Sony PS3 Game – Uncharted 2 Among Thieves Review

Nathan Drake is back for his greatest adventure ever. After a lot of peril and pain in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Drake actually succeeded in getting rich. But now he is back for some more action in the Sony PS3 title Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. When the game starts we find Drake relaxing at a beach side resort, an old friend by the name of Harry Flynn approaches Drake with a proposition to go to Istanbul, Turkey and rob a museum of a valuable artifact. And so begins Drakes latest adventure which has achieved some of the highest ratings including Game of the year.

The game starts off with Drake hanging off a snowy mountaintop by a train. You make your way up this maze-like train to get to the top of the mountain and the game takes off from there. You find yourself in multiple environments. From snowy hillsides, to museums in Turkey, to a civil war ridden city; you’ll always see something new. And the puzzles and mazes are abundant. Thankfully you have Drake’s trusty journal to help you through these puzzles.

For instance, a lot of the puzzles require you to match a real thing in the game to a picture in Drake’s journal, and that would open a door. Some of them require you to navigate around the environment, making impossible jumps to the top, and aiming a beam of light into a mirror to open a door. But, no matter what kind of puzzle you are faced with, they’re all fairly challenging and will keep you guessing for a way to solve them.

The game isn’t too terribly hard. Although I only played it on easy so I could pay attention to the story, I did go back through and try to beat it on hard. The gunfights get a little more challenging, but all it takes to get through it is some strategy and planning ahead. And for beating it on an even higher difficulty, you can unlock Crushing difficulty, which should add even more strategy and planning to the game.

The game is full of love, deceit, treachery, and more twists than you can count on one hand. After being betrayed by a friend, you find yourself racing an evil tyrant to Marco Polo’s treasure, which turns out to be bigger than they could have ever imagined. Like being immortal big.

The controls are generally the same as the last game. L1 to aim, R1 to shoot, L2 will be your grenade button. X will allow you to jump, O will put you behind cover, [square] will be your melee attacks, pressing L3 will switch aim sides, R3 will be zooming in if you have a scope, and the arrows will be how you can choose a gun. Picking up guns will be [triangle].

The games’ in-game achievements give a little more depth to the campaign. For completing certain things in the campaign (usually the same as a trophy) you get money, which you can spend on skins, cheats, guns, and a lot of really cool things to make your in-game experience better. This also adds replay value to the game. Going back through and earning the trophies and in-game achievements is always fun. And now you actually get rewarded for it in the form of game currencies which can be used to buy upgrades for the game itself.

The graphics are mind blowing. They’re top of the line for video games. And, they stay flawless in multiple environments. Whether Drake is covered in snow, or soaking wet, the game still looks flawless. The music in the game is interesting as well. Depending on the environment, the music will change. If you are trying to solve a puzzle within an ancient temple, you’ll get a nice mysterious background sound to go along with it.

Sounds in this game go a long way. Especially with surround sound. It almost felt like I was Drake. You’ll hear muffled sounds, warning yells, and enemies yelling from behind you. You’ll generally know where the enemy is and you won’t be snuck up on.

The multiplayer option which supports 1-10 players looks like it would be great, but we never got a chance to check it out. I was faced with an “Error syncing models” problem that wasn’t allowing me to connect to the servers. But, from videos that I’ve seen on Youtube, it looks like it plays very well.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a must have third person action adventure shooter which provides improved graphics over the previous version.