Weirdness: Uncharted 4's Rolling Stones Will Blow Your Mind

Don't think I noticed the stones lol Amazing game alright!!!

WHAT

@get2sammyb As soon as I personally witnessed that you could look in mirrors, I knew I was in for a visually technical masterpiece. For some reason, even the greatest feats of graphical prowess always have mirrors that don't reflect! But U4's not only show the main character, but also accurately change with the background. Add that to the facial animation, lighting, physics like in the GIF you posted...gosh, I really don't know how Naughty Dog does it.

Super impressive!

That actually is really impressive.

Just this attention to detail is why Naughty Dog are the best at what they do! Every aspect of this game is perfect!

If you're goin for the 70% accuracy, don't go around the game shooting rocks to see if they'll fall.

After seeing this, I'm tempted to play the story again to see want other objects I can shoot to make them fall.

That's insane! Who would ever notice that! It just shows the unbelievable attention to detail this dream team has.

This game on a technical level is head and shoulders above anything else I've ever seen and simply gorgeous to look at

@DrJoeystein What games have you been playing? Duke Nukem 3D from about 1995 has mirrors that reflect the environment and main character. There are SNES games that spoof reflections in mirrors or water.

@Matroska We're talking about modern games here. I don't know why, but it's rare when you'll stumble across one with half-decent mirror reflections (of any at all). U4 goes all the way, which I didn't expect. I guess it's just hard to program in games most of the time.

This is exactly the sort of thing I was expecting on PS3 when they said physics would be vastly improved in games.

Haven't you guys ever played Little Big Planet? It's not hand drawn animation, it's a basic physics algorithm in the SDK or some other software.
select a set of shapes, select x properties and click apply to all.
But credit where credit's due, they didn't ignore the rocks or the tons of other details they could have left as flat, inanimate objects. I'm inclined to agree with @ApostateMage and @Bad-MuthaAdebisi

When I saw the sandbags get bullet holes and leak sand at last years E3 demo, I know the attention to detail was insane - not just in static objects but in everything. This is just further evidence of how technically incredible this game is.

I said this a few months back when most games looked like they could run on the last gen consoles. Naughty dog have set the benchmark - everyone else has got to tow the line.

@get2sammyb slow news day or are you really trying to make a point with this game?

Also wheres this week's 4 Shenmue articles? ;p

Wait, you reckon this animation alone credits 10/10? Ya not basing a game solely on graphics are you? I hereby give reality a 10/10 because THOSE ROCKS ON MY DRIVE ARE OMG I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE IN MY LIFE!

As for everyone mentioning mirrors, that's not new. Perhaps the method of doing it is, but the concept and feature itself sure as hell isn't.

Its not only one aspect that makes great game. But ND managed to put many of aspects into one package. I was amazed by marketplace in madagascar city. There are so many people doing things....And all people look so natural. I never saw this kind of animation. Its not about quantity of people, but about how they work as a whole.

Thumbs up ND!

@get2sammyb Sarcasm doesn't translate well into text. That's just an unfortunate thing. I'm a bit shocked you seem to be having a slow news day. Normally only NL has that to deter from failures. Must have had my sense of humour removed during that surgery on tuesday XD

The Witcher 3 is another stunning game that can't do mirrors so I do get your point.

Back on topic wow lol, love the detail in this game, been thinking about playing it again at a really leisurely pace, to take it all in.

i can just imagine Nate saying "See Chris you don't need to punch rocks to make them move"

@Matroska aren't those days simple parallax scrolling with 4-10 simple things going on in xy co ords? Today's mirror is like a miniature window within in a game which needs to capture dynamic physics, millions of textures, movement, speed, etc. It's like comparing nescafe powder coffee to a proper barista made coffee!

Gahh, the framerate hurts my eyes. Gamer goggles do nossing!

Anyway, ND do pull off some great visuals. Never liked the actual game parts though...

Such attention to detail is insane, Naughty Dog are certainly masters of gaming.

This game is incredible. I spend half my time playing and half my time just ogling the environments.

A game deserves 10/10 because of the amount of detail put into the world? I mean, I get that it's an impressive technical accomplishment, but isn't the actual gameplay more important?

This is my problem with modern ND games: they feel more like really lavish roller-coasters than they do games that are trying to fully engage you in their virtual world.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, of course: I'm almost to the end of Uncharted 2 Remastered, and while I have some complaints, it really has been an interesting and, on occasion, truly exhilarating thrill ride.

Although after having played TLOU Remastered and the Nathan Drake Trilogy, going back to 30 fps is going to be weird.

@bbq_boy @DrJoeystein Well it's all relative. The graphics in the games of 1995 were pushing those machines to the limits in the same way that UC4 is pushing the PS4. All UC4 is doing is doubling the size of a very small room and adding in one more polygon model - bearing in mind it can also do huge rooms and dozens of models at once. Of course, it'd be different if it was reflecting a vast outdoor space with 80 people walking around.

I dunno, it just seems rarer to me to NOT have mirrors working. Sammy said The Order didn't have it, I remember The Witcher 3 not having it, that's about it for me. Maybe I've just coincidentally missed all these mirrorless games!

Here's Deadly Premonition having it, along with facial hair that grows over time. This is an incredibly low budget game that feels like it was made by a mad man in a shed over a 2 week period.

@Matroska Ah, that's true. Relatively speaking, those accomplishments shouldn't be made light of. I just meant that I'm referring to games since the last-gen started because , for me, I always seem to stumble across games that don't have reflecting mirrors. It's weird and drives me insane! So that's why I assumed it must be tough to do when, in fact, it probably isn't most of the time. Developers are just lazy about it, like Ready at Dawn with The Order as @get2sammyb pointed out. But yeah, whenever they do reflect, it's a sign of attention to detail to me, which is why I specifically mentioned that here.

And that Deadly Premonition example you gave is awesome! I never would've guessed it would have that!

@Ralizah Okay, first of all you have a crapload of ways to interact with the world around you in Uncharted. What can you do in, for example, Mario? Jump, run. That's it. In Uncharted you can do those things, plus dozens of other actions available to you, like driving, melee, stealth, climbing, and they can also combine in a multitude of ways such as shooting while driving or melee and stealth. There are games where all you can do is jump yet they somehow get away with that and get attributed with being "all about the gameplay". It's feels like because Uncharted also puts effort into graphics, story and character, people forget about the things you can do within that world.

Aside from that, what actually IS gameplay? Simply pressing a little plastic button at the right time? Surely it's more about the overall experience? You'd say the gameplay of Monster Hunter is about hunting monsters (duh!) while upgrading your equipment. They're not monsters, you're not a hunter, even a humanoid, it's not equipment: these are all story or graphical elements, not gameplay. You could replace the monsters with bright blue cubes and the gameplay would be exactly the same. Your "hunter" could be a red cube. No visuals for the armour, it just raises these numbers that lets the blue cube touch the red one more times before the red one disappears. But all the graphics, theme and other stuff make it feel like you're hunting monsters, crafting armour (not just clicking on a menu to raise numbers) and so on.

The first time this happened I was blown away, but, on closer examination its a canned animation. It was coll nonetheless.

@Matroska I agree with you there. It could be standard in modern games. But guess it's one of those things whether a dev has the time and budget to squeeze in that extra bit of detail. I pity the production dude who has to juggle all that stuff.