I definitely enjoyed Uncharted 2 a lot more than The Last of Us; I think Uncharted nails the action-adventure movie feel down quite well. The running/climbing is great, the chase sequences are thrilling, and the puzzles aren't anything groundbreaking but they get the job done. That said, my experience was marred several times by a couple of trends:

1. Swarm of enemies come out to fight you, and several of them have quick kill/insta kill weapons (such as multiple snipers in the back or multiple grenade launcher/RPG boys making your life miserable), and you can't immediately reach them due to all the shotgun bulky boys blocking your way who can somehow snipe you from 15 meters away with every bullet of the shotgun

2. Bullet sponge enemies in general that don't even get flinched when you attack them, so you have to constantly run and gun, but you also can't easily dodge their attacks because their attacks have the range of Marth's standing grab in SSBM; this was a HUGE problem with Chapter 25

Oh, and the final boss fight was kind of underwhelming unfortunately. Same run and gun strategy except he also has a shotgun... yaaay...

I still had a lot of fun with Uncharted 2 nevertheless, and as said before, it captures the action adventure genre down very well; when it is fun, it is absolutely exhilarating. If they alleviated the prior two issues I had mentioned (definitely make it a little easier to fight the bulky shotgun enemies), then I'd say the whole experience is a giant joy ride. Looking forward to playing Uncharted 3 sooner than later, considering the praise that it gets on Backloggd.

Is my 4.5 rating totally and completely influenced by the fact that Uncharted 2 was my first experience with the series and with the genre (which I refer to as Indiana Jones games) in general? Yes, it is. Did I totally love nearly every moment of playing Uncharted 2? Pretty much, yes.

I cannot begin to discuss how amazing of an experience playing this game for the first time was, and it truly is something that you can't ever get back. Every moment where the handhold crumbles and/or Drake falls from a structure, losing progress and almost dying made the stakes seem so high. Amazingly seamless transitions from cinematics to gameplay, and back to cinematics make you truly feel like you're playing a movie and keep you engrossed for hours and hours.
I say you can't get it back because, now, after playing all the Uncharted games and the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, these moments all just feel scripted and false. Like nothing more than "gotcha" jump scares in a low-budget B movie horror.

The gameplay is very well balanced (for the time), and switches at perfect moments between edge-of-your-seat action sequences like running from an armored truck to story-telling cinematics, climbing and puzzle solving, stealth sections, to gun fights. The pacing is excellent and you never have a moment to even consider being bored. Among Thieves wants you to just keep going, and keep going you do. There are so many memorable set pieces and moments in the story that it really is no wonder that Naughty Dog became basically a household name after this one.

I have a thing for Uncharted.

Now the first and the third game are fucking terrible, I ain't gonna deny that, but Unchated 2 and Uncharted 4 are near and dear to my heart.

But Uncharted 2 is the only game in the Series that I truly love.

One reason for this is the impeccable pacing of Uncharted 2, while the pacing of Uncharted 4s is one of the games major flaws. But most of all, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves offers the least restrictive and most enthralling set piece design of the entire series by far (the train... omg the train) and in that way, reduces the feel of the "playable Indiana Jones Movie" that the series was going for to its very essence and delivers it to you in a steady drip.

And on top of that, the game even has heart. Something, many many MANY western AAA-Games sorely lack.

... I will always kinda love this a lot :-)

No sé por dónde empezar. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune es, pese a todos los defectos que le veo, una aventurilla al uso de plataformas limitado y acción simplona, que cuanto menos se deja jugar. Uncharted 2, como todas las secuelas triple A, trata de incluir más cosas, y en el camino se convierte en un batiburrillo incoherente de ideas y elementos que puedes encontrar mejor expresados en cualquier otro lado. Esto hace que, para mí, recomendar el juego en base a su mérito lúdico resulte imposible. Las secciones de sigilo apenas permiten variedad y se suelen limitar a seguir el camino trazado de antemano, los puzzles son poco más que un juego de memorización y espera, y las armas se solapan entre sí. La oportunidad de desarrollar estrategias personales de combate, que podrían tener sentido dado el carácter más de arena que tienen esas secuencias, ofrece cierto dinamismo en los modos más difíciles, pero el ridículo modo Brutal te fuerza a situaciones de completo desgaste, donde la única opción aceptable es quedarte en una esquina y rezar porque no te llegue una bala suelta (jugar estos niveles de dificultad sin trucos es imposible).

Todo esto hace que jugar a Uncharted 2 sea más molesto que el estilo simple pero, al menos, directo, del primero, pero si a eso le sumas una narración que sólo puedo calificar como de "culpa blanca a lo Josh Whedon", acabas con un relato reducido a mero espectáculo visual y que, a pesar de todo, no puede evitar esconder la cochambre sobre la que está montado. Por encima de todo, hace relucir la prepotencia detrás de su concepción. Un proyecto que, cuanto más lo intenta, más vacío parece. La próxima vez que alguien me diga que este tipo de juegos son necesarios para un público que no esté acostumbrado a jugar, por lo menos que me lo defienda con un casting más soportable.

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Don't know where to start with this. For all its flaws, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a competent adventure game with limited platforming and basic action, and it leans itself to be enjoyed. Uncharted 2, like every triple A sequels, attempts to go bigger, becoming an incoherent hodgepodge of ideas that you can find better expressed elsewhere. This makes recommending the game on its mechanical terms impossible for me. Stealth sections barely allow for expression and are often limited to following the path laid out before you, puzzles are little more than a game of memorization and waiting, and weapons overlap with each other. The opportunity to develop a combat strategy makes sense with the arena-styled sections, and it offers some dynamism in harder difficultires. But the preposterous Brutal setting constantly forces you into a stalemate, where the only acceptable option is standing by a corner and praying that you won't get hit (honestly, playing this mode without cheats is impossible).

All of this makes playing Uncharted 2 more annoying than the first one on mechanical terms alone. But when you compound add with a narrative that I can only describe as "White Guilt Josh Whedon", you end up with a work that's barely anything more substantive than snippets of visual spectacle. For all its glitz, this game can't hide the rot behind its façade, and in a way it makes its authors possessed by an even higher hubris. The next time someone tells me that this kind of games are necessary for non-playing audiences, I'm gonna ask to come up with something better than this unbearable casting.

About halfway through Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Elena-a journalist turned action hero sidekick-noticed an inscription on the ring of Nathan Drake's iconic necklace. "Sic Parvis Magna," as he explains, was Sir Francis Drake's motto; greatness from small beginnings. And is there any better motto suited to represent the jump from the series debut to its first sequel than that? Uncharted 1 was received well upon release, but it doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny very well, and it's generally considered the worst of the series by far. But Uncharted 2? It's considered by many to be the best in the series, and by some to be one of the best video games ever made, especially at time of release. Hailed as a game changer in the 3rd person action-adventure genre, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves remains an incredible step up from its debut and a definitive reversal of the sophomore slump trope, even if it does fall for some of the same traps as its predecessor.

The typical action movie sequel is all about taking everything good about the original and making it bigger, better, with more danger and higher stakes. A lot of movies end up losing a lot of charm this way. For Uncharted 2, it's anything but. This game is chock full of huge, imposing set pieces-tense and thrilling action scenes which always have you on the edge of your seat. The precedent is established immediately; the game begins in medias res as Nathan Drake awakes on a crashed train, suspended off the edge of a cliff. It's one of the most impressive and jaw-dropping openings in any game, and for the most part, Among Thieves lives up to the expectations set by its introduction. It's here where the differences between Uncharted 1 & 2 are most apparent; whether you're infiltrating a Turkish museum, fighting through a Nepalese temple, exploring Himalayan ice caves, or indeed that opening scene, (which the developers knew was so impressive, they let you play it twice) Uncharted 2 is all about creating massive and memorable scenes which live in the mind far beyond its length. It provides a great sense of variety and scale, and acts as a great backdrop for the actual gameplay.

That gameplay-being 3rd person shooting with some climbing or brief puzzle elements-hasn't changed much from the original, but Uncharted 2 shows that it didn't need to change as much as it may have seemed. It's not perfect; aiming from cover is a bit inconsistent, and enemy AI isn't always the best, but it's surprising how little the core gameplay has to change when the structure around it is so massively improved. Less mobs with huge health pools and less encounters with the supernatural zombie stand-ins both contribute to this game's flow and overall enjoyability. There are still some lessons to be learned, though; Uncharted is a series that should never have boss battles, and both of the ones in this game probably provide the exact opposite of the thrilling experience the developers were going for.

And that's probably not helped by the cast, either. Uncharted 2 is undoubtedly fondly remembered for its lovable main characters, and rightfully so, as they deliver another great performance here. (Although it might be a little too quippy in some parts.) But the main villain in this game is just as uninspired as the first, and his accomplice isn't much better off. It's a shame that, for a character as charismatic and fun as Nathan Drake, that his first two games haven't had anywhere near a worthy foil. And for all his historical knowledge and creative solutions, the puzzles here aren't anything to write home about either. They're technically an improvement from Drake's Fortune, but it's unlikely they left anyone scratching their head for very long. Still, they often served as a welcome reprieve from the gunplay, and any chance for more dialogue in this smartly-written game is usually well taken.

To many, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is where the series really began, and it's not hard to see why. It nearly doubled the sales of its predecessor, achieved outstanding critical acclaim, and helped set the standard for both the Uncharted series and the character-based action game as a whole. This was one of the first games which had enough epic scenes that made you feel like you were playing an action movie, and the graphics to back them up. As a result, it's an incredibly immersive title, especially in its first two-thirds. And even if it doesn't necessarily stick the ending all that well, or fix every single issue that existed in Uncharted 1, the leap in quality has only gotten more noticeable as time has gone on. To take what was a generic, relatively uninspired 3rd person shooter and turn it into this, in only two years? That is immensely impressive. Greatness from small beginnings, indeed.

I still dont get why this game was considered as a masterpiece.
I dont like stories that needs to make the rest of the cast so dumb and incompetent to make our main character look smart, cool and badass. That's precisely what happens here, the story isn't good at all.
And whats left of gameplay is just a shallow simple third person cover shooting that feels worse than Gears of War despite being released 3 years after.
Since the graphics aged badly i have no reason to pretend this game was ever good, and in a way this game is one of the pioneers of linear movie games, i just dont appreciate it in any shape or form.

I think it's fair to say that if you don't like Uncharted 2, you just don't really enjoy cinematic-style gaming that much. Among Thieves may have the greatest delta in quality between a video game sequel and its immediate predecessor - there are probably better examples, but this is certainly the most high-profile - and it delivers thrill after thrill for its entire runtime. Its reputation as an all-time great game has led to some backlash in recent years. Just to be clear, this is not some great and shining example of Games as Art, and it's pretty clear that the game itself never aimed for such a lofty goal. This is a video game that's trying its absolute best to emulate a certain style of blockbuster cinema - even down to the pithy, too-clever quips - and it absolutely succeeds in the execution. That's really the bottom line. That final boss fight really, really sucks though, especially on the hardest difficulty.

OH BOY this was not as good as I remember. Still an enjoyable "cinematic" adventure story, if you're into that type of thing.
The concept of a shooter/platformer/puzzle game is novel but the sum leaves a lot to be desired in all areas.
I feel like the multiplayer is very overlooked, pretty tactical and satisfying for the time. The multiplayer maps integrated the platforming and shooter mechanics better than the main game.
Probably giving half a star more to nostalgia and the impact of the plot on my 13 year old brain (very epic, best game I'd ever played).

Much better. Still has some of the same niggles as the first ie poor combat, frustratingly obtuse puzzles and level design that just doesn't seem that play tested. The game has NO idea what to do when you break off from the beaten path. Stealth mechanics are introduced in the first 'proper' level and then immediately after you are given a large snowy area and are free to face these enemies how you see fit. Here's the issue, WHY showcase a stealth mechanic to the game if you're just gonna punish me for using it in an applicable sense? You heard right, the game straight up insta kills you in this section for getting past all the guards with stealth kills. These games are like being strapped to a rollercoaster but you have to keep the restraints held down yourself. Can't even fathom thinking this is a 96 on metacritic, even for the time.