The road to Shambhala

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Spectacular. After a few middling sequences that unflatteringly recall all the flaws of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Among Thieves comes roaring to life in Nepal with a series of outrageously entertaining set-pieces that you are probably going to want to play through again -- immediately after your first run through. Even all the minor irritants (patchy controls, exploration that is either too linear or not linear enough, lackluster endgame) are quickly forgotten amidst the breathtaking visuals and keen attention to detail.

That being said, I do want to highlight another instance of game designers' continual neglect of harmonizing game mechanic and narrative. In a rather tedious opening chapter, Nate sneaks into a Turkish museum to steal one of Marco Polo's lamps (don't worry, it doesn't make much sense in the game either). The game uses Nate's ethical code of not wanting to hurt civilians as a convenient excuse to force the player to practice stealth technique and non-lethal take-downs. Yet not ten minutes into the sequence, the player is required to grab a guard by the ankles and throw him down a cliff to his untimely doom: a devilishly fun maneuver that is unfortunately irreconcilable with the narrative. While this is a minor event in the overall story, it is symptomatic of an unsettling disconnect between the lighthearted tone of the story and the heavy bodycount that Nate amasses over the course of the game. In the end, it is this architectural dissonance between game mechanic and narrative that prevents Uncharted 2 from being as meaningful as it is delightful.

Grade: A-