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).

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 :-)

Uncharted 2, my favorite video game of all time, opens with an absolutely show-stopping set piece. Nathan Drake wakes up in a traincar with a bullet in his gut, and before long is falling backwards as the train car begins to falls off the cliff. Nate grabs at seats, handles bars, anything he can, and barely grabs the last possible thing he can. How is he going to get out of this one?

But that’s not even the craziest part. From there we see as Nate climbs his way to safety in gameplay that puts the on-rails climbing to fantastic use. This sequence would only be the beginning of a breakneck thrill ride that is Uncharted 2, an absolutely unforgettable achievement in video game storytelling.

This time around Nate is searching for Marco Polo’s lost fleet, a job that his old treasure hunting associates Chloe and Flynn pull him into. The in medias res structure works perfectly, since we have no idea how Nate is going to find himself barreling off a snowy cliff in an empty passenger train car. Chloe and Flynn instantly make a massive impression and their banter with Nate through the gameplay is just fantastic.

While Uncharted 1 took place on one island and felt samey after a while in boring jungle ruins, this game trots around the globe before eventually into the enthralling setting of Nepal. The nation’s culture and folklore blends in with the adventure storytelling in a really stunning way.

Uncharted 2 never lets up the brakes as you’re transported from a high-octane shootout, perilous platforming escape, or even incredible puzzle room. It’s nearly impossible to put down since there the entire experience flows so well.

Characters deftly weave in and out of the story. I loved the way in which Elena comes back into the fold, a smart writing decision that creates a very compelling love triangle since it’s impossible not to love both Elena and Chloe. While the villain Zoran Lazaravic is a very simple pure evil character, he’s so menacing and unhinged that he works for me as an antagonist.

Everything has been improved from the first game with more platforming throughout the action sequences, small but significant improvements to hand-to-hand scuffles and gunplay. It’s a longer and more involved adventure with an excellent climax.

The game also leaps ahead of the first in its presentation. It could come out today and still look gorgeous. Harry Gregson-Williams continues to knock it out of the park with his orchestrations that really drive the adventure home.

Interestingly, Uncharted 2 had an online multiplayer mode which actually was a lot of fun. The platforming and cover-based shooting turns out to be a good fit for duking it out online. I can’t tell you how many team elimination matches I played back in the day. The maps are really excellent and play into the verticality made possible with Uncharted’s mechanics. There’s even a horde survival mode that’s fun to take on with two buddies.

Among Thieves is the perfect console experience for me. Of course you can nitpick some things (bullet sponge enemy types later in the game are annoying, and the final boss fight could be better), but it really is a fantastic action-adventure I’ll never forget. I’ve played it to credits at least ten times, and I’m sure I will play it many more.

Infinitely better than the first game! The pacing and execution of the story and set pieces is perfect and most locations have at least a few exceptional “cinematic moments”. The train sequence may be one of the greatest levels in any game ever and it’s so fun to play through. The integration of climbing and shooting improved the gunplay substantially and while the later half of the game has some dull combat sections, the vast majority of them are super entertaining and the puzzles have been improved a lot too. Overall a great sequel and tied with A Thief's End as my favorite in the series.

Uncharted 2 is essentially the perfect sequel. It takes everything from the first game in the series, Drake’s Fortune, and improves upon it by adding more exciting set pieces, a better story and more varied gameplay. Although the game only came out two years after the original, you can tell that Naughty Dog really went the extra mile when crafting this game and didn’t just repeat what they had done before.

Story and Characters
-Nathan Drake is once again the star of the game and he continues to be an incredible character. He is charming and incredibly likable and also a very capable hero that is easy to root for. Uncharted 2 doesn’t do too much to add any new depth to his character from the first game, but it does continue to have him interacting with new characters that leads to a lot of great dynamics. He is voiced incredibly well by Nolan North and it is not hard to see why Nathan Drake became one of the most popular video game protagonists.
-The side characters in the game also really shine. Drake’s main companions in the game are Chloe Frazer and Elena Fisher, Elena being a character players saw in the first game. These female side characters are both fantastic and while they both serve as love interests to Nathan, they are much more than just parts in a love triangle. Chloe is a flirty, capable adventurer and you can never be entirely sure of her allegiance, while Elena comes off as more proper and not as experienced with Drake’s hectic world. Seeing the two characters interact with Nathan and each other is very entertaining largely due to the witty and fun dialogue. Nathan’s primary companion, Victor Sullivan, is put on the back burner for the large majority of the game which is a bit of a shame and the justification the game provides for it is also rather weak, but it does allow the story to focus on the female supporting characters which I enjoyed.
-The main antagonist of the game is Zoran Lazarević, a ruthless Russian mercenary who has his own nefarious reasons for pursuing the treasure. He is a decent enough villain, but fairly generic and really just serves as someone to provide an army of soldiers to fight and a bad guy to stop, but it also works given the type of story the game is telling.
-The main story of the game is a fun adventure that spans over several countries and is full of fun twists and turns and archeological reveals. The story opens with a fun suspenseful scene and the early chapters mess around with the order of events. The pacing of the story is well done and there is never a moment in the game that drags.

Gameplay
-The gameplay is very simple and consists mainly of a lot of shooting and climbing, but the game does a good job varying it up. In some missions, you are sneaking around a museum avoiding security guards, in another section, you are fighting off a helicopter while on a moving train. The game constantly changes things up and the various weapons you can collect from enemies also help add variety to the combat. I do wish you could hold more than two weapons at a time, but there is so much ammo and different guns that I suppose it isn’t too big of an issue.
-The set pieces in this game are really the best part and show how improved this game is from the first. Some standouts include a battle on top of a train, a car chase through a moving convoy and being pursued by a tank through a Tibetan town.
-I do wish there was a bit more side content as the game is very linear and there is nothing to collect besides treasures that don’t really add anything, but considering when the game was released, it isn’t too much of a negative. I tend to like when games have skill trees or upgrades, but the game doesn’t suffer too much despite not having them because of how fun and varied the settings and levels are.
-A minor complaint with the game would be there are some intense difficulty spikes in certain areas. I only played on the regular difficulty, but there would be certain areas where I would die several times. Sometimes it was because I made a mistake, but there are some other times when it feels like the game just throws a bit too much at you. It can be mildly annoying how bullet spongey some of the enemies are as well. Obviously it is a video game, but because it has such a good story and feels cinematic, it feels more out of place to have enemies that take a full magazine of ammo.

Side Content
-As mentioned before, there really isn’t any side content and the game is quite linear. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice to have a bit more to do or maybe some side objectives similar to Resident Evil 4.

World/Level Design
-This is another area where the game really shines. While the first game took place all on one tropical island, Uncharted 2 spans a large variety of locations that all feel very distinct from one another. You travel from Istanbul to Borneo, Nepal to Tibet and even into the Himalayas. All the locations look great, the remaster did a good job improving on the look of everything and makes it so a game that is around 15 years old, still really holds up.

Graphics, Sound, Music and Glitches
-As mentioned, the graphics are really good and you can tell that Naughty Dog did a lot of motion capture for their characters. The animations look very fluid and the environments are incredibly detailed.
-The sound design in the game is very good. The shots from machine guns and the collapsing of buildings all sound great. I am not sure why, but Nathan reloading his gun and throwing the old magazine on the ground always had a very satisfying clang in my opinion.
-The music in the game is fantastic, every location has its own tracks that really add to the atmosphere. The main Uncharted theme is also used very well and adds to the excitement of what is happening on screen.
-I did not encounter any glitches on my play through which is always a big win. The game was remastered so that may have provided an extra opportunity to give the game a layer of polish.

Main Positives of the Game
-Incredible story and characters that make the game extremely engaging throughout. All the characters are likable and the dialogue is extremely well done.
-The gameplay is a lot of fun and the gunplay holds up pretty well. The variety in the gameplay is quite good considering how simple the gameplay first appears. The puzzles are rather easy, but they are also decently fun.
-The settings and levels are very well crafted and I loved how much variety there was to all of them.
-Great soundtrack and sound design.

Main Negatives of the Game
-The game is very linear, it would be cool if the environments were a bit more open.
-Some areas that were rather difficult and a bit frustrating at times.
-Some enemies that are too bullet spongy.

Overall Score: 9/10

The Uncharted series has always seemed as close to a movie as a game can get, the uncharted games have always felt at their strongest when they were as big as they possibly could get with massive setpieces like the opening of Uncharted 2 when you are hanging from a train in the snow which is about to fall off a cliff. It gives me that same feeling that a film like 1992's Hardboiled gives me, it's just plain awesome it's pure action adventure bliss.

The worst bit about uncharted 2 and the uncharted series as a whole is its shooting mechanic, its just simply not very responsive or satisfying. All the guns as well don't have much of a difference to each other, with it being more useful to just stick to one gun the entire game than switching around like you would in a series like Halo or Half-Life.

Overall Uncharted 2 is a love letter to action films of the past with its expansive Indiana Jones like story and massive blockbuster setpieces, its a must have for fans of action adventure games and must have for PlayStation diehards.

Finished my 4th playthrough the other day and yeah, this game still slaps. I played on Crushing and outside of spending far too long on the final boss, I found the difficulty to be pretty much perfect (on The Nathan Drake Collection mind you, I’ve heard the original PS3 version suffered from its own share of balancing issues).

It’s crazy to think how much of an improvement this title was over Drake’s Fortune; despite both games being almost identical in terms of mechanics, the way that Among Thieves uses these systems places it in an almost entirely different genre. While Uncharted 1 kept its platforming and puzzle sections independent from its predominantly third-person shooter design, its sequel instead blends its 3D-platformer elements with the standard gameplay of ‘Gears of War meets Tomb Raider’ to create some truly jaw-dropping set-pieces (and also some more memorable puzzles thankfully). I’m not even saying that Drake’s Fortune is a terrible game, Resident Evil 4 had revolutionized the design of 3rd person action-adventure titles only 2 years prior after all, and the original Uncharted is still a fairly enjoyable romp today despite all of its dated aspects. But all someone has to do is play through the train sequence (which boggles my mind how Naughty Dog even got that to work), or the frantic, snow-covered car chase in Tibet, to understand the quality difference between the two games.

While Uncharted 2’s plot doesn’t quite match the emotional power of The Last of Us, it makes up for it with its charming cast, excellent voice acting, and witty dialogue. Whether it be the lovable rogue Nathan Drake, the confident and ever-so-cool Chloe Frazer, or the anti-Nathan found in the character of Harry Flynn, the characters in this game are just plain likable. While there are plot-holes, and the primary antagonist is a little cliched, it all functions well with the self-aware tone of the game, and is again, a major improvement from the mostly barebones story and underdeveloped villains from the first game. My only major complaint really would be that one of the best characters in the series, Victor Sullivan, is dropped from the story pretty early on – I would have liked to have seen more of him.

When broken-down to its basics, this game isn’t actually all that special; it is still Gears of War with an Indiana Jones coat of paint, like the first game. But its about how these lesser parts are used to create something larger, and between all the things I already mentioned, as well as the outstanding visuals and camera angles, Among Thieves still holds up after all these years.