Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a visceral romp that takes the formula from the first highly successful game and pushes it to new heights – both figuratively and literally. There are a lot of inside jokes and some really good chuckles stemming from the dialogue and cut scenes. There are new characters and familiar ones.
The story revolves around the adventures of Marco Polo and, specifically, his return from China. When Polo left China, he had 14 ships with more than 600 passengers and crew. When he finally made his home port, only one ship remained with 18 passengers. The initial idea that intrigues Drake and draws him into the adventure is what happened to those other ships. But as is usually the case, it evolves into something much bigger – the Cintamani Stone (purported to be a fabled jewel that grants the owner great power … as in world-conquering power) is one of the items in the equation, the other is the path that leads to Shambhala. Of course, this swings Drake into full adventure mode, but one of the elements here is not knowing exactly who to trust.
(There will be no spoilers here.)
Drake’s initial adversary is a war criminal who heads a private army and is on the trail. Along the way he teams up with Chloe, who seems to have her own agenda in all this and eventually he meets Elena, and there are nasty, voracious monsters that seem to crawl out of legend and are very hard to kill.
Developer Naughty Dog has crafted a game that is somewhat linear, and has a fair amount of repetition in terms of raging gun battles and puzzles, incorporating the platform elements very well. It is simply a case of if you think there is an easy path, but look around and find that there appears to be handholds in the wall, then that is usually the way you will need to go. You kill the bad guys, pick up weapons – all of which seem to range from nice guns to RPGs. And lest you think some of those weapons are a bit extreme, wait until you go up against a tank and you will definitely see the need.
The game starts out in Borneo and moves into the Himalayas. True, some of the mechanics in the journey are similar, but the pacing seldom slows – something that Drake often comments on.
From a control standpoint, Uncharted 2 is nothing that is too difficult to learn. In fact, the control scheme is rather straightforward in design. That alone helps to put the focus on the game itself. The dialogue is often quite humorous, and even pokes fun at itself. When Chloe and Elena are first introduced, Chloe says she senses some history between Elena and Drake. Elena then introduces herself as “last year’s model” – an obvious but entertaining reference to the first Uncharted title.
The game also brings multiplayer into the mix, with some nice cooperative sessions through game maps. There are also a bevy of achievements that can be earned; you can gain achievements particular to each weapon, as well as score for the type of attack, such as headshots.
For the most part, Uncharted 2 does not reinvent the action-adventure wheel, but from a graphic standpoint, and from a pure fun stand, this game soars on the PS3. This is a lot of fun.
When you play a game that stops non-gaming members in the family dead in their tracks to watch and enjoy the way the game is playing out, that says a lot. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves did precisely that.
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