Uncharted 2: Perfecting Cinematic Gameplay

Uncharted 2

Perfecting Cinematic Gameplay

Written by SIOBHAN EARDLEY

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune took the gaming world by storm when it was released back in 2007. It wasn’t your average third-person adventure game—it provided players with a more cinema�c experience due to Naughty Dog’s focus on story, voice ac�ng, performance capture, and incredible a�en�on to detail. Whilst Drake’s Fortune was a decent enough first ou�ng, it was merely tes�ng the waters for what could be done with this type of game. Naughty Dog really came into their own with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, where they built upon the solid base of the first game to create something really special. K

Although Drake’s Fortune had a lot going for it, I tend to forget a lot of the details about the first game because they weren’t as fleshed out or, honestly, interes�ng. There wasn’t much drive there even though the main three protagonists, Nathan, Sully and Elena are compelling. But the antagonists of the game were not memorable and there was never any real sense of threat from them, so they ul�mately felt rather flat.

The same could be said for the story of the game. The se�ng of the first game is almost en�rely in the jungle, which ends up ge�ng tedious very quickly, especially when paired with gameplay that ends up feeling very same-y. It simply wasn’t dynamic enough to keep my a�en�on. There were �mes when it did have glimmers of the fast-paced ac�on movie vibe it was reaching for, but it was constantly broken up by boring bits of gameplay and repe��ve visuals. ‘

Taking all of this into considera�on, it’s clear that Naughty Dog knew that the first game had a lot of shortcomings, because everything that was wrong with the first was rec�fied and polished to perfec�on in Uncharted 2. F

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves opens with Nathan Drake dangling from a trainwreck, hanging by a thread off the side of a snowy cliff edge. The game immediately flings you into the ac�on, se�ng the tone for an adventure that never lets up. This game has constant ac�on, but it’s fun and diverse in a way that’s damn near perfect. .

When developing the sequel to Uncharted, Naughty Dog ac�vely wanted to push what they call an “ac�ve cinema�c experience.” To do this, they had a strict policy where the narra�ve fuelled the gameplay and everything that was created, from anima�on to design, was in service of the story, to the point where the story team became the gameplay team. .

This merging of the two main facets of the game makes this entry so much more polished and immersive than the first. The combat feels part of the story rather than being lazily and randomly thrown in, each cut-scene is carefully thought out and marvellously acted, and most of the �me gets you excited to play. .

Each new character also has a purpose and a drive within the story. The villains of Uncharted 2 especially stand out to me, perhaps because the villains in the first game were so unmemorable. Lazarević is anything but unmemorable; he is ruthless and genuinely in�mida�ng, making him a perfect force to fight against and really ramping up the tension for the inevitable boss ba�le, which has gone down as perhaps one of the most frustra�ng to me because he is such a brute. .

But perhaps Uncharted 2’s biggest strengths are its set pieces and ar�s�c direc�on. The most memorable moment from the first game was discovering the German U-Boat plonked in the middle of the jungle. It was a great spectacle and was just, well, cool. Naughty Dog took this feeling and expanded it in Uncharted 2, making most areas interes�ng and lavishly designed while having importance to the narra�ve. . .

What makes Uncharted 2 so fantas�c in its delivery is that virtually every scene has a pa�ern of slowly revealing itself as you move through it. Through carefully constructed angles of vision and restricted viewpoints, the level designers have you in the palm of their hands, pushing you forward to see what’s around the next corner and to see what spectacle they’ve got lined up for you next. I could be here for a while discussing each set in detail, so I am going to focus on two that are really memorable: the temple in Nepal and the train. .

Not only is the temple an awesome se�ng, with the gigan�c, hanging dagger in this huge chamber, but the game brings it to another level when you realise that this intricate set-piece is a sprawling puzzle for you to climb around and solve. This allows you to get up close to all of the puzzle’s elements and weaves them into the plot fantas�cally. .

The scale of this set also reveals itself beau�fully; it is not un�l you climb the dagger that you see the scene of a sacrifice, with a giant form of a man set into the floor exactly where this giant dagger will be plunging into. This crea�on of a narra�ve using such a huge set piece is such a spectacular moment that is only made more awesome with the contents beneath the room as it turns into one of the coolest maps I have ever seen. .

The train is a great example of how to construct a moving set piece; on the surface, it is just a train, but you know where Nathan and the train will end up, which only ramps up the sense of tension. One of my favourite moments in any Indiana Jones movie is the circus train scene in The Last Crusade, and Uncharted 2 takes that sequence and brings epic explosions and helicopters to it, crea�ng a downright exhilara�ng experience. As you move down the train, the obstacles you encounter increase in difficulty and complexity, giving the sequence a sense of diversity. The environment around the train also changes—not just the scenery, but things like the train signals that will knock you and any enemies off if you don’t move out of the way. The moment when Nathan is running down the train and ge�ng shot at by a helicopter and enemies simultaneously is one of the most tense moments of the game.

Even when there isn’t a gigan�c dagger in an ancient temple, the areas you explore are always so diverse. In Uncharted 2, the player gets to explore war-torn ci�es, icy mountain caves, and a humble town with many lovely Yaks to pet. This diversity in pace provides moments where you can relax and take a breath, but keeps the excitement going. As you're moving through these scenes, you know in the back of your mind that something incredible is wai�ng behind the curtain to come crashing on through.

Each instalment of the franchise has con�nued to deliver these “ac�ve cinema�c experiences,” with Uncharted 3 going all out with a plane crash in the desert and a terrifying scene involving being trapped on a sinking cruise ship. Uncharted 4 did dial it down a bit in some regards, possibly due to the more serious tone of the game, but it s�ll works incredibly well. But I don’t think they will ever be able to capture the bombas�c magic that was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. .

Many developers have taken inspira�on from Uncharted, most notably the reboot of Tomb Raider, in which all three games are connected and �ed to Lara’s personal development. The latest God of War game has an incredibly rich narra�ve, focusing on Kratos as a widower and father. Both of these games from exis�ng franchises show the audience’s desire for game characters to have more depth, more ways we connect with them, rather than us simply just controlling them. Uncharted’s influence on this movement can’t be discredited. .

Uncharted 2 is one of the most memorable and important games from the past fi�een years; it changed the way narra�ve-driven games were made and has been the inspira�on for some incredible games since its release. But it couldn’t have been done without the first game, which enabled Naughty Dog to experiment with this new venture, test things out, and see what worked and what didn’t, ul�mately leading to the perfec�on of what Naughty Dog are so great at: crea�ng an impeccable cinema�c gaming experience. .