Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)

TL;DR - Everything you would want from a sequel. Uncharted 2 has a phenomenal, globe-spanning campaign with bombastic set-pieces, dramatic moments, and greater development between the cast. And although the late-game features too many combat encounters, the whole experience is still exceptional. It is one of the first games that I fell in love with, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.

ACTION-ADVENTURE - Nathan Drake is drawn back into the world of treasure hunting to locate the legendary Cintamani Stone and the lost city of Shambhala.

PROS:

++ Engaging story. Again, it's a typical lost city/treasure story, but it was presented and told well. There's backstabbing, drama, excitement, and stakes, so I enjoyed it a lot.

++ Increased scope. The first game took place all in one island in the span of a day. But in the sequel, the story is in many locations which provides a diverse selection of great locations. A museum in Istanbul, the jungles of Borneo, the war-torn city of Nepal, the snowy mountains of the Himalayas, and even the beautiful city of Shambhala.

++ Main cast. Drake, Sully, and Elena all return. Sully sits out most of the game which was unfortunate, but understandable. I really liked the development of Drake and Elena's relationship in this game, and they both had great showings in this sequel. Chloe, the new character, was a great addition and I really liked the personality she offered to the mix.

++ Better antagonists. Lazarovic is your typical big, bad Russian villain. And although he's stereotypical, I liked his imposing presence and truly villainous nature and he really did pose a threat. His boss battle was pretty decent too! The secondary antagonist is the back-stabbing Flynn who I actually really liked as a villain. Just like with Eddy, I feel like he had potential to be a recurring villain.

++ Stellar presentation. This game is utterly beautiful. The soundtrack is amazing. The motion capture is realistic. Just a homerun in this department.

++ Incredible set-pieces. Uncharted 2 is the game that made this franchise known for its insane set-pieces. The opening chapter when Drake lies wounded on a falling train, trying to rescue Chloe and fighting atop a moving train, rescuing Schafer and jumping from truck to truck, fighting in a collapsing building, getting chased by a tank in a Tibetan village, and escaping from a self-destructing Shambhala, were all memorable and exciting set-pieces.

++ Multiplayer. One of the only multiplayer experiences that I poured my life into. And although the servers on PS3 was shut down a long time ago, the memories I made playing multiplayer remains. It just worked so well. I loved the vertical nature of all the maps since it made the moment-to-moment games so hectic , exciting, and rewarding. I also put dozens of hours into the game's co-op horde mode because it was so addicting.

++ Personal impact. Uncharted 2 was one of the first games I played as a kid, and one that made me really fall in love with gaming. It showed me how cinematic games can be, and how beautiful gaming can be. And just for the sheer impact it had on my younger self, I will always treasure Uncharted 2 and have it as one of my favourite games.

CONS:

-- Late-game combat encounters. In the last few chapters of the game, it felt like combat encounter after combat encounter, especially in the second to last chapter that takes place in Shambhala. I was fighting both mercenaries and the extremely bullet sponge-y Guardians. As a whole, I like the combat so I didn't mind too much, but the amount of gunfights started to get tiring near the end.

-- Slightly improved gunplay. If you disliked Uncharted 1's gunplay, you won't like this game's gunplay either. Guns feel mostly the same, and so does rolling and taking cover. I feel that stealth and melee was slightly improved upon though.

I was really shocked my entire time playing this, because based on the way everyone talked about it, I was expecting this to be where Uncharted really figured itself out. It's not. It's not at all that. It shares literally the exact same issues as Uncharted 1, even down to the best sequence of the game being a jeep turret section.

Just a rough list of things that made me go "why is this the exact same game as Uncharted 1?":

• There's like...2 new guns? You still play this entire game using an AK47 and pistol that feels the exact same way as it did in the first game. Sometimes the game goes crazy and lets you use a FAL for a bit as you fight hours upon hours of arena battles.
• It controls the exact same as Uncharted 1. Drake is still of the most frustrating AAA protagonists to control of all time. Just the act of moving him around environments feels tedious, and he refuses to ever jump to where you want him to at any point in time.
• It feels like there are about 2 puzzles in the whole game, and both entail extremely tedious climbing sections while you look at your notebook to know that the square block goes into the square hole, and then climb laboriously around until you match the picture from your book.
• "Chase a ship around the world, following clues from each ancient temple and location that lead you to the next place. Find the ancient city defended by blueish people, discover that the ancient artifact you wished to plunder was cursed! Realise you made a mistake coming here, destroy the ancient evil so no else can come here and fight the bad guy wishing to take the evil treasure as a weapon for himself!"
  Did I just describe Uncharted 1 or Uncharted 2? That's right, it's both!

In the games defence it does do some things that are different to Uncharted 1, like:

• In the remastered version, it looks clearly better in pretty much every single way compared to 1. The jungle is way more detailed, the animations are punchier and the cutscene -> game transition is even closer than it was last time. Yet I would trade all of this away instantly for the same look as Uncharted 1, because the visual readability of the environments has truly never been worse. Constantly the path to progress was blending in in such a way where I truly had no idea both where to proceed or how and would just have to jump up against enough walls until Drake stuck to one of them. This could exclusively be an issue with the PS4 remaster, but it made every area even more annoying when it was hard to tell what brick was actually the wall and which one was a climbing spot.
• It's much longer than Uncharted 1 by multiple hours. You might say, overly long! Towards the end I was just begging for it to end already, even if the final area is a very nice looking environment. At least half of the snow section could have been cut out.

Also frequently buggy! I got stuck in the environment multiple times, and had scripting in multiple scenes break and have to restart over and over (in one sequence, I had to complete a sniper battle 5+ times until I realised it was breaking because I was killing all the enemies too fast and the game wouldn't spawn the last wave that would allow me to progress. I then had to purposely sit there for minutes allowing enemies to charge forward until it was safe to kill them and the game could proceed). The very specific issues I encountered mostly didn't seem like they would have been exclusive to the remaster as well.

I mostly had a pretty bad time with Uncharted 2, but it still has characters I like to be around and is a mostly nice and varied looking game. There's such a deep love for this game that genuinely does make me confused as to what game everyone else played, because it wasn't the one I was controlling for 11 hours.

About six years ago I played through the first Uncharted game and had a great time. After finishing I immediately launched into Uncharted 2 and got a decent amount of the way into the game (I'd assumed probably about a quarter of the way through, though in hindsight it was more like halfway) before reaching a section I just couldn't get past. I'm not good at video games. This is not unusual. My library is littered with games I was enjoying that I abandoned because I just couldn't do what I was supposed to. But I always wanted to return to Uncharted 2.

A few weeks ago one of my favorite YouTube Let's Play-type content creators started playing through the Uncharted series and I have a moral problem with watching Let's Play videos for games I haven't played if they're a game I want to play. So after watching her videos for the first Uncharted, I redownloaded the Nathan Drake Collection and restarted Uncharted 2.

It's a helluva game, isn't it? The settings are varied, detailed, and so, so memorable. I kept being like, "Oh wow, I forgot this was in this game," with basically every major setting change. The train car dangling over a precipice. Stealthing around a pristine museum. The mad dash through a war-torn city in search of a temple. The train yard standoff followed by the whole train sequence. The mountain. The monastery. The mayhem. These are superbly crafted levels that give the feeling of infinite possibility while technically being more-or-less linear.

I want to focus on the war-torn city (which has a name but I forget it lol, I'm American and dumb). This is a fairly extended set of chapters that has Drake and his companion(s) roaming through a variety of streets, building interiors, and rooftops. We've all played war games that feature these type of settings, right? Call of Duty has 'em. PUBG has 'em. I dunno, insert your favorite "pew-pew" game and I'm sure it has 'em, too. Point being, I'm used to other games approaching this type of setting in a cookie-cutter way: Buildings that all have the same layout, each house has the same pictures on the walls, the same books scattered on the floor. Cut-and-pasting of the same handful of assets, right? I don't want to be super-critical of games that do that because game development is hard enough without having to design a city from the ground up with unique assets for everything. And I'm sure even Uncharted 2 reuses a lot of assets and whatnot, but the difference is I didn't notice any repetition while playing. Even with the goddamned pictures on the walls. If I enter a kitchen I didn't know if I was going to find a living room or bedroom through the next door. There was no predictability to how I needed to guide Drake through buildings nor what I'd see within them. And that's so, so impressive to me. It makes the game so much more immersive.

There's three main elements to the gameplay: Action (mostly gun-based), platforming, and puzzle-solving. They all feel pretty good, although the puzzle element gets a bit too close to the Resident Evil-style of "place thing in right spot, flip switches in right order" crap. It's fine, and the balance in the game feels right. But the action and platforming are the more dominant aspects of gameplay and both feel really good. It's largely easy to platform what you are supposed to without, like, over jumping or under jumping—which is important for a platformer (cheap deaths due to iffy controls are mostly—although not entirely—absent from Uncharted 2). Climbing around on walls or shimmying around while dangling from ledges feels fluid, (mostly) unmarred by misfired jumps or unresponsive controls. And while the game does use the classic yellow paint to highlight certain jump spots, they seem to choose good places for it—where the visual aid is necessary to keep things moving. Otherwise you have to spot them on your own. But the level design is so good that usually the correct path presents itself without too much headache. And that's good. In a game like this, if the platforming becomes a frequent source of frustration, the whole experience is lessened.

And I love how the combat feels. Now, I'm going to qualify this a bit: I'm not good at gunplay in video games (or real life, for that matter) so my perspective of good-feeling combat is probably not to the taste of most people. And as much as I love how the gameplay feels, I do think there's too many encounters. Caveats out of the way, let me turn to what I love: Weapon feel. The sound (omg the sniper rifle), the aiming, hit rates, it all feels good. You can only carry two guns at a time (a one handed and a two handed) and while ammo drops regularly, you do have a bit of a limit to how much you can carry. But because ammo drops and weapon drops are the same thing, you don't have to worry about losing guns. So when I run out of ammo, I pick up whatever I can and use that until I find a preferred gun. My favorite kit was a handgun and the FAL. And the way everything is set up allows for some fun in-battle strategy re: weapon pick ups. It can also put you in some tight spots if you exit an encounter with some bad weapons (which, for me would be a low ammo pistol and shotgun). Thankfully, the hand-to-hand combat is pretty solid, so the few times I got in a no-ammo situation I was able to take down an enemy and grab their weapon.

There's two elements to the story: The treasure hunt (chasing down a lost, presumed mythical Marco Polo find) and a love triangle. By the end I liked both elements, but getting there definitely has some bumps. If the gameplay wasn't so compelling, I don't know that the story would have maintained my interest to drive me to the end. This is largely due to the love triangle. First of all, I hate love triangles in fiction. Uncharted 1 ends (spoilers for that in case you're reading this without having played that) with Drake and his tagalong reporter, Elena, having good chemistry and the presumption of love. Seeing that continue was a large reason why I wanted to play this. Instead, Uncharted 2 begins with Drake joining a little thief crew—no Elana in sight—but besotted by crew member Chloe. It's a thing. It's unambiguously sexual and possibly romantic and the game doesn't even mention Elena so it's like, is Drake cheating on her? Did they split up? It's ambiguous and because it's ambiguous it's kind of... uncomfortable. And at the same time we're having to come to terms with Drake also being a part of a museum heist. While Drake isn't presented as a virtuous hero in Uncharted 1—he felt kind of morally ambiguous, while also being a nice guy who considers other people—it's one thing to do some morally ambiguous treasure hunting, it's another to just flat out commit break-and-enter robbery. Both of these things grated on how I felt about the narrative in the early stages of the game. While I have to reorient my perception of Drake re: morality, at least the love element became very satisfying by the end. The game was obviously intentional about keeping information from the player about Elena's status; it wanted us to have those questions in mind. I personally think that was a bit of a misstep but, well, like I said, I reached the end and liked the big picture of the love story once all was said and done.

If Grouvee allowed half-star ratings, I'd probably end up more at 4.5 rather than a full 5 stars, but even with some of the problems, push come to shove I had a blast with Uncharted 2 and it's more of a 5-star experience than a 4-star experience.

I played this as part of the Nathan Drake Collection on PS4. Already finished the first game a couple of months ago. This one was an improvement in most areas. The parts I tagged spoiler are not huge spoilers, just about some puzzles and an event that happens about half-way in the game.

Narrative

Nathan Drake is back! An old acquaintance of his invites Drake to help him rob a museum to retrieve an artifact for a client. An artifact said to contain the secret to the cintamani stone. A huge sapphire worth millions. He also brings in Chloe, who will be their distraction help or whatever. Robbing the museum is basically the tutorial teaching you the basic gameplay, after that the game begins. Chasing leads to find shambala, a mythical place said the hide the stone. Story it told through cutscenes basically. I still think Nathan is a very charming character. He's witty, but not annoyingly so. Charming, but not constantly focused on "the girl". He's just very likable. Chloe is a decent side character, but I preferred Elena from the first. (Who luckily did make a return later in the game). Sully makes a brief return but only for a chapter or two. Always a fun character to have. The bad guys were lackluster. Quite generic. But the game isn't that focused on them anyway.

Gameplay

It's a third person shooter, with a few puzzles and a lot of climbing puzzles. Shooting was fun. I am horrid at shooting with a controller, but I still managed somehow. I like how you just pick up guns as you go, exchanging when you run out of ammo or find a really nice gun you just want to use for a while (grenade throwers anyone?). This way you can easily use all the guns in the game and it feels like a nice change of pace to go from a machine gun, to a sniper, to a rocket launcher. It makes the shooting a bit varied and just fun in my opinion.

There is a couple of dungeon-esque puzzles, like Tomb Raider I suppose. Not a lot, maybe three in the whole game. They were all incredibly easy, and didn't really add much to the game to be honest. But they were also not that bad, and quick to do.

Then there is climbing puzzles. These were a hit and miss for me. Most were fun, I especially enjoyed the moving train one, but some were tedious, or it would be hard to see where to go next (like the ice cave one). They were a big step up from the first game though, where most of them were tedious and frustrating.

There is also a couple of chase parts and escape sequences. Don't usually enjoy those that much but they were not long. Luckily nothing as horrid as the jetski sequence in the first game.

Setting

The game has several locations, ranging from the forests of Borneo. To tombs and temples, cities and snowy mountains. Graphically it is nothing all that special. The game is a few years old by now, but it still looks pretty decent. Nothing really interesting to say about it. I like the change in scenery from chapter to chapter. A lot of variation between jungles and cities of course. Transition to areas is also smooth and logical. The dungeons/temples/tombs really give it that Uncharted vibe.

The music is that of a action movie, very bombastic. I really liked it, it suits the game very well. The game is pretty much a playable movie anyway.

Other

Didn't encounter bugs, or glitches, which I did a lot in the first one. Sometimes Drake jumps unexpected ways but luckily not as often as in the first game.

Conclusion

Yes, I really liked this game. Graphically and gameplay wise a big improvement on the first one. I think I did prefer the story of the first one though also because Elena is more fun. It plays like an action movie, fast pace, always something happening. Barely any dull moments. I like that a lot, made me want to play this game in most of my free moments to keep the story moving and the action going. I really like the character Nathan Drake, and that means I will for sure play Uncharted 3, and probably pick up the fourth after that. Recommended if you like plain old action packed, fast paced fun.

Coming from the first Uncharted, I didn't really have high hopes, but boy was I in for a treat.

My favorite part was definitely the characters. All the ones from before got more fleshed out, and while Chloe's outfit is god-forbiddenly 2000's "I am sexy woman yes"-like, her character development was great and her dynamic with Elena was very fun to watch. Flynn felt a bit hollow to me, but he didn't really have that much screen time anyway. Elena dug her way even deeper into my heart, and I can say with certainty that she is up there in my favorites, at least in this series.

The graphic design was amazing, I really want to give props to the environmental artists. They did a damn good job. And while the animation felt a bit clunky at times, this game is 11 years old, so I wouldn't take that too seriously.

The story was fun, the dialogue was fun, the gameplay was fun, the characters were fun, it was all just.. fun. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and didn't find myself getting bored at really any point. Also bonus points for Claudia Black as Chloe Frazer. Would 100% recommend to anyone looking for an adrenaline-filled adventure through lost worlds and civilizations.

Uncharted 2 is undoubtedly better than Uncharted 1. It improves the gameplay of the first by making the platforming and shooting tighter, which I really didn't like in the predecessor. It constantly changes settings so you don't have to see the jungle all the time. It improves the AI so that there are less bullshit moments. It improves the characters by not making them only talk in quips. Uncharted 2, in my opinion, is one of the best sequels of the 2000's or possibly ever.

Right off the bat, the game starts off with Nathan Drake hanging off of a FUCKING TRAIN WHILE A TRAIN CAR IS DANGLING OFF A CLIFF! JESUS CHRIST! This introduction is one of the best yet. It sets the tone for what crazy setpieces there will be and it's a nice way to introduce how this game will visually look with its spectacle which is insane how Naughty Dog took advantage of the PS3's hardware to make it look this amazing. According to Naughty Dog, Uncharted 2 used 90-100% of the Cell's processor and used up all 25 GB of the BluRay disc. I'm now very curious as to how much power was used for Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us. I'm not going to spoil it for myself until I'm done with those games. Stealth was barely prominent in Uncharted 1, but in Uncharted 2, stealth is an option rather than a limitation. Unlike something like Call of Duty, you're not punished for going from stealth to a shootout. The shooting feels much tighter. I loved sniping enemies in particular. Blindfiring has been improved now that it has a crosshair. I can now see where I'm shooting whenever I blindfire. There were more moments where a shootout is going on while you're also in some sort of sticky situation. You hang off of signs and ledges as you kill enemies. Shootouts are much more unique than in Uncharted 1. The train level is one of my favorite levels. You're climbing on top of the train, you're going inside the train. Altering between levels of height gives you a little bit more breathing time before you regenerate. One of my favorite things about the game is Nathan's journal. If you go to the start of it, you can see details that describe our protagonist. There are pages that are filled with women's phone numbers, meaning that Nate was an absolute Chad and that Elena is his favorite woman. In the Faces of Victor Goddamn Sullivan pages, you can understand more of Nathan's relationship with Sulley. There is a scale in a page where it describes Nathan's fears. It's this attention to detail that fleshes out Nathan Drake more than some robot that only speaks in Quipinese.

If I had to give one major criticism, I could say that there is this lack of cohesion at times between settings. The train sequence, as much as I love it, is the best example. You're in Nepal, a dry and rundown city, then when Elena chases after the train and you jump off, you're in a jungle? Then, the train level transitions from a jungle to a mountain? Another example would be near the end. So there is this underground passage in this monastery that takes you to the hidden city of Shambala. Once you get to Shambala, it's a beautiful city in the mountains with a CLEAR, BLUE SKY. How could anyone not find it?

Uncharted 2 is a fantastic game. I'm surprised at how this franchise got a sequel after the Uncharted 1. Skip the first game and go right into this one instead.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

Two years after developer Naughty Dog released Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, they released Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, one of the most successful sequels of its era. Uncharted 2 topped the charts of editor's picks and rose to critical acclaim, while many gamers heralded the game as an action/adventure masterpiece. The game took what was successful about its predecessor, tightened the combat a bit, and added in new characters, new locales, and delivered an action-packed story with immersive, cinematic gaming sequences.

Here, Nathan Drake--the protagonist of the series--is asked by some of his "friends" to help steal a worthless oil lamp that allegedly hides the secret to Marco Polo's greatest treasure: the fabled Cintamani Stone from the legendary city of Shambhala. Along the way, he's betrayed by his friend, duped by his ex-girlfriend (with whom he revisits his relationship), and gets wrapped up in a fight over the Cintamani stone, which may or may not have mystical powers. If the story sounds a bit familiar, that's because, except for some character development, the plot is virtually the same as its predecessor. The formula is obvious enough to be notable, and yet not so derivative as to not be enjoyable; still, retreading the same waters for a sequel could have been distracting if it weren't so magnificently done.

The combat is certainly a bit tighter, with plenty of variety, and while melee is still pretty great, it's decidedly more difficult to engage in fisticuffs in the middle of a firefight. Enemy types aren't quite so limited in this one, and while some sequences can certainly be very frustrating (I hate the guardians), the game itself rewards players for mixing up their strategies a little bit, and certainly is forgiving enough to those players unfortunate to die toward the end of a major fight.

Uncharted 2 also doesn't pull its punches when it comes to action beats, and as a study of the action/adventure genre in both film and gaming, it's a masterpiece worthy to be emulated repeatedly. Of course, repetition can have its limits, but in many ways I think the Uncharted series on the whole can be credited for the reinvigoration of the action/adventure platformer. Its similarity to Indiana Jones in tone and its playful homages to games like Tomb Raider are engaging, and despite these similarities, Uncharted is very much its own thing, building up its own character archetypes and painting its virtual canvass with master strokes.

It's a fantastic game that ventures on the near-perfect.