I think my biggest takeaway from Uncharted 2 is "this is where the series should have started," and that statement is both my biggest praise and biggest criticism of this game. It is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor in terms of how much less frustrating the shootouts are and how much easier it is to know what you're supposed to do in exploration and puzzles; it doesn't completely escape the problems of the first game, but the difference is that in Uncharted 1 there were multiple instances in which I wanted to put the game down, and in Uncharted 2 I only ever wanted to keep playing it. That is the sign of a successful sequel in my eyes.

All that being said, this is still a game that I was very unimpressed with. The cover system is still broken; Drake doesn't put himself in the line of fire as much as he did in the first game, but he does get stuck behind pillars or on ledges that you don't want him to, or sometimes will just stand there when you DO want him to take cover. A lot of the shootouts end up feeling different from each other, which I appreciate, but that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of them, and in the end game it felt like there were too many without much diversity.

My biggest issue is that outside of gunfights the game feels like it plays itself. The set pieces look cool but they're so shallow because you know from the very beginning that you will never be in any danger when these moments are happening; they are too automated. And because of how automated they feel, when the game opens up and has you do a bunch of puzzles it feels like a slog because of how much of a drastic shift in effort it requires. They aren't even hard, they just feel hard (and are tedious) because the rest of the game is so boring in comparison.

The best part of the game, just like the first, is the performances. Dialogue, voice acting, motion capture, even the animations during cutscenes are all incredible. I really didn't care about the story or the characters very much at all, but just watching everything in action kept me hooked.

But I feel like that's kind of a backhanded compliment, because by having the performances be the best part of the game, the experience as a whole just feels like squandered potential for a decent movie. If it had been a movie, it would have been way less impressive, to be fair, but still, something's wrong when watching the game is more enjoyable than playing the game. The difference in quality is too great.

Had Uncharted 1 started this good and the series only got better, my opinion on the series as a whole might be drastically different. As it is, I can recommend you skip Uncharted 1 and play this on its own. And my hope is that Uncharted 3 isn't as bad as people say it is, and that Uncharted 4 actually benefits from a jump in hardware power and an entire trilogy's worth of experience to make it a game I will actually enjoy.

Uncharted 2 is a longer game than Uncharted 1, yet it feels shorter, because the pacing is impeccable. And that's really what carries the game. The breakneck pacing.

The game starts with you hanging off of a train, then flashes back to a botched heist, and then suddenly you're shooting russians in a jungle and talking about Marco Polo, and by the end of the game you're blasting through swarms of immortal yeti people while jumping through an exploding lost civilization.

It's dumb, the shooting's fun, and I enjoyed every second of it.

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.

It feels weird to talk about this game. On the one hand, I'm able to see it as the Indiana Jones styled rip off of tomb raider that so many people claim it to be. On the other hand, it's my favorite game of all time. I think if you see Uncharted 2 as nothing more than shallow cover to cover shooting with boring climbing sections and nothing in between, then I think you're missing the point of what a cinematic action adventure game to be. This game never existed to have complicated climbing or super in depth shooting. It tries nothing more than to entertain, and it does that fully for me. Its exciting, got some of the best character writing of any game, and is legitimately the best action movie of any video game ever made. I love it