Every once in awhile, I get to play a game that is just plain fun. Not that most video games aren’t fun, but some of them focus too much on grinding or the competitive aspect of gaming. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is one of those games that is just plain fun. The length is about right, and it’s a lot of non-stop action and adventure. Plus, it’s got a humorous side to it as well. Uncharted 2 is just a blast to play with the right formula to be downright awesome.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an action-adventure third-person shooter that was developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony. It was released for PlayStation 3 on October 13, 2009 with critical acclaim. It was later released for PlayStation 4 as a part of the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection October 2015. For the purposes of this review, I will only be concentrating on the PlayStation 3 version.
Uncharted 2 picks up with the fun and adventure that the original game started. Nathan Drake is a world-traveled treasure hunter who is approached by some old associates, Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer, to steal an oil lamp that belonged to Marco Polo from a Turkish museum. This oil lamp holds the key to Marco Polo’s hidden treasure. There’s a lot of fun and adventure, including some familiar faces like Victor Sullivan (“Sully”) and Elena Fisher.
I don’t want to spoil any of the awesomeness that is this game, but I will say that it is thoroughly enjoyable. You get to go to cool places and do some downright cool things. I love the fact that even though there are some dark tones to the game, the story overall has humorous overtones due to Drake’s snarky comments. He’s just one of those cool characters in gaming that you just have to love. It took me a long time to try this series because I thought that Uncharted was just a Tomb Raider rip-off. That is far from the truth. Uncharted stands on its own as one of my favorite genres: cheesy, action/adventure in the lines of Indiana Jones or The Librarian. It’s just something that you just plan enjoy.
The gameplay of Uncharted 2 has been much improved over the original game. I had issues with Drake’s Fortune because of the odd save times, weird camera angles, and funky controls at some spots. All of these issues were corrected in the second installment, making for an extremely fun game that I can just sit and enjoy. The game is a third-person adventure game with jumps, climbing, and shooting. Unlike the older Tomb Raider games, the jumping is significantly easier and the puzzles are more thinking puzzles than gaming skill puzzles (anyone who has played any of the retro TR games knows what I’m talking about). The player must use Drake’s journal in order to solve these puzzles.
There is also a significant amount of shooting, using a lot of duck and cover third-person shooting. Drake switches between a two-handed weapon and a one-handed weapon in combat, and he also had limited access to grenades. Drake is able to pick up different weapons depending on the situation and personal preference of the player. There are also a few stealth enemy take-downs as well. There are also secret treasures that are hidden along the way that allows the player to unlock certain rewards.
Besides the main portion of the game, there is also a multiplayer angle that involves both competitive and cooperative gameplay. The cooperative is fairly straight-forward, team-based, objective-driven missions. Teams can be up to three people (Nathan Drake and two other characters). The competitive allows for ten people on a map (two teams of five) and has fairly standard Deathmatch, as well Plunder, Elimination, Turf War, King of the Hill, and Chain Reaction modes. Players gain points, level up, and can purchase character skins and whatnot. There are some hardcore players in the midst, though I’m not sure how active the servers are for PS3.
he graphics looked pretty slick for the time frame that the game came out. When it came out, it pushed the boundaries for realistic environment. The amount of cut-scenes in the game were multiplied by seven as compared with the original game. I am curious to see how it looked on PlayStation 4 whenever I finally get a chance to crack open the Nathan Drake Collection that I got for last Christmas (life got busy). Naughty Dog also utilized motion capture with the voice actors for more realistic scenes and dialogue. Obviously, we saw how this progressed with Naughty Dog in the masterpiece that is The Last of Us.
Overall, Uncharted 2 is just plain fun. It’s one of those games that you can just jump into and not have to worry about. There’s no grinding nor is there any stale points. It’s jam-packed action and adventure with Nathan Drake’s wry, humor interjected throughout. For me, that is one heck of a good time.