The Good: Uncharted 2's vistas were so beautiful as to force me to pause to appreciate every one of them. Its scripted events were so explosive as to literally drop my jaw and leave my mouth gaping again and again. One mission reminded me of Mirror's Edge, while another got me thinking of Pandora Tomorrow; yet Uncharted 2's foremost influence was (needless to say) the original Uncharted, and - in short - everything that was good there is simply great here.
 
The Bad: Although Uncharted 2 built upon all of its predecessor's strengths, it also retained all of its weaknesses. As with the original Uncharted, the story's villains are mismanaged, the bad guys can withstand an insane amount of punishment, and the whole experience peaks at about the halfway point. Plus, every once in a while, I just had to laugh at how much Nate sounds (and even looks) like Nathan Fillion, a man with whom he furthermore shares a name!
 
The Stand-Out Moment: Climbing for dear life up a wrecked train hanging over the edge of a cliff.
 
The Final Verdict: 9.5 (out of 10)
 
Had Arkham Asylum not dropped during the same year, I could've seen myself crowning Uncharted 2 as my GOTY for 2009!

The Good: Uncharted 2's vistas were so beautiful as to force me to pause to appreciate every one of them. Its scripted events were so explosive as to literally drop my jaw and leave my mouth gaping again and again. One mission reminded me of Mirror's Edge, while another got me thinking of Pandora Tomorrow; yet Uncharted 2's foremost influence was (needless to say) the original Uncharted, and - in short - everything that was good there is simply great here.
 
The Bad: Although Uncharted 2 built upon all of its predecessor's strengths, it also retained all of its weaknesses. As with the original Uncharted, the story's villains are mismanaged, the bad guys can withstand an insane amount of punishment, and the whole experience peaks at about the halfway point. Plus, every once in a while, I just had to laugh at how much Nate sounds (and even looks) like Nathan Fillion, a man with whom he furthermore shares a name!
 
The Stand-Out Moment: Climbing for dear life up a wrecked train hanging over the edge of a cliff.
 
The Final Verdict: 9.5 (out of 10)
 
Had Arkham Asylum not dropped during the same year, I could've seen myself crowning Uncharted 2 as my GOTY for 2009!

I hated that game so much by the time I was through with it.

I'm glad we could finally get the final verdict.

I thought they fixed the bullet sponge problem until you deal with that particular type of enemy.  It was a great game though.
 

" I thought everything about it, the characters, story, gameplay, etc. was average at best. I will never understand why it gets so much praise. "

" @FancySoapsMan said:

" I thought everything about it, the characters, story, gameplay, etc. was average at best. I will never understand why it gets so much praise. "

Average?
 
AVERAGE?!  Are you fucking kidding? Kane & Lynch, Army of Two, Tomb Raider: Underworld - these are average games. Surely you're not lumping Uncharted in the same category as them? "

 Kane & Lynch, Army of Two, Tomb Raider: Underworld   

Mismanaged villains? What do you mean? Harry Flynn was an awesome rotting, smug bastard and Lazarevic was entertaining.

And I don't know about the bullet sponge enemies, really. In Uncharted one it was a bitch, in the second? Not so much, apart from the final stages. My second playthrough on Hard was a lot faster and easier than the first one on Normal.

My verdict? My goty of 2009 and one of my favorite games ever

" @FancySoapsMan said:

" I thought everything about it, the characters, story, gameplay, etc. was average at best. I will never understand why it gets so much praise. "

Average?
 
AVERAGE?!  Are you fucking kidding? Kane & Lynch, Army of Two, Tomb Raider: Underworld - these are average games. Surely you're not lumping Uncharted in the same category as them? "

My problem with Uncharted 2 was that Lazaravich was a crappy villain.  And as was pointed out, the enemies taking a lot of damage, wearing lots of armor, stuff like that especially in the napal village parts, was dumb.

" @EVO said:

" @FancySoapsMan said:

" I thought everything about it, the characters, story, gameplay, etc. was average at best. I will never understand why it gets so much praise. "

Average?
 
AVERAGE?!  Are you fucking kidding? Kane & Lynch, Army of Two, Tomb Raider: Underworld - these are average games. Surely you're not lumping Uncharted in the same category as them? "

I wouldn't really call those games average.  And yeah, nothing about Uncharted 2 stood out to me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. "

" @FancySoapsMan said:

" @EVO said:

" @FancySoapsMan said:

" I thought everything about it, the characters, story, gameplay, etc. was average at best. I will never understand why it gets so much praise. "

Average?
 
AVERAGE?!  Are you fucking kidding? Kane & Lynch, Army of Two, Tomb Raider: Underworld - these are average games. Surely you're not lumping Uncharted in the same category as them? "

I wouldn't really call those games average.  And yeah, nothing about Uncharted 2 stood out to me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. "

No game will be that great when it's hyped that much, a lot of these games live in the moment. Case in point GTA4. "

" @FancySoapsMan:  Then what games do you consider average? "

You have to realize that hating on popular games (Uncharted, Call of Duty, Halo) is really popular on the internet. Sure you don't have to love the game, but I never understood how someone can say "I didn't like Uncharted 2."

The only thing I thought the second Uncharted did better than Drake's Fortune was, (not that this first example was better but) a more varied setting, and a step forward with graphics. The shooting though alright, was the downside to the game for me personally. I can understand that the scripted parts (and just about everything else) were something to see, and they could have very well set a standard for many others shooters to come, but to me it was just the shooting that just wasn't as fantastic as Drake's Fortunes.  
 
I don't understand how people think the A.I. in the original are bullet sponges, because they aren't, shooting them feels amazing since you really feel like you're making an impact every shot that comes out and goes into an enemy. It could very well just be the blood effects I liked. I also liked how in the first Uncharted the camera was a little less close to Drake as you aimed, and I'm not sure if the fact that he shot from the waist in the first made a difference, but overall I thought shooting the A.I. was better in Drake's Fortune.
 
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: 9.5 
 
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 9.1
 
P.S. To add to what was better in Uncharted 2. I thought Zoran Lazarevic, was a much better antagonist than either Roman or Navarro.

" P.S. To add to what was better in Uncharted 2. I thought Zoran Lazarevic, was a much better antagonist than either Roman or Navarro. "

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was a 4/5 game for me. There wasn't a huge variety of environments (of the top of my head, I can only remember jungles, ruins and more jungles). Also the enemies in that game take a tonne of bullets before going down, and that kinda lessened my immersion in the game. Among Thieves fixed that, among other gameplay improvements as well (like changing the way grenades are thrown, more weapons variety, the ability to use stealth, better hand to hand combat). It was definitely superior and overall best game of 2009.

" I'm glad we could finally get the final verdict. "