Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Review

Uncharted 2, how I love thee, how thai majesty blew my f*ing mind into a happy melancholy. Okay, I'm not gonna talk like this for the rest of the review. Uncharted 3 is almost upon us (and some might already have it!), so lets begin this review of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

If Indiana Jones played video games, he would have gotten a platinum trophy on this one. Uncharted no longer bears the criticism of being a Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones wannabe, it is the game which almost single handedly defines the 3rd person shooter genre at this point. No game which is involves 3rd person shooting can now come out and not be compared or mentioned with Uncharted. This series has escalated itself to the top of the mountain with this game.

Uncharted 2 begins on Drake waking up on a train while its hanging from the ledge of a mountain. Not many games begin at such a high peak (pun intended), heck, not many games even reach such a high point during the course of their whole campaign. The games story should be thought as a hollywood action movie in a video game where you actually care about the characters and the story (tell that to Michael Bay). The characters come back and we love them more than ever as we get to understand them better. New entrances in the character line up like Chloe are very welcome as they'r entertaining and fun to see grow throughout the campaign. The games story is quite unpredictable and comparing this to any other game out there right now.. This games story will surprise you and make you fall in love with it. Lastly, due to the story taking place in so many contrasting situations  like the snowy mountians of Tibet to the humid streets of Nepal, the game will keep itself fresh with new locations and so will be consistently entertaining.

The graphics are beautiful, I actually cannot believe how Naughty Dog upped themselves from U1 by such a large margin. U2 is head and shoulders above U1 and the graphical change can be noticed from the first instance you look at the screen. Its like falling in love in High School, only this time, the outcome won't be you realising she was a deceitful.. wait, oh yeah Uncharted 2.

The animations are smooth, even Micheal Jackson would look at this and think of remixing his smooth criminal song. As Drake walks around and automatically puts his arm on his stomach because hes been shot there, as he semi crouches while running uphill and constantly blocks his face in the snow storms.. You will be amazed at the tremendous realism that Drake acts upon. Every turn in the game, Drake will bring a new animation and increase the immersion by a considerable amount. Also, remember the dynamic water from the first game? In this game apart from the water, snow also attaches to your clothing and characters. Rolling into cover will drop snow on your hair which will slowly fall off. This new feature is so well done I actually walked around and jumped randomly into the snow to play with it! The games sound is superb. The theme is done very well and is quite memorable, making you hum it when your trying to concentrate on a test. It does that.

The gameplay is back, and this time I cannot think of anything really negative about the gameplay. The controls can feel a little stiff at times with shooting as it is a bit too easy to aim headshots across the map but thats not a big negative. If your going to knit pick there I gave a little negative, if your not going to knit pick then the gameplay is done perfectly and controls like a dream. Gone are the annoying motion controls, the constant weird control deaths (you only have em a tiny bit here) and gone are the annoying times you jump and don't start climbing something. This games gameplay is so well done it might make first person shooter fans start to consider the 3rd person shooting genre as one of their favourites.

Drakes Journal is back and this time around the puzzles are more fun to do as they are more engaging. Some of the puzzles even take a massive amount of time to solve as they are so large, you have to literally climb them to get around them.

A new multiplayer component has been added and its quite good, its fun to play, there are a considerable amount of fun maps and that will keep you engaged for a little while. The game gives you money which is like xp, when you level up you can purchase the unlockes you have unlocked, the unlockables for multiplayer are a great addition as they add variety and some of the skins in multiplayer are hilarious. Other than that the multiplayer can get stale after a long period of time and can also sometimes take too long to find a match. Also a new co op feature has been added and it is a blast to play, especially if you get friends on it. The co op ranges from different missions, some more linear, some more arena-like, the games co op also has different levels of difficulty and is challenging on the hard difficulties so make sure you have skilled friends!

Some criticisms here, the games enemies can get annoying as they are not very varied in terms of visual appearance. This is tiring as I get tired of killing the same trampy pirate 10 times, but hey killing trampy pirates is fun so its not too bad. The game also has a disapointing boss fight, the rest of the game was so high standard that as I approached the final boss fight, my expectations were seriously high and the boss seriously sucked. Also the super natural aspect in the game sucked badly as I hated the blue people that came up, they really didn't do anything special and had no more originality than the crappy fat guards you fight.

Uncharted 2 is the only game in which you will put the controller down because you will think that the games playing a cut scene, only to pick your controller back up immediately. The game builds moments which I have never seen in a video game and the game makes you play through those scenes. Most of the time, the coolest scenes in Video games are  ones we watch and never play. U2 never does that and its set pieces are so large in scope that not many games can even create a CG video to reach that standard.

Uncharted 2 is one of the best games ever made. This game is why I love video games, it builds an atmosphere, a universe, creates characters, a story we fall into, combines with brilliant gameplay, has a ton of memorable moments and more goodies for us to keep coming back. This is one of the only games I keep constantly popping into my PS3 to play certain levels as this game truly embeds itself into your little gamer heart.

I give Uncharted 2: Among Thieves 10 Train-wrecks out of 10

10/10


Check out my Uncharted 1 Review: http://thegeekypenguin.blogspot.com/2011/10/uncharted-drakes-fortune-review.html

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