 |
| Nathan Drake, hiding from an enemy he's about to shoot in the face before killing his two friends in the corner. |
Professional treasure hunter Nathan Drake has learned the location of the lost city of Shambhala, which is rumored to contain the Cintamani Stone, an ancient artifact that bestows great power to its owner. Unfortunately, Nathan gets backstabbed by his old friend Flynn, who tells the location to Serbian war criminal Zoran Lazarevic. It is a race between Drake and Lazarevic to reach the Stone first.
The player, as Nathan Drake, travels from location to location fighting through Lazarevic’s private army. Among Thieves is several chapters long, thought the game plays like one long sequence interspersed with cut scenes. Most of the game is spent in shootouts in ancient ruins, or a couple levels in a city and one on a train. The basic strategy of the game is make Drake take cover behind a wall, pressing the aim button to make Drake peek out from his cover and take aim (and make the camera zoom in to help the player focus), and shoot all the bad guys until it is safe.
Drake can carry two weapons, a pistol and a larger gun, plus four grenades, which he picks up from fallen enemies. Damage to Drake is represented by the screen getting black and white with splashes of blood. Drake’s health regenerates over time.
Drake can also insta-kill enemies silently if he sneaks up on them, or fistfight them if the player wants to. But fist fighting someone makes Drake a sitting duck, so it is a pointless action.
Enemies carry a lot of different weapons that Drake can pick up. Some are unique compared to each other, like the regular two pistols compared to the revolver, but some are redundant, like the two assault rifles or the two shotguns.
Enemies know to dodge and duck behind walls for cover like Drake, and what they lack in health they make up for in superior numbers coming in at all sides. The only problem is that on normal mode their accuracy is so bad compared to Drake and Drake heals too quickly that there is no challenge. That does not make the fights any less fun though. What is less fun are the special enemies the game occasionally bring out, enemies with shotguns or mini-guns that absorb a ton of damage.
The other part of the game involves Drake jumping around ruins, climbing from ledge to ledge or up walls. These parts are really easy most of the time because a lot of the areas that Drake can climb have a lighter color palette than the background, and Drake reaches out to the next ledge he has to grab when the player pushes the control stick in the right direction. But it can also lead to the some of the game’s cheapest deaths, since not every ledge is highlighted, and the camera makes it hard to see what ledge the player should make Drake reach out to.
There are several trophies the player can earn for accomplishments like killing fifty enemies with one type of weapon, or silently killing five enemies in a row. These are useful for getting the player to use more weapons and adds a challenge to the firefights. Earning trophies nets the player money, which can buy things like bonus skins for the characters or concept art.
The art direction is gorgeous. All the levels are these grand, lovingly detailed expanses. Every building, every street looks original. The game never feels like it is recycling places; every shoot out is in a new area.
Characters models are really detailed too. Faces emote when they talk, including furrowing brows and shaking heads realistically when distressed.
The voice acting and cut scenes look great and detailed. The characters never look like dolls standing around, they look like real people moving around and interacting with the environment. And the voices fit perfectly with the characters and the lip synching is never off.
The story is the classic “race the bad guy to the ancient artifact” story that has been played out a million times already. The backstabs are easy to see coming a mile away, the characters, particularly the Lazarevic are action movie stereotypes, and the plot never gets any more confusing than “characters travel to a place to find a clue, then go to another place.” The worst part is that characters act like guns are a lot more dangerous in cut scenes than they do in games For example, in one scene Drake and his friend just let a bunch of henchmen run in and point guns at them, even though they had gunned down dozens of their comrades a couple of minutes ago. At least the characters are likable.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a fun, if somewhat cliché game. Anyone who likes a good shooting game will have fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment