‘Uncharted 2’ is a good reason to head out and buy a new PS3
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“Uncharted 2” puts you in the shoes of Nathan Drake, treasure hunter. Think a modern-day Indiana Jones, except instead of using a whip to get over obstacles, Drake will climb, jump and wall-run his way over any danger. When that fails, he falls back on guns, lots of guns.
The story takes place over several different locales, as Drake tries to piece together the secret of Marco Polo’s lost fleet. While this is usually where I would go into greater detail about the story, I would be destroying some of the best story telling ever seen in a game if I shared. There are plenty of twists, great character development and an amazing love story involved. Honestly, you could easily take the script of the game and turn it into a PG-13 action movie with little to no effort.
“Uncharted 2” gives you several options when it comes to overcoming the game’s enemies. Before any bullets are fired, your best weapon is stealth. Drake can sneak up behind, and instantly take out, any enemy. Just be careful. If anyone sees you taking out their friends, they will start firing first and ask questions later. The terrain is almost never flat and flanking or climbing above your enemies makes them much easier to destroy. Unlike most games, you can only carry two guns at a time: a handgun and a two-handed weapon of choice, either a rifle or a shotgun.
The AI (Artificial Intelligence) in this game is extremely good. Your enemies will use cover, work together and throw grenades to flush you out of cover. This is one of my only complaints: the AI has arms that major league ball players would envy. They never miss or throw short, so if you see a grenade my warning is: don’t look for the grenade, just run. To balance this out, you have an AI helper, too, through 90 percent of the game. Your AI is almost perfect, though she did get in my way once or twice. For the majority of the game, your helper will find cover and return fire, all while staying clear from play.
While the action in this game is great, it is only part of the story. There are puzzles and hidden treasures all over this game. While some of the treasures are in plain sight, most are hidden in little spots that you will have to climb and jump to get to. Nathan is a master of parkour, which makes it easy for him to get to spots that no one else would ever dream of climbing to.
Finding where you’re supposed to go and what you can actually climb on can be a bit taxing. While there is no map to help you, if you find yourself stuck in one spot too long, you will be offered a hint on where to go next. While this is incredibly helpful, you will probably be annoyed that you missed something so obvious, and, yes, I got several hints as I played through the game.
The guys from Naughty Dog could have just given us the single-player campaign and it would have been more than worth the cost. Instead, they have also given us an amazing multiplayer mode. Most games’ multiplayer takes the game and waters it down for online play, but not with “Uncharted 2.” You will find the same gameplay mechanics from the single-player game. Not only are the levels taken from all spots of the storyline, but they are beautiful to look at and are picked because they let the players decide how they want to play the game. You can either find a nice spot and snipe, try and be sneaky by hiding and go for stealth kills or just wade in with a shotgun and blast away the other players.
“Uncharted 2” is the most amazing title to come out in a long time. This sets the bar for first-party exclusive titles. No other game has put this much time and effort into making sure that every aspect of it is perfect. Sony picked the right time to drop the price of its console, too, because this game is a reason to own a PS3. If you don’t own a PS3, “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” is a reason to get one.
James Treacy is a lifelong gamer, across all platforms of the gaming community. His opinion is in no way the opinion of this paper, and is instead offered to give its readers more information on games and trends available in today’s market. To contact him with any questions about the gaming world, e-mail jtreacy@phillynews.com.



