Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Review [Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection] (PS4) 

  Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the definition of “dumb fun”. You can never accuse it of adhering to real world rules at any point, instead asking you to turn on your “movie brain” and accept that ancient temples have working mechanical apparatus that haven't been broken or disturbed in hundreds of years.  After you mow down armies of bad guys once any main characters get face to face they're going to talk it out while waving guns in each others' faces, and anyone that has screen time is super attractive, witty, and they're going to double and triple cross each other and not really care. The original game, Drake's Fortune, may have stolen liberally from Indiana Jones, but Among Thieves manages to find it's own identity while further cementing it's roots into Hollywood popcorn movie you (usually) control. This time around it's actually fun to play, too.

  The general path for sequels is to take what worked for the previous game, refine it, and make it bigger, badder, and better. Uncharted 2 takes this philosophy to heart and succeeds in every regard. There's longer, more involved traversal sequences in exponentially more varied and interesting locations. The more straightforward puzzles will at least take you a few minutes to figure out, often involving matching symbols from your notebook. There are long, elaborate stretches of combat where wave after wave of enemy soldiers push your duck and shoot skills to the test. Most successful are the masterfully developed set piece sequences that take linear levels and spice them up with enough momentum and variety that they're genuinely exciting and breathtaking to play through.

  Variety is the name of the game here. If you don't like the actions you're performing, just give it a cutscene and you'll be doing something completely different. Among Thieves opens (well, after a flash forward) with Drake concocting a scheme to break into a museum and steal a lamp that once belonged to Marco Polo. The heist plays like a light Splinter Cell, starting with grabbing guards around corners to snap their necks and even giving you a tranquilizer gun to put them to sleep. You're accompanied by a partner in crime who shows you the ropes and asks you to work with him in tandem. This partner system is quite prevalent through most of the game... for good or ill. For the most part everything works smoothly and having a second, AI controlled person involved alleviates the lone wolf feeling you get from most video games. Every now and then they'll do something stupid to end the mission, get in your way during a firefight, or just glitch the fuck out in a goofy way. The drawbacks are rare, but they're there and worth mentioning.

  Your fellow thief ends up double crossing you, (and maybe your girlfriend does too?), and this somehow leads Drake on the main path of his journey: traveling to Nepal to find Shangri-la. There's plenty of unplayable cinemas that detail the character relationships and haphazardly connect Level A to Level B. This is usually a pet peeve of mine, but the movie within the game is earned by the solid core gameplay and it's done rather well. Sure, a lot of the dialogue remains cartoony and corny, but enough of it hits that it's at least a decent narrative reason for the game. Drake is still a douchebag, but enough care goes into the writing that he transcends the ranks of tolerable doofus by the end.

  The real star of Uncharted 2 are the set pieces, and there are a lot of them. The battle on the moving train is almost legend at this point, and for good reason. It may amount to a mine cart stage, but it's done so goddamn well it's the mine cart stage to end all mine cart stages. As you jump car to car (there's also a pretty badass convoy stage where you jump car to car...), hanging on the sides to avoid signals that sweep enemies to their death, the swaying train  just looks fantastic. This is everything and the kitchen sink thrown at you at once; I'm pretty sure there was a long, drawn out helicopter battle at one point... but just the “standard” shooting here is such eye candy that my senses were overloaded and I can't recall every trial I went through to get to the end. Lining up a headshot on a distant enemy from behind a seat, only to have the train track curve enough that the car gets obstructed... just brilliant level design. I was incredibly surprised and happy that this famous level completely lives up to the hype and I'm glad I finally got to experience it for myself.

  The traversal platforming is greatly improved as well, now featuring much larger spaces to explore and a greatly improved verb set. It's not always clear what can or cannot be climbed and this can lead to some pretty dumb moments, but the sense of freedom is greatly appreciated. It's still usually a linear path you're asked to find, but at least the path looks and plays leagues better than the first game.

  Combat has been overhauled, but it's easily the weakest part of the game. Gunplay still feels limp, and most of the weapons don't feel good to shoot. Enemies have a nasty habit of spawning behind you and pissing you off until you “learn” (usually through bullshit deaths) the “right” way to tackle each encounter. Ammo is at a premium; on one hand this creates a sense of urgency as you're forced to leave cover to collect rounds/other similar weapons. On the other hand this can trap you in some impossible situations where you're backed into a corner with a few rounds of handgun ammo left as heavily armored troops with shotguns bear down on you. It can generously be called “challenging”, but it more often than not falls into the “poorly designed bullshit” category. One hit kills abound, you can easily be stunlocked into flailing animations while surrounded, and a few times I was killed by invisible boundaries or crushed by opening doors (that worked fine the second time...) while fighting. The linear set piece combat is great, but this core gunplay is pretty weak and broken. It's astounding how much of it is here, too; near the end I reached a point where enemies were just flooding through a doorway and seemed endless, leading me to believe the game was bugged or required some trigger to make them stop. Nope, Uncharted 2 just expects you to keep at it until a small country worth of bodies lies dead at your feet, and didn't get the memo that it's not exceptionally fun to grind through. And the last boss is a piece of shit that bring all the little problems to the forefront as you bumble around the environment, getting caught on geometry and automatically switching weapons while you get shot in the back, blindfiring behind you... it sucks.

  Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has some truly high highs that do a lot to sooth the shoddy combat. It's story heavy, but it earns the right to be a Hollywood wannabe by providing some of the most remarkable interactive set piece moments I've played. After suffering through the original game I was ready to write this series off as another overhyped, casual mess that was popular just because it was popular. Now that I've experienced the superior sequel I may not be a newly converted fanboy, but I can now at least see the promise and appeal.