Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Review

By Aiman Anwar |Monday, November 23, 2009

Ever since Sony unleashed the Playstation 3 in 2006, we all have been hearing about the fabled “Year of the Playstation 3.” 2006 and 2007 were a no-show for Sony as Microsoft ran away with all the success. Marcus chainsawing the locust and the Chief finishing the fight; that’s a tough act to top. Come 2008, Solid Snake returned to finish his own little (and might I say extremely complicated) fight but there still was no clear victor. Enter 2009, which started off with a bang for Sony with one of the most anticipated releases this generation: Killzone 2. Sony followed up with the brilliant Infamous and just as the dust began to settle, the hype for Uncharted 2 began.

Naughty Dog’s sequel to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune had its task cut out. With Sony’s marketing muscle behind it, making it out to be the biggest PS3 exclusive yet, there was little that could go wrong with Uncharted 2. Fortunately, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves fulfills the prophecy; this may very well be the Year of the Playstation 3.

The Story

The sequel begins roughly an year after the original with Nathan hanging on for dear life from a train wreck somewhere in the Himalayas. How did he get there? Why is he half-dead? What exactly is going on? Naughty Dog masterfully plays off this initial sense of mystery to weave their story via a flurry of flashbacks. We quickly learn that Nathan, along with his new accomplices, Harry Flynn and the sultry Chloe Frazer, is hot on the trail of Marco Polo’s lost treasure. This leads to a globe-trotting adventure from Istanbul to the jungles of Borneo to the war-torn landscape of Nepal and finally, the snowy heights of the Himalayas. If anyone was tired of the generic jungles of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, rest assured that Uncharted 2 excels in locale diversity. Just when you have had enough of an environment, the game whisks you off to some place new.  The game also sees the return of nosey journalist Elena Fisher and fan favorite Victor Sullivan. While the story is much stronger than the original, it still becomes predictable towards the end and rushes very quickly to the finish, just like its predecessor. However, the introduced love triangle, movie-quality voice acting and the extremely fantastic first half make up for a botched ending. Uncharted 2 is not about the destination, it’s how you get there that matters.

The Gameplay

For the uninitiated, the gameplay of Uncharted 2 is an amalgamation of mechanics found in other games. What sets it apart, though, is the extreme level of polish that has gone into every facet of the gameplay. Both the platforming and shooting aspects of the game are heavily refined and enjoyable in their own right. The gameplay cycle is very basic; you do some platforming which leads to a puzzle followed by the shooting segments and then a cutscene. It might not sound like much, but Naughty Dog does a fine job of mixing things up in the right proportion.  There are fewer puzzles in the game when compared to the original, but the sheer scope of these puzzles more than makes up for it.

Naughty Dog is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with when it comes to scripted sequences (take notice Valve and Infinity Ward). This does come at the cost of heavy linearity, but there really can be no complaints once you have gone through the epic sequences. The whole Nepal level, especially the escape sequence deserves special mention. In simple words, it’s just one OMFG moment after another. One particular level is straight out of Pursuit Force, with Nathan literally jumping to and fro between vehicles. Another level will have you taking Nathan through a destroyed village, followed by a military issue tank. Civilians running for help, firefights with enemies, a tank tearing down the buildings, explosions on every inch of the screen…there is just so much activity on the screen at once with a rock solid framerate; it’s a technical marvel.

Like the God of War series, Uncharted 2 will make you ‘play’ sequences which are usually cutscenes in other games. Expect the unexpected here, because you never know when you will be thrown into the game from a cutscene. The eye-popping graphics don’t help your cause either.

The cover system and shooting have not seen much of an upgrade. One welcome improvement is the amount of bullets it takes to down an enemy. Fans of the original may remember the barrage of bullets (at times 5-6 headshots) it would take to kill a baddie.  This has been somewhat remedied in the sequel, though some enemies in the later stage of the game are still bullet sponges.

The shooting aspect of the game also seems to be overdone in the final act where the game throws wave after wave of enemy fodder at you.  Take down 20 enemies and they are quickly replaced by another lot, again and again and again. It seems like the 18 month development cycle caught up with Naughty Dog.  It’s pretty obvious they ran out of time; and with time, they ran out of ideas and decided to fill up the finale with hundreds of enemies to mow down. I guess they took heavy inspiration from Rambo 4. All that’s missing here is a grunting protagonist.

Another little hitch came in the form of an early stealth level. Stealth elements do not belong in the Uncharted franchise where the absolutely dumb enemy A.I. is only good as cannon fodder. I’m not saying there is anything particularly bad about having stealth in the game; it just doesn’t feel as polished as all the other elements in the game. The Uncharted enemy A.I. is built to overpower you with quantity, not quality. All is well, as long as there are atleast 5-6 enemies in an area, all firing madly at you. As the numbers lower, you can’t help but notice the lack of any intelligent A.I. behavior.

At the end of the day, the gameplay holds up well and will satisfy both hardcore and casual gamers alike. Watch out for the set-pieces, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before.

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