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Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Newtype

By Newtype
in The Game Room

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  • 2 weeks later...
The NZA Hondonian

The NZA

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i dont doubt it one bit. he's a very likable "everyman" character, and even his voice/mannerisms have things in common. in part 1, they kinda went for a young indy (with more parkour & dorky character) and for me, it really worked, loved the game.

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The NZA Hondonian

The NZA

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bam

 

uncharted_2_leak_01.jpg

 

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has a new game mechanic (stealth) and a new dead famous guy (Marco Polo). Both we knew. What are some things we didn't know about Uncharted 2?

 

Creative Director Amy Hennig tells EDGE magazine, "Our last story was about Francis Drake... Our 'what if' was: what if Francis Drake hadn't died when everyone thought he had? This time we're going with Marco Polo. Our catalyst is this man who catalogued all of his journeys — all the details of everything that happened in his life — but despite that he left one gaping hole."

 

That hole is 1292. Polo left Kublai Khan's court for Venice, commanding a fleet of 14 treasure-laden ships and a crew of 600 plus men. By the time he arrived home in Venice, he was down to one ship and a dozen or so survivors. "He never once said anything about what happened to him... And on his death bed, after people had called him a liar for what he had spoken about in his book, he said: 'I didn't say even half of what I saw.'"

 

In Uncharted 2, the game kicks off with the search for Polo's fleet and moves on to Polo's real secret: the Tibetan city of Shambhala, also known as Shangri-La. Gone are the rich foliage of the first game, and in its place, snowy mountains and the war-torn urban Tibetan streets.

 

The game also explores the "shadier" side of hero Nathan Drake, who, as Naughty Dog points out, is sometimes "a jerk."

 

Besides a new gritty feel, Uncharted 2 brings a new mechanic: Stealth. Developer Naughty Dog calls it "action stealth" — when or when not to enter combat. Another new? Drake also has a new love interest, a treasure hunter named "Chloe."

 

The developer is wringing more out of the PS3's horse power with Among Thieves. Naught Dog co-president Christophe Balestra explains: "Uncharted used 30 percent of the PS3's SPUs, and this time we're maxing it out. That means we can blend and switch the animations a lot quicker, and we have more facial joints in-game for characters to react with believable expressions."

 

"We didn't want things in the game that stop people dead. There's a connection between games people have finished and games they love — so we didn't want to put up too many walls along the way," says Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells.

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Newtype Hondonian

Newtype

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Last week, the addition of multiplayer to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was still a surprise to much of the video game press attending Sony's PlayStation Gamers' Day. Naughty Dog's reveal was almost perfect.

 

After inviting us downstairs to the mezzanine of the Andaz Hotel, Naughty Dog president Evan Wells told the crowd that they'd prepared a new trailer for Uncharted 2—all the introduction really needed at that point. The trailer began with a third-person view of Uncharted's Nathan Drake, sprinting toward a dilapidated building, assault rifle in hand.

 

Finding footholds and jutting bricks, Drake showed off his refined terrain traversal, climbing the half-decimated wall, then pulling himself up to the building's second floor. In the distance, nine players with their PlayStation Network IDs floating above their heads. Cut to a montage of five versus five deathmatch and everyone in attendance gets a little more excited about what they're about to go hands on with.

 

Last week, it was a secret well-kept. And you could see it in the grins on the faces of the Naughty Dog team.

 

Drinks and attempts at appearing polite were dropped as quickly as Naughty Dog said it was time to play. So we speed-walked as nonchalantly as possible toward an open machine and we played. First up—Deathmatch.

 

Deathmatch

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves' take on deathmatch, which is capped at five players per side, doesn't appear to break new ground in team-based multiplayer. It's rather standard stuff, with weapons scattered about each arena, maps customized from single-player levels to fit a multiplayer play style, and a goal to shoot them before they shoot you. You'll play as one of five Heroes, including Drake, Chloe, and Sully, or one of the black-suited mercenaries, the Villains.

 

But the deathmatch rule set, when applied to Uncharted's mechanics, works beautifully. Gunplay worked well enough in the original Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and it works better than that here.

 

Players need to take advantage of cover, hiding behind brick walls, firing blindly when it's needed. You'll have a tactical advantage hiding out of sight—recovering health while you're doing so—or traversing the environment to get to higher ground. Platforming works to your advantage. But that top-down perspective on the deathmatch arena has a risk tied to it—you've got to climb, exposing yourself to enemy fire.

 

The arsenal is pretty standard stuff too. There are assault rifles, pistols, sniper rifles and a very deadly, easy to dominate with chain gun. Rocket launchers and grenades will add some explosive fun to the mix, as will the game's melee kills. If you're a little too close for comfort, two butts from your AK will do the trick. But if you manage to grab your opponent from behind, one quick, neck-snapping melee attack will do the job faster.

 

Deathmatch (and other multiplayer modes) add a bit more depth with a skills system that will quickly remind one of Call of Duty 4's "perks." In Uncharted 2, unlockable abilities will let players have better accuracy with rifles while running, for example, or perform better while blind firing. Two skill slots are available, but no single bonus attribute that we saw looked to hint at unbalance.

 

There's also a currency system that Naughty Dog wasn't quite yet ready to speak on, but we do know that it permeates both single and multiplayer mode, and smells a heck of a lot like an experience/skill-buying system.

 

Yes, Uncharted 2's deathmatch appears to be very meat and potatoes, based on the two arenas we played through in multiple games, but meat and potatoes are popular for a reason.

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The NZA Hondonian

The NZA

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STATUS UPDATE: you will likely not be hearing from either newt or sen soon on here, due to them both having access to this amazing game. i played the intro and had to have Eli physically tear me away to go to the gym.

if it continues the way it looked, im prepared to put this up there for Game Of The Year.

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