Indiana Jones for the modern day
I'll begin with the graphics. Uncharted 2 treats the gamer with some massive eye candy - grand vistas of vibrant jungles, cold, damp caves, and quaint villages will leave you breathless. The beautiful colors, and excellent lighting of this title truly flex the Playstation 3's muscles and proves that this system is not just a "runner up" to the X-Box 360. The character models are very detailed - the way the clothing moves when the character moves, or the way the characters hair moves around, are cool little things that make Uncharted 2 spark.
Gameplay & set pieces is where Naughty Dog's video game is where your attention will be captured. Uncharted 2 plays out very similar to the adventures of Ms. Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider series, but with a little more action in my opinion. You can climb things, and shoot guns/grenades from a third person perspective, run, jump, all the fun things we came to know and love in video games...but its the set pieces that make you wanting more. There are many parts in this game that make you yearn for more, and trudge through the game to see what happens to our hero Nathan Drake. For instance, the game starts off with Nathan sitting in a chair on a train holding his stomach... as that stage moves forward, we see that Nate is trying to escape the train as it dangles off of a mountain, and edges ever closer to falling right off and killing our hero. Or when a tank is attacking you in a Tibetan village, and you must jump from rooftop-to-rooftop killing enemies and dodging the tank until you can hurl RPGs at it. Set pieces like those happen throughout the whole game, and like I had said a few times now, is a main reason you would want to continue playing.
The dialogue is another area where Uncharted 2 shines. Nolan North - the voice of Nathan - gives our hero a personality unrivaled by any other video game character to date. He is relateable in the sense that he doesn't seem like a "superhero" and that he is just a regular guy, searching for riches, and taking light of situations. The small dialogue such as the grunts from Drake as he jumps, and the occasional curses as enemies begin shooting at him, flesh out Nathan even more. Other character dialogues were awesome as well, such as Lazarevich (main antagonist) always yelling and barking orders, or Eleana Fischer always having a tinge of fear and uncertainty, and all other characters conversations add more depth into the game. The voice acting was inspired and believable.
Multiplayer was a hoot too. You can play basic competitive game modes such as team deathmatch or free-for-all, as well as others such as capture the flag and "plunder" mode. They play out pretty much like the single player in the sense that you can climb up walls, jump from building to building, but instead of shooting at AI's your throwing lead at other players around the world. There is also a co-op adventure mode, where you play as one of (I believe) 3 or 4 characters and you play through a modified version of single player missions. I liked how you can progress your character's level and unlock new bonuses such as larger clip sizes or better weapons, as well as unlocking new character skins. You can also buy character models from the Playstation Store for a nominal fee; special characters like Sev from Killzone 2 or Cole from InFAMOUS make their debut in Uncharted 2's multiplayer. So it was pretty cool.
My biggest gripe with this game is the puzzles and the difficulty. Sometimes the solutions to the puzzles are very unclear, even though you have Drakes journal that is suppose to have the answers. A lot of the time your heavily outnumbered and outgunned, with enemies donning RPGs, sniper rifles, gatling guns, and powerful armor that takes forever and a day to destroy. Also, there are some parts where I was stumped for awhile because my path was not made very clear - for instance there was this one puzzle where you have to pull a gigantic key down on the wall... but the path to get to it wasn't exactly straightforward. After a bunch of attempts I finally figured it out... but it would have been nice if the stones on the wall were a little... I guess brighter... then the ones I can't grab.
As far as the actual story, I am not going to write an in depth review of it because I know I'll throw some spoilers out there and I don't want to. All I can say is its worth the ride, and is interesting from start to finish.
Overall, Uncharted 2 is a must have for Playstation 3 owners. There is no reason not to have this game, and even though it is still fairly expensive, the experience is worth the price. If you haven't played it by now, then you are doing yourself an injustice.