Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – PS3
(SCEE)
Like a cross between Indiana Jones and Lara Croft (albeit without the gravity-defying figure that made the latter such a hit with teenage male gamers), Nathan Drake is back and he’s in trouble… big trouble.
Uncharted 2 begins with our hero coming to consciousness on a wrecked train carriage, that just happens to be teetering on the edge of a cliff in a vast mountain range. Having managed to drag his weary body limb by limb to the top of said chasm, he then has to negotiate exploding train parts, heavily armed guards and freezing temperatures before we’ve even had time for a proper re-introduction.
Lured into another treasure hunt by his treacherous ‘associate’ Harry Flynn, as well as buxom Aussie love interest Chloe Frazer, our intrepid adventurer soon finds himself breaking into the Istanbul Palace Museum, spending time in a Turkish prison, embroiled in shoot-outs in the Borneo jungle, shooting down gunships with bazookas, puzzling his way out of ancient temple traps in Nepal and platforming through a maze deep in the Himalayas as he follows in the footsteps of Marco Polo. While trying to piece together the ancient mystery of the disappearance of Polo’s 13 ships on the way home from the court of Kublai Khan, Drake soon ends up searching for the ancient kingdom of Shambhala, better known as Shangri-La, to recover the legendary Cintamani Stone, which is purported to be not only extremely powerful but seriously valuable too.
The plot twists and turns like a top class thriller, with exotic locations and a legendary cast of characters, from old friends to new enemies, with some seriously unexpected developments en route. With cracking graphics, top class sound (including voice acting that actually works) and some of the most varied and exciting gameplay to have hit the PS3 all year, Uncharted 2 has that unputdownable nature inherent in only the best video games: it’s the crack cocaine of the console generation.
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