Back in February, we had our very first look at Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the highly anticipated sequel to Naughty Dog’s 2007 action adventure title about a treasure hunter named Nathan Drake. The first game earned acclaim for its excellent cinematics, well-developed characters, and harmonious blend of cover-based shooting and acrobatic platforming. Uncharted 2 appears ready to improve upon its predecessor in just about every way. But until now, everything we’ve seen--with the exception of a public multiplayer beta some months back--has been strictly hands off. That changed this week when we got a chance to return to the same demo we saw this past January and play it ourselves.

　　The demo takes place in a ravaged Tibetan warzone that looks as though it’s just been struck by some terrible natural disaster. Buildings are in ruin and cars are turned over--it’s a bad scene. But it hasn’t been entirely evacuated yet. Case in point: The opening cinematic begins with Drake cruising through the city in a beat-up military jeep before a giant truck arrives on his tail. A bit of a scuffle takes place and Drake is run off the road in a nasty accident. He comes to in a narrow alley only to find that the truck is still after him. Thus begins a chase scene where we had to outrun the truck as the camera remained in front of Drake and let us shoot at the truck behind us. It was a neat little scene that provided a glimpse at some of the ways Uncharted 2 will mess with the usual, behind-the-back third-person shooter perspective in favor of something more cinematic.

　　After safely escaping the truck, we found ourselves in the middle of a firefight in the middle of a large street against a number of heavily armed enemies. This gave us a good chance to test some of the game’s additions to the combat system. Like the original, it’s still heavily based on taking cover and awaiting a good opportunity to pop up and take out exposed bad guys. But one of the big enhancements is the expanded melee combat system, which relies a lot more on timing your attacks and dodging those from your opponent. As a result, we had a lot more fun being aggressive and charging toward enemies rather than shooting from afar. The fighting animations are quite well done, too.

　　After clearing out this area, we took to climbing a light pole that led us to a long sequence of scurrying along ledges over signs hanging in front of buildings and into and out of various windows. We managed to pull off this bit of climbing with ease because we’d seen the demo before, so we’re not sure how much a player who’s new to this area would need to struggle with inspecting the environment for the right objects to climb. That was never much of a problem in the first game, but the chaos and debris of this destroyed urban center made for a much more scattered environment when it came to climbable objects.

　　Next, we came upon another group of enemies waiting for a firefight. This particular sequence gave us the chance to sneak up on the first few and handle them with a silent takedown. As a reward for taking the time to play in a slightly stealthier manner, Naughty Dog has made it so enemies will drop better items when you issue a silent takedown instead of going in guns blazing. We managed to get grenades from the guys we chocked to death (or sleep--we’re not sure) instead of measly ammo clips.

　　The urban levels are also designed in such a way that you can use your climbing skills a bit more often in combat settings. As an example, we lost a few lives by fighting on the ground, going after an enemy with a riot shield, and picking up the shield to pummel anyone in our way. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it wound up being a pretty quick recipe for death. What wound up working in the end was climbing up onto a small building to strategically toss grenades down below, shoot explosive propane tanks, and fire at unexploded cars until they became exploded cars. The combat seems a lot more diverse, and unlike the first game, it seems like enemies react a lot more realistically to headshots now.

　　Overall, Uncharted 2 impressed us quite a lot. We knew the game looked good from previous encounters with it during hands-off demos, but now, we can confidently say that the game plays well, too. PlayStation 3 owners will want to keep an eye out for this one when it arrives on October 13.