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My Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune review if you want more context (beware of the quality difference! I feel like I’ve improved a lot since then).

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is often heralded a masterpiece, the best of the franchise, and is certainly one of the most beloved Playstation exclusives of all time—with people praising the abundance of exhilarating high-spectacle set pieces, the pulpy nature of both the story and characters, and the pure adventure of it all. If you want a review that’ll regurgitate all of that to you… then you’ve come to the wrong place. I like this game. I enjoyed it. It’s good. And it’s a step-up from Drake’s Fortune. But in my humble opinion, it’s severely overrated, and I’m convinced most people take a big dose of copium/nostalgia when they rate this game a perfect score (not that you shouldn’t). And I get it! This isn’t a first-time playthrough for me, I used to play these first two games religiously when I was younger, and I loved both of them, but as you’ve just read—my love for them has only deteriorated. Recently I’ve found myself longing for something more, something more personal, something that might challenge me—however that may be, and maybe that’s on me for placing such expectations on an Uncharted game, but I go into every game with those expectations—sometimes they’re met, sometimes they’re not—regardless, I appreciate the games that make me feel, more than the games that are nothing but a short stop at the entertainment venue. Which is all this game is. It’s not complex, it’s very simple in fact—too simple. There’s no finesse or depth to the combat, the platforming is nothing but an excuse to prolong the game and give you a chance to look at some beautiful environments (the only valid reason), the puzzles are still the most undemanding and pointless inclusions I’ve ever seen in a game like this; everything—from the gameplay to the story is by-the-books and uninspired. It’s like Uncharted 2 is an appetizer—something light before the main course; an experience so weightless, that you’ll forget it ever happened within a week of finishing the game (I know how silly that sounds given its acclaim). But you might ask… why the three stars (albeit an extremely low three)? Well for that reason alone: the entertainment value. I can’t deny that I had fun. So from here on out, this review will be split into three parts: the story, characters, and gameplay. And will detail why I—personally—believe these aspects to be a front for Naughty Dog to fill the screen with destruction galore and a bunch of big explosions.

I’m not going to shamelessly recap the story, if you want—here’s a short video that’ll do just that in case you haven’t played the game, but… who hasn’t? So if you can go off by memory, then do that—but let’s not kid ourselves here, this game doesn’t have much of a story so you’ll be fine!

I want to paint a picture for you. Imagine laying down on your bed during a rainy night, turning on your PS5, booting up the game… and you hear it. Those drums—in quick succession, building. The brass coming in with an adventurous and heroic melody, slowly dying down to reveal a melancholic strain that—signifies something more, something deeper; before building one final time to finish in an epic flourish that combines both parts. That’s right… it’s Nate’s Theme 2.0. Differing from 1.0 in the way of more instruments, but I’m no music expert so I can’t really elaborate on that. This theme—unlike the actual game—imbues nostalgia in me on a level I can’t describe, and is able to deliver more emotion—than the entirety of the game—in less than two minutes. Greg Edmonson clearly wanted to iconify something, and he succeeded with flying colors. This singular theme is some of the best video game music I’ve ever heard, and clashes tonally with the story of Uncharted 2 in a way that has always stood out to me. It’s deep, thought-provoking, and emotional—whereas the story is none of those things. In typical Uncharted fashion, it’s an amalgamation of tropes from a bunch of action-adventure movies that were released in the 80s, with the huge one being Indiana Jones; the globe-trotting adventure, the romance, the betrayals, the artifacts, the villain’s self-serving desire to rule the world—among many, many more. Which is why people often defend the pulpy nature of it. They say “It’s not meant to be thought about!”. They say “Don’t take it so seriously!”. They say “Who cares? It’s just an action movie!”. I say… is the genre of action-adventure-pulp an excuse to write a painfully mediocre script that massively prioritizes style over substance whilst expecting the audience to not question any plot decisions? Because there’s a ton of stuff that doesn’t make any sense in this game; alongside creative decisions I fundamentally disagree with (I’ll go into some of those when I talk about characters). So as per usual, Nathan Drake is back to steal another artifact so he can stock up on some V-Bucks given how his last adventure left him broke—both in terms of relationship and financial status. I’m bringing this up because it’s one of my biggest issues with the story here; there’s hardly any connective tissue between Drake’s Fortune and Among Thieves. It’s a sequel, yes, but I’m confident anyone could start with this one without batting an eye. It’s a return to normalcy. A return to the status quo. Last game’s story? Oh that! Forget about it… I mean it. Nate and Elena’s promising relationship? Yeah? I said fucking forget it dude… or else. Because they got together and broke up off-screen! It’s a shining example of the similarities between Uncharted and other action-adventure/espionage films such as Indiana Jones or James Bond—odd example, I know—but it’s an issue that plagues a lot of these massive blockbusters, the fact that nothing ever progresses from one to the next apart from obscure references. It’s all a clean slate! None of it will ever amount to any meaningful character work or a storyline (or a part of one) that develops throughout the entire series. I understand that’s a defining characteristic of these films/games, but it’s an aspect that’s always been seared into the back of my brain while playing—that none of it matters, the outcome will always be the same. And maybe it speaks to my disinterest in the genre of action-adventure pulp, but it’s hard to be invested. It’s hard to care. And is that an unfair mindset to hold… since that’s exactly what Naughty Dog were aiming for? I don’t know. I can’t tell you that. Maybe. Maybe not. All I can do is tell you how this game made me feel. And it made me feel precisely nothing. If it weren’t for some of those high-octane set pieces, this would easily fall into the forever nothingness of… “mid”.

To be completely blunt, there’s not much worth talking about in terms of story—that wouldn’t be me mindlessly recapping it while interjecting at certain points with a comment. It’s all based around beats like “Hey, take a look at this map/note/symbol”, “Let’s go here”, set piece ensues, which now that I’m thinking about it… is a critique in and of itself huh? But I’d much rather talk about Among Thieves’ implementation of the supernatural… You can probably tell by my “tone” that I don’t really like the supernatural element in this franchise at all. Now, this is the part where a lot of the Uncharted fandom is divided. Some fans love it—exclaiming that it’s what gives these games their own identity; while other players (myself included) dislike it because of their intrusiveness and out-of-place feel. I want to preface that having supernatural elements isn’t inherently a bad thing, I actually applaud Naughty Dog for taking that approach in the first place; as I would agree with “some fans” in saying it gives these games a unique touch… but the execution is half-baked at best. The structure of exploring these elements has been the same in both games; occurring towards the latter-half, introducing fresh locales with new (annoying) enemies—which links in with gameplay—and treating the whole ordeal as a twist (from the perspective of the characters). It comes off as very predictable storytelling. There’s always a massive change in tone that happens during the second half—as it’s kept relatively “grounded” for the first. It’s inconsistent and an annoying way of splitting up the game. If they’re going to go in that direction, then commit to the idea of the supernatural? It’s no surprise that the beginning-to-middle of these games are always the most enjoyable and fresh parts (for a myriad of reasons—gameplay included). It’s funny, because I genuinely like the setting of Shambala towards the end, but how come we didn’t get to spend any time there? Apart from two—heavily combat focused—chapters. Let me absorb the gorgeously vivid, breathtaking atmosphere, let me explore the undeniably zany culture of the guardians, let me ground myself in this completely new world! But no, instead we have to hurry to the next set piece! This hearkens back to what I said about Uncharted’s story elements near the beginning of my review; it feels like they’re an excuse to push the player into countless action sequences. Can they ever slow down? Can they ever actually take the time and effort to do something outside the box? Hell, even the Indiana Jones movies did that! And the rushed nature of the Shambala segment wasn’t even worth it, because it resulted in a laughably bad boss fight followed by a (pretty much) beat-for-beat ending of the first game. Like??? I’m sorry if all of this comes off as nitpicky or… petty, but I don’t know how else to express my thoughts on this game, it doesn’t sit right with me. And to end this segment off, I don’t know why Nate and Elena have trouble believing in Shambala's legitimacy when they literally encountered Nazi-fucking-zombies in the last game? Why do they all of a sudden find the possibility of a secret city hard to believe… it makes no sense, I don’t buy it. All in all, it’s safe to say that I didn’t enjoy the story of Among Thieves—much like its predecessor! It’s middling in some aspects—downright bad in others, and doesn’t try to do anything new or worthwhile. I don’t know much about Uncharted 4, but I do know that it takes a completely different approach to its storytelling, a far more realistic and nuanced approach, which makes me curious, hopeful, and above all else—excited—to get to that entry.

“You got a great ass, Sully.”

If there’s one thing I undeniably like about this franchise… it’s the characters—or more accurately their witty and sarcastic interactions with each other. It’s what makes those “going from point A to B” sections of the game tolerable and occasionally funny. What’s better is there’s more characters in this one. In Drake’s Fortune it was mostly centered around Nate and Elena—who have the least amount of chemistry due to the fact that they’re both very different people and thus have less of an aptitude for bouncing off of each other in humorous or creative ways. Not to say that I don’t like her or the pairing in general—because I do! It’s actually one of my most anticipated aspects of the fourth game, but the writing lets it down in this entry because of how focused it is on those sarcastic comments instead of building up their relationship or showing why they even… like each other? I need more to truly care about them as a couple; instead of constantly telling the audience that Nate’s jealous of Jeff through little remarks with Chloe, how about you have Nate talk about what exactly their relationship was like, what went wrong, and why he wants to get back together with her. I know you’d be sacrificing the humor (for a few chapters), but it’d do magnitudes in building up their dynamic. What’s even better is you could intertwine those moments around Chloe. Build up all three of their characters at once! But they clearly had no intention of doing anything even remotely similar to that… which is why the ending when they get back together comes off as rushed and weirdly… out of place? I didn’t pick up on any sexual tension between them while playing, it’s not like they were getting closer or more intimate throughout. It’s almost like it’s a happy ending for the sake of a happy ending, it means precisely fucking nothing because it says nothing. I do wonder if they’ll still be together in the third game, or if she’ll even be in the next game. Maybe a potential return to the status quo!? I can’t wait!

Nate & Chloe take more of the focus here (at least for the first half), a nice surprise since I liked her selfish and double-crossing manner—in what is otherwise an underdeveloped character—making for some fairly compelling and unexpected moment to moment gameplay. She’s just really fun?—as if this franchise needed even more of that… but it does make me excited for her spin-off. The title of best duo easily goes to Nate & Sully though, which is a shame considering he’s only in two chapters. That’s a missed opportunity and a half. So much of Uncharted’s identity is based around their father-son bond, so it’s weird to me that I haven’t seen any of that two whole games in (much less a critique and more of an observation). Like who the fuck are these people? Does Sully not care about Nate’s well being as he left him with a woman he barely knows to go off to find Shambala of all places? He then magically reappears at the end with no explanation… I really don’t appreciate the Sully underutilization. His displeased reluctancy to every situation is the best part of this series.

A huge point of contention within this franchise is the whole “Nate is a bad person who kills hundreds of people without remorse” argument. I only kind of agree with this. Ludonarrative dissonance is a term that effectively means there’s a difference between the narrative and gameplay elements in a game, one doesn’t necessarily have to adhere to the other for continuity's sake; they’re basically two different—isolated parts of a game that don’t share the same logic. With this term in mind, Nate doesn’t actually kill hundreds of people in a single day, it’s more like a dozen (from boss fights/cutscenes). And I don’t have an issue with this explanation at all, I mean—sure, it’d be an interesting way to deconstruct a character like Nate; integrate themes of mortality and morality, but in the end—it’s not what Naughty Dog were aiming for, so the exclusion is fine. But my issue lies more with how inconsistent that explanation is when you take the ending into account. Why did they bring it up? Why did they call attention to it? If they hadn’t, there’s no issue… but they did. Not only did they call it out through one of the worst villains I’ve ever seen, it’s also an outright dumb thing for the game to do considering they’ve put no effort into establishing that as part of its themes. The closest they get is Nate not wanting to kill any innocent guards during chapter two… but… he throws one off the side of a building? In all fairness, he swims away if you look down, but why would Nate assume that he can swim? Or that the fall wouldn’t kill him since it’s a 15+ story fall? Or that he wouldn’t hit any walls or rocks on the way down? Again, I’m probably not supposed to think about this! But I am, and it makes no sense. It seems like the swimming away part was added to counteract all the people that would’ve called out the inconsistency. It’s half-assed and lazy. Lazarević’s entire speech introduces the idea that Nate is “merciless” and “cruel”... and he’d be right. But why does he then take issue with killing Lazarević when he’s murdered countless goons who have families and are probably only doing their security job? So you’re telling me he can kill goons... but not the one genuinely terrible person who absolutely deserves to die? I got severe whiplash when this cutscene played because of the drastic change in tone; the entire game up until this point had been light fun with a few moments of drama sprinkled in—yet now they’re talking about morality and shared violence—taking issue with killing horrible people when they didn’t before. It’s a weird shift. To my surprise Nate doesn’t kill Lazarević and instead lets the Guardians finish him off—sort of disproving his point, but I’m pretty sure he returns to cool old-fashioned murder right after this game? So I guess it was all in vain and didn’t mean anything. Great! Thanks Naughty Dog, for some genuinely fantastic writing here! I said this before, but I’m fine with ludonarrative dissonance—as long as they don’t call attention to it, but they did the exact opposite, and not only that—but in such an arbitrary way. On a fundamental level, I think story and gameplay should acknowledge each other. I think it leads to a more well-rounded experience, and exhibits intention where there otherwise wouldn’t be, which is contrary to how it appears here—intention-less! And more like a way to cover up their writing mistakes.

The way all of this is delivered through Lazarević is the most shocking aspect though. Lots of people go on about how he’s the series’ best villain, and if that’s the case… what the fuck am I in for with the rest of this franchise? Because he’s not good at all. He comes across as cartoonish and mustache-twirling—and not even in an entertaining or fun way. There’s usually something to latch onto with other roles of the same caliber; the actor’s performance, their personality, mannerisms—but here he’s so shallow. He’s a big tough military guy, who… wants money—no, he wants power! Woah! Really fun and creative Naughty Dog! He’s more of a physical obstacle for Nate to overcome than a character with his own story. Does he impact Nate in any meaningful way? Does he allude to any themes? Does he do anything of value? No. He’s dull and generic. I can’t stress enough how bored I was whenever he popped up. Flynn on the other hand would’ve been a much better alternative, he actually had a charming personality and some chemistry with Nate—not to mention history too! I don’t know why he went out in such a disappointingly anticlimactic way when he was clearly the superior character.

“Yeah, good luck pal, that's almost impossible to- oh, you did it. Nice.”

We’ve arrived at Uncharted’s most middling aspect, and that’s obviously the gameplay. I’d say this is a universally agreed on opinion, I don’t think anyone genuinely likes Uncharted’s gameplay enough to play an isolated version of it. It’s not what makes their games, as it’s a common complaint thrown at literally everything they’ve ever developed. There’s more variety in Among Thieves when compared to Drake’s Fortune no doubt—as it’s a sequel, but I don’t think it fixes any glaring issues the first game had, or improves upon any existing systems in noticeable or note-worthy ways. But… how can they really improve this system? Structurally, it requires the player to rush into every room to hit headshots with a bunch of interchangeable weapons; there’s not much here, they dug their own grave when they made the gameplay take the form of a semi-grounded cover shooter. Naturally, a lot of this game’s praise comes from the set piece moments—and oh lemme tell you! They’re fun as hell! Going from that iconic first chapter of having to scale a train that’s slowly toppling down a cliff—while bleeding all over the place, to sliding down a collapsing building, progressing through a moving train while being bombarded by a helicopter, running from a tank, hopping from moving truck to moving truck—albeit clunkily… it’s all great stuff. There’s a lot of variety in terms of set pieces here. But seeing how (mostly) short they are, it doesn’t sustain the game with “fun” throughout, as right after one of these… you’re forced to do another shooting room! And another climbing section! And for some unknown reason… the first chapter again (that’s right they make you repeat it twice, they could’ve easily connected the two timelines by having Nate resume from where he was before). They also could’ve put more effort into making mundane objectives more fun… like to disable an alarm system in chapter two all you have to do is flip a lever by finding it in the most obvious place ever and pressing a single button. Like that’s it? Hell if that’s what it takes to turn off alarms maybe I should get into the burglary business! I know it shouldn’t explicitly adhere to reality’s rules, but they could’ve done something there? Put in a short minigame, a puzzle of sorts—as it already has a limited number of those. I say all of this but I actually did enjoy the stealthy nature of the second chapter, I thought it was a unique way to pace the game out and it was surprisingly creative with unconventional level design. Rooftops laid out in a fairly linear but open type way, never making the player feel like they’re on rails or being guided by a hand in the sky; allowing for choice (although usually only two) in terms of how you approach “combat” scenarios or make your way to the next objective. Thankfully the QTE’s from Drake’s Fortune are gone too, but there’s still remnants of that here. Button prompts are littered everywhere (although I guess that’s a staple of the seventh console generation), but I wish they flowed into gameplay seamlessly instead of being real-time cutscenes. It’s a whole lotta “boost me”, “pull down the bridge”, “open the door”, it exemplifies the “companionship” vibe, but gameplay-wise—it does nothing and its repetitiveness is starting to sink in for me.

Similarly, the same thing can be said about the shooting—but I won’t be as gracious with it… It’s the goddamn same. Among Thieves? No dude, it’s Drake’s Fortune. There are no improvements here, apart from a bigger variety of weapons that don’t impact gameplay whatsoever, as you can practically put all the weapons into one of two groups: slow fire rate vs fast fire rate; and the difficulty of the fight will be determined by which of these you have. The awful—inaccurate bloom makes its return; when my crosshair is directly on top of an enemy’s head, the bullet somehow flies off to fucking Mars? The shooting is arcadey enough as it is, so I don’t know why they would intentionally make it this way. It’s so heavily rooted in luck. The weapons in general lack kick and oomph. Sound design is flat and sterile so it feels like you’re using a pea-shooter most of the time; guns do not feel like guns. This next thing might sound like a nitpick, but it makes a world of difference in a heat-of-the-moment shoot-out; whenever you’re aiming and decide to change shoulders—and by chance let go and re-aim, it switches back to the default (right) shoulder. This disrupts the flow of gameplay since it constantly demands changing it back—causing a potential death (this is especially annoying on crushing/brutal difficulty). It’s even worse on specific chapters that have shallow walls placed in the environment—meaning you can’t properly hide behind them (without using the cover mechanic—which in and of itself is hit or miss and doesn’t work a lot of the time). Although I appreciate that Among Thieves places most cover spots in naturalistic parts of the map; for example, in a jungle, a cover spot might be a tree, whereas the first game had an excessive amount of boxes placed everywhere, even if it made no logical sense (this is still a problem here, but less prominent). And a little side note; I genuinely hate the M32 Hammer and the RPG. Those two weapons don’t have a blast radius which is an odd choice. They both shoot explosives, and I have to treat them like any other gun—directly shooting at enemies’ chests. It’s just another reason—in a sea full of them—that the guns feel awful. Where’s the distinctiveness? Where’s the power and force? They’re fucking explosives! It’s really lackluster weapon design.

You know those moments in God of War (2018) when you’re climbing a mountain, or shuffling through a crack in a wall to another section of the map, or generally scaling something? Yeah, those moments work because you have constant banter, and more often than not important character building. There’s a back and forth there. Which is the entire reason those moments work. They progress arcs, give context—have value, and generally provide something to hold your attention as you get to the next fight or story moment. Among Thieves doesn’t have any of that. It feels like you’re climbing just for the sake of climbing. There’s some occasional banter, but with all the issues I went over regarding characters—those don’t do much when all they’re good for is making you laugh (sometimes). Are the environments captivating to observe from such heights? Yeah. But that’s not enough of a reason to validate the entire existence of the aforementioned gameplay segments when that’s all you’re doing. These moments are the worst parts of the entire game, not for any insulting or frustrating reason, but more so because they’re just really boring to play, and that’s arguably the most heinous thing a game can do. Not to mention how clunky the movement is in general. I don’t know if this was only an issue on my end, but Nate would sometimes jump/climb in the wrong direction despite me pressing/holding the right buttons. And it only became really noticeable on my third playthrough. The only time the platforming worked for me was chapter six, when you were in Nepal and were going in and out of this huge building as you made your way to the top. I liked the scale and the intricacies of the layout. But nothing—and I repeat nothing, will make me hate the fake-out falls any less. Am I a fucking moron? Because I don’t get what these add to the game. Some tension? Some fear? Or is it to make the game more cinematic? If so that’s all well and good, but maybe keep a limit on them? Don’t throw in hundreds scene after scene (slight exaggeration but that’s what it felt like). The one huge positive I’ll say is that they went above and beyond with the placement of treasure. Something as miniscule as collecting collectibles has never been quite as satisfying, and it’s all very creative and clever. There’s a genuinely worth-while incentive to grab them too—with rewards such as skins, cheats, weapons, etc, being unlocked. It makes future playthroughs more fun and I wish this was standard practice in most games with collectibles.

But all of these issues (with shooting and movement) culminate in the boss fights, and it’s almost like I’m fighting against the game during those moments, which is obviously frustrating. The train carriage one was tacked on—it didn’t serve a purpose, and felt claustrophobic (I realize that’s intentional, but the shoddy movement made it a nightmare). Lazarević’s was the biggest headache though, that’s the one that seriously made me question the purpose behind them in this particular franchise. Every single one up until this point has felt like a gimmick, been repetitive—and not something that’s even remotely belonged. It speaks to Naughty Dog’s roots with Jak and Daxter, but they’re two completely different franchises, and trying to carry that formula into Uncharted doesn’t work. They should really let it go. And it sucks because that’s not even the worst part, the guardians are. As I’ve said, I don’t inherently mind the supernatural elements, you can have them! But for the love of god… please don’t put in bullet sponges as substitutes for enemies. Is pumping around seven entire mags into a single guardian supposed to be fun? Or just annoying? It’s not engaging, it’s dull—even when you can kill them faster using a crossbow. If anything this is consistent with the first game. Drake’s Fortune also introduced enemies during the second half that were annoying to fight—both are lame attempts at enemy variety.

The last thing I’m going to talk about regarding Among Thieves’ contents are the puzzles. I’m sure it’s not surprising at this point that I didn’t like them either. Again, it’s the same issues that plague Drake’s Fortune. There’s not enough of them, they’re incredibly easy, and they lack creativity. Imagine my shock when I was on chapter 19 (seven away from the ending) and the game had only given me two full-on puzzles to do. And I’d be fine with that number if they were challenging… but they’re not. They all revolve around symbol matching. Like am I playing fucking Candy Crush or something? Maybe root some of them in the environments? Maybe design them intricately instead of completely laying out the answer for me in Nate’s journal? I had more fun during an environmental “puzzle” when the game introduced a minigun-wielding-brute enemy during the train chapter, and required me to shoot the chains that were holding all the tree logs together where he was coincidentally standing so I could kill him… that was brilliant, and actually funny. Everything else was not.

The obligatory optimization/technical paragraph: I can never escape these… Enemy waves loop if you don’t go to the exact place the game wants you to be at. If you get ahead of the NPC companions when climbing—and they happen to catch up, you’ll be knocked off and have to restart entire checkpoints. There was a bridge bug I encountered which made it so I couldn’t progress because… I killed everyone too soon? (Basically, the game penalizes you for being too good). You can be shot through walls! Brutal difficulty scaling is still horrible, you’ll die as soon as you spawn leading to many RNG moments! They clearly didn’t even consider the difficulty options when creating some of these chapters, they also could’ve just tweaked enemy starting points to fix this issue, it’s a fairly simple solution I imagine. I’ve heard these are all issues with the remastered trilogy though, so I guess it’s my fault for playing that version.

I know it’s hard to believe… but I did like this game! I still think it’s good (barely). The reason for the score is mostly the set pieces, as without them this would easily fall into mediocrity; which is why this can sometimes read like I’m continuously dunking on it, but that’s because it’s the only consistently positive aspect that is the least versatile in a discussion/review.

(This isn’t a part of the review). I honestly didn’t expect for this review to be so long, I thought it was going to be a shorter one but I just kept writing and writing, and it turned into another long one! I need to do less of these, I swear to god…

Playtime: 33.4 hours

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