Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Since we briefly played Uncharted 2 at Gamescom in Cologne recently and were part of the multiplayer Beta, we expected it to be pretty good, but shittin’ crikey, not this good.

Sony has searched long and hard for their killer-app - a sole reason to part with your cash - but have come up short. Killzone 2 had good-looks but offered very little in terms of originality. LittleBigPlanet was mega-fun but too niche for many. Ratchet & Clank is great but too juvenile to win over the hardcore masses. Uncharted 2 now fills this void - and then some.

So good are Nathan Drake’s new adventures, that unless Lara Croft goes fully nude for the entirety of her next game, then she won’t even get a look in over this.

Here’s the obligatory gist of the action: It’s a couple of years after the events of original game (which is surprisingly, very rarely spoken of). Drake and Elena have parted ways for reasons unknown and a British bloke, named Flynn, ropes Nathan and Kiwi crumpet Chloe, into stealing an antique oil lamp from a Turkish museum.

Above: The Turkish museum heist in action

From here, Drake ends up on the trail of terrorist Zoran Lazarevic and the secrets of Marco Polo’s doomed expedition to find Shangri La and the mythical Cintamani Stone. Cue blood-shed, incredible scenes of exploration and of course, tricky puzzles.

But what makes Uncharted 2 so damn near perfect? Right off the bat, we’ll say the script and voice acting simply can’t be touched. And we’re not talking just games here. Most movies and TV scribes struggle to keep up with the quality here. That’s why it gets this...

You might not give a toss about the chemistry between the characters right now (don’t worry we’ll get to the guns and killing soon) but it's hard not to fall for it when you play the game.

The lines are tight and delivered so convincingly you get the sense that the voice actors are really enjoying themselves. It pulls you in and, honest to Jeebus, there are moments when we actually <shiver> ‘LOL’d’. Not to mention pause the game and fist-punch the air as we stumble across another impressive environment to swing, climb and blast our way through...