Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the second game in the Uncharted series, with the first game(Uncharted: Drake's Fortune) being released in November 2007, and the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in October 2009 . Both games follow the story of Nathan Drake, an explorer that got dragged into an adventure when he found about Sir Francis Drake, who's a long dead relative who travelled around the world exploring stuff. Both games were developed by Naughty Dog and were published by Sony Entertainment. This game is an action-adventure game.

In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Drake is looking for a long lost treasure, throughout his journey he'll meet many old buddies and some new ones. You'll start out by hanging from a train that has somehow fallen of a cliff (which you'll later have to face again, since it's a leap in the future) and as you progress you'll see various cutscenes explaining what you're going to do in the next level and it's explained as well what it is you're after. After that you'll be betrayed by your best friend Flynn. As you progress throughout the game it'll become clear why your friend betrayed you and who's actually to blame for all the trouble Drake gets in throughout the game. You'll also start unravelling the big picture. But in the end all will be good, except for one good guy, but he was merely a figurant. Things will be set right and the bad guy will be put down. The storyline of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves isn't extremely original but the way it has been executed is simply amazing, the entire game feels like a movie in that it keeps you captivated from beginning to end.

The gameplay in this game is really varied, offering a fun experience from beginning to end. There are sections in which you have to shoot a lot of enemies, there are sections in which you have to climb in order to reach a certain point, there are sections in which you'll have to figure out puzzles and there are some sections in which you have to kill boss-like enemies. The execution of the gameplay makes it so that you'll never be bored playing this game and that you can play this game for hours on an end. Climbing feels very smooth although it's often overly obvious which route you should take, but that can be easily forgiven since it prevents you from getting stuck in certain areas. The shooter-aspect of this game is also executed well, everything feels smooth and natural, this aspect is also blended in nicely with the climbing aspect which means that you can shoot enemies whilst hanging from a ledge and many more. Another thing I'd like to add is that the enemies in this game can take a lot of bullets, which can get annoying when playing the game on Crushed since it could happen that you have to shoot an enemy with all the ammo you've got and still come short. The puzzles and the bosses aren't really that hard or complicated, most puzzles can be figured out in under a minute since the game gives you overly clear hints in your diary, which didn't really bother me since I hate puzzles. The bosses often have simple methods of killing them, however the simplicity of the killing method doesn't necessarily mean that these bosses are easy, especially on the later levels you'll often find yourself trying to defeat the same boss over and over again, but once you've done it, it'll feel so rewarding.

The graphics in this game are simply magnificent, personally I thought they were even better than Assassin's Creed 2. The environments are so detailed and colourful that you'll be amazed every time you visit a new area in the game. The characters are extremely detailed as well, although slightly cartoony, they feel realistic, well except for the fact that the fact that most of these characters are invulnerable.

The sound in this game is great as well, every character in this game has convincing voice-acting and the sounds of explosives and such are rather realistic as well. The music in this game has an epic adventure feel to it, it makes you feel throughout the game that you've embarked on a huge and epic quest, so in that perspective it really adds to the game rather than just filling the silence.

New in the series is that they've added an online mode for this game, which allows you to play both competitive and co-operative. There are many edited standard modes in this game, such as Capture the Treasure, Team Deathmatch(no normal Deathmatch), Survival and many other. The sad part of online modes is that they're completely dependant on their online community and sadly after playing a few matches I came to realise that I didn't like the game online as much as I did offline. Some online players seem to have find it extremely funny to just wait next to you until you die instead of reviving you and this is just one example of the entire list. So I'd recommend to just buy this game mainly for its single-player mode and maybe for the co-op mode online with friends, and besides this game emphasis lies on its single-player mode. Multiplayer, besides these standard modes, also features leaderboards and a leveling system in which you can unlock stuff, just like in single-player in which you can unlock various bonuses with money you've earned getting certain medals and some of these medals also grant you a trophy. The leveling in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is simply done by accumulating money that's granted with kills, getting medals and completing objectives.

My conclusion is that every PS3 owner should at least try this game or buy it, because you won't regret it, it offers a lot of gameplay, has beautiful graphics, a well-executed story and a great feel to it. This is one of THE games of 2009, sharing the same league as for example Assassin's Creed 2.