Daily Loaf

Is Nathan Drake the best video game character of this console generation? I think he must be. Part Lara Croft and part Han Solo, the star of the Uncharted series for Playstion 3 brims over with goofy, roguish charm and is just the right amount of both badass and smarty-pants. Voice-acted to perfection by Nolan North (who you might remember from every other game in the world), Drake never grows tiresome, holding players’ interests from opening cut-scene to the make-you-want-to-smile/cry final lines of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Add in the equally alluring and well-acted characters of Elena, Chloe, and Sully combined with action and graphics worthy of a mega-budget movie, and you get one of the best games of the year.

Uncharted 2 is most definitely going for that blockbuster movie experience. In an age where open worlds and non-linear stories get all the glory, it seems almost quaint that Uncharted 2’s game play and story unfold along a very strict course. It has a complex story about Marco Polo’s lost fleet in Borneo and an ancient treasure hidden in the Himalayas to tell, and there’s no time for open world dilly dallying with side quests. Drake has some new partners in (literally) crime this time out, Chloe and Flynn, who convince him it’s a swell idea to steal something from a highly-secured museum in Istanbul. From there, things just get crazier. This second Drake outing matches the first on the story level, showing us new sides to old characters and giving us a better defined set of villains that truly deserve our hate. It takes a story this good, this well executed to justify a game that forces you along a scripted path, and I never wanted more freedom in exchange for less story.

The game play has improved from the first Uncharted game, which suffered from some lackluster gun mechanics and occasional frustrations with the all important climbing mechanics. Gone are the bullet sponge enemies of the first game, except for the occasional armor-clad foe. The fighting moves fast and is consistently fun. In addition to the cover based combat, there are also occasional stealth elements and of course the climbing. Scrambling up walls, dangling from cliff-edges, and leaping across chasms all feel just right in Uncharted 2. Nate huffs and grunts his way along in a convincing manner, and the spectacular visuals caused me more than one moment of pure vertigo. Then there are the big set pieces, including a running gun battle in a collapsing building and a prolonged sequence on a train through the mountains. The genuine thrills on offer here outshine anything I saw at the movie theater this summer.

Which is not to say that the 10 to 12 hours it will take you to play Uncharted 2 won’t have some frustrations. There were a few more moments than I would’ve liked where I had no idea what to do, but only one I had to look up online. The game will give you a hint if you stand around clueless long enough, and these usually set me on the right path. Likewise there are a couple boss fights (including the one on the otherwise great train level) where the normal rules of gun fighting are put aside for a pattern based, standard boss-fight annoyance-fest. But a few minutes of anger and needless frustration spread out over a great game hardly spoils things. One tiny annoyance that just felt self-indulgent: the game opens with one of the best first level/pseudo-tutorials ever in a game. The developers apparently knew they had something great, because you have to do it all over again exactly the same later in the game, which annoyed the hell out of me to the same degree that it thrilled the hell out of me two days earlier.

I said 10 to 12 hours, but that doesn’t include the very excellent multi-player options, which can keep you going for months. The vastly improved shooting from the previous game works perfectly as an online shooter. The addition of Uncharted’s climbing mechanics give the levels a fun 3D strategic element that sets the game apart. With multiple game modes as well as some great co-operative games, this multi-player is anything but tagged on. If you own a PS3, you need this game. If you’re thinking the new reduced price of $300 makes finally getting a PS3 a good idea, the fact that it lets you play Uncharted 2 should seal the deal. The game retails for $60 and is in stores now.

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