Review by: Tony Mitera

The original Uncharted was a great adventure despite the usual growing pains that accompany a brand new IP taking its first baby steps. Uncharted 2 builds upon its predecessor and polishes away those seams and rough edges. Among Thieves is a tale of trust and betrayal wrapped in a globe-trotting adventure that rarely loses its footing.

Nathan Drake has once again found himself involved in an epic adventure, this time working with series newcomers Flynn and Chloe in search of Marco Polo’s missing fleet and the treasure it was rumored to contain. Complicating matters is the fact that a war criminal with a private army is trying to beat him to the same treasure. It’s up to Drake to do what he does best; smart-ass his way through precarious situation after situation and prove that there really is such a thing as honor among thieves.

The game is based around three tenants: combat, platforming, and puzzles. The platforming mechanics are fairly forgiving in that if you only slightly botch a jump Nate will usually still grab onto the ledge and pull himself up, but the difficulty often comes in figuring out exactly where you must jump to or climb from. Take too long however and the game helpfully lets you press the up arrow to get a hint towards what you need to do as well as pan the camera towards the path to proceed.

Puzzles usually come in the form of set-pieces that have you doing things such as arranging different shaped objects on different pressure pads based on their color and associated element, or moving a large statue’s arms into a specific configuration. To assist you in these puzzles you make use of Nate’s journal, which is filled with notes and often humor surrounding the adventure. By gleaning information from these notes you can then usually have a good grasp on the puzzle, with the notes themselves only giving you just enough information to rewardingly solve the puzzle on your own. Puzzles are rarely timed, so you can sit back and think without feeling rushed.