What can be said about this game that hasn't been said before, the best interactive story telling game around...
The game is a 3rd person cover based shooter, a nice array of weapons and enemies help in mixing it and with the often frustrating running towards the camera while being chased has been part of Naughty Dog's bag of tricks for games since Crash Bandicoot they still are just as frustrating.
The story telling is best in class no doubts. You could simply throw in small fighting scenes into the mix and you would have a complete and very engrossing film on your hands. Out characters roles are reprised and once again we have various twists and turns in the game to keep you on the edge of your seat for most of the game. You start out on a train that is hanging over mountainous cliffs for some reason and you back track to tell the story to that point, where you find you were riding the train to save someone who doesn't want to be save and in the process the train is derailed and it sees you in a carriage hanging off a cliff in the Himalayan Mountains. The game has your retracing the steps this time of Marco Polo and looking for the fabled Shangrila.
Gameplay is much the same as the first game, but since you are used to it, it is less frustrating. You find yourself, jumping, swinging, climbing, dropping and hanging from ledges and sills from jungles to cities to the mountains. One wrong mistake can see you take a fall to your death, even slight ones where you felt you have jump down further than that and survived. But the mechanics have been well thought out and have been tested completely so it feels a little tighter than it did in the first game.
Visuals I will say are top notch. Best I have seen in a video game, and there was little to know dips in frame rate despite the sometimes hectic action on screen, especially the scene which sees you in a floor of a building as a helicopter is firing missiles at it to bring it down. With enemies, particle effects, the building falling and the helicopter, I would have thought this would have brought the console to its knees but it took it in its stride.
Audio is once again well defined. The DTS and Dolby Digital soundtracks are exemplary in their use of the channels and the additional bandwidth afforded the DTS soundtrack makes it that much more immersive. The sounds are only part of the tale. The voice acting is once again top notch, with the cast returns for Drake and Sully (his old and sometimes grisly counterpart). But the other cast of actors voicing does an outstanding job and sometimes the little background chatter that is happening while traversing the heights of the places you need to be to proceed is fun.
I can't say anything for the multiplayer but I have heard it is fun. But the single player campaign is to me the best part of the game and though it is linear it is still fun to see the story unravel. This lifts the bar for story telling in games and it certainly sets it very higher for any game that is to follow in its footsteps.
I would highly recommend this game and especially now with Uncharted 3 released it would be in the bargain bin or a platinum hit game and is well worth the investment.