More. That’s the key word when discussing Naughty Dog’s PS3 exclusive hit sequel Uncharted: Among Thieves.

He definitly works hard for his money!

He definitely works hard for his money!

They have given us more of everything we loved from Uncharted: Drake’s fortune. More witty commentary, more weapons, more items, more actions, more explosions, more girls, more modes of play, more… well, you get the idea.

Recently, this writer had eye surgery, and as such, I have had a hard time staring at screens for long periods of time while my eyes healed. Let me tell you, this title was so much fun to play and so hard to put down, that I very well could have destined myself blind in the future from eye strain, especially at a time when my eyes are at their weakest.

Normally I would choose my Xbox 360 over the PS3 due to control preference and number of friends online, however, Sony comes out with amazing exclusive titles from time to time that bring me back to the PS3 powerhouse. Titles like Uncharted: Drake’s fortune, Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, and now, Uncharted: Among Thieves.

Among Thieves takes you behind the eyes of brilliant and ridiculously lucky treasure hunter Nathan Drake as he searches for the elusive lost fleet of Marco Polo and the Cintimani Stone, a giant sapphire said to be worth billions. Of course if you’ve played the first uncharted title, you know better to think this is all that is being searched for and all that you will find, but in order to not spoil the game for you all, I’ll leave it at that. Along the way you run into old friends like Victor Goddamned Sullivan and Elena Fisher as well as new characters who had a past with Nathan such as Harry Flynn and Chloe Frazer. Before I go any further in this review, the reason I point out characters so quickly is that Among Thieves has something so many other games lack, extremely detailed and relevant character depth. By the end of the game, nay, within the first hour of play, you feel like you personally know each character and have a strong emotional connection with them. When one gets hurt or goes missing, you feel for them, you share the same emotion Drake does. I will even admit that my eyes teared up and I was actually worried for a specific character at one point in the game, heaving a large sigh of relief when the dust settled.

Yes, the game is that beautiful. Those are in game graphics here!

Yes, the game is that beautiful. Those are in game graphics here!

Before we dive into the technical aspects of this review, I wanted to continue on the line of character and emotion. Among Thieves has almost every basis covered for being both a great game AND a great movie. Just like Drake’s Fortune did for me in the past, while playing you get so enthralled in the story that you actually wish it were a movie, everything from the great story filled with countless plot twists, to the witty commentary between characters with intelligent use of vocabulary as ‘Jerkweed’ and ‘Asswipe’ slipping from Drake’s educated lips. He even says on many accounts what I would be thinking at that exact moment at points where he is climbing high mountains he might utter, ‘Oh man, I am so tired of climbing sh*t’, or while in a pool he would shout out, ‘Marco… fish out of the water?’, or at moments where I would think how lucky Drake is as he is about the be crushed by flying train debris only to be saved by the first and only tunnel you spot for hundreds of miles, a comment would be made about it. The story itself is bigger and more epic than any other somewhat realistic (as in, not space or fantasy) story I have ever played, read, or even saw in a movie, even the scene swipes remind me of Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

I could go on and on about the story and character design, but then we would never get into the meat of the game’s mechanics, so if you want to go beyond what I have discussed so far, my only recommendation is to just go out and try the game yourself, I don’t think you’d be disappointed.

Graphically this could very well be the most beautiful game I have ever played. Sure, I may have said that with the first Uncharted title, but like I said at the beginning of this review, Naughty Dog has given us more of everything! Detail has reached an all new high with hair movements, clothing wrinkles and the amount of detail found in the environments. Not only do run down streets of Nepal have the most minuscule detail present (pictures of families in buildings as they collapse) but the sheer size of these environments are just amazing. Huge Tibetan temples as far as the eye can see encrusted in jewels and scripture kept me playing the game for at least an extra hour or two just because I was so blown away by what I saw that I had to explore every corner of every space provided. Weapon and item detail have also been boosted as you can see every gear and bolt of every gun being used in the flash of an eye. It goes beyond detail for Among Thieves, the lighting effects in terms of shadows, sun, and explosions are also top notch. There are so many examples I would love to share right now, but I feel like anything I say will ruin the plot, something I would never want to do to fans of Uncharted. So again, I will cut off my critique of graphics here by saying, play the game. Your eyes will thank you.

Audibly this is arguably the best sounding game I have ever played as well. Not only do the scores match the environment and mood extremely well, but they have also been improved in terms of how they were implemented versus Drake’s Fortune (In the first title, you would know when a gun fight would be coming up due to the score change). Often a good game’s mood can be dampened by the choice of music, and rarely does this reviewer find there to not be a single hiccup in musical tastes as Among Thieves hits each point perfectly. It’s not only the music that brings you deeper into the title but also the voice acting. With multiple languages available for both subtitles and dubbing, each character looks like their voices were made for their in game counterparts. Even though there are many different accents and dialects being used throughout the game, none of them seem outlandish or unrealistic. Heck, even the Australian voices sound authentic! Beyond the voice acting we are also given such details in how we hear our fan favourites speak depending on the scenario: on a train, it sounds like they’re on a train; in a cavern, you hear a slight echo; my personal favourite is at one point when Drake is holding a pen cap in his mouth, the muffles and whistles sound as if you were doing the exact same thing, extremely detailed and realistic. When my eyes were hurting from playing too much, it didn’t faze me too much to have to close my eyes and relax a little because the audical experience was more than enough to keep me thinking about this title through and through.

Now THAT was a rockin' party.

Now THAT was a rockin' party.

An issue with the first Uncharted title was that it seemed much too planned out. You would climb a little, then walk into a much more open area with plenty of cover and ammo. Here you knew there was going to be a gun fight, rinse and repeat. In Among Thieves they did a much better job of not only making everything less obvious in terms of what would be happening next (they did a great job in this aspect), but they also changed up the types of gameplay as well, with more running scenarios (away from trucks, tanks, helicopters, falling buildings), boss fights, and now a very expanded stealth mode of play (hanging from ledges, hiding behind cover and so on). Add on new items such as shields and propane tanks, and you have a whole new level of gameplay to enjoy. Again, more of everything. If you though Drake’s Fortune had some epic battles, try fighting a helicopter from a building as it collapses… with you inside the building! More explosions, more near death experiences, more more more. Get the idea?

In terms of lasting appeal, Uncharted: Among Thieves has increased their offering drastically from the first title. With plenty of treasures to find in the oddest places (who leaves priceless artifacts on the back of a caboose?) and multiple difficulty levels, you already have more reasons to replay this great game. Add on the ability to buy special effects like sepia colour, fast forward mode, new skins, and special cheats and weapons give you even more replay value. Add on a nifty little Twitter feature to tell all your friends how good you are at this game and even more to play with. But after all this, I still feel like it’s all a little sliver of replay value compared to the newly introduced online multiplayer modes. oh, I didn’t mention that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves had a fully featured multiplayer option? And no, this isn’t just some slapped together death match mode we’re talking about here; Among Thieves provides a unique mash up of all the best multiplayer options in a set that will have you addicted to playing over and over again. The way character progression works in multiplayer is great, you earn money for each other player you kill, for each objective you accomplish, and for each award you are given (you get awards for killing people with your fists, throwing people off of ledges, killing people in a row, killing people who are killing people in a row, etc). and with this money, you can buy new skins, skills, taunts, and abilities – but only if your character is at a high enough level to unlock the ability to buy these options in the first place. So as a gamer you obviously want the best of the best (which can be abilities called boosts like better accuracy with a handgun, quicker reloads, extra grenades and so on); because of this, when you get to a certain level you want to play that little extra bit to get to the next milestone. This leads to MANY late nights playing online.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves provides two main forms of multiplayer action, competitive and cooperative. Competitive gives players 5 on 5 battles with game modes like your standard death match, elimination, plunder, turf war, king of the hill and chain reaction pitting heroes against villains. As well there are co-operative modes of play in which you work with a partner to play modes such as survival, gold rush, and standard co-op mode. Along with these online modes of play you have the choice and variety of 8 maps from the sanctuary, ice cave, lost city, train wreck, temple, village, plaza, and finally a blank stage mode to test out different aspects of the game. This multiplayer mode is definitely something that will bring you back to Uncharted time and time again.

Multiplayer mayhem, fast paced, high action, and not a lick of slow-down.

Multiplayer mayhem, fast paced, high action, and not a lick of slow-down.

Overall Uncharted 2 was by far one of the best PlayStation 3 titles I have ever played, even one of the best video games I ever got to enjoy period, however there were a few negatives I had with the title. Nothing overly major, however they should be mentioned. First off a small annoyance is that random priceless treasures can be found in the most random places: The roof of a train, in the middle of a road, on the top ledge of a cavern that supposedly has never been seen by man before. Things like that just irk me. The second issue I had came with the multiplayer modes, yes I praised them continuously above, however, after playing for hours upon hours I grew stale with the few maps available; I figure this was done purposely so that new maps could be released in the future for further markup… or free! Finally the biggest problem I had throughout the game were glitches. While this was by far one of the most technical titles I have ever played and the vast majority of the game was glitch free; I did get frustrated when Drake would jump towards a ledge, glitch out and fall only to try again a moment later. Or getting stuck in a wall or snow bank while running for your life. While these only happened a few times throughout the game, I did notice them to occur more later on in the title as if the ending bit was rushed; more or less from the beginning of the Nepalese snowy mountains to right before the last area in the game is where I found most glitches. On a side note, not really a glitch but something I wish Naughty Dog and Sony included in Uncharted 2, a self play mode so that once you finished the game, you could just sit back and watch it as though it were a movie… because we all know it would be a fabulous movie!

Summary:

If you only buy one PS3 game this holiday season, I highly recommend you make it Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. It has everything you could want, great controls, great gameplay, replay-ability, great story, great dialog, great sound, great graphics, a long lasting single player mode, an ever expanding and fantastic multiplayer mode… jeeze, I can’t think of any reason not to play such an amazing game. Go out and buy it. If you don’t have a PS3, go buy it for a friend that does… and move in with them. This has been one of the most polished and impressive games I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 5/5

Sound: 4/5

Replay Value: 5/5

andPOP Rating - Editors Choice






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