Right. I just completed Uncharted 2, and have alot to say about it. But first, I would like to tread on some old ground and re-visit Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I realised a couple of days ago that when I wrote my short Uncharted review, I failed to mention any of the characters and how these characters act. Nathan Drake is a nice change in some aspects from other games that I had been playing because he acts alot more like a movie star than a game character. This is mainly from the writing, but the voice acting really brings the character to life. Nolan North is a very good voice actor as well as a great motion capture actor. But now we talk about the other character that I didn't like, the love interest Elena. At first I liked her because she was believable because she was actually trying to get her job done, but before long she was climbing all over the place, disappearing for seemingly no reason, and doing stuff that most reporters wouldn't think of.
But now we move onto the smaller character parts, and we start with my favourite character, Sully. Sully is a riot. He is like the old guard, a person from a different time in the sense that his day of climbing all over ancient structures is long gone, while still keeping his unique style of charisma. The villian is forgettable unfortunatly, mainly because of the constant fire fights with his henchmen, but something that will stick with me for many months, and a big spoiler coming here, was the fact that his colleague killed him in the last five minutes of gameplay, and then he decided "I'm going to be the final boss now". One last thing, then i'll move onto Uncharted 2, the quicktime events. I really could not believe when people said there were quicktime events at about 4 points in the game. Its true. Its the stupidest thing in this game. Enough said.
Right. Now to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The game starts up and i'm on a beach talking to two people that Nathan Drake knows, but I don't. What am I missing here? Now i'm breaking into a museum? Now some guy is betraying me? What is going on?! Oh well, right after the confusing opening, we go through a jungle level which was quite reminiscent of the first game, steal some documents and then proceed to a city. You might wonder why i'm skipping through this game. Its because there are massive spoilers in every crevasse of this game. So you go through the city, firefight after firefight, partly with a woman who isnt really given a proper origin story other than the fact that Drake knows her. Then you run into the woman from the first game, basically get her cameraman killed, and then keep going. Then you storm a train. I have nothing to say on that. After making the train crash, you find yourself at a Tibetan village after another firefight. You then meet a guy called Paul Schafer. I still can't help but think that i've heard that name somewhere before...
Then you get another sidekick, someone who can't speak english. Fantastic. Then you fight a weird mutant yeti. What?! Where did this come from?! Oh well, the evil guy Lazaravic attacks the village, and after a vehicle section, and several firefights you find Schafer again, but hes dieing. Then after some more firefights, of which the mutant yetis have turned up again for no reason, you get into where the meguffan of this game is being kept. You then get captured by Lazaravic, and have to get him into where the Cintamanni Stone is. Then the yetis attack again. Lazaravic comes in and shoots them all with his double barrel shotgun, and then reveals that they were men in costumes. This makes no sense as we later find out that they take more shots for some reason when they are out of the damn costumes!
You escape Lazaravic with the two women, the one from the first game, Elena, and the new one, Chloe. You then go through some more firefights with both Lazaravic's henchmen and then purple people who were in the yeti suits. You then find the guy who betrayed you in the beginning who was betrayed by Lazaravic in a delicious spate of irony. He blows himself up with a grenade. Alright then. You then have to fight Lazaravic which was harder than I thought. But then the real final boss fight appears. The collapsing bridge! I found this section alot harder than the final boss fight and died alot more on this part than on the actual fight!
After this the ending takes over and then Chloe says basically "You walked away from me, now i'm going to do the same to you HAHA!". Drake and Elena get together and it is a good cinematic. Until they start talking about how Drake hates clowns.
Lets start by talking about some of the smaller things. The combat is unchanged, and the environments are better than ever. The character models are better as well. So lets start talking about the new characters as the old character still do what they used to do in the first one. Chloe is a british woman, who keeps trying to leave Elena behind. Love Triangle much? I really don't like Chloe, although I like her slightly more than Elena. She plays a big part with double crossing the bad guys, and helping Drake where she can, but thats all there really is to her. She is a uninteresting love interest, and Drake really should know better considering how many times shes double crossed people.
Lazaravic is a better villian than the last time, and he at least he actually survives to be the final boss. Hes a russian with a great voice actor, and while most of the voice acting is good, he really got to the top of the pile on voices. The acting is brilliant.
Harry, who was the betrayer from the start, only exists to give Drake someone to get angry at and for someone for Chloe to steal information from. Considering that he dies by blowing himself up with a grenade, he is not an interesting enough character to talk about. Therefore the last major problem I have with this game is, where the hell is Sully! I didn't notice this until the very end, but he only appears for the first 3 chapters and then doesn't come back again until the ending cinematic! What was he doing all that time?! Oh well, at least he wasn't killed.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves does have problems, but they are not glaring. The plot can be a bit bad at times, but it doesn't stop the game being a very worthy sequel. If they had left the yetis out the game, it would have been better, as well as characterising Chloe and Harry some more. If these two things had been implemented, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves would have gotten an 8/10. But as it stands, I have have to give Uncharted 2 the same score as its predecessor. A solid 7/10.
And now a quick preview of the next game I am going to play, NIER. I start up the game to install the game on the PS3 hard drive, and I watch the opening cinematic to get myself in the mood for what I was in store for. Immediatly some random woman starts shouting at me. Who the hell is this cow?! Where is she? Can I punch her? I am in for alot of angst aren't I. Oh well. Next up is NIER.
This is Tyramatt, signing off.
No comments:
Post a Comment