By - Craig H.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves takes place roughly 2 years after the original Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Just like the original Uncharted Nathan Drake is after another treasure this time the hunt is for Marco Polo and the mystery behind his lost fleet. The game starts out with Drake wounded on a train that his hanging precariously off the edge of a snow covered mountain. It is up to the player to guide Drake safely back up to solid ground before the train plunges into the abyss. After arriving at the top the player and rummaging through the snow in what is the tutorial of the game (learn basic controls, gunplay, hand-to-hand combat, etc.) the player is then flashed back to learn how Drake got himself into that predicament and the adventure starts from there (will not spoil anything further). The story of Uncharted 2 takes the player too many different venues which is a welcome change to the single setting of the first game which took place exclusively in a rainforest environment (expect to fight through streets, temples, forest, on trains, in the snow and more). The story has its fair share of twists and turns but overall is one of the best and most engaging single player games out on the market today. You will not want to stop playing.
Story - 10
Uncharted 2 is one of the best looking games of this generation. The game is bright and full of life. Naughty Dog even pokes fun at the “next-gen” graphics of its competitors with the inclusion of a filter that sucks all the color out of the game and replaces it with a brown/bronze film ala Gears of War. During the gameplay I did see a few areas where some of the texture popped in a bit late (pockets on pants, ground elements/rocks) but I am really just splitting hairs since this only happened on a few minor occasions.
Visuals- 9.5
Uncharted 2 is a third person shooter with an excellent cover system and gunplay. Weapons have a zoom function which then brings the camera to an over-the-should view or a reticule-only view in the case of sniper rifles. The cover system is very responsive and during my gameplay only faltered a few times. Sometimes I had a problem with Drake attaching onto the wrong side of a box or object which would leave me open to enemy gunfire but for the most part the cover would do as I intended. Drake can also use the cover system to slide into cover and vault over object so that the player can quickly move across the field of battle. The gunplay is still one of the most natural feeling that I have played. The hit detection is excellent with the enemies reacting to exactly where you hit them. Some weapons are a bit over powered and overly accurate (last time I checked a shotgun cannot hit someone in a tower) but overall it feels right.
I have only 2 gripes with Uncharted 2’s gameplay. First, the pacing towards the middle of the game slows almost to a halt when the player has to follow a village local through his home village and a mountain area. After several battles and gun fights this area of the game feels out of place and way too long. Second , the puzzles in the game are extremely easy and require almost no thinking. Even if you are stuck the game prompts you to press the up on the d-pad and it shows and tells you what to do.
Gameplay-9
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the first Uncharted game to have multiplayer and Naughty Dog came out swinging with its available modes to try and solidify itself as your number one multiplayer game for the remainder of 2009. Uncharted has 10 multiplayer/online modes. The modes are Deathmatch, Elimination (Team Deathmatch), Plunder (Online Capture the Flag), King of the Hill, Turf War, Survival (similar to Horde mode in Gears of War 2 and Firefight in Halo 3:ODST), Chain Reaction, Gold Rush (Co-op Capture the Flag), Co-op and Machinima. Most of the modes are just clever names that relate to Uncharted’s storyline but are the everyday favorites of the multiplayer crowd. Co-op is a welcome inclusion but feels tacked on. The co-op does not follow the original story but does allow up to 3 players to play online together. There are 3 co-op maps that last roughly 30 minutes each to complete (though are fun to replay a few times). Machinima mode allows players to edit and create their own videos from recorded gameplay.
Online/Multiplayer – 9.5
On my first run in the single player mode I played through on hard and collected all 101/100 (yes that right, just like the first game which had 61/60 treasures) took me around 10 hours. Uncharted is not a particularly difficult game and as long as you use cover properly and avoid enemy flanking the player should have no problems. Depending on your gaming skills I would say the story mode on average would take between 10-12 hours. The game really shows its legs when you enter the multiplayer (as described above). Countless hours can be spent in the Uncharted multiplayer and its plethora of available modes.
Length/Longevity – 10
RATING: 9.75/10
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