you're unfamiliar with the "Uncharted" series, you play a charismatic fortune hunter named Nathan Drake - he's kind of like Tomb Raider's Lara Croft mixed with Indiana Jones. He hunts ancient treasures because he's deeply passionate about history and respects the ancient artifacts he seeks. Ultimately, Drake wishes to preserve these treasures instead of use them for his own personal gain.

The "Uncharted" games have always been designed to make you feel like you're in a Hollywood movie. From the gorgeous cinematics to the high-octane gunfights, explosions and action sequences, developer Naughty Dog has spent years trying to perfect the action movie-style video game.

In many senses, Naughty Dog succeeds with "Uncharted 4"; it is a fitting culmination for the franchise that is sure to make fans happy. That said, it's not perfect.

Here's what I liked and didn't like about this game.

What I liked about "Uncharted 4":

• It's one of the most beautiful games you'll play. Naughty Dog has outdone itself in the visuals department. Every single environment, moment and set piece is so meticulously designed I was consistently wowed throughout my playtime. Nature, lighting, and character models have never looked so realistic, vibrant, and expressive. I I wanted to capture screenshots and film clips for about 90% of my 17 hours in "Uncharted 4." If nothing else, you should play this game simply to enjoy the artistic and technical achievement.
• It nails the cinematic feel unlike no other game. No other developer makes you feel like you're watching a movie, as well as playing a game. That's because "Uncharted 4" is written like a movie: It has distinct scenes and beats, and there's plenty of pacing to ensure players never do too much of one thing (like platforming, climbing walls, sneaking around, or fighting enemies). The game seamlessly integrates core gameplay with its cinematic movie sequences, and though some might complain the game feels like it's "on rails," I find this kind of meticulous direction to be a positive aspect of the game. It is truly stunning to watch in action.
• There's only a few new mechanics, but they're quality additions. Considering the similarities between Nathan Drake and Indiana Jones, you'd be surprised to learn this is the first "Uncharted" game where you can use a rope to swing around environments, jump on unsuspecting enemies, or climb/rappel down cliffs. Swinging with the rope is really fun and thankfully you get to do it quite often; it also can lead to some interesting combinations when you're doing other things like sliding and shooting enemies. There's also a new tool for your car - a winch that you can attach to things like tree trunks and poles - which helps solve some of the game's puzzles. That said, I do wish the car and the winch were used more often in the game, since they're both really fun tools.
• All the little things are done right. Naughty Dog pays attention to the little details to keep players immersed in the game. Besides the initial time to load the game, you won't experience any kind of loading times at all - even after you die, or move between different environments, or transition from cinematic scenes to live gameplay. It's incredibly fluid. Also, I didn't notice any major bugs or weird clipping in the graphics, which made the game feel that much more polished.

There are lots of other things I like about "Uncharted 4," like its sense of humor, the callbacks to previous games and the small Easter eggs you'll find scattered around the game (I won't spoil any for you right now). But as someone who's played all the previous games, I had a few gripes as well.

What I didn't like about "Uncharted 4":

• The gameplay feels repetitive at times. Maybe it's just me because I've played every "Uncharted" game (somewhat recently, too), but at many points "Uncharted 4" felt formulaic. You do some platforming, you dispatch some bad guys (via sneaking or outright violence or both), you watch a cinematic, then you do it again, and again, and again. The game rarely diverts from this pattern. There are a few surprises offered via the game's plot, but the mechanics themselves are fairly static. Also, unlike other notable adventure games like "The Legend of Zelda" or even "Dark Souls," you don't attain better weapons or gear as you progress in the game, and the enemy types don't change, either. You more or less have all the tools you ever play with at the start of the game. (You do happen upon a few nice weapons later on, but they're fleeting and underutilized.)
• It feels very safe. I get it. It's the final "Uncharted" game and Naughty Dog wanted to send the series out with a bang. That meant doing what's always worked, not necessarily push the boundaries. But most aspects of this game, from the plot to the dialogue, felt like safe bets to me. That's why the rare departures from the "Uncharted" formula were a bit disappointing. There wasn't one unique chapter where it felt like a totally different game. And at one point, just when I thought the game would take an unpredictable turn, it didn't. By the end of the game, I enjoyed the entire journey, but I can't help but wish Naughty Dog took more chances with its characters, particularly when it came to the fates of the good guys and the bad guys.

All in all, "Uncharted 4" is an excellent game. It's truly gorgeous, and it's relatively easygoing and approachable for just about all types of gamers. But it's not one of my favorite games, simply because it didn't feel quite as challenging as I would've liked. And I don't mean the game's difficulty, you can change that on the fly; I mean the game itself. Its plot, and its characters, are predictable.

Like many Hollywood movies, the action in "Uncharted 4" predictably rises and falls throughout the first, second, and third acts. But I kept wishing for a change in pace, or a surprise, or at least some deeper character development, the kind of stuff Naughty Dog explored in its last game, "The Last of Us." In "Uncharted 4," I had trouble being convinced of each character's motivations - both the older characters as well as the new ones - and that undermined some of the artificial urgency in the game's plot.

The other issue with this game, to me, is its replayability. Now that I've finished the game, I have no real desire to go back and play more, or start a new save file, or play the game's multiplayer mode (I only spent a bit of time with that mode, and while it's a nice addition it's not central to the experience, in my opinion). I don't want to go back and search each area to find the 60 small hidden treasures I missed, or use some of the built-in game modifiers like the ability to play the game in slow motion, or to play the game with all the environments being mirrored (like Mario Kart). Plenty of people will want to do these things, but I have no interest in it now that I've finished the game.

As a whole, "Uncharted 4" excels in some big ways, like its visuals and its cinematic feel. But unfortunately, I won't remember much about this game; it's nowhere near as memorable or striking as Naughty Dog's previous effort, "The Last of Us," which everyone should play at some point. As for "Uncharted 4," I'll remember some of the gorgeous environments, but I won't remember much about the plot. I probably won't remember much about the characters either, simply because they felt too predictable, too safe, and not very three-dimensional. I wished the game went deeper and took more risks, even though it's a very fun adventure on its own. It's still the best "Uncharted" game ever made, but it could've been so much more than that.