10. IGN - Uncharted II
Mike Thomsen praises Naughty Dog's work on graphics and animations, but focuses the majority of his criticism on the game's limited freedom. What Thomsen fails to understand is that because of the game's fast-paced action, there is only so much freedom a player can have. He makes it seem that he wants more options of gameplay such as controlling a team (a la Rainbow Six) or interacting with unimportant objects (a la LA Noire). The fact of the matter is, the Uncharted series is and always will be a story-driven game. Yes, Naughty Dog wants you to be a part of the action, but more importantly they want to engage you in the story. They don't want to take away from that story with meticulous additions. You run, jump, shoot, and solve puzzles. That's essentially the premise of the game. Thomsen ignores the fact that cutscenes exist for a reason - to illustrate actions that the player themselves are unable to perform in order to progress the story. He puts fault on Naughty Dog for this - as if they are the only developers to do such a thing - and claims there is no flow. He also goes so far to criticise the entire character of Nathan Drake, seeming to be completely ignorant to the fact that Drake is
supposed to be the stereotypical adventurer/hero. He uses cliche lines, predictable behaviours, and expected techniques because
that's what he's supposed to do. Overall, Mike Thomsen completely misses the mark in his review of the overall gameplay in Uncharted 2. You can
read the review here.