Review: Uncharted 2
Reviewed on PS3. Developed by Naughty Dog. Published by SCEA/SCEE
So I can be one of the cool kids, I too am playing Naughty Dog’s latest. A bit over half way through the single player and what do I think? It’s excellent. It’s the game that sells the PS3 in a way the first game could only dream of and only Metal Gear IV came close to doing. It makes the PS3 sing in every way possible and is a rollicking good time to boot.
So why the hell is Elena’s voice so irritating to listen to in this? I don’t know. Maybe Nolan North’s sexy Drake voice just makes everyone wet (whether he’s in this, Shadow Complex or ODST). The Farscape chick has a way sexier voice when Chloe speaks. This is the game that makes animators cry look little girls and engine programmers weep into their Starcraft pajamas. It’s prettier than a prom date after the third whiskey and sounds better than Elvis and Michael Jackson releasing an album of Beatles covers.
How did we get here? Years ago, these guys made the first four Crash Bandicoot games. Then they made Jak and Daxter on the PS2. Then everyone who knew how to make a game died and they released Jak II. Obviously they’ve learned some sort of sorcery in order to resurrect the talent and produce this masterpiece.
At the start of the game you play as Drake after he’s been involved in a serious accident. Recovering his wits as best he can we quickly get start to see how Drake got to this point. Suckered in by friends and ex lovers, Drake ends up in jail, yada, yada, blah. So he climbs a lot more and there’s less ordinary Gears clone sequences. That’s what people who played the first game wanted to know. The first game was a lot of fun, a sleeper hit for PS3 but the second game ratchets up everything that matters. More climbing and more action sequences rather than static hide behind cover and shoot all the enemies in the area. The game almost does away with constant repetition. Almost.
One minute you’ll be having a gun battle, then climbing along the side of a moving train, then attempting to shoot down a helicopter with an RPG, then have a serious conversation with a chick with eyes glassier than an Apple store. It constantly changes so that you get a feeling the developers really took the criticism of the first game to heart and just worked their guts out to avoid the same complaints the second time around. On a train, being chased by a truck, in cars, on foot, climb this- It’s all there and it’s done in a way that doesn’t scream “Hey! They just copy and pasted that bit!”
The story is classic Indiana Jones without having to pay a rich old man royalties. You have Drake, his most recent flame, plus an old flame. It’s as if the Marion showed up in Last Crusade. Go here, do this, go here grab this. It all flows together well and you don’t think “well, here’s the sewer level. Here’s the Ice level. Here’s the desert level,” like you did in the Resistance games. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like a particular scene since it’s likely going to change in five minutes to something different anyway. The awesome sense of humour is intact and funny as ever. When you hit the Nepalese levels and reach the top of the hotel, jump in the pool.
The visuals are just draw dropping. Killzone 2 doesn’t look this good. It’s not perfect but it does what you expect of it. It’s bright and colourful in away that PS3/360 games aren’t known for yet feels real. Maybe Crysis on Max has better graphics but I’ll stick with Uncharted for my own benchmark. Sound is very good but really the voice artistes are the stars of this game almost as much as the gameplay and the visuals. The acting is perfect. It sure beats the silly voices in Killzone 2 and over the top theatrics of Kojima’s last epic. Yes, Elena’s voice is whiny but she’s whiny. You need that contrast with Chloe’s deeper voice. Drake may well be the best character to headline a game since Masterchief. Despite every lead character looking the same, you won’t be mixing him up with Sam Fisher, Ezio or that Shadow Complex guy. Well maybe that Shadow Complex guy.
The game even tweets for you much to the consternation of your followers. Funnily enough- I don’t think it actually works since I’ve set mine up and my twitter doesn’t actually have any of the auto-tweets there.
Uncharted 2 manages what Killzone 2 didn’t. It was actually more than a basic shooter that didn’t try to do anything new, just solidly. Uncharted manages to meet expectations and delivers on the hype and buzz surrounding its release. It deserves to sell far more than Gran Turismo 5 or Assassin’s Creed 2. Don’t have a PS3? Well now you have a reason to get that second job (though with the price now, it’s more like overtime on your first job)
Controller1.com rating 3/3
