Naughty Dog went into Uncharted 2 knowing exactly what they wanted to create. Every facet of the game was backed by a top tier effort. Uncharted 2 is powered by the most capable graphics engine ever seen in a console game. The art team at Naughty Dog gave that engine exceptional set pieces and an engaging environment to render in exacting and extraordinary detail. The design group toiled to make sure that every element of a great summer blockbuster made it into the game. The final product is practically flawless.

The major significance of Uncharted 2 is what Naughty Dog learned from film and applied to games. The fact that the game was modeled after film makes it difficult to separate the game's contribution to our industry from its roots that are planted firmly in film. Put simply, what Uncharted 2 brings to gaming is old news in film. This is the only caveat that takes the sheen off of Uncharted 2.

The title quote was pulled directly out a Naughty Dog team member's mouth. Never before has a development team been so committed to their unified vision. Naughty Dog honed Uncharted 2 to an edge. The game practically ignored quick time events that have become an industry staple since Resident Evil 4 and God of War rapidly popularized them in early 2005. This is made more interesting because the first Uncharted included these quick time events.

These were replaced by Active Cinematic Experiences. These sequences were the high action set pieces you remember best, the train chapters, the helicopter rooftop chase, etc. Instead of taking control away and making a cut-scene, or giving only limited control and turning these parts into extended quick time events, Naughty Dog overcame the obstacles and made these parts fully playable. This required more than just imagination and high aspirations. In-game physics had to be able to replicate the movement of furniture and people in a building that was collapsing. Enemy AI had to recognize that their adversary could be coming from any number of directions on a speeding train.



Creating the illusion of cinema in a game was aided hugely by the motion capture team and the actors they worked with. Most times in games all voice acting is done in a booth, one actor at a time. This doesn't allow the natural energy between performers to fully develop as it would on a stage or on camera. This was not the case in Uncharted 2. All of the actors donned motion capture suits and performed on stage with each other. The results were obviously stunning. Fluid animation provided by the motion capture data and performances that allowed ad-libbing and real chemistry between the characters gave Naughty Dog the palette with which to craft their characters.

From a narrative perspective, characters are Uncharted 2's largest success. Every character has personality, and their own share of flaws. You see differing reactions when each is visited by triumph and defeat, joy and despair, love and rejection. Drake is no everyman, but it becomes clear that sometimes he isn't ready to be the hero either. Only after the destruction of the Tibetan village, the death of Schafer and the grave injury of Elena does he resolve to see the quest to its complete end. These character intricacies lend an air of believability that isn't there in other games.



The blending of narrative and gameplay is amazing. The easy and subtle switches between the two are exemplary leaps forward in cinematic and immersive gaming. The best example is when Lazarevic takes Drake, Elena and Chloe captive and forces Drake to go with Flynn to gain entrance to Shambhala. The gameplay in this section showed the power that Lazarevic had while incorporating some of the strongest platforming in the entire game.

The character driven, globe-trotting narrative isn't the game's only success, though. Following a rule of three gameplay system that is reminiscent of Halo, Uncharted 2 is Naughty Dog's course entitled Badass 101. The rule of three gameplay system refers to three primary mechanics that allow a player to drive through a game. The most solid example is Halo's guns, grenades and melee trifecta. Uncharted 2 uses a third-person cover shooter mechanic, hand to hand combat and platforming. It does all of these with one goal in mind: making Nathan Drake an action hero. Does this result in the deepest gameplay experience? No, but it is exactly what Naughty Dog intended to put in the game. They wanted to make Nathan Drake be like Indiana Jones or any innumerable action heroes that were practically super human in their resilience, ingenuity and combat ability.



When examining Uncharted 2's hand to hand system we must compare the game to film once more. Is the melee combat simple? Yes. Is it easy? Yes. Is it so easy that you shouldn't ever lose a melee encounter? Yes. Is it a great combat system? No. It's too easy, repetitive and simple. However we cannot forget the qualifier. "Our game is very much an action movie." Nathan Drake is an action hero. Action heroes don't lose these encounters. John McClane never loses a fight, neither does Indiana Jones, and neither will Nathan Drake. In order to achieve a cinematically accurate experience, the gameplay had to be made easy enough to replicate its film influence.

The deeper you look into Uncharted 2, the more inseparable it becomes from its roots in film. No matter the angle you look at, you cannot deny this game's larger importance. A convergence of film and games of this magnitude has never been accomplished before. If we were looking somewhere for this sort of confluence of style, we would have looked to Remedy's Alan Wake or Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain. Maybe the fact that we didn't know how good Uncharted 2 was going to be made it that much better. Uncharted 2 is a shoo-in for game of the year and Naughty Dog has reaffirmed its place as one of the crown jewels in Sony's pantheon of first and second party teams.