ultron
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Uncharted 2 first impressions.
10/14/09 12:43 PM
I'm about 5 hours into it, and this game is good enough that I feel compelled to tell you about it.
The graphics (all technical things concern the single player campaign, although I don't think multiplayer is actually diminished) are incredible. I would easily place it at the top of the graphics heap on consoles. It's even better than many, many PC games. The lighting effects are insanely good, comparable to or better than Killzone 2. The details and textures are also extremely high and well-done.
The story is engaging and was enough to make me turn it off only after realizing what time it was and that I had to work the next morning. If you played the first Uncharted, you expect high production values in the acting and dialogue of the characters, and I think Uncharted 2 outdoes the first easily in this regard. Even when you're just walking around, the characters engage in witty banter that is genuinely humorous and eliminates the separation you might have from your character.
The locations are also heavily varied. Whereas on the first game you're stuck on an island, you now venture to multiple landscapes including jungle environments, war-torn cities, the Himalayan mountains, etc. Each location meets the high production standards of the one before it. The snow effects are particularly good.
The game intentionally plays like a movie that you happen to be controlling, and that really comes across. The camera angles, cutscenes, and moving environments really put you in an action-adventure film, and the animations of the characters are perfectly done to capture what a real person would be feeling or doing in each situation. Fighting on a crashing building was particularly cinematic, because your character is constantly shifting around and sliding while trying to get that last shot off.
The platforming is much improved, and while it's not always obvious where to go (in the city environment), you'll always be able to figure it out. The platforming also makes the game more cinematic because objects often dynamically move while you're climbing on or around them to give you a sense of urgency that you could fall at any moment.
The combat is much better than the first game. You can finally aim a grenade while still behind cover, which was one of my biggest complaints about the first (which tells you how good the first game was). When you blind fire, you have a zone in which your bullets will fire, so you know the general area that you're attacking. The first game lacked this. Melee is more varied, with the enemies now countering your attacks. It's still easy to counter back and take them out, but it means face-to-face combat is harder and takes longer than before, which could mean the difference between life and death if you try to kill someone while a shotgunner is nearby. Stealth kills are very rewarding, because you can pull people off buildings, break their necks, or pull them behind cover and knock them out.
However, as enjoyable as they are, stealth kills pick out the only flaw I have seen so far in the game. The AI is quite smart and will flank you if you're not careful. If they see a dead body, they will recognize what's going on and go on alert. However, they seem to have tunnel vision, and I can easily take out their friend who's really not that far out of view, and promptly go up and take them out as well. This is my only complaint, and it's tempered by the fact that I'm playing on hard, and my life would be much more difficult if I couldn't play this way.
Uncharted 2 so far is one of, if not the best PS3 game I own and have ever played. Actually, it's one of the best games I've ever played, without any qualifier. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the action-adventure genre, or anyone who likes great storytelling in the form of a game.
5/5
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