Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Welcome to the second of our week-long retro reimaginings of modern games. After yesterday's video of God of War with 'Kratos the Angry Spartan' shouting something about his 'reven', today it's the turn of Uncharted, where Nathan Drake becomes 'Drake The Brave Explorer'. This is what you would have seen if you switched on a Game Boy in 1989 and loaded up Naughty Dog's sensational (and sadly completely fictitious) launch title.

Uncharted 2 is a non-stop, breathless adventure throughout its 12 or so hours of length. It would be utter madness to try to fit the whole thing into a mere 76 seconds of video action. But that's exactly what we've got here, put together by the team that used to make FirstPlay. Highly worth a watch, whether you've played the game or not. Although... it's obviously full of spoilers so maybe best if you've already played it. 

July is a bit dry in terms of new-stuff quantity, but we’re really looking forward to the majority of its releases. We have a healthy amount of oddball gems, sequels and re-releases to look forward to. It’s as much a month to experiment on weird stuff as it is to catch up on stuff you may have missed a year (or five) ago. What’s particularly exciting is that we’re seeing a solid number of awesome-looking downloadable games. If you’d rather not spend $60 on bananas-bullshit like Catherine (which we’re way into, by the way), put that money toward a few XBLA games instead. You’ve got slimmer pickin’s than usual, but them pickin’s look good...

As you're likely already aware, last week we posted our 100 best games of all time list. Judging by the response from you and other readers around the internets, we ruffled a few feathers and "left out" some key games. We assumed this would happen (of course it would, there's no way we'll include every game everyone ever loved) and spent a big chunk of our latest podcast defending and expanding on said list.

This discussion was part of TalkRadar 145, but if you'd prefer to hear it in isolation (and not part of a two-hour podcast), we're presenting it to you now for easy access.

The only people you ever hear complaining about Uncharted are those who don't own a PS3. In other words, it's hard to actually play a Nathan Drake adventure and not fall in immediate love with every breath-taking, death-defying, wise-cracking moment. Can the franchise really be improved, then, or is "more of the same" more than enough in this case?

Well, close to perfection is still just that – "close." Here are 13 things that Uncharted 3 needs if developer Naughty Dog hopes to raise the stratospheric bar set by Uncharted 2...

It's new podcast time.. YEEHAW! Not sure why we threw some cowboy lingo in there at the start because this episode of your favourite gaming podcast has very little to do with the wild-west or indeed ranching. Hang on, we do have to lasso Dave H as he refuses to let other people talk at times. Yes, it all makes sense now.

There's a special guest on the show, in the form of chief tea-maker and Cundy foot massager, Darrell Skipper - GamesRadar UK's work experience man. 

Enough waffle, just click the image and prepare to forget about your crippling debts, incredible loneliness and your general mundane existence for a couple of hours. Enjoy! 

In the immortal Arnie-endorsed words of Major Alan ‘Dutch’ Schaefer: “Get to the choppa’!” Or, in this case, get to some games with kickass helicopter battles by letting your eyes travel inside. Be it taking out a Russian attack helicopter with a stealthy hero or destroying a whirlybird by damaging its rotor blades with bottles of hooch during a zombie apocalypse; the following fights with airborne a-holes are the definition of badass… eh, if someone’s recently rewritten the dictionary. 

Sasquatch. Bigfoot. The Abominable Snowman. There are many names associated with the elusive, (definitely not fake) ape-men... eh, thingies. Contrary to what Harry and the Hendersons would have you believe, though, most would rather chow down on your colon than forge an interspecies friendship. In video games especially, your average mythical ape would like nothing more than introduce you to that big game over screen in the sky. So pack some animal tranquilisers and a hacksaw, as we take you on a tour of some of gaming’s greatest yetis and sasquatch. Oh, and watch out for that bastard who makes the soup.

Sometimes, a game’s plotline can surprise you. Awhile back, we posted a story called the top 7 games with mega plot twists you never saw coming that showcased seven brilliant “gotcha!” moments in gaming history. This is not that story. No, this story is a celebration of the unsubtle and clumsy, a compilation of those games whose plot twists were so thinly veiled, so heavy-handedly, elbow-in-the-ribs foreshadowed, that everyone and their grandmother figured it out ten minutes in. The only people fooled by these swerves were people who called it, but second guessed themselves, thinking, “Nah, it can’t be that stupid and obvious, can it?”

Yes it can, friends. Yes. It can...

Horrible ‘will make you want to shiv your own spine’ news, film fans and folk with man crushes on Nathan Drake. It looks like the upcoming Uncharted movie starring Mark Walhberg will be as schmaltzy as a Hannah Montana marathon. Director David O. Russell has been speaking about how he wants to emphasise the family dynamic in the film, now that Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci have been cast to play Drake’s dad and uncle. He’s already got miscasting and horrible premises down to a fine art, but we thought we’d give him a few more suggestions so he can make Uncharted the biggest flop since Waterworld...