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You want a killer app for the PS3? You want something thats going to have people running into stores and running out with a PS3 held aloft over their head like a divine talisman? Well you have it, you can buy it right now. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is utterly that game, one that defines a console, the type of game that breeds a dozen imitators and impersonators. Uncharted 2 is a benchmark for games and if you even think about missing out on the experience then you are totally bonkers, so bonkers that I suggest you go straight to the nearest phone, call a Psychiatric Emergency Team and have them pick you up from home and take you to a room with rubber walls and plastic cutlery. Or to put it in simpler terms, you need to play Uncharted 2; your life is poorer for not playing it.
I'm going to work hard to not use the term cinematic in this review and thats becasue Uncharted 2 is often going to be described as cinematic by many people and this does it a tiny disservice. For me games are superior to films, the often poor application of characters and plot in games compared to movies is far out weighed by immersion and interactive spectacle. Uncharted 2 has all the immersion and spectacle but it still manages to add in a plot that’s far more Spielberg than Bay and characters that feel like actors rather than a bunch of pixels. If you want a film comparison then Uncharted 2 is Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Bourne Supremacy and its easily the equal of both films. That's not to say Uncharted 2 does anything particularly new or exciting in terms of story telling. What it does do is take a successful film formula and apply it to a game while keeping the actual gameplay intact. It's probably one of the best narrative experiences you're going to have playing a game this year.
You may not even notice at first but snow and mud actually cling too Drake and build up on his feet as he walks
The game opens with Drake awakening in a rattling train carriage, his hair flecked with snow and his shirt soaked with his own blood from a bullet wound. The camera zooms out and we see the train carriage is hanging over a mountain cliff and as Drake moves to escape the carriage begins to slowly tumble over the edge. I don’t want to spoil too much of the introduction, or any of the game for that matter, but I will say that this moment actually takes place at about the half way mark for the plot. After the introduction the plot switches back to the begginning and see we Drake kicking back in a tropical locale where he’s found by greasy English fortune hunter Flynn and his new partner, and past flame of Drake’s, Chloe. They have a job offer for Drake, the theft of a Mongolian oil lamp from a museum in Istanbul for Flynn’s new employer. Turns out the lamp may point the way to the lost fleet of Marco Polo which rumour has it was carrying the legendary and priceless Cintamani Stone from the fabled Tibetan city of Shambhala when it went missing. Luckily things are way more complicated than that and the game features globe trotting to several far off locations. The plot has more twists and turns than, a simile I can’t think of right now, maybe a bowl of noodles? My wife said that was the least offensive one on the list I wrote so I’ll go with that.
Naughty Dog really need to be commended for what they’ve done between Uncharted and Uncharted 2. I can imagine somewhere in ND headquarters there’s a big white board with every fault that existed in Uncharted crossed out as they corrected them for the sequel. It feels like that was their business model, we made a great but slightly flawed game the first time, second time lets just make a great game and drop that last part. The game has a flow and pacing to it that should be the envy of developers every where. The game never wants to be turned off, any time you feel like reaching for the power button something compels you to keep going and see what happens next.
Damn ticket evaders, you're spoiling it for the rest of us!
Obviously there are some sacrifices to achieve this level of pacing in the gameplay. The game is linear with a point A and a B and very little deviation from the beaten path. Some of the areas might be big and sweeping in space and depth, but clever design and gameplay elements mean that you’ll never really be stumped as to where you’re supposed to go next. Compared to Uncharted where I was frequently befuddled as to where to go there was only one moment in Uncharted 2 where I got a bit turned around and it was only for a few minutes till I saw the path to take. The puzzles don’t provide quite the level of difficulty you’d expect either. Maybe it’s just because I’m fifteen years older now but I remember puzzles in the Tomb Raider series that kept me up at night just trying to work them out. Uncharted 2’s puzzles require only a few moments thought. no offence, but if you ever need to turn to a game guide to pass one of the puzzle sections it might be time to give up on that astronaut dream. Now these might sound like bad things, linearity, lack of challenge, often negative reviews for games are ringing with terms like that. But I didn’t even notice these issues until I analysed my experience to write this review. When I was playing Uncharted 2 I was just having too much damn fun playing it to notice. Naughty Dog deserve a standing golf clap for balancing enjoyable gameplay, challenge and linearity to provide a gripping over all experience.
The best feature of Uncharted 2 by a garden mile is the characters. Nathan as a hero has that perfect blend of machismo, tough guy attitude and fragility that make all the best hero characters memorable, most of the credit going to voice actor Nolan North for the authentic performance. He’s not the unstoppable one liner chewing super soldier. He’s the hero who hesitates; even though it might not be the smart thing to do, he always does the right thing. It’s almost a little telling that the bad guy Lazarević, with his scars and combat webbing, looks like just about every action game character from the past five years. So yes, I am definitely in the Nathan Drake fan club. What really defines him are his supporting characters. The roguish Sullivan returns, moustache and all, but doesn’t appear nearly as often as you would like. New guy Flynn plays the role of Drake’s pale shadow, a competitor who’s bitterly aware he lacks Drake’s intelligence and luck. Australian honey pot Chloe, although she sounds more English than Aussie, is the bad girl love interest and her allegiance remains a tantalising question mark for much of the game. The banter between Chloe and Drake is priceless and surprisingly a lot of it was ad libbed by the actors. Elena also makes a return providing the good girl foil to Chloe’s bad girl charm. I was a little worried to see Elena return to the game as I was never quite sold on her daring damsel in distress bit from the last game. But her character steps up to play a big role this time and by the conclusion she was definitely my favourite character after Drake. The voice acting and character designs help you to connect and care about the digital characters and that gives the games plot a lot more gravity.
See this is what I meant by spoiling it for the rest of us, ticket evaders cause horrific accidents
Despite the fact the single player has all ready set Uncharted 2 up as the best game I’ve played this year so far, it offers another addition over its predecessor, multiplayer. Surprisingly the multiplayer is a lot more than a tacked on deathmatch game. A lot of lucky players had a chance to sample the multiplayer long before the games release in an invite Beta which was opened up to the rest of the PSN network with a demo a month before the games release. One of the most enjoyable game modes online is Goldrush, a sort of Capture the Flag Horde mode with up to three players trying to gather as much randomly spawned treasure on a map and get it back to their base without getting killed by the bad guys who steadily increase in difficulty as the game progresses. Teamwork is important in Goldrush as a downed ally who isn’t revived in time won’t be back until the next round. Goldrush is enjoyable because it emphasises all the elements of play equally, teamwork, platforming and shooting are all given equal weight in grabbing the gold and reaching the next level.
Competitive play has four modes and allows up to ten players to test their mettle. Multiplayer also features boost powers, two extra abilities players can choose from to provide a little strategy. Deathmatch is, pretty much deathmatch, with the only interesting wrinkle being that it actually identifies one team as heroes and the other as villains. Elimination is Deathmatch without the respawns. Plunder is capture the flag with a single heavy treasure that reduces player movement when they’re carrying it. Chain Reaction offers something a bit more original, an ordered capture the flag where one team has to capture flags 1 to 5 and the other team has to capture 5 to 1. Obviously at some point there’s going to be a confrontation regarding a capture, otherwise it wouldn’t be called competitive multiplayer now would it?
Run Chloe run, they want your golden cans, golden can, that gold thing, okay my minds totally in the gutter
You may notice that as you achieve goals and earn in game medals and Playstation Trophies during single player gameplay you’ll earn a cash amount. You’ll also get something for every one of the hidden treasures in each level of the game with a hundred in all. This money and cash earned from successful online games can go towards buying new character skins and game modes for the single player game. Anyone whose been a long time fan of Naughty Dog back in their Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter days will be more than familiar with the wide number of different modes that can be unlocked including big head, black and white, mirror world and other modes to spice up your single player experience. It can certainly make things a bit more entertaining when you’re playing through Crushing Mode (the highest difficulty) to get that trophy.
Uncharted 2 provides a five star experience in every thing it provides. Even the multiplayer, which by and large wasn’t needed to make this a stand out game, is some of the best online gameplay available over the PSN. It’s not a perfect game, there are a few boss fights that tend to spiral from fun into frustration until the helpful and slightly condescending on screen hint tells you what to do. If I had to be really critical, if someone put a gun to my head and said I had to criticise some element of Uncharted 2 I’d probably bubble that the gameplay is basically the same as it was in Uncharted. But given the steps they’ve made with story telling and pacing the gameplay even that sounds hollow to me. Uncharted 2 is simply a joy to play and as I said before, you’re life is poorer for not playing it. Definitely the best PS3 exclusive of the year.
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