About 8 years ago, I played Uncharted 2 at a friend's house and was blown away. I was a Monster Energy-drinking edgelord Xbox 360 user who'd never touched a Playstation controller. I was disgusted by my friend who advocated Sony's supremacy over my precious Xbox. Nothing could replace Halo or Gears of War (LOL). The illusion was shattered once I started playing Uncharted. The gameplay was heart racing, the story impossible to pull away from. The shooting and climbing were better than in any game I've ever played.

This is all to say that back then I loved the formula. But playing an Uncharted game now makes for a slightly disappointing experience. The gameplay felt unsatisfying. I couldn't climb anything I wasn't meant to climb. The shooting was hard to aim, and it was obvious the designers would have preferred you turn on auto assist instead of programming better shooting. The story and pacing were sluggish and every chapter is repetitive, and the few chapters that aren't exactly the same as the others manage to be the most boring in the whole game. I could only ever see myself replaying the chapters in Madagascar. Besides that, there's only a few worthwhile segments in the whole game.

The difficulty is way harder than in past entries, making stealth the optimal play style. This strikes a great balance between the mandatory shoot and cover sections and the stealth sections. It's the puzzles and climbing that bog everything down. There's definitely ways these sections could be way more enjoyable, but in this state they feel like glorified cut scenes. Especially when all the puzzles beg to spoil the answer if you cant solve them after a few minutes.

My biggest problem in particular is everything they do to make this feel like a cutting edge current-gen game that end up feeling like half measures. There are massive open areas for you to explore, but unless you explore it in the exact on-rails fashion the game demands you to, you cant actually explore. The graphics are amazing, but yet the game feels the exact same, if not less than, the amazing games the series was born from a decade ago.

Besides all my complaints I still had fun and the online is great too.

Reviewed on Aug 03, 2021


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