Bigger, better and with a lot more bangs. This should be the motto of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Naughty Dog have taken the winning formula they created with the original, ironed out the problems, improved everything else and added a lot of spectacular set pieces.
This sequel is not only longer than the original but feels even more so due to the large variety of places you’ll visit. Compared to Uncharted 1 where you would travel to a jungle island, visit it’s local drowned city and underground Nazi bunker and then backtrack through the city once more – while impressive, feels like a step outside your door to the holiday vacation you’ll take here. Running through large cities in the middle of civil war, fighting on top of moving trains in lush jungles and snowy mountains, sneaking through a high-security Turkish museum and visiting the locals in an inhabited Nepalese village high up in the Himalayan mountains. The set pieces and locales, aided by the spectacular visual fidelity are an incredible treat here – and thanks to the remastered edition, all in 60fps too.
Nathan Drake’s new adventure will begin with him – after a brief introductory tutorial on a train hanging off a cliff – relaxing at a beach bar. He soon is found by two old friends, (no not them) the ever-so charismatic Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer. (Don’t worry Elena and Sully will turn up too.) This new cast of characters, along with the old favourites mean that, yes of course not all will stay good and not all will stay bad. But a noticeable improvement over the original is that all the characters are no longer just very well done archetypes but all have their own personal motivations for doing what they do. The only exception is the imposing, scarred, Russian antagonist Lazarovic who is the complete caricature of a Hollywood bad guy and could have been done better.
The gameplay itself sticks much to the original’s formula of shooting and climbing – with improvements to both. No longer will you fall to your death running off a tiny ledge due to there being no room – thank god – and no longer does parkour feel a little arbitrary. Combat has also been improved, though not massively, as not much was needed. Shooting feels more fluid and the increased enemy, weapon and set piece variety makes every fight refreshing and entertaining. Large combat sections can also be tackled in different ways as levels feel larger and a – slightly – improved stealth system allows you to take out small batches of enemies without having to deal with reinforcements. One problem does, however, stay nearer the end of the game as there are sections with large bundles of difficult enemies and again, can become annoying. Naughty Dog have also became less lenient in their checkpoints at end-game during combat sections and the final boss fight can become increasingly frustrating if you get unlucky.
Coming down to the remastered version itself, going forward in the collection means there is less noticeable improvements. This means little though, as the beautiful visuals shown in 60fps surpasses many releases in the past year. There were, however, unlike the the first game, some glitches such as falling through the environment and getting stuck in cover – the game even caused my PS4 to crash and freeze completely. Though relatively minor, still causes some annoyance. The original Uncharted 2 also featured what many people considered to be the best multiplayer portion of the three games and its absence could be noted.
Naughty Dog have created a cinematic masterpiece, the few flaws Drake’s Fortune faced are gone and everywhere else the improvements add to the experience. The visuals, voice acting and animation is top notch, so much so that when something occurs or a character says a random piece of dialogue nothing feels scripted, just completely natural. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is itself amongst the best of games and even the best of big summer hollywood blockbusters.
9.5/10
- Platform: PS4
- Release Date: October 7, 2015
The Game Journal 