It doesn't let you breathe. It's just one heck of a ride from start to finish.
Let's get this out of the way first. Uncharted 2 doesn't do anything new. Its story borrows heavily from the elements of Indiana Jones, its gameplay is platforming and third-person gunplay, and its script has obvious inspirations in Hollywood blockbusters. Naughty Dog isn't trying to reinvent the wheel here; they're just making it the roundest, smoothest wheel, so to speak. Everything about this game screams polish. I don't think I have to tell anyone here that this game looks great. The PS3 may not be a powerhouse compared to the PC, but this game comes damn close. Everything is fluidly animated and plays great. I'm not going to go into minute detail with the praise, but only because you can get that from every other review out there. So, what took an otherwise perfect game from the revered 10 score?
I notice small details. I don't believe that it's really nitpicking to realize tiny flaws in a game because those are the flaws that break the immersion of a game. So here it is:
The platforming. It works. Drake climbs just about any wall in the game. He jumps, he climbs more. In fact, you'll do so much climbing that one of his lines is: "I am so sick of climbing s***." My issue with the platforming is his sometimes oddly far jumps. Jumping 15 feet from a ledge Drake's only got his fingertips on? I don't think so. It's almost as if he's got a tiny pair of wings on his back helping him make jumps. I understand that Naughty Dog's trying to make the platforming accessible and not excessively punishing, but for a game that's so polished, it stands out.
Secondly, ...*spoilers*
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Okay. Secondly, those zombie/Cintamani Stone infected purple smurfs. They either take a billion bullets, or... one crossbow bolt? It's fairly ridiculous that they take so many bullets, even if it is eventually explained in the story. They're not much fun to fight.
Thirdly, those puzzles need some improving. Everything can and will be solved by looking at Drake's journal. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to even call them puzzles. Everything is laid out so well, that they're more like directions the game is giving you. Spin this, climb that, flip this switch, move on. It could use from creativity.
And lastly, well. Uncharted 2 does everything so well, but we go back to the beginning of this review. It doesn't do anything new. It's great fun, and it might as well be a Hollywood blockbuster, but it's highly derivative.
Again, this review is to shed some different light on Uncharted 2. It's an amazing game, and you readers will have no trouble finding tons upon tons of glowing praise. But, alas, there are flaws, if few and in between.