Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Developer: Naughty Dog
Year of release: 2009, October
Platform: Playstation 3
Official website: http://www.unchartedthegame.com/U2AT/
Date finished: X-mas 2009
Playtime: +-14 hours story on hard, 30+ hours multiplayer

The first Uncharted was one of the best games I had played in a while and my expectations for part 2 were of course really high.
At the Leipzig game convention I played the U2 demo for the first time. It was at the Sony stand with other kick ass games; God of War 3 and Heavy Rain. The U2 demo was quite good; it looked awesome, the controls were nice. It all played very well, but I was not blown off my feet so to say. It played as I had expected and nothing more. My feelings were the same with the God of War 3 demo. The Heavy Rain demo is a different story; that one really impressed me.

That was all a few months before the official release of U2. The demo felt pretty solid already which is a good sign for the official full title release. I pre-ordered the full game, knowing that I wouldn't have any time to play it. It was in the X-mas holiday where I finally had time to play U2.


Uncharted 2 is a great game. It is one of the most polished games I have seen so far. The graphics are stunning, the ingame cutscenes with mocap are excellent, the character animations are smooth and blend in perfectly, the sound is good, the music really suits the locations, the level designs are good. It does almost everything good. Playing the game felt like watching a nice movie, like watching Avatar with all the beautiful scenes. I finished the story mode in 2 days, it was nice to play, But I still had the feeling it lacked something. Batman Arkham Asylum did a few things better.

The story of U2 is one of the weaker points of the game. It is shallow and not really that interesting. The story does not 'touch' me at all. Another thing is the gameplay variation. The start of the game is like a sneaking mission; passing guards without getting noticed, sneak up to them and silently take them down. This is some nice gameplay that was not there in the first Uncharted. I thought that this would be a choice for the player; I can sneak up on enemies and take them down silently without using gun fire or I charge in, take cover and shoot everything that moves, like in the first game. Unfortunately my thoughts were wrong and the main part of the game is shooting and taking cover. There is no other sneaking mission in the game. You can do some sneaking and take out an enemy, but you will always be discovered and it will be shooting and taking cover for any action scene. This leads to the same action pattern; take cover, shoot, throw grenade that is it. It is well polished gameplay but not refreshing.
The variation of gameplay is less than in the first Uncharted. In the first game you had shooting, puzzling, climbing, jet skiing, railed shooting. In Uncharted 2 it is only shooting and climbing with little bit of puzzling. It seems that the excellent balance which they had in the first game is disturbed. It is all action and less of the other things that made Uncharted 1 excellent. Due to the too much action paced gameplay the pacing is also not as good as the first Uncharted.
The tension curve in U2 feels more like a straight horizontal line. From start to end there is constantly a high tension. The problem with that is that there are no real climaxes in the game.


Next to the story mode there is also the online multiplayer mode. There are several modes in the online multiplayer mode; the well known FPS modes (Team Death Match, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill etc) and the online multiplayer story mode. In the multiplayer story modes you can play with up to 2 other players and play a short story, 30 - 45 min story. There are 3 different short stories that you can play in coop.
I was really surprised how good the online multiplayer is especially the FPS modes. For most games I only play a few days to see what is there to play and because it takes to long to master it. In U2 even as a noob I would still get quite some kills and level up quickly at the start. This stimulated to keep on playing. In the 30 hours that I played online I went up to level 35. For multiplayer they found a perfect balance to make it easy accessible for new players and still interesting for the more hardcore players.
The maps are really well designed and feel 4 dimensional; left, right, up and down. Every map has its high places where you can climb to and low places to drop in. You always need to watch out that you are not being attacked from any of the 4 directions. Climbing works really well and adds an extra dimension to the gameplay.

The good

• Visual, the best looking Playstation 3 game out there. The graphics, models, animations and mocaps are amazing.
• Sounds and music, great sound effects and music that really fits the locations well.
• Polished action gameplay, it feels and plays smooth, shooting, covering, climbing and melee combat works excellent.
• Online multiplayer, easy accessible for new players and interesting for hardcore players. Excellent designed multiplayer maps.

The bad

• Story, shallow and not interesting. Feels like a mindless action story.
• Less gameplay variation, it is for 85% shooting, taking cover and throwing grenades and 15% for climbing and puzzling. The first Uncharted had more variation and was more balanced.
• Pacing and tension curve, due to the lack of gameplay variation the pacing is less than in Uncharted 1 and there is constant the same amount of tension and lack of real climax scenes.
  

In overall Uncharted 2 is an excellent game. With a lot of things it is the top of the league, but the story mode has its flaws. The story mode is not as good as the first Uncharted or as Batman Arkham Asylum. But on the other side there is the excellent online multiplayer mode that brings hours of gameplay and online fun for new and veteran players.

8.9/10