Just finished this around 13 hours (great, great length for a game like this; especially since the super short length of the original was its biggest flaw). I found the game to be the best Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom videogame ever except for 3 major flaws:
1. TOO MUCH FUCKING COMBAT. It's one thing if there are a million guys and it's another thing if the badguys are all supermen who take a ton of ammo pumped into them but when both those things combine in the last portion of the game it just gets lame. I loved the combat when the guys weren't all fucking tanks. In fact I think the Nepal section of the game has the best gun combat in any TPS. There's just so many ways to approach the situation and it's so much fun. But then by the time the game is at the Monastary until the end it's just fucking ridiculous. The end portion of this game feels like it has even MORE combat than Uncharted 1 >_< Anyhow the end combat stuff was still fun it's just way way overdone. Stealth was a great way to counter it somewhat by letting you avoid fights if you can take everyone out quietly, but the game needs some sort of MGS "alert over" because if there's 30 guys to stealth, the chance of making it all the way before 1 guy notices you is really small and if you've already stealth killed a bunch it's not worth restarting from your last checkpoint.
2.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Elena
has an AWFUL voice actress. In a game with generally high quality voice acting she sticks out like a sore thumb and everytime she talks I want her to get out of my game. Hopefully
spoiler (click to show/hide)
she dies in the 3rd one early on. Chloe was a much better voice actress.
3. Climbable objects only climbable sometimes. This might be me going crazy but I swear that objects you can climb
when the game wants you to climb them are not climbable when just randomly walking around or fighting. This bugs me because it makes the platforming segments feel more forced since I can only platform when the game tells me. As opposed to normal games where if you can climb an object in one spot you can climb that object anywhere even if it leads to nowhere.
3.5 The final boss fight is half good, half bad. The design is fine, but it's long and there are no checkpoints and you can die really easily. Which kind of counteracts the rest of the game where it checkpoints all the time and you get to keep progress you've accomplished.
Now on to the good:
+Auto-checkpointing every 10 seconds.
+Telling you how long it's been since your last checkpoint
+Good achievements that actually give money to use in-game and get stuff
+Stealth is excellent and implemented very well. Really satisfying to sneak through an action sequence and stealth kill most of the guards
+Good amount of weapons. Weapons feel good. Nice use of rumble and subwoofer for heavy weapons
+Sound as a whole is just fucking awesome. Like Killzone & Infamous, good use of extra blu-ray space for high quality audio
+Graphics are great, textures are not as good as Uncharted 1 or some other games, but I'll take the tradeoff for worse textures but huge beautiful environments with tons going on
+Some really great sequences
spoiler (click to show/hide)
helicopter across roofs, train level, jeep level, fighting in the rainy river, etc...
+Little touches like Drake's Notebook being
are really nice. SKELZOR
+Amazing length for the variety of the scenario. Without even touching the MP yet, I feel like I'm easily going to get 20-30 hours out of the SP. Plus it feels like I game I could replay every few years.
+Story was good, I feel unsatisfied about one thing, but I might've missed something so I won't knock it for that.
+First half is a great mix of platforming time & action time
Overall I thought it was an amazing game. 10/10 quality, but the flaws detracted for me and make it more like a 9/10. When playing the first half I was really really excited about replaying the game in hard mode because the combat was so fun and varied. But when I think about some of the checkpoints in the 2nd half and the final boss I'm not sure if I want to play on hard or crushing because I can see it being frustrating and annoying. >_< I look forward to checking out the online modes though and doing another playthrough on
some difficulty.
Up there with Demon Souls for console GoTY 2009 for me. I think the game is a little better than the first Uncharted. I'm a big Uncharted 1 fan, but this one has a lot more diverse environments and the stealth stuff is nice so I'll give it the edge. I think the combat is paced better in the original, the platforming is better and I liked the story a bit more. Also Water Ski sequence <3 But Uncharted 1 had a terrible final boss so Uncharted 2 beats it there too.
Story question:
spoiler (click to show/hide)
So the only thing I felt was left unanswered is the black teeth on the skeletons of Polo's crew. The game introduces it early on and we get that they drank the resin and became "something else" and killed each other........so ummm, why didn't the game let us see this happen to bad dude's crew? I mean that's normally how these stories work. In the end the bad dude's crew shows the effects and then you stop them. But like I have no idea what it did to them and why they killed each other. Either I missed something or it's a bit of a plot problem.
Also is the cursed cargo that Polo was talking about the crew themselves who had drank the resin?
Oh yeah, this thread.
Quick early opinion: Game is fun, game is beautiful, game is also stupidly linear with no creative level designs, platforming, or enemy encounters. I am also not a fan of the constant interruptions just to place the player in yet another set piece without any extended gameplay. Still a great ride but over hyped on the Bore and elsewhere. Huge improvement over the original though.
I'm only halfway through Nepal so the game can get much better. The foundation is incredibly solid though and like I said earlier; fun.
Eh, I feel the game is pretty non-linear in terms of the fight environments. It's basically MGS4 chapter 1 but smaller environments and less options. But you still have a lot of different ways to get through firefights. platforming->Shooting/stealth, stealth, environmental hazards, various weapons, etc... the fights seem very replayable because of this. I also felt the level design was very creative. But most of it has been done before elsewhere and Uncharted 2 just takes it and refines it.
