Dragon Age: Origins - The Review

Dragon Age: Origins has a lot riding on it. It has been one of the most anticipated games for me, since a few years now. Although I try not to expect too much from a game, I was expecting something special with Dragon Age, owing to its relentless positioning as a "spiritual successor" to the Baldur's Gate series. Baldur's Gate is generally renowned for two things -- its challenging and strategic combat system and its engaging storyline. At the very least, therefore, I was expecting a good combat system and a refreshing, or at least gripping, storyline.

The Blight

The Dragon Age universe borrows ideas and culture from various fantasy worlds: Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Eye, and of course mother of all fantasy inspiration – the literary and adapted works of Tolkein. Origins introduces us to this universe through its denizens, their culture and their religion – to that effect the game deals with a phenomenon called the Blight. According to the religious beliefs of the humans of this world, their god, the Maker ruled the world from the Golden City. On behest of the Old Gods, the Tevinter Imperium laid siege to the Golden City in an attempt to usurp the Maker's throne. The siege was a failure but it left the city corrupted; so the Maker banished them for this transgression. Those corrupt are referred to as the Darkspawn and when they return in large numbers led by a corrupted Old God, you get the Blight. This is where an order of elite warriors called The Grey Wardens come in – a response to the threat. You, of course, play one of these wardens.

Be yourself; or not

You can choose from three archetype fantasy races – Human, Elf and Dwarf. Humans and Elves can choose between fighter, rogue or the mage class; whereas dwarves can choose either the fighter or the rogue class. In the Dragon Age universe, Dwarves do not get to be mages as they are racially resistant to the effects of Lyrium – the fuel of magic. After choosing your race and class during character creation, the process requires you to select your background story; which in turn determines the "Origins Story". Various combinations of race, class and background yields six unique origin stories.

After customizing you character's appearance, the next stage of character creation is assigning points to your character's six different attributes – strength, dexterity, willpower, magic, cunning and constitution. The starting value of these attributes is factored by your choice of race and class. The next stage in character creation process is selecting starting skills, followed by picking talents (or spells).

The fighter and rogue class have acess to special abilities categorized under talents; whereas mages have acess to a pool of spells. In addition to this, all the classes also have access to another set of abilities called Skills. Talents and Skills are multi-tiered, categorized abilities, which in most cases directly affect the combat prowess of the fighter and rogue class. Mages on the other hand do not use Talents and instead they have access to a set of magic spells.

Of winning friends and influencing people

The background and race selected during the character creation will determine your social standing in the game world. This subsequently affects disposition of the world towards you and will also offer a suitable starting point for your game.

A common thread connects the six unique Origins stories: each will invariably lead to an encounter with a veteran Grey Warden and your recruiter. Without spoiling the game for you, the main quest in the game is that as one of the few surviving Grey Wardens in the area, you need to garner support against the Blight from humans, elves and dwarves. Joining you on this venture is a group of ten other adventurers that form your party of companions; however the maximum travelling party size is limited to four.

There is no morality (alignment) system is Dragon Age; however you will face choices that can be placed within a spectrum of good and evil. As seen in games such as Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights 2, there is also a measure of your character's influence over other party members; your group’s behavior towards you will be based on an ‘approval rating’ which factors in both your influence on them as well as the decisions you make when faced with choices, as you adventure. A low rating with a party member will cause him or her to leave your party and in some cases even turn hostile. On the other hand, a high approval rating will give that party member a bonus to one of their attributes. You can also win a party member’s favour by completing their personal quests, or by giving gifts that are found in the game as loot, treasure, or bought from merchants.

Hard to the core

The effort it must take to create a tactical combat system is quite evident with Dragon Age. Battle terrain plays a significant role in combat tactics, and along with a combination of skills, talents and spells, the combat system offers a wide variety of options to form a winning strategy during hostile encounters. Spells use the caster's pool of magic energy (or mana) and they come with cool-down timers. Similarly, Talents also have a cool-down timer and they use the character’s stamina instead of magic energy. There are also persistent spells and combat skills that reserve a certain amount of mana or stamina respectively.

I finished the game with a character at level 20 by pursuing the main quest and completing a handful of side-quests – this is not nearly enough to acquire all possible Skills, Talents or Spells. Effectively, you will need to decide on a particular style of play very early in the game and then focus on skills and spells accordingly.

Each character class receives one point at level 7 and another at level 14 to select up to two specialization classes. There are four unique specialized classes for each class and they need to be unlocked by reading books or finding trainers, often with quests attached to them. These open up even more interesting options with character builds and overall combat strategy.

Another layer of depth is added to the combat system through implementation of spell combinations. Casting spells in a certain order (or combination) will yield additional benefits, like increased damage. It is quite unlikely that you will be able to explore all these possibilities in a single play-through, so this works as an incentive to replay the game.

The specialized classes that you unlock are carried over to all subsequent play-through. This coupled with a better understanding of the game world, combat mechanics, and items, should help you create a stronger, more focused character build from an early stage. A word of caution – the game dictates a greater level of patience and investment of time that we are generally used to.

Some enemy encounters, especially tougher ones may require you to reload the game a few times to rethink your strategy and approach. To slightly digress: the game recorded my total play time at over 60 hours with only 40 percent of game completed! Levelling may thus be perceived as quite slow after the first four or five levels as after spending 60+ hours in the game, my character was just level 20.

This much can be said about the combat system in Dragon Age Origins: those who revel in a tactical approach to encounters will enjoy playing this game. Origins is unlike any recent Bioware game when it comes to the game’s mechanics; it’s hardcore.

So far so good. The Dragon Age universe does not offer anything revolutionary or even unique; however the game’s designers have done a commendable job of adding a new level of depth using well-known building blocks. While the game comes quite close to delivering on its promise of old-school tactical combat; it disappoints on the story front.

Meet the new plot, same as the old plot(s)

The one thing that stood out for me with Baldur's Gate 2 was its main plot – it was both personal and epic. Dragon Age can be summed up as clichéd. It offers the tired storyline of saving the world from imminent destruction. There are instances of déjà vu with the main story and it often feels like old wine in a new bottle. The developers have certainly experimented with presentation and have approached aspects that are RPG staple; the game feels refreshing at that. I believe that with role-playing games, what leaves a lasting impression is your *role* in the game world and how you fulfill that role or achieve your objective.

All the dialogues are spoken, so it spares you from reading reams of text and also makes the overall experience more immersive. However, this is hampered by repetitive and irrelevant character animation during conversations. There also appears be to lack of variety with NPC models as you often encounter characters with striking resemblance to each other.

Technically the game is certainly an improvement for Bioware; however it is not without problems. I experienced consistent system crashes while on the inventory screen. There are a few quest related glitches and crashes that had me scouring through various discussion forums. The game patch and the official support forums were of little help; thankfully this was offset by active community based forums and wikis.

Conclusively, Dragon Age Origins is a pretty good game; however in its endeavor to succeed Baldur's Gate-- it is a battle only half-won.

Rating: 4.25/5

Details:
Genre: Role-Playing Game
Developer: Bioware Edmonton
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform:PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - The Review

The movie and video game industries are increasingly being seen as competitors in the entertainment sector. With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 grossing over $550 million in the first five days since its launch – eclipsing the latest Harry Potter’s $394 million and The Dark Knight’s $203.8 million – it is no wonder that a lot of analysts and investors are banking their money on video games.

But what most outsiders and non-gamers fail to see is that video games have increasingly become cinematic experiences by themselves. The original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was incredibly engrossing, and befittingly called by many as an ‘interactive movie’. Bioshock put an amazing storyline in an eerie setting, building ambience and atmosphere for a player – it was like living out a movie. Splinter Cell: Double Agent gave the player moral choices, dictating the path that the story would take. And Uncharted 2: Drake’s Fortune had graphics and voice-acting that would have made the animators at Pixar proud.

Beyond all its controversies, critical acclaim and box-office success, Modern Warfare 2 furthers this concept of ‘interactive cinema’. Developer Infinity Ward (IW) has made what could best be termed as a socio-economic experiment, seeing how far anyone can push boundaries when the audience is directly interacting with a movie and assessing the viability of producing big-budget games over larger-budget movies. On both counts, IW has a winner on its hand with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

A COMPELLING EXPERIENCE

At the very base of good cinema lie good direction, good acting and a good plot. Of course, there are several other elements that go into making a high-quality production, but these three core features are of paramount important.

The storyline of Modern Warfare 2 picks up where the first one left off, recapping the events in a title sequence. While there is nothing spectacular in the plot, it’s still an imaginative take on how the next big war could happen: an American mass-murderer in Russia gives Kremlin the opportunity to go for all-out battle.

Over the course of the game, there are several plot twists, intriguing sub-plots and some amazing character-development. The player alternates between the role of U.S. Army Ranger Pvt. James Ramirez and an agent in a multinational special ops unit, named Sgt. Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson. In your journey, you will meet popular characters from the first game – such as ‘Soap’ MacTavish – and encounter interesting new ones, like a covert agent who goes by the call-sign ‘Ghost’.

The voice-acting for all the characters is top-notch, and you will rarely find better performances in the world of video games. The quality of voice-acting can make or break the suspension of disbelief that is essential to letting yourself get immersed in a game, and Modern Warfare 2 does not let that drop for a second.

The essentials of your objectives in the game are quite clichéd: proving America’s innocence, finding the truth behind the entire war and administering justice. Yet, the way Infinity Ward has handled these tried-and-tested elements is what makes MW2 such a special treat.

WHAT? THAT’S NOT REAL?

Delivering a cinematic experience through a video game can never be an easy task. The biggest obstacle to this is the graphics element. A video game is competing against a live-action film, so it always starts off with a disadvantage when it comes to realism.

The first Modern Warfare caused a lot of jaws to drop with its breath-taking visuals. Indeed, no one can forget the camouflage part of the level in Chechnya. And yet, Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) manages to outdo its predecessor by miles, with both giant leaps in graphics technology and small tweaks in the way elements are portrayed.

The characters and their movements, the textures, the guns and vehicles, the art – Infinity Ward has created a visual feast for your eyes. It’s not often that you will find yourself stopping in the middle of a bridge to admire the view, let alone when there are enemy patrols on your tail and you are trying to keep a low profile.

The lighting and smoke effects in the game have no parallel; from dim light to bright, everything looks just perfect. The snow-based levels even have spots that reflect the light harshly, causing a bit of snow blindness.

Yet, it’s the attention to detail that always grabs you in MW2. A soldier standing for a long time shifts weight from one foot to the other; when sneaking up on someone through bushes, the squad leader ahead of you slowly moves a fallen twig aside lest it snap under your feet and give away position; and the blood splatter when you are hit by a bullet looks frighteningly real!

Modern Warfare 2 is still no substitute for live-action, but there is not another game around which has come as close. And at times, that’s a good thing…

THE CONTROVERSIAL AIRPORT MASSACRE

For the past few weeks, the world has been debating the inclusion of a controversial scene in the game, where you play as a terrorist. The elevator doors at an airport slide open, you step out with three of your partners and proceed to mow down everyone in the building with your loaded guns.

Now, this isn’t the first time that a terrorist act has been depicted on screen, or in a video game for that matter. And with games like Carmageddon and Grand Theft Auto, it’s also not the first time you are killing civilians and innocent cops. What is different, though, is that you are playing it from a first-person perspective with this amount of realism. It’s your choice whether to shoot someone or not, and whether to put anyone out of their misery; but the game’s realism goes against MW2 here. It’s almost like the Uncanny Valley effect.

The unsettling aspect of this is really the fact that it’s played from a first-person perspective. You aren’t able to see a third-person character of Tommy Vercetti or Nico Bellic that does the shooting. Even in first person, while you play a character, the other terrorists don’t refer to you by a name, but only by the second-person pronoun of ‘you’. Small things that make a huge difference!

How you look at Infinity Ward’s intentions in including this scene will define your take: It can be looked at as art, pushing a gamer to challenge himself and view a dark side he wouldn’t want to go voluntarily; or it can be looked at as a cheap publicity stunt, garnering ample media and public attention with a controversy that is bound to lead to more sales. What you cannot deny, though, is that this is a scene you won’t be forgetting soon.

SOUNDS GOOD

What you will take back with you from the airport massacre are the yells and screams carrying above the deafening noise of the gun-fire. The audio element is so critical to the experience of Modern Warfare 2 that it needs to be mentioned separately.

While game-defining tunes have been around for a long time now—Mario’s theme comes to mind first—they are not often crucial to the gameplay. But when you are making a cinematic experience with a game, the background score and the sounds you hear are what will get a gamer’s adrenaline pumping.

Infinity Ward went all-out in this department, hiring renowned multi-Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer for the game’s soundtrack. Zimmer strongly believes that video games are a medium for art, and his efforts show through. A fast-paced score while battling multiple enemies in an urban slum makes you instinctively hold the button to sprint; flat, deep notes greet you when you are looking down the scope of a sniper rifle.

And yet, all of it is so wonderfully gelled into the background that it never dominates the gaming experience, instead only adding to the ambience. These are the little things that add an X factor to a movie and make it great, and Zimmer couldn’t have done a better job in a Steven Spielberg production. The sound that comes from the gun you fire is just as important as the feel of the gun, and MW2 knows that.

FEELS JUST RIGHT

The ‘feel’ of a game is talked about often in reviews. It’s an unquantifiable and largely inexplicable term, yet one of the most intuitive aspects that everyone understands easily. This appeal to a base instinct is a remarkable aspect of video games – one that is often experienced with music but not as often with cinema.

There is a ‘feel’ to an iPhone that makes it cool; a ‘feel’ to a Led Zeppelin song that makes it tight; a ‘feel’ to Pavarotti that makes him commanding; a ‘feel’ to a Mercedes that makes it classy. To appeal to this core aesthetic is beyond just difficult, and every instance of anyone or anything doing that is celebrated time and again.

Modern Warfare 2 packs a punch. It delivers great highs and sombre lows; it gets you involved and makes you care; it challenges your skills and wit; and overall, it goes beyond being just a game. Play the game for its incredible bridging of cinema and games. Play it for its amazing action sequences and addictive gameplay. Play it for the incredible visuals and the inspired soundtrack.

But beyond all that, Modern Warfare 2 has a solid ‘feel’, and that alone makes it a game that no one should miss out on.

Rating: 4.5/5

Details:

Genre: First Person Shooter, Action

Developer: Infinity Ward

Publisher: Activision

Platform:

PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 - Review

Tomonobu Itagaki has left the building, and yet, the show must go on: what’s left of Tecmo’s Team Ninja studio have gotten together to develop Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 for the PlasyStation 3 console. As expected, development head Itagaki’s departure has had significant effect on some of the key elements of the game.

The Two Ninja Clans

You can either look at this game as a sequel to Ninja Gaiden Sigma, which was released on the PS3 in 2007 or you could call it a port of Ninja Gaiden 2, an Xbox 360 exclusive released in June 2008. Whichever way you look at it, this Ninja Gaiden on the PlayStation 3 is a very different beast compared to its Xbox version.

Even though the game retains the dismembering Obliteration moves from Ninja Gaiden 2, blood is a rare sight in Sigma 2. Most enemies (like Spider Ninjas) bleed some kind of glowing liquid of various hues, while others have green blood or oil oozing out of their dismembered corpses. Overall, gore in the game has been drastically toned down.

Additionally, veterans of Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox will find Sigma 2 far easier to beat – almost a walk in the park. Enemy encounters in a chapter (or level) have been reduced and the number of enemies you find at a time on the screen is also low. In spite of more bosses in the game, the battles themselves are far easier to win as the damage done by the player is greater and no longer dependent on which body part is hit.

Ninja Dog

Playing on ‘Warrior’ difficulty, which is the highest level available during the first play-through, I was able to breeze through the first eight or nine chapters without the need to cast Ninpo (magic) or purchase any healing items. In fact, Ninpo feels more like an added luxury rather than an essential strategic addition to your arsenal, as one can beat the game without ever casting Ninpo.

But there might be a positive to this, depending on where you come from: Ninja Gaiden has always been reputed to be a difficult franchise to play, let alone master, and that has made the games elitist, to a certain extent. With rebalanced difficultly, more people should be able to enjoy the awesomeness that is Ninja Gaiden since the game still retains its tight combat mechanics.

WMD

Ryu’s weapons stash has changed a bit compared to Ninja Gaiden 2. There are two ranged weapons available now, including a new one called Howling Cannon. All other ranged weapons from the X360 version have been left out. Simple shurikens are permanently mapped to a button on the gamepad and always available to be thrown in conjunction with any of the other two ranged weapons.

On the other hand, all melee weapons have been retained; additionally, Dabilahro makes a comeback in its new avatar of Enma’s Fang. Upgrading weapons does not cost anything in this version, but it is tightly controlled by the game: Not all Muramasa shops will have the option of upgrading weapons, and the upgrade level is locked with progress of the game.

From the Dojo of Colossal Bosoms

Rachel, the demon huntress from the first Sigma game, makes a comeback as a playable character. Joining forces with her are two other familiar maidens: the ninja Ayane and the shrine maiden Momiji. They each come with their exclusive arsenal – a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and a Ninpo power – along with the infamous Sixaxis Support.

There is also one level dedicated to each of the three characters, woven into the main storyline. Once you have finished these chapters, that particular character becomes available for the multiplayer co-op mode. These female characters may appear to be frail and even vain; however they are well-designed and can easily hold their own against the enemy horde.

Master Ninja

Additional content comes in the form of alternate costumes that are available to be unlocked for all the playable characters in the game, including Ryu Haybusa. Also, there are new boss encounters in the game and at least one of them makes a return; apparently not satisfied with the ass-kicking he received in Ninja Gaiden 1.

Visually the game appears to be an improvement over the X360 version. It justifies the 3GB+ installation with visibly improved frame rate. The game can also output graphics at full HD resolution (1080p), something that is not very common on the PlayStation 3. Also, textures appear to be of higher quality and the colors are more vivid. On the flipside, however, there are stray issues with collision detection while in combat.

Gaiden

After you beat the game on any difficulty, two new game modes are unlocked. ‘Chapter Challenge’ retains all the weapons unlocked during the single-player campaign, along with the upgrades you might have made. The objective is to play through the game once again, one chapter at a time, maximising the Karma score and then uploading the results on the online Leaderboards.

The other mode is called ‘Team Mission’ and it challenges the player with waves of enemies while being confined to a fixed-sized combat arena. Again, the objective is to rack up Karma points; however, in this mode, you have a partner to help you and effectively share the glory of victory. One can choose their partner to be either A.I. controlled or team up with another player on the PSN network. In addition to the game’s protagonist, Ryu Hayabusa, you can also choose to play or partner with Ayane, Rachel or Momiji.

Teaming up with your partner when casting magic will result in what the game calls “Ultimate Ninpo” – an explosion of epic proportions. If your partner loses all hit-points, you have to rescue him or her; otherwise you will fail that mission.

At the end of a mission, the game tallies and rates your Karma score and displays breakup of the kill-ratio between you and your partner. From here, you have the option to upload your Karma score, save video of the battle in ‘Ninja Cinema’ or to simply move on to the next mission. There are a total of 35 Team Missions to beat with an increasing level of difficulty.

Playing online was mostly a pleasant experience with only the occasional lag – given the frantic pace of the game, it’s understandable. It usually takes a few minutes for your Karma score to reflect on the Leaderboards; however, sometimes, it takes a very long time. All in all, the game’s net-code is pretty solid and co-op missions are a welcome addition.

Feat of Hundred Slashes

If you have not played Ninja Gaiden before due to its challenging combat, we would suggest giving this one a go. Even though this game is not as simple as most of the other beat-’em-ups, Sigma 2 has been rebalanced to favour the player.

Relatively speaking, the game also packs a lot of content – for a first timer, the single player campaign can take about ten hours to complete. After you’ve done that, there are ‘Chapter Challenge’ and ‘Team Mission’ modes to keep you busy for another few hours. At the end of all this, if you are feeling cocky, you could attempt to beat the game at Mentor and subsequently Master difficultly – not simple tasks by any means. If you like collecting game trophies, there are trophies for mastering all four playable characters, their weapons, Ninpo and even some special moves.

Ninja Gaiden is one of the best action game series ever made and if you are apprehensive about investing in this one, you should at least try the demo of Sigma 2 which is available on the PSN store – you may be pleasantly surprised.

Rating: 4/5

Details:

Genre: Action, Beat 'em up

Developer: Team Ninja

Publisher: Tecmo, Techmo Koei

Platform:

PlayStation 3

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Review

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a follow-up release by Naughty Dog to 2007’s runaway hit Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Among Thieves does not add anything significantly different to the series; it continues to be everything that made the first game so much fun, only with a lot more polish. The visuals are slicker than last time, thanks to coupling smoother animation with improved lighting and physics. This game has all the elements you would expect to find in a typical summer action flick – a reluctant hero, camaraderie, betrayal, romance and some over the top set pieces.

This time around, Nathan Drake is on the trail of Marco Polo’s ill-fated return journey from China, in a quest to find the Chintamani Stone and discover the fabled city of Shambala. Joining Drake on his adventure, are two new characters: Harry Flynn, a long time friend and his female associate Chloe Frazer. Making a comeback from the last outing are Elena Fisher and Drake’s most trusted friend, Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan. The game introduces a few more characters as the adventure will take you from Istanbul to the jungles of Borneo, and from the urban streets of Nepal to the snow-capped Himalayan Mountains.

Drake’s Fortune Endures
Just like in the first game, you’ll be solving puzzles and scaling heights as you inch closer to your destination. For combat in the game, it retains a cover-based shooting mechanism coupled with occasional melee bouts. While the use of stealth in the game has been expanded, the system is anything but perfect. In fact, it could use a lot of polishing!

Everything else pretty much remains the same, thankfully, since there was not a lot in the first game that needed fixing. You can still carry only two weapons – a side-arm and a primary weapon – along with a limited number of grenades. Speaking of which, it has become a lot simpler in this game to control the throw of a grenade. There is a decent variety of weapons in Among Thieves, and certain set-pieces are designed tightly around the usage of the right weapon. Platforming remains an integral part of the game, but this time, expert use of dynamic camera angles gives it a more dramatic feel.

High tension, the constantly changing locations and relentless action adds excitement to what would otherwise be a repetitive task of ducking and shooting. The more tranquil parts of the game, which are spent solving puzzles and finding your way around, are nicely filled with well-directed cut-scenes and banter between the game’s characters.

Last Action Hero
Just like an action movie, this game requires suspension of disbelief in order to truly enjoy the roller-coaster ride that it offers. Stage and puzzle design sometimes seem a bit too convenient giving the impression that the ancients designed the place specifically for someone like Drake to access.

During gun-battles, you will be up against what would otherwise be considered overwhelming odds. By the time you are done with the game, you will have destroyed a decent-sized, well-armed battalion backed up with some heavy-duty firepower. So to get the best out of Uncharted 2, you’ll probably have to suspend logical reasoning for the 10-12 hours it takes to finish the game.

Extra Booty
Earning medals by locating hidden treasures and achieving combat-related landmarks will bring greater reward this time around. Each time you earn a medal, the game rewards you with in-game dollars which can be used to unlock bonus content like concept art and behind-the-scenes videos. Majority of this reward will be spent unlocking character models, skins, and weapons for the games multiplayer mode.

The most significant change in Uncharted 2 is the addition of multiplayer game modes – something that was completely absent in the first game. There are both co-operative and competitive game modes available for online play. Co-operative game mode supports a maximum of three players with missions similar to the ones you find in the single-player campaign. The four competitive modes with a maximum limit of ten players are: Deathmatch, Plunder, Elimination and Chain Reaction. All four of them are essentially variations of traditional multiplayer games such as capture-the-flag and last man standing.

Among Friends
The multiplayer portion of the game is updated using a content streaming method that we often seen in an MMORPG. The game patch and online updates collectively took a few attempts to execute and about 20 minutes to download. After logging on to the server, you have options to either join an existing public game or host a private game with gamers from your contact list.

We had little luck playing online – each time the game took a few minutes before finding an appropriate match. On a couple of occasions, we were kicked out of the game right after it started! This could very well be a case of bad fortune since according to the server stats, there were over 70,000 users connected at that time.

After a few attempts, we did manage to get into a game and stay there. The game selected for us by the server was a co-operative mode called Plunder, which is essentially capture the flag with ancient artifacts. We did not experience even the slightest lag during the 30-odd minutes we spent playing the game on our 512kbps connection. Taking down enemies, rescuing your teammates and completing the game objective, all earns you experience points that goes towards increasing your character’s level. Usage of certain weapons is restricted by this level. Along with experience points, the game also rewards you with currency just like in the single-player mode.

As bonus online features, the game allows you to save video grabs of your online matches on the PS3 hard drive and comes with a built-in support for Twitter.

X Marks the Spot
Overall, Uncharted 2 is a fun-filled proposition; however, it is not a perfect game by any stretch of imagination. We noticed several issues with A.I. scripts of both the enemies and A.I.-controlled companions. On occasions, we experienced game crashes and graphical errors. Also, the set-pieces are so tightly choreographed that once you have finished the game, playing it again on a higher difficulty adds very little to the challenge. So the game offers very little in terms of replay value, at least at the campaign level.

However, Among Thieves comes highly recommended even if it is only for the 10-12 hours of gameplay the excellent single-player mode offers. The game is a design success due to well-paced sequences of gun battles, platforming and puzzle solving. Game-play is further supported by cut-scenes with the right kind of lighting, camera work, voice acting, and fitting background score. The end result is something that has all the drama you would expect from a Hollywood movie.

If you own a PlayStation 3, Uncharted: Among Thieves (along with Drake’s Fortune) should be on top of your must-buy list. In fact, we say Uncharted 2 is the reason for the season!

Rating: 4.5/5
Details:
Genre: Action, Adventure
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform:PlayStation 3