Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Playstation 3)

Uncharted 2 will feature new gameplay mechanics, such as stealth action segments, and will change the climbing mechanic to allow free movement over walls, in a manner similar to Assassin's Creed. Nathan will be able to flip over certain pieces of furniture to use as cover. The game is also stated to have no loading screens. Drake himself will have a darker side in this outing, and the player will learn what makes him a thief.

Bruce Straley, the game director for Uncharted 2, has revealed that the artificial intelligence of the enemies will be updated to match the new action-stealth gameplay.[4] Enemies will have peripheral vision, so that they will hunt for Nathan if he briefly appears in their vision cone. Additionally, the enemies will interact with the environment more, following Nathan as he climbs on buildings or jumps from ledges. Nate will also be able to take advantage of riot shields both as a defense mechanism and an offensive melee weapon.

In addition to new gameplay mechanics, the game engine will also be revamped to take advantage of Naughty Dog's increased understanding of the PlayStation 3's architecture. Naughty Dog are aiming to maximize the utilization of the Cell's SPUs, as their estimates for utilization in the first Uncharted were around 30%. As a result, the game is expected to have more realistic environments and animations.

Multiplayer

Uncharted 2 will feature both competitive and co-operative multiplayer. The co-operative multiplayer will allow a maximum of three players to take the roles of Nathan, Sully and Chloe and will feature missions involving gunfights, platforming, and teamwork-based objectives.Players will also need to assist their comrades should they become critically injured or be grabbed by an enemy.

The competitive multiplayer will allow a maximum of ten players to play against each other. Two competitive modes have been revealed, "Deathmatch" and "Plunder". Deathmatch features two teams of five, with one team acting as "heroes" and the other as "villains", and players will be able to choose their own appropriate character models (such as Nathan, Sully and Chloe for the "heroes" team). Players will also be able to select two Boost abilities which will assist them in the matches themselves. Plunder is similar to the traditional capture the flag game mode, and sees each team attempt to capture the gold treasure from a central point in the map and return it to their base; the player carrying the treasure is slowed down a great deal, and may also choose to hurl the treasure away at any point, in order to keep it out of reach of the enemy, or to pass it to a teammate.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves picks up a couple of years after the events of Drake's Fortune. Similar to the previous story, Drake’s new adventure revolves around an unsolved historical mystery – this time surrounding Marco Polo and his doomed voyage home from China in 1292. After spending almost 20 years in the court of the emperor Kublai Khan, Marco Polo departed with 14 ships and over 600 passengers and crew – but when he arrived at his destination a year and a half later, only one ship remained, and only 18 of the passengers had survived. Although Marco Polo described almost every other aspect of his journeys in minute detail, he never revealed what happened to the ships that were lost.

Drake, attracted by the potential treasure to be found and inspired by the intrigue around this historical mystery, embarks on a quest to find Marco Polo’s lost fleet. But he soon discovers that Marco Polo was hiding a much greater secret – he had gone on a secret expedition on behalf of the emperor to find the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, otherwise known as Shangri-La, and to recover the legendary Cintamani Stone, the wish-fulfilling jewel of Buddhist mythology. The stone is described by Marco Polo as a massive raw sapphire which, if it truly exists, would be worth billions of dollars today. These discoveries set Drake on a new course, following Marco Polo’s 700-year-old trail through a diverse range of exotic environments to find out if the lost city of Shambhala, rumoured to lie deep in the Himalayas, really exists.

Following him on his quest will be Chloe Frazer, a new character voiced by Claudia Black of Stargate SG-1 and Farscape. Elena and Sully from the first game will appear in the sequel and a new character named Jeff will be introduced as Elena's camera man. All of them are trying to recover the stone before a psychopathic war criminal named Lazarevic, seen in the E3 trailer.

First revealed by Game Informer in December 2008, the first teaser trailer shows a weary, wounded Drake marching through a snowstorm to reach a Phurba half-buried in the snow. Lead character artist Richard Diamant remarked that the trailer was rendered in real-time, using the game's engine. A second teaser trailer was released soon after showing a badly wounded Drake stuck in the remains of a wrecked train hanging precariously over a cliff.

Uncharted 2 will feature online multiplayer, the beta phase of which was playable by those who bought early copies of the game inFamous The beta was also accessible by annual subscribers of the PlayStation Network service, Qore, on June 3, to those who have subscribed to Qore by May 15.The beta codes from Qore began to be sent out on May 8th, 2009. Beta codes from inFamous shipped inside the games packaging, on May 26th, 2009.

At Sony's E3 media briefing, an Uncharted 2 gameplay demo was shown early in the conference. The demo showed off firefights, platforming, and a helicopter chase. Uncharted 2 won 1UP.com's "Best of E3 PS3 Game" and "Overall Best of Show" award. Uncharted 2 won "Game of Show" and "Best PlayStation 3 Game" from G4TV[13]. Uncharted also garnered several IGN awards including "PlayStation 3 Game of "Best Graphics Technology", and IGN AU's "Game of E3" award.