Indeed, Naughty Dog have crossed the line over to creating far more believable characters than most games allow, and this is primarily due to the fantastic little touches and finer points of each of the characters, with the protagonist, Nathan Drake, being the star of the show. But before we delve into each of the character's finer points, let’s elaborate on the story. The game begins with Drake waking up in a train, badly wounded and hanging off the side of a cliff. After Drake just barely escapes the massive wreckage, he is re-united with a mysterious gold dagger to whom he scoffs at. From here, the game retells the events prior to this disaster, and you play through until you reach back onto the train crash, and from there the game progresses onwards.
While not a new mode of delivery, the story line is simply put, fantastic. Sure, the story is not as complicated or in-depth as something like Metal Gear Solid 4 or the writer's previous work, Legacy of Kain. However, the story still holds a number of different twists and turns as it progresses onto its breathtaking climax, and rarely ever allows you to let go of your controller. But part of the addiction to the story line is largely due to the gameplay, which is not only responsive, but ridiculously fun. The core mechanics from the original Uncharted have transitioned over to Uncharted 2, but with an almost entirely different feel. The fluidity of transition for Drake and co, whether it be from melee to gunplay or gunplay to climbing, is absolutely outstanding. There is never a moment where the game feels clunky or unresponsive, everything is fluid and moves as it should, which is a damn good thing too when the enemy is so unrelenting in its attack. AI will actively flush you out of cover, charge your position, surround you, and overall make your life a lot harder. That being said though, the game never feels too difficult, just pitted against you heavily, but the satisfaction of taking out a bunch of guys is just awesome.
One unforgettable moment.
Uncharted 2 is also filled with moments of sheer exhilaration and breathless events, where it’s not just your basic shoot, take cover, keep running, repeat mechanism. There are points in the game where you must adapt to your surroundings and at an alarming rate too, because it won’t slow down for you at any second. There’s an enormous amount of explosive and “holy ****“ moments to be had through out, and many will be remembered for years by gamers everywhere.
Among all this relentless and exhilarating combat though, there are points of subtlety and stealth. And Uncharted 2 has one of the best action implementations of stealth around. Stealth Attacks are easy to apply in situations where you’re not seen, and some areas can be cleared out entirely through stealthy application. You can slam guys heads into the sides of walls, grab them from the edge of a ledge and throw them over a cliff, kick them in the balls then snap their neck... there are a ton of different stealth moves, all dynamically applied with the press of a button. It’s an awesome change of pacing too, and it’s your choice whether you want to slow down the gunplay and start swinging the fists instead.
But what makes the gameplay and experience ever more enjoyable is the finer details in each and every character throughout the game. Nathan Drake is cocky, silly and most of all, very human, as he’s very easily taken out by gunfire and throughout the story is noticeably not always ‘winning’ every fight. He’s simply your average joe character who’s not all that strong, but lucks out a lot and breaks through situations through sheer chance. These moments are intensified and elaborated on with Drake’s dialogue, where he’ll say some horrible pun or silly remark about the situation, sarcastically taking the situation lightly. These are littered throughout the game and many a time are random as well, and it’s an incredibly real and ‘human’ aspect of the game, which adds to the overall enjoyment of things. The game never takes itself seriously enough to not laugh, as there are some seriously laugh out loud moments, and it works magnificently.
The beginning of the game is a breathtaking start.
Once you’re done with the superb single player story, you’ve still got a whole heap of content to find and play, with the next attraction being Multiplayer, in the form of co-op and competitive play. Co-op maxes out at 3 players and allows you to play through many of the single player games levels with friends, and it works very well, as throughout the single player you’re tagging along with allies anyway. It’s just like playing the single player game really, only with friends, which makes it even more enjoyable when it comes down to it. There’s also an arena mode for co-op, where you have to survive an onslaught of enemies for as long as possible, making for some great co-op entertainment that can last for a long time.
Competitive Multiplayer is also nothing to scoff at, with modes such as Deathmatch, Plunder (similar to CTF just with gold) and Turf War to play through, and all work exceptionally well. The fluidity and versatility of characters with climbing and such makes for a very interesting and intense game, with matchmaking setups similar to that of Halo 3 and gameplay that harks back lightly to Gears of War just much faster paced. There’s also a bit of influence from Call of Duty 4 as well, with a levelling and perks system in place, giving players a good level of customisation options and an addictive incentive to continue playing. The Multiplayer isn’t just a ‘tacked on’ feature like many speculated once it was announced. It’s fully fledged, operational, and utterly fantastic, and something well worth trying out once you’re done with the Single Player campaign.
By now you’ve already taken a good look at screenshots and videos of Uncharted 2 and gawked at how good looking it is. Frankly, videos or screenshots don’t do it justice. Simply put, Uncharted 2 is an astonishing technical achievement that is far and wide well ahead of any game on the market, both technically and artistically. Texture work is extremely well implemented, giving everything a crystal-clear sharp image and definition. Lighting and shadows are incredible, with use of HDR being very subtle but effective and shadow map resolutions being consistently high with very little jaggies. The game is almost entirely void of jaggies, with an exceptional use of Anti-Aliasing help clean out the image, and everything feels much more weighty and in-depth when looked at. And let’s not forget the animation work, which is quite easily the some of the best animation in any game. There is an extraordinarily life-like feel to each characters movements, and transitions between animations and positions is fluid and flawless, removing the often times ‘snappy’ transitioning that many previous games have done before it. Did we mention this all ran at a rock solid 30 frames per second too? We could list so many more things about the visual clarity of Uncharted 2, but to summarise; this is the new benchmark for visuals and design.
Nathan Drake: best character ever.
And even when the visuals are so damned good, the sound matches up as well. Uncharted 2 boasts Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound, with full use of directional effects, and you’ll be amazed at of how clean it all sounds. Bullets will zip by your ears with fantastic authenticity, explosions will rattle your room with thunderous bass, and characters yelps and one-liners will be echoed through the chaos of it all. The soundtrack is excellent too, with bassy and low-percussion beats used in most of the action-based situations, then transitioning into a more mellow and harmonic tone when a change of pace occurs. And finally, the voice acting, which is simply some of the best you’ll hear in a game. Nola North once again returns as Nathan Drake and pulls an outstanding performance, with clever use of dialogue and just the right amount of emotion pushed through in each lines. The voice work overall deserves a standing ovation for being of such fantastic quality.
We could go on and on about how good Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is, but really you should already be playing it yourself. Everything from the story right down to the gameplay mechanics is utterly magnificent in application, and Naughty Dog are to be commended for creating such a masterful and unforgettable piece of gaming. There are some fairly minor niggles, such as some artificial lengthening in the form of waves upon waves of enemies, some small nuances with the cover system and one or two rare glitches, but they are very few and far between that rarely ever detract from an otherwise wonderful game. If you have a PS3, you owe it to yourself to buy this game as soon as possible, and if you don’t own a PS3, you now have a reason to buy one, as not only is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves the best game on Sony’s black beast, but also one of the best games to be released in a long, long time.
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