UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES
Uncharted 2 starts in medias res and wastes no time throwing the player into peril. The game’s first cutscene shows a bloodied Nathan Drake regain consciousness in a train car hanging over a Nepalese mountainside. It’s harrowing, and it’s only the tutorial. The camera slowly pans around the completely vertical coach as Nathan struggles to swing and pull himself up. There are no quick-time events here or in the rest of the game, but bits of debris snap and plummet past Nathan, narrowly missing him and giving the player plenty of motivation to get out of there as quickly as possible. It’s effective, terrifying, and lets the player know immediately that Uncharted 2 is everything great about the first game with almost none of the problems.
The story of Uncharted 2 isn’t much different than the first one. Like other elements of the game, it simply adds to what was already in place instead of taking it into a different direction. Two new characters, Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer, approach Nathan and convince him to aid them in the theft of an oil lamp from a Turkish museum. The only reason Nathan gets himself involved is its connection to Marco Polo and the theory that the lamp contains the first clue to finding Polo’s lost expedition. Flynn ends up double-crossing Nathan soon after and reveals himself to be working for Zoran Lazaravic, a Russian warlord searching for the ancient Cintamani Stone-- supposedly discovered and taken by Marco Polo-- as well as the lost city of Shambhala.
The character modeling, acting and interaction are some of the strongest parts of Uncharted 2. Character models in Uncharted 1 were somewhat doughy, but the sequel runs circles around its predecessor, with textures more akin to actual human skin than wet clay. The new characters also manage to hold their own against the first game’s memorable cast. Chloe, who spends half the game alongside Nathan, is just as cheeky, and the banter between the two is enjoyable, while Flynn does a great job of antagonizing Nathan and building up a desire in the audience to see him put in his place.Â
The settings are varied and beautiful, ranging from the streets of a Nepalese village, the snowy mountaintops, a dark and rusty freight yard, a train chase through the lush jungle, and a handful of others. The globetrotting aspect makes Among Thieves much larger in scope and bolsters the adventure movie aesthetic Uncharted strives for, one that would only need an animated line moving across a world map to complete the look.
I was expecting some significant gameplay changes, but instead, it’s almost exactly the same, just improved and expanded upon. Naughty Dog took the control problems I had with Drake’s Fortune-- stiff movement, poor aiming, using the sixaxis to throw grenades-- and fixed them all with some tweaking. Nathan moves smoothly in contrast to the stiff and jerky control in the previous game, and aiming is slightly less sensitive, allowing the player to aim more accurately. Grenades are now aimed and thrown traditionally instead of rocking the controller up or down to adjust the arc.
Naughty Dog has also added options to make combat more interesting. While Uncharted 1 had a scant selection, the sequel has an expanded choice of firearms. Nathan still ends up taking on numerous soldiers, but this time around, at least there are more ways to do so. Stealth plays a small part, and boy, it is satisfying-- much more than shooting. Nathan can simply grab enemies and knock them out, or wait behind a crate or hang from a ledge until they are close enough to take down. Unfortunately, while there is one level devoted to it, most of the levels have little potential for stealth. There some opportunities in each for a few takedowns, but not enough for my liking. Similarly underutilized is hand-to-hand combat. Unlike the first game where it felt random, Uncharted 2 has a simple, responsive one-two-KO melee combo with different takedown animations and the ability to dodge and counter an enemy’s punches. Contact is solid and the takedowns made me feel stronger than a firearm ever could. If I came across a lone soldier, I’d sprint toward him just to start a fistfight.
Unfortunately, my major problem with Uncharted 2, just like the first, is the frequency of combat. The parts of Uncharted games I appreciate most are exploring and scaling the environments, interactions between characters and watching those characters survive ancient booby traps and extraordinary action scenes. What I don’t appreciate are the copious amounts of firefights. In addition to becoming tiresome, the frequent combat works directly against Naughty Dog’s effort to give Uncharted such a cinematic presentation. One man versus an army is an entertaining, compelling concept-- one that can work incredibly well in a movie, but it doesn’t work as well as it should in Uncharted. For every moment of narrow escape and demonstration of Nathan’s fragility in the cutscenes, there is a gunfight that contradicts by pitting Nathan against dozens of soldiers, almost all of whom will be mowed down with ease. The frequency of combat works against the sense of danger instilled during the cutscenes, and such a juxtaposition left me less invested in Uncharted 2 than I would have liked. This problem stems from issues I can only see being addressed by fairly large gameplay overhauls and refocusing-- something I don’t imagine Naughty Dog will do considering the massive amounts of praise Uncharted 2 garnered.
Uncharted 2 has a well-sized selection of extras which can be bought with money earned from finding collectibles or getting x kills with x weapon throughout the game. Production art and making-of videos are available as well as goodies such as one-hit-kills, 2x speed, black-and-white or sepia tone filters and purchasable guns for any level. There’s a level select available which also list treasures found and total treasures for each level, just in case you don’t have enough money to buy what you want. While I can safely say I won’t be revisiting Uncharted 1 anytime soon, 2 has enough incentives for replay.
I enjoyed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves a great deal. The characters make me smile, the diverse settings make me want to explore, and it’s hard to imagine the graphics looking any better. Combat can be annoying and take me out of the experience, but overall, the rest of the game is worth it. For anyone who has played the first game, Uncharted 2 is more of the same with cleaner execution, and I’m interested to see what kind of improvements will be made in Uncharted 3.
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