If Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was a book, it would be called a page-turner. I devoured the 10-hour single-player game in three sittings, perched on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the next twist in the narrative and the next eye-popping set-piece.
The flagship PlayStation 3 exclusive for the festive season, Uncharted 2 is a follow-up to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, one of the best-loved games on the console. Uncharted 2 streamlines, builds on and amplifies every element of its predecessor to create a cinematic experience that will make anyone who loves action-adventure games or films grin the way they might have the first time they heard John William’s stirring theme for Raiders of the Lost Ark strike up.
With Uncharted 2, developer Naughty Dog has refined the franchise’s Tomb Raider meets Gears of War formula to perfection. The first game alternated between ‘environment traversal’ (what we used to called platforming) and cover-to-cover gunfights.
This time, the ‘action’ and ‘adventure’ segments of the game are stitched together completely seamlessly. In Uncharted 2, Drake will often find himself fending off waves of enemies with a handgun while leaping between platforms, scaling walls, clambering over obstacles and swinging from ropes.
He can also creep up behind enemies to take them out quietly or slug it out with them using his bare hands. Though games that try to pull together so many strands often feel disjointed, Uncharted 2 manages to feel completely coherent at all times.
The gameplay is backed up by some of the best storytelling yet seen in a videogame with snappy dialogue and inspired acting that would put most Hollywood blockbusters to shame. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune set the standard for facial animation and voice-acting in current-gen games when it came out in 2007; Uncharted 2 sets a new benchmark.
The story is fairly standard stuff for the adventure genre — it’s about the hunt for a mythological Buddhist relic called the Cintamani Stone as well as for Marco Polo’s missing fleet — but it’s executed with such flair that it feels fresh.
The game leans heavily on the appeal of its lead character, Nathan Drake, a fallible, wisecracking adventurer in the mould of Indiana Jones or Han Solo. The prolific Nolan North once again provides the voice and motion capture acting that brings Drake to life as a roguish yet vulnerable action hero.
Drake is seldom alone in his adventures, and his allies and rivals are as well fleshed-out and acted as he is. Many members of the cast from the first Uncharted game reprise their roles, including Emily Rose as feisty journalist and Drake’s love interest, Elena Fisher. Claudia Black, the Farscape actress, plays a new character, Chloe Frazer. She’s an amoral treasure hunter, whose relationship with Drake hints at his shady past.
The pacing of the game is perfect, with tense battles and dizzying climbs alternating with light puzzle solving and moments of levity and character development. As breathtaking as the high-octane chases and explosive combat set pieces are, it’s in the quieter moments where one can appreciate the attention to detail that went into Uncharted 2.
A rooftop pool in a war-torn city gives Nate and Elena a chance for an impromptu game of Marco-Polo — one of the many humorous little touches in the game. A grandfather clock ticks ominously in a ruined building in the same battle-scarred city. You can almost breathe the chilly mountain air in a peaceful interlude in a quiet Himalayan village as a goggle-eyed Drake wanders among the children and yaks.
Naughty Dog has a well-deserved reputation for its technical prowess on PlayStation platforms but the team has outdone itself with Uncharted 2. It’s one of the best-looking games seen on a home console to date, pushing the PlayStation 3 hardware to its limits.
As impressive as the panoramic vistas, detailed character models and dramatic particle effects for smoke and explosions are, it’s the small details that really draw you into the game. Just one example is the way that snow settles on Drake’s hair and clings to his jeans in the Himalayan sequences.
The sound design is also superlative, with many subtle touches and a rousing Greg Edmonson score that wouldn’t be out of place in an Indy or Pirates of the Caribbean epic.
Though the single-player adventure is the main attraction of Uncharted 2, there’s also a multiplayer component.
Considering that Naughty Dog has never created an online shooter before, the slick presentation, well-balanced game play and smooth netcode of Uncharted 2’s competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes are impressive.
The multiplayer game should provide hours of satisfying entertainment on top of the single player mode, though it remains to be seen whether it will have the staying power of Call of Duty or Halo.
Uncharted 2 has its flaws — some enemy artificial intelligence glitches, the odd problem with the controls, a bit of repetition towards the end — but picking on them seems churlish when everything else about the game is as near perfect as one could hope for.
The game brings together cutting-edge technology in terms of its visuals, sound, artificial intelligence and physics with wonderful art design, writing and acting to tell a story and create an unforgettable experience for the player. It’s one of the best games of 2009 on any platform and perhaps the best game yet produced for the PlayStation 3. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
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