Low points in gaming
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End serves as a weird hanger-on to the Uncharted trilogy housed on the PS3. We could’ve left it at that, even “that” was the disappointing Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception — especially if Uncharted 4 is meant to serve as capstone to Nathan Drake’s story (albeit, admittedly, not the series as a whole).
I’m glad they didn’t, mind. Uncharted 4 eschewed the droning, repetitive wave-based shoot ’em up that was Uncharted 3 while even managing to respect its backstory for Yung Drake. It was smartly paced, leaned into the interpersonal relationships of well-liked characters, and felt brisk and pulpy without being glib. It’s a noticeable improvement all around; it kind of reminds me of what we’re seeing in the next God of War. Aged developers with more life experience want to figure out how to have the big, climactic, bloody action game with some merit and a veneer of respectability. It’s a good thing! Lethal fucking Weapon features family dinners AND toilet bombs.
But what really served as the opposite of Uncharted 4‘s maturation and hammers home why Uncharted 3 was the nadir of the series and so unbelievably dispiriting was the fucking Nathan Drake Subway ad campaign.
Subway is an insanely pervasive international food chain that sells a spongy tube product resembling sandwiches/Taylor Swift’s vagina. And just five years ago Nathan Drake, the character, was once its “corporate whore,” as Jim Sterling so eloquently put it at the time.
Look at this shit. It comes off as a dank meme, but it’s legit. This happened. Look at Drake’s disgustingly disjointed fingers as he holds a Subway cup. His hand looks like a god damn rake. Look at a Drake multiplayer avatar doing the hand gesture as a taunt — just like from the commercials!!! Fuck to Subway and its trash sponge tubes and fuck to this disgusting marketing campaign.
It’s embarrassing and let’s never forget it.
