Uncharted 2 completely nails all the basics and has claimed the title of best PS3 exclusive.
The story is a year after the first with Drake teaming up with his partners Flynn and new love interest Chloe to rob a Turkish museum of an important treasure that may help in discovering Marco Polo's lost fleet. But as always things don't go according to plan and Drake is soon caught up in a race against a psychopath named Lazaravich to find the city of Shambhala. Elena and Sully also return for the sequel along with new characters that won't be spoiled here. The story is like an action blockbuster. It's simply bursting with elements including love, action and intrigue. Some of the twists are slightly easy to notice but the story does an excellent job of absorbing you into the characters and setting.
Instead of taking place on an island Uncharted 2 goes all over the globe in its 12 to 14 hour length. Like the first the game is completely linear with no choices on where to go or backtracking. This has allowed the developer to squeeze oodles of set piece action into the game and encourage you to keep playing. There are 5 difficulties to choose from with crushing being the equivalent of Halo's legendary setting. The story is still a bit short despite being longer than the first but the game includes online multiplayer for up to ten players a coop for up to 3. Once you adjust to the verticality it feels more balanced than most FPSs on the market. You can customise your character and assign two perks to your character. Yes they are taken from COD4 but they have been tweaked to ensure maximum balance. The online never feels unfair or cheap which in turn makes the multiplayer more fun. In coop three players shoot and climb their way through redesigned levels of the story. Even on easy it can be challenging which extends the replay value significantly. When playing online you'll e level up and earn money which is used to buy new characters and perks. Downloads are in the pipeline so you'll be playing for a long time to come.
Game play in Uncharted 2 is similar to the original but with new additions and changes. You have a reticule when blind firing and the grenade controls have be remapped to the aiming buttons. Climbing feels more responsive even though you don't have to be precise. Drake easily latches on to any surface that is climbable. The game is sometime fussy about what you can and can't jump but the climbing is quite fluid overall. Hand to hand combat feels less risky this time. Drake can pull off many cool moves that don't give you many controls to deal with. There are two buttons one to punch the other to counter and it's quite accurate just as long as there aren't many enemies around. There are also several boss fights littered through the game which are all epic in their own way. Quick time events are fewer this time with the player only having to act fast in escape situations like when drake is dangling off a bridge and must escape. Every element of the game play has been improved greatly. Enemies take less shots to go down, puzzles are easier and fewer in number and the game has a better flow in general.
Uncharted 2 is simply put THE greatest looking game on the market. Everything from the environments, voice acting, and graphics are simply incredible, Only Modern Warfare 2 can match this level of detail. Reviewers could write 1000 words on the presentation of Uncharted 2. It's just that good.
Uncharted 2 could not only be considered the best game of the year but also one of the best games of all time. It steals the show for PS3 in almost every way. Put simply, if you own a PS3 then you need to own this game. If not then this will be the game that sells PS3s for months to come. Only question is... How can Naughty Dog ever top this?