Uncharted 2 Review
by Abdifatah Basher
More than any other game to date,
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune seems to define the PlayStation 3. Naughty Dog's
2007 jungle romp starring the one and only Nathan Drake gave gamers a taste of
what it would be like to play as an acrobatically-inclined Indiana Jones. With
stunning visuals (that still rank amongst the best in gaming today), a
fantastically told story, great puzzles and high-octane gunplay, it's easily
one of the best titles of this console generation.
Now Naughty Dog returns to the spotlight with uncharted 2 among thieves Both
expectedly and amazingly, Naughty Dog has indeed
bested Nate's first adventure and has created a sequel that is not only bigger
and better in practically every way, but also packs a multiplayer component
that could be released as its own separate, full-priced game and people would
stand in line to hand over their cash.
Trying
to remain as spoiler-free as possible, I'll just say that the story starts off
about a year or so after the events of the first game and begins with Nate and
a few fellow thieves working on finding Marco Polo's lost treasure fleet. Of
course, things aren't quite that simple and the cast winds up going on a much
grander adventure, one that takes them half-way around the world.
That's about as far as I want to go with the storyline, though
some of the trailers out there actually reveal a little more than that. The
important part here though is that this game doesn't just take place on a
single island and instead changes locales a handful of times over the course of
the adventure. The result is that the pacing feels better and faster, and even
though you're technically doing the same sort of shooting, climbing and puzzle
solving throughout the game, the different ways the scenes are presented gives
Among Thieves a greater sense of gameplay variety than the original.
The great storytelling extends to the character development, which
has been turned up a good notch or two. Almost everyone with more than two
lines of dialogue has an interesting reason for doing what they're doing
(though the main bad guy is just bad), and the way that everyone interacts with
one another is realistic and interesting. Almost every character is
unpredictable in some way, but not in a forced or unnatural manner.
The story itself twists and turns throughout the course of the
game, as you might expect, and for the most part it's a solid tale. Nate and
his pals go through a lot, so it does a good job of reeling you in and keeping
you hooked until the end.
While I'd say the story is quite good overall, I wouldn't say that
it's perfect. Without giving anything away, while most of the story has solid
footing in real-world lore and legend, it does start to veer away from this at
some point in a way that could have been handled better. Still, it's told very,
very well through the use of fantastic cut scenes and acting, and will keep you
guessing at what'll happen until the very end.
